Inglesant did not try to penetrate into this oracular response; but said,— "Have you seen Mr. Fox, the famous Quaker?" "Yes; I saw him once," replied the doctor; "and in conversation with him I felt myself as it were turned into brass, so much did his spirit and perversity oppress mine." "There are some men," the doctor went on, after a pause—but Inglesant did not know of whom he was thinking—"that by a divine sort of fate are virtuous and good, and this to a very great and heroical degree; and come into the world rather for the good of others, and by a divine force, than through their own proper fault, or any immediate or necessary congruity of their natures. All which is agreeable to that opinion of Plato, that some descend hither to declare the being and nature of the gods, and for the greater health, purity, and perfection of this lower world. I would fain believe, Mr. Inglesant," he continued, to the other’s great surprise, "that you are one of those. Ever since I first saw you I have had some thought of this; and the more I see of you the more I hope and believe that some such work as this is reserved for you. You have, what is very happy for you, what I call an ethereal sort of body—to use the Pythagoric phrase—even in this life, a mighty purity and plenty of the animal spirits, which you may keep lucid by that conduct and piety by which you may govern yourself. And this makes it all the more incumbent on you to have a great care to keep in order this luciform vehicle of the soul, as the Platonists call it; for there is a sanctity of body which the sensually minded do not so much as dream of. And this divine body should be cultivated as well as the divine life; for by how much any person partakes more of righteousness and virtue, he hath also a greater measure of this divine body or celestial matter within himself; he throws off the baser affections of the earthly body, and replenishes his inner man with so much larger draughts of ethereal or celestial matter; and to incite you still more to this effort, you have only to consider that the oracle of God is not to be heard but in His holy temple, that is to say, in a good and holy man, thoroughly sanctified in spirit, soul, and body." *CHAPTER XVIII.* Shortly after the conversation recorded in the previous chapter, Inglesant, who appeared completely restored to health,—thanks to the Baron Van Helmont and to rest of body,—left Oulton, and, without going to London, went to Rye, and sailed thence to France, where he arrived about the middle of May 1651. He had taken a passage in a vessel sailing to Dieppe, and from thence he posted to Paris, this route being thought much safer than the one through Calais, which was much infested by robbers.