off in the midst of his first great triumph,--with no date now, although
I find a mark upon it which leads me to suppose it was written November
16, 1818, and from which I must venture to take a single paragraph.

"My God!" he says,--"my God! I do most devoutly thank Thee. My prayer
has reached Thee, and been accepted. My dear friend, join with me in
thanking Him in whom I put my trust,--to whom alone I look, or to whom I
_have_ looked, for a smile. He has blessed me. I have been heard by man,
and have not been forsaken by God. Though I have not done _perfectly_, I
have done as well as I could rationally wish, and better than my most
sanguine hopes. At Brattle Square _this_ morning, and at the New South
(late Mr. Thacher's) _this_ afternoon. Lord! now let thy servant depart
in peace; for thou hast lifted the cloud under which he has so long
moved, and he may now die in thy light."

Can such a temper as this be misunderstood? Was he not a man fearing God
in 1818,--forty-eight years ago?--or, rather, loving God with that
perfect love which casteth out all fear?

But we need not stop here. After he had become a Spiritualist, that is,
on the 5th of April, 1862, the evening before his seventy-seventh
birthday, he wrote a poem of one hundred and sixty lines, entitled
"Meditations of a Birthday Eve," a copy of which he sent me on the 10th
of November following, upon the express condition that nobody but myself
was to see it, until it should be all over with him. It must have been
written without labor, as one would breathe a prayer upon a death-bed.
The following extracts--I wish we had room for more--will show what were
his feelings and what his aspirations at this time.

"Spirit, my spirit, hath each stage