You remember the circumstances of our return from Europe in the fall of 18--. We were young then, but the events are still vivid in my memory, as they are no doubt in yours. For two days we were delayed in Liverpool by a fearful storm. In that storm the Royal Charter was coming in, having made successfully the voyage of the world. She had been signaled, and was already in the Channel; her arrival was looked for every hour. Dear friends of those we were leaving were on board. The fires were lighted on the hearth, and the table was spread for the long-absent ones, and glad hearts were waiting impatiently to give them joyful welcome. But they never came; in sight of the harbor and of the lights of home they went down--the four hundred of that doomed ship. The next day we passed the silent wreck as we came out, and I am sure you thought, as I did, how unutterably sad and pathetic is such an end, to perish in sight of home. Our voyage, dear A----, is almost over. The harbor is near; the lights of the eternal home are in sight; the table is spread, and dear ones--yours and mine--are waiting there to give us glad and everlasting welcome. Do not make wreck of life and hope and immortality in the very sight of home. Yours, in the bonds of early years, C----. Since these letters were written, he to whom they were addressed has gone where human arguments and pleadings cannot reach him. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he passed from the scenes of a busy, honored and prosperous life into the solemn mysteries that lie beyond our horizon. On his desk was found the following unfinished letter, written the night before his death: MY DEAR C----: I have not misapprehended the spirit and motive of your letters. I have read them--more than once--with care and, I believe, with candor. When a man stands in the shadow of a great and awful change--and my physician warns me that my lifework may end suddenly--he is a fool who deals any other way than seriously and honestly with the questions you discuss. If I cannot say that your reasoning removes all my doubts, I can most sincerely say this, even though it may be, in your judgment, at the cost of my consistency: _I would give the world to have your faith and hope_. While I have been glad to have the arguments of Mr. ---- to support my own faith or want of faith, I will be candid and say that I have not been at rest. Life has been terribly empty and hopeless since I felt, with Professor Clifford, that "the Great Companion is dead." I have had success, as the world goes, but what of it? What does it amount to? What is to be the end of it all? No God! No immortality! Nothing beyond this little circle whose utmost limit I seem to be even now touching! Is it so? I am writing at midnight--an hour when these questions often come to me with the pressure of despair. Oh to be a child again with a child's faith, a child's peace! My mother-- * * * * *