'He hears you! he hears you! and never may it be my lot again to look upon--' ... 'There he is again, glaring with inexpressible rage upon the comparatively insignificant man who just now so plainly revealed to him 'the true state of the case.' I am almost afraid to look upon that awful visage. 'The state of the case is it?' he exclaims. 'We will see what is the state.''-- There is a break here in the manuscript, which is resumed thus: 'You have conquered! frantic with rage he has fled, never, I trust, to return.' How will I remember what happened during that awful pause? It was spent, I suppose, in a hand-to-hand conflict with the Prince of Darkness; the agreeableness of which was not enhanced by my vivid recollection of the 'bit of a discooshin' between Christian and Apollyon depicted in the old family Pilgrim's Progress. We are truly 'the stuff that dreams are made of.' What mattered it to me, on that bland summer afternoon, since I was of this opinion, whether it was Beelzebub himself or some departed 'blazing tinman,' with a suit of his majesty's old clothes on, while himself, all snug at home, 'Sat in his easy chair, Drinking his sulphur tea.' That was certainly one of the most awful moments of my life, in which I felt the first dreadful rush of this invisible tiger. It seemed as if he swooped toward me to annihilate me in a moment; but was restrained by a higher power. His coming was like the rush of a fifteen-inch shell past one's head. As soon as I saw that the first onset did not destroy me, I gathered strength to face the monster; for a tongue combat seemed all that was permitted him. He put me through my theological paces at an awful rate--using the Socratic dialectic--growling out questions in the tones of a cathedral organ, that made me shiver. Oh that I could remember that fearful catechism! It would make a tract for which the Tom Paine Association would pay a high price. He drove me--partly, I suppose, by magnetic force--step by step, from my cherished religious opinions. My reasons for believing in the cardinal doctrines of Christianity seemed to burn like straw before his fiery rhetoric, and to turn to dust beneath the ponderous blows of his iron logic. He pushed me away from all I had esteemed reliable in the universe, till I seemed to stand on the verge of creation. There I hung with the strength of terror. Then I found poet Campbell true to nature, where he speaks of hope standing intact ''mid Nature's funeral pyre.' I insisted upon 'hoping,' in spite of all his fiery hail.