“You are a strange youth,” repeated the priest; “no pursuit seems to give you pleasure, and no success to gratify your vanity. Can you not think of any triumph which would elate you?” I was silent. “Yes,” cried Montreuil, approaching me,--“yes,” cried he, “I read your heart, and I respect it; these are petty competitions and worthless honours. You require a nobler goal, and a more glorious reward. He who feels in his soul that Fate has reserved for him a great and exalted part in this world’s drama may reasonably look with indifference on these paltry rehearsals of common characters.” I raised my eye, and as it met that of the priest, I was irresistibly struck with the proud and luminous expression which Montreuil’s look had assumed. Perhaps something kindred to its nature was perceptible in my own; for, after surveying me with an air of more approbation than he had ever honoured me with before, he grasped my arm firmly, and said, “Morton, you know me not; for many years I have not known you: that time is past. No sooner did your talents develop themselves than I was the first to do homage to their power: let us henceforth be more to each other than we have been; let us not be pupil and teacher; let us be friends. Do not think that I invite you to an unequal exchange of good offices: you may be the heir to wealth and a distinguished name; I may seem to you but an unknown and undignified priest; but the authority of the Almighty can raise up, from the sheepfold and the cotter’s shed, a power, which, as the organ of His own, can trample upon sceptres and dictate to the supremacy of kings. And _I_--_I_”--the priest abruptly paused, checked the warmth of his manner, as if he thought it about to encroach on indiscretion, and, sinking into a calmer tone, continued, “yes, I, Morton, insignificant as I appear to you, can, in _every_ path through this intricate labyrinth of life, be more useful to your desires than you can ever be to mine. I offer to you in my friendship a fervour of zeal and energy of power which in none of your equals, in age and station, you can hope to find. Do you accept my offer?” “Can you doubt,” said I, with eagerness, “that I would avail myself of the services of any man, however displeasing to me, and worthless in himself? How, then, can I avoid embracing the friendship of one so extraordinary in knowledge and intellect as yourself? I do embrace it, and with rapture.”