“You are the very being to whom my whole soul shall be unfolded. Much is locked up within my breast that ‘ferments for want of air.’ You are right; you have in a few words drawn my picture; and _so_ truly, that I now confess I should not have acknowledged this moment the fidelity of your portrait, had you boasted the superiority over me, of one who had not been drawn aside yourself from the path to which you have returned. But though your having once doubted, is a bond between us, like that of a common language in a foreign land; there is much room yet for discrepancy; and the _nature_ of our stumbling blocks may be so extremely different that we may lose, rather than gain _accession_ of sympathy by attempting to travel together in a course where so many intricate bye-paths present themselves to distract attention and divide our choice. Every thinking mind which has felt what it was to be perplexed, has been conscious of gradation in the difficulties that embarrassed its progress: some were but apparent, and vanished on the approach of knowledge; others, more stubborn, required more time and pains to conquer, but yielded at length to the force of reason, while there are some obstacles to Faith so harassing, that no efforts of the understanding are of any avail in breaking down the barriers which they present to sincere uncompromising belief: ‘Man never reasons but from what he knows,’ and if all attempts to comprehend, are rendered futile by the imperfection of his faculties, it is vain to call upon his faith. Credulity, indeed, may receive all things; but where Heaven has granted intellect, impalpable and unseen as are its operations, it excludes the dogmatizing influence of arbitrary control, and will not bend to mere authority. Tell me then, Caroline, what chiefly puzzled you--what were the obstructions which principally encumbered your path, and if they resemble those which block my way. I will next inquire how you removed them; ask you to be my Hannibal; and prepare to follow in that track which you shall excavate for me through the rocky defile.”