Again and again I read this text, for it promised more by reflection than at first appeared in the words. Slowly a light broke in on the horizon's verge, and I felt, for the first time in my whole life, that the past was not all inexplicable, nor the future a chaos, but that the human soul, lit up by the torch of science! and guided by the prophecies of Holy Writ, might predict the path it is destined to tread, and read in advance the history of its final enfranchisement. St. Paul evidently intended to teach the doctrine of _progress_, even in its applicability to man. He did not belong to that narrow-minded sect in philosophy, which declares that the earth and the heavens are finished; that man is the crowning glory of his Maker, and the utmost stretch of His creative power; that henceforth the globe which he inhabits is barren, and can produce no being superior to himself. On the contrary, he clearly intended to teach the same great truth which modern science is demonstrating to all the world, that progression is nature's first law, and that even in the human kingdom the irrevocable decree has gone forth--ONWARD AND UPWARD, FOREVER! Such were my reflections when the last glimmer of the candle flashed up like a meteor, and then as suddenly expired in night. I was glad that the shadows were gone. Better, thought I, is utter darkness than that poor flame which renders it visible. But I had suddenly grown rich in thought. A clue had been furnished to the labyrinth in which I had wandered from a child; a hint had been planted in the mind which it would be impossible ever to circumscribe or extinguish. One letter had been identified by which, like Champollion le Jeune, I could eventually decipher the inscription on the pyramid. What are these spectral apparitions which rear themselves in the human mind, and are called by mortals _hints_? Whence do they come? Who lodges them in the chambers of the mind, where they sprout and germinate, and bud and blossom, and bear? The Florentine caught one as it fell from the stars, and invented the telescope to observe them. Columbus caught another, as it was whispered by the winds, and they wafted him to the shores of a New World. Franklin beheld one flash forth from the cloud, and he traced the lightnings to their bourn. Another dropped from the skies into the brain of Leverrier, and he scaled the very heavens, till he unburied a star. Rapidly was my mind working out the solution of the problem which had so long tortured it, based upon the intimation it had derived from St. Paul's epistle, when most unexpectedly, and at the same time most unwelcomely, I fell into one of those strange moods which can neither be called sleep nor consciousness, but which leave their impress far more powerfully than the visions of the night or the events of the day.