"What are you aiming at?" askt Edward hesitatingly after a pause. "Yes, I believe this story like a sincere and orthodox Christian." "Well!" the old man went on, while his pale closed lips wrinkled into a strange smile: "I have a double aim, though I should hardly need to say more, if you had ever thought deeply about this incident. In the first place, if our Saviour himself had to bear such things, if it was possible for him to be suspected though but by the Evil One, surely you might forgive me with all your heart, if with half or a quarter of mine I have now and then half misdoubted you. Meseems, this mysterious, marvellous story with its fathomless, untold meanings does not downrightly condemn my views of human nature. They are not mere spectres that have taken possession of my soul, unless indeed they belong to one and the same family with spirits. In the second place, do your eyes see much meaning in this wondrous story, if the success of the temptation was totally and absolutely impossible?--Now then what say you? appalling are the feelings that seize on one of us, and you too cannot escape them, when all this is brought home to the heart and mind.--There is still a third remark that I would close with:--what would have become of the world and of mankind, of heaven and earth, if the tempter had won the day? if love had faltered and been beguiled?--O young man, the doors are not closed in every place where we see them put to. You fancy you have made out everything, when you have hardly counted up to five.--I too believed, I too inquired, was absorbed in love and devotion, beheld love in my own soul and in the souls of my brethren, and this is the very delusion the breaking up of which snap my heart and life asunder, never, never to revive and reunite. Cast away your pride in your feelings, think not to soar on the wings of your imagination; but crawl along the ground like worms, and eat dust; for that is what befits you." The old man squeezed Edward's hand, and then with a bitter smile, and a sudden laugh that scared him, tore himself away. For a while Edward continued fixt in a stupour, and when at length he lifted up his eyes, Balthasar was again immerst in deep thought, and standing at his writing table with the gloomy suffering look which he usually wore. Edward felt as if he was leaving a dying man when he went away, and shut the heavy oaken door slowly and carefully after him. * * * * *