"Yes; and you have often as beautifully shown, before now, the connexion between virtue and religion. Everything, which experience and earthly activity embrace, forms the province of Conscience, which unites this world with higher worlds. With a loftier sense religion appears, and what formerly seemed an incomprehensible necessity of our inmost nature, a universal law without any definite intent, now becomes a wonderful, domestic, infinitely varied, and satisfying world, an inconceivably interior communion of all the spiritual with God, and a perceptible, hallowing presence of the only One, or of his Will, of his Love in our deepest self." "The innocence of your heart," Sylvester replied, "makes you a prophet. All things will be revealed to you, and for you the world and its history will be transformed into holy writ, just as the sacred writings evince how the universe can be revealed in simple words, or narratives, if not directly, yet mediately by hinting at and exciting higher senses. My connexion with nature has led me to the point where the joy and inspiration of language have brought you. Art and history have made me acquainted with nature. My parents dwelt in Sicily, not far from the famous Mount Ætna. Their dwelling was a comfortable house in the ancient style, hidden by old chestnut trees near the rocky shore of the sea, and affording the attraction of a garden stocked with various plants. Near were many huts, in which dwelt fishermen, herdsmen, and vine-dressers. Our chambers and cellar were amply provided with everything that supports and gives enjoyment to life, and by well bestowed labor, our arrangements were agreeable to the most refined senses. Moreover there was no lack of those manifold objects, whose contemplation and use elevate the mind above ordinary life and its necessities, preparing it for a more suitable condition, and seem to promise and procure for it the pure enjoyment of its full and proper nature. You might have seen there marble statues, storied vases, small stones with most distinct figures, and other articles of furniture, the relics perhaps of other and happier times. Also many scrolls of parchment lay in folds upon each other, in which were treasured, in their long succession of letters, the knowledge, sentiments, histories, and poems of that past time, in most agreeable and polished expressions. The calling of my father, who had by degrees become an able astrologer, attracted to him many inquiring visiters, even from distant lands; and as the knowledge of the future seemed to men a rare and precious gift, they were led to remunerate him richly for his communication; so that he was enabled, by the gifts he received, to defray the expenses of a comfortable and even luxurious style of life." * * * * *