Slowly conviction seemed to fasten on her mind as she saw my serious and earnest manner, and indeed my agitation, as I rose from my chair and stood before her. A brilliant joy suddenly sparkled from her large, liquid, deep blue eye, and radiated over her whole face. Springing from her seat, and seizing me by both my hands, “This is too much,” she exclaimed. “This I had wished, had prayed for, but had not dared hope.” Her eyes filled with sweet tears, and, as if overcome with her emotions, she sunk into my arms, and rested her head upon my shoulder. I pressed her to my breast. But she instantly recovered herself, and we both resumed our seats. After a few moments’ silence, Priscilla, with an animated and contented look, exclaimed:— “Now, my dear, dearest friend, I have hope. The good work will now go bravely on. Pure, noble, and strong-minded women to coöperate with me, I have found, but a man, a full-grown man, with a clear head, and a well-balanced mind, heretofore found I not. The men who have been ready to embark with me, are dwarfs, pigmies, simpletons, needy adventurers, cheats, knaves, or crack-brained enthusiasts, with but one idea in their heads, and that only half an idea. Drill them as I may, I can make nothing of them.” “But,” said I, maliciously, “is not your dear James a philanthropist and reformer?” “My dear James is my husband,” she said, with dignity and spirit. “But you are slow to comprehend these things. The great and glorious work of regenerating man and society, cannot be carried on either by man alone or by woman alone. The two must be united and coöperate, or there can be no spiritual, as there can be no natural, offspring. But in regeneration, in the palingenesia, it is not at all necessary that they be husband and wife after the flesh. Married and made one in spirit they must be, but not married and made one flesh. Man and woman are each other’s half, and they must be brought together to make a complete, active, and productive whole. But the relation of husband and wife is a purely domestic relation, and looks solely to a domestic end. If each finds the complementary half in the other, both are satisfied, contented, and neither has any wish or motive to look beyond the circle of the purely domestic affections.” “That is, they who find their bliss at home have no need and no temptation to go a-roaming.” “Precisely.” “Then it is unhappiness, discontent, uneasiness, want, at home, that makes men and women turn philanthropists, and take to world-reform?” “Yes; and herein you learn the deep philosophy of life, and the significance of that Religion of Sorrow, of which Carlyle speaks so touchingly, and which the world has professed for two thousand years, but which it has never understood. Hear my favorite poet:—