As a conversation between Mr. Clavering and Miss Woodburn happened to come to my ear, as it does so often come, by means of the little bird which carries so many arcana to authorly ears, I may throw a little light on the mysterious words of Mrs. Woodburn and her daughter. For a long time there had been a strong and tender attachment betwixt Henry Clavering and Ann Woodburn. Mr. Clavering, George’s old schoolfellow, and almost constant companion since, had been most intimate at Woodburn Grange. The whole family loved and admired him, for his sound sense, high moral feeling, and unassuming kindly disposition. The attachment betwixt Ann and him had grown up almost insensibly. He made a direct offer to Ann, and this was warmly seconded by every one of her family. Independently of the splendid fortune and title which Mr. Clavering would inherit, and the fortunate nearness of his abode, no woman could expect to find in a husband a more agreeable person, a more rich possessor of moral and intellectual endowments and qualities. What, then, stood in the way? There was an obstacle, to Ann’s religious and conscientious nature, which in her opinion was insurmountable. Mr. Clavering had no faith in Christianity: he had but a doubtful one in the existence of man after death. Sir Emanuel Clavering, as we have seen, was accredited in the mind of the common people round with the practice of the black art. For that, of course, there was no foundation; but as there cannot well be smoke where there is no fire, there was a certain foundation for this notion. Sir Emanuel, in the ardent pursuit of astronomical science, had acquired the most profound idea of the wondrous construction and illimitable extent of the universe. That it was produced and upheld in such beautiful order by some great invisible power co-extensive with itself, he could not doubt; but he felt an invincible difficulty in imagining that this could be any living being. He believed it rather to be an intelligent principle or force producing all things—the soul, as it were, of all visible creation. In a word, he was what we understand by a Pantheist. If there were a God, he conceived it must be a sentient principle rather than a concentrated mind, inhabiting some localised vehicle perceptible even to spiritual beings, if there were such. It was to him something illimitable, unapproachable, incomprehensible: the infinite, impossible to be conceived of, or perceived by the finite. For these reasons, he disbelieved the whole narrative of God taking a human form and coming down and dying for mankind.