Absorbed in mediation, he had not perceived until now that another was approaching, walking at a slow pace along the margin of the sea. As the stranger came nearer, the young philosopher could not avoid observing him with interest. He was apparently very aged. Long locks of white hair streamed on his shoulders and mingled with the hair of a beard equally as white. His robe was arranged with careful soberness, and in his hand he carried a staff, though his erect and firm figure did not seem to need its support. In his clear, bright eye, his ruddy cheek and benign expression, appeared intelligence, health and goodness, all the beauty of a green old age, all the charm of the fully ripened autumn of life. As they drew nearer each other, the stranger looked earnestly on the young philosopher, who regarded him with increasing interest. "Dost thou know me, my son," said the old man, at length, "that thou lookest on me so earnestly?" The young man bowed reverently as he answered. "No, father; but I wondered to see one like thee here at such an hour." "I am here," replied the stranger, "to meet one who promised to be with me at this place. But what, my son, brings thee to this lonely spot, when yonder busy city is thronged with whatsoever can minister to pleasure or the thirst of knowledge?" "It is therefore I am here; for it is when alone with the great Author of Nature, among his works, that we can best seek that highest wisdom which is learned only by meditating on His nature and the end of our being. The fountains of divine philosophy may be found even here in the cold sea-sand." "Alas! my son, and if they be, of what avail shalt thou find them? The sand upon which the showers descend vainly for centuries, is not more barren nor more unstable than that philosophy of which thou makest thy boast." "I boast not--I am but a seeker after Truth." "Ay, so say all you philosophers; but what profit shalt thou have of that truth which cannot be practiced in life, nor console thee at death?" "My father, it was but now that I lamented to myself my own useless and aimless existence, and the vanity of those speculations wherewith we strive in vain to pierce the mystery of our being. There are moments when that foundation of reason on which I build my hopes of eternal life seems to shift beneath my feet, as unstable as this sand; when life and its purposes, death and its consequences, seem to me a mystery more unfathomable than yonder sea. What assurance have I that my existence will not terminate like that of the beasts which perish? What certainty that, with my mortal frame, this spirit which I feel within me shall not also die and disappear forever? It is true, there are many probabilities that the soul is immortal, nature and reason seem alike to teach that it is so, but still I have no assurance, still that mighty hope at times seems vain, often it is eclipsed entirely, and my soul is shrouded in darkness."