Next morning, I was again at my study, and even more eager in the task than before. With the commentary of the Hermit freshly in my memory, I again read through, with attention, the Book of the Law. But in vain did I seek the promise of immortality in its pages. “It tells me,” said I, “of a God coming down to earth, but of the ascent of Man to heaven it speaks not. The rewards, the punishments it announces, lie all on this side of the grave; nor did even the Omnipotent offer to his own chosen servants a hope beyond the impassable limits of this world. Where, then, is the salvation of which the Christian spoke? or, if Death be at the root of the faith, can Life spring out of it!” Again, in the bitterness of disappointment, did I mock at my own willing self‐delusion,—again rail at the arts of that traitress, Fancy, ever ready, like the Delilah of this book, to steal upon the slumbers of Reason, and deliver him up, shorn and powerless, to his foes. If deception—thought I, with a sigh—be necessary, at least let me not practise it on myself;—in the desperate alternative before me, let me rather be even hypocrite than dupe. These self‐accusing reflections, cheerless as they rendered my task, did not abate, for a single moment, my industry in pursuing it. I read on and on, with a sort of sullen apathy, neither charmed by style, nor transported by imagery,—that fatal blight in my heart having communicated itself to my fancy and taste. The curses and the blessings, the glory and the ruin, which the historian recorded and the prophet predicted, seemed all of this world,—all, temporal and earthly. That mortality, of which the fountain‐head had tasted, tinged the whole stream; and when I read the words, “all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again,” a feeling, like the wind of the desert, came witheringly over me. Love, Beauty, Glory, every thing most bright upon earth, appeared sinking before my eyes, under this dreadful doom, into one general mass of corruption and silence. Possessed by the image of desolation I had called up, I laid my head on the book, in a paroxysm of despair. Death, in all his most ghastly varieties, passed before me; and I had continued thus for some time, as under the influence of a fearful vision, when the touch of a hand upon my shoulder roused me. Looking up, I saw the Anchoret standing by my side;—his countenance beaming with that sublime tranquillity, which a hope, beyond this earth, alone can bestow. How I envied him! We again took our way to the seat upon the mountain,—the gloom in my own mind making every thing around me more gloomy. Forgetting my hypocrisy in my feelings, I, at once, avowed to him all the doubts and fears which my study of the morning had awakened.