With the sacred volume in her hand, and every faculty roused to comprehend and to explain its dubious passages, she continued to subdue one by one all the errors of Sebastian: the mists of prejudice, the denser fog of superstition, gradually cleared away before her bright and steady reason: conviction waited on judgment, and the amazed zealot found himself at last walking in broad day, regarding with astonishment those monstrous chimeras, which rolling afar off, disappeared like dark clouds at the uprise of the sun. Behold him then a convert to truth!--elevated to the noble consciousness of worshipping the living God with a willing heart and a free mind; exercising the powers of that mind in the delightful and purifying act of meditation on the divine nature; no longer agitated by a dread of meditating too much or too closely! Far from damping the ardour of his piety, this change in some of his opinions served but to encrease it. Satisfaction exists but with conviction, and to be satisfied with any principle is to love it. Sebastian felt affection animate him in his new religion, and formerly only a vehement sense of duty had impelled his actions; he could not love what he dared not examine and trembled to understand; but he would have devoted himself and half the world to death in obedience to its commands, because he believed blind submission necessary to salvation: now Judgment and Will went together. If it were precious to feel this honorable freedom of soul, this sentiment of self-respect, which so far from rendering Christians presumptuous, exalts their notions of that august Being who will not accept brute worship from man, but invites him to study and to love his creator, how sweet was it to live in complete sympathy with the heart of Kara Aziek! how sweet to look upon her as the source of this inestimable blessing. Their days, unbroken by a single dissonant sentiment, now flowed on in one soft stream of tender and tranquil enjoyment: occupied with each other, elevated from earth by their recent studies, they forgot the past and thought not of the future; for awhile the present only, filled and satisfied their souls. But soon the land of Brazil rising from the vast Atlantic, called back emotions of friendship and solicitude; Sebastian’s heart rushed towards Gaspar. Kara Aziek with feminine eagerness anticipated the beautiful novelties of this unknown country; and an agreeable distraction followed the former concentration of their thoughts. As their ship approached the new world, its majestic appearance roused Sebastian into admiration: the magnificence, of its coasts, the towering and brilliant verdure which crowned them; the gigantic scale of its rivers and forests, the purity of its atmosphere, and the stately elevation of St. Salvador, towards which they steered, stirred his spirit and kindled some kingly exultation.