When skepticism ran highest in the mind of Alfred Claremont, came one of those inward revelations, one of those floods of light with which the darkest moments of human wisdom are sometimes made luminous with a halo of celestial inspiration.
The loveliness of this autumn sunset sentMts ray of light and cheer to herald the dawn of morning twilight upon his dreary night of doubt and uncertainty. He drank in its beauty and felt its inspiration. An impression made at such times is as ineffaceable from the memory as it is grand and elevating in character. Years of sorrow and suffering may succeed, but the recollection of it will spring up like an oasis in the desert to revive and strengthen the fainting hopes of the weary traveller as he takes up the burden of life, it may be, forever alone.
And if over all we feel the sympathy of a kindred spirit, what matter if the lips be silent? Do we not feel the responsive echoes of the eternal harmony of nature, as soul speaks to soul in a language no tongue can express; and the law of affinity running through all human intelligences which makes the eye the heart's best interpreter and most eloquent logician? The consciousness of this fact ought to make the humblest and most barren life rejoice that it has this power to confer happiness which no outward circumstance can take away; sometimes proving more precious to the friendless one than gifts or gold, because freighted with the richer sympathy of the human heart.
Not many months afterwards both these individuals met at the house of a mutual friend, who, on his
