Paracelsus,—the Paracelsus made known to this age, not by the false portraits limned by his contemporaries and enemies but as drawn by the master hand of Browning,—seemed to step out from the dark past and forbid his progress on a path he had traversed. A horrible sense of degradation took possession of him. He had once held a lofty ideal. When at Oxford, when his faith in God was a real working faith, he had often vowed himself to the service of humanity. That the saints of the Church, the fathers of the faith, the apostles, the prophets, the teachers of the past should have all worked to hand down to him—Elsworth—this noble, Divine light of Christian faith, which alike impelled his adhesion and claimed his co-operation; and for him to receive all, and then hesitate to give in his turn his best years and his whole heart to the world’s needs, was surely but to be repelled on its suggestion. But faith was gone, intellect had usurped the place of will, the will was unsanctified, and the man in brain and heart a chariot whose steeds rushed uncontrolled along the beaten track of habit, and were carrying him—whither? If there _were_ no hereafter—nothing beyond this life—was it worth while to go on with this devilry, this riot, this attempt to drag the better part, the reason, into the mire, with the swine? Why not forsake it all, and now while there was time for repentance? The man was pulled up short: thrown back like a horse on his haunches. A great gulf in these few minutes was opened between him and the past; and not Paul when smitten down on Damascus road was blinder as to the future than Elsworth on this night in Seven Dials, amongst the suspicious men and bedraggled women, who passed him as he moved listlessly along, arrested by the scream of a conscience that would be heard at least once more, and whose voice had unspeakable terrors for him. For he was made for better things—that he always had felt; he was not vile, debauched, debased, as some of his companions were. He had fought against light; he had struggled not to believe, not that he might give the reins to his passions, but that he might deify intellect. He thought it was cowardly to leave those poor lads in the fight, but it was useless to go back; and even if he could have saved them from arrest, he dare not engage in any more of that work—away with that at least; it was too horrible to think of any more. So on he went, scolding himself, calling himself by every opprobrious epithet, and berating himself back into manhood again. He had reached Chelsea; it was almost too late to get a lodging, but he would try; for the conviction began to dawn upon him that he should not go back one single step into the past, but there and then break with it all, and be a man, and live a man’s life. He prayed—once more repeated, “Our Father, which art in heaven;” it seemed very unphilosophical, very unscientific. He had often sent out aspirations