My conscience smote me--not, however, that I felt any great remorse for not having thrown away my money in the way the Quaker meant: but his words brought a new idea into my mind. It was misery on the one hand, and the hope of arriving at happiness on the other, which had spurred me from transformation to transformation. Each change had, however, been productive of greater discontent than the other; and the woes with which I was oppressed in my three borrowed bodies, had been even greater than those that afflicted me in my own proper original casing. It was plain that I had not exercised a just discretion in the selection of bodies, since I had taken those of men whose modes of existence did not dispose to happiness. What mode of existence then was most likely to secure the content I sought? Such, I inferred from the Quaker's discourse, as would call into operation the love of goodness and of man--such as would cause to be cultivated the kindly virtues unknown to the selfish--such as would lead to the practice of charity and general philanthropy. I was grieved, therefore, that I had entered so many bodies for nothing; my conscience accused me of a blunder; and I longed to enter upon an existence of virtue; not that I had any great regard for virtue itself, but because I valued my own happiness. Had my deliverer chanced to break his neck while discoursing to me, I should have reanimated his corse, to try my hand at benevolence. As for being good and charitable in the body I then occupied, I felt that it was impossible: the impulse pointed to another existence. The Quaker's indignation soon abated; he looked upon my silence as the effect of remorse, and the idea of converting me into an alms-giver and a friend of the poor, like himself, took possession of his imagination, and warmed his spirit. By such a conversion his philanthropic desires would be doubly gratified; it would make _me_ happy, and, as I was a rich man, some hundreds of others also. He helped me into the chair, and driving slowly towards the city, attempted the good work by describing the misery so prevalent in the suburbs, and dilating with uncommon enthusiasm upon the delight with which every act of benevolence would be recorded in my own bosom. It seems that he was returning from a mission of charity in one of the remotest districts, where he had relieved the necessities of divers unhappy wretches; and, he gave me to understand, it was his purpose to make one more charitable visitation before returning home, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour and the fury of the tempest. And this visit he felt the more urged to make, since it would afford a practical illustration of his remarks, and show how doubly charity was blessed, both to the giver and receiver.