"Brother," he resumed, "when, after your confession of horrid crimes, I inflicted on you that severe penance, I satisfied the laws of the church, which demand that a malefactor whom the arm of justice has not reached, but who voluntarily confesses his evil actions, should also, by his outward conduct, prove the _reality_ of his repentance. Yet I believe, (and the best authorities are on my side,) that the most excruciating torments which the penitent can inflict on himself, do not, as soon as he himself grounds any confidence on these exercises, diminish, by one fraction, the amount of his guilt. To no human intellect is it given to explain how the omniscient and eternal Ruler measures and weighs the deeds of mankind; but lost for ever must that mortal be, who deludes himself with expectations of taking Heaven by storm, through the force of penitential infliction. "Moreover, the individual who believes that, by the fulfilment of such duties, the crimes of which he has been convicted are, of necessity, blotted out and atoned, proves, by this very belief, that his inward repentance has neither been true nor complete. But as for you, dear brother Medardus, you have yet experienced no consolation, and _this_, in my opinion, proves the truth of your conversion. Give up now, I command you, all chastisements--allow yourself better food, and no longer avoid the society of your brethren. "Learn, besides, that your extraordinary life, with all its complicated involvements, is better known to me than it is even to yourself. A fatality from which you could not escape, gave to the devil a certain influence over you; and, while you committed crimes which to your own nature were abhorrent, you were only his tool, or implement. "Dream not, however, that you are on this account less sinful in the eyes of Heaven, or of the church, for on you was bestowed ample power, if you had had the resolution to exert it, to conquer in a spirited battle the fiend who beset you. In what mortal heart has not this influence of our arch-enemy raged like a tempest, resisting every impulse of good? But without this conflict, virtue could have no existence--For in what doth virtue consist, but in the triumph (after a hard-fought battle) of good over evil? "But, as one source of consolation, I can inform you, that you have accused yourself of a crime wherein you have been guilty in intention, but not in effect. Aurelia yet lives. In your madness you probably wounded yourself, and it was your own blood that streamed over your hands. Aurelia still lives;--this fact I have amply ascertained." Hereupon I fell on my knees, with my hands uplifted in fervent prayer, and burst into tears.