"Certainly; but it is the vision of the possible. Similarly wonderful and equally unexpected revolutions have taken place in the history of past nations and empires in a less space of time; and some enormous changes, we know, must happen during the next eighteen hundred and fifty years; and they will tend both to jostle out thousands of events of meaner moment, and to effect a comparative destruction of the memorials of the past. You do not suppose, I presume, that London and Rome are absolutely privileged from the fate which has overtaken Babylon and Memphis. I, for one, therefore, do not expect that the time will arrive when, in the historic investigations of the past, our Strausses will not find abundant scope for ingenious theories; nay, many real sources of perplexity even in reference to events which, at the time of their occurrence, seemed written as 'with a pen of iron on the rock for ever.' But even supposing no other difficulty, I cannot lay small stress upon the mere accumulation of materials on which the historian, two thousand years hence, will have to operate, if he would recover an exact account of the events of our time. It is much the same whether you have to dig into the pyramids of Egypt, or into the catacombs of the buried literature of two thousand years, for the memorials which are to enable you to arrive at the exact truth, at least as to any events of transient interest, however important at the time of their occurrence. It will be like 'hunting for a needle in a bundle of hay,' as the proverb says." "Still, I cannot imagine that facts like those with which our ears have been ringing during the last eight months, can ever be contested." "Can you not?" said Harrington. "I cannot imagine any thing more likely than that, eighteen hundred and fifty years hence, such an event, on Strauss's principles, may be shown to be very problematical." "Will you endeavor to show how it may probably be?" rejoined Robinson. "Well, I have no objection, if you will give me till this evening to prepare so important a document." In the evening, after supper, he amused us by reading us a brief paper, entitled THE PAPAL AGGRESSION SHOWN TO BE IMPOSSIBLE.