There is, indeed, during those years, much of restraint, of wearisomeness, of hope, and of impatience; all which feelings lengthen the apparent duration of time. Suffering, I have not included here; but with a large portion of the human race, in all Christian countries, (to our shame be it spoken!) it makes a large item in the account: there is no other stage of life in which so much gratuitous suffering is endured,—so much that might have been spared,—so much that is a mere wanton, wicked addition, to the sum of human misery,—arising solely and directly from want of feeling in others, their obduracy, their caprice, their stupidity, their malignity, their cupidity and their cruelty. _Algunos sabios han dicho que para lo que el hombre tiene aprender es muy corta la vida; mas yo añado que es muy larga para los que hemos de padecer._ “Some wise men,” writes Capmany, “have said that life is very short for what man has to learn,—but I (he says) must add, that it is very long for what we have to suffer.” Too surely this is but too true; and yet a more consolatory view may be taken of human existence. The shortest life is long enough for those who are more sinned against than sinning; whose good instincts have not been corrupted, and whose evil propensities have either not been called into action, or have been successfully resisted and overcome. The Philosopher of Doncaster found, in his theory of progressive existence, an easy solution for some of those questions on which it is more presumptuous than edifying to speculate, yet whereon that restless curiosity which man derives from the leaven of the forbidden fruit, makes it difficult for a busy mind to refrain from speculating. The horrid opinion which certain Fathers entertained concerning the souls of unbaptized infants, he never characterized by any lighter epithet than _damnable_, for he used to say, “it would be wicked to use a weaker expression:” and the more charitable notion of the Limbo he regarded as a cold fancy, neither consonant to the heart of man, nor consistent with the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. He thought that when the ascent of being has been from good to better through all its stages, in moral qualities as well as in physical developement, the immortal spirit might reach its human stage in such a state that it required nothing more than the vehicle of humanity, and might be spared its probation. As Enoch had been translated without passing through death, so he thought such happy spirits might be admitted into a higher sphere of existence without passing through the trials of sin and the discipline of sorrow. CHAPTER CXXXI. THE DOCTOR ABSTAINS FROM SPECULATING ON PERILOUS SUBJECTS. A STORY OF ST. ANSELM. This field is so spacious, that it were easy for a man to lose himself in it; and if I should spend all my pilgrimage in this walk, my time would sooner end than my way. BISHOP HALL.