His father's death threw a blight upon the prospects of Richard. He no longer possessed the means of prosecuting his studies; and in order to support himself and assist his mother, he engaged himself as tutor in the family of a gentleman in East Lothian. But there his doubts followed him, and melancholy sat upon his breast. He had thoughtlessly, almost imperceptibly, stepped into the gloomy paths of unbelief, and anxiously he groped to retrace his steps; but it was as a blind man stumbles; and in wading through the maze of controversy for a guide, his way became more intricate, and the darkness of his mind more intense. He repented that he had ever listened to the words of the scoffer, or sat in the chair of the scorner; but he had permitted the cold mists of scepticism to gather round his mind, till even the affections of his heart became blighted by their influence. He was now a solitary man, shunning society; and at those hours when his pupils were not under his charge, he would wander alone in the wood or by the river, brooding over unutterable thoughts, and communing with despair; for he sought not, as is the manner of many, to instil the poison that had destroyed his own peace into the minds of others. He carried his punishment in his soul, and was silent--in the soul that was doubting its own existence! Of all hypochondriacs, to me the unbeliever seems the most absurd. For can matter think? can it reason, can it doubt? Is it not the thing that doubts which distrusts its own being? Often when he so wandered, the last words of his father--"Seek, and ye shall find"--were whispered in his heart, as though the spirit of the departed breathed them over him. Then would he raise his hands in agony, and his prayer rose from the solitude of the woods.