The sick-room is a sanctuary of confidence. It is a natural confessional, where the spontaneous revelations are perhaps as ample as any enforced disclosures from disciple to priest, and without any of the mischiefs of enforcement. We may be excluded from much observation of the outer life of men; but of the inner life, which originates and interprets the outer, it is scarcely possible that in any other circumstances we could have known so much. Into what depths of opinion are we not let down! To what soaring heights of speculation are we not borne up! What is there of joy or sorrow, of mystery and marvel, in human experience that is not communicated to us! And all this not as if read in print,--not half-revealed, in the form of hints to such as can understand,--not in general terms, as addressed to the general,--but spoken fully and freely, with that particularity which fastens words upon the soul for ever,--with those living tones of emotion which make the hearer a partner in all that is and has been felt. Here, we learn that the whole experience of humanity may be contained in one bosom, through such participation as we ourselves entertain; and even that all opinions, the most various and the most incompatible, may be deposited in one intellect, for gradual review, without inducing scepticism, and possibly to the strengthening of the powers and privileges of Faith. Göthe, the seer of humanity, formed in himself the habit of agreeing with all the opinions uttered to him, alleging as his ground that there is always a sense in which everything is true, and that it is a good to encourage, and an evil to discourage, any belief arrived at in natural course. There are men with minds of a far lower order, but still somewhat superior to the average, who do precisely the reverse,--they see far enough to be aware that there is always something to be said to the contrary of what they hear uttered; and they cannot help saying it. They fall into a habit of invariable opposition, justifying the practice to themselves by the plea of impartiality,--of resistance to dogmatism,--of love of truth, and the like. I disapprove of both habits. Both practically injure belief, and damage the interests of truth. The natural operation of Göthe’s method was to encourage in many indolence in the pursuit of truth and carelessness about opinions;--in some, doubts of the very existence of truth; and in all reflective persons, a keen sense of the insult conveyed, however unintentionally, by such treatment. Far worse, however, is the influence of the antagonist order of minds,--not only from their comparative numbers, for there is not a Göthe in five hundred years,--but from the direct operation of their method and their example. A man who forms a habit of intellectual antagonism destroys more than can ever be repaired, both in his own mind and in those which he influences. He allows no rest in any supposition