Neither,' observes he elsewhere, shall ye tear out ' one another's eyes, struggling over "Plenary Inspiration," and such like: try rather to get a little even 'Partial Inspiration, each of you for himself. One 'BIBLE I know, of whose Plenary Inspiration doubt is 'not so much as possible; nay with my own eyes I saw 'the God's-Hand writing it: thereof all other Bibles are but Leaves,-say, in Picture-Writing to assist the 'weaker faculty.'

Or to give the wearied reader relief, and bring it to an end, let him take the following perhaps more intelligible passage:

To me, in this our Life,' says the Professor, which ' is an internecine warfare with the Time-spirit, other 'warfare seems questionable. Hast thou in any way a 'Contention with thy brother, I advise thee, think well 'what the meaning thereof is. If thou gauge it to the bottom, it is simply this: "Fellow, see! thou art taking

more than thy share of Happiness in the world, something from my share which, by the Heavens, thou 'shalt not; nay I will fight thee rather."-Alas! and

the whole lot to be divided is such a beggarly matter, ' truly a "feast of shells," for the substance has been 'spilled out: not enough to quench one Appetite; and 'the collective human species clutching at them!-Can we not, in all such cases, rather say: "Take it, thou too-ravenous individual: ; take that pitiful additional 'fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which 'thou so wantest; take it with a blessing: would to 'Heaven I had enough for thee!"-If Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre be "to a certain extent, Applied Christianity," surely to a still greater extent, so is this.

We have here not a Whole Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely the Passive half: could we but do it, as ' we can demonstrate it!

But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless till it convert itself into Conduct. Nay pro'perly Conviction is not possible till then; inasmuch as 'all Speculation is by nature endless, formless, a vortex ' amid vortices only, by a felt indubitable certainty of Experience, does it find any centre to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a system. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that " Doubt of any sort cannot 'be removed except by Action." On which ground too 'let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen ' into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service : "Do the Duty which lies nearest thee," which thou knowest to be a Duty! 'Thy second Duty will already have become clearer.

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May we not say, however, that the hour of Spiritual 'Enfranchisement is even this: When your Ideal World, 'wherein the whole man has been dimly struggling and 'inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed, ' and thrown open; and you discover, with amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm Meister, that 'your "America is here or nowhere ?" The Situation ' that has not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied ' by man. Yes here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom; ' and working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself, the Impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same

'Ideal out of: what matters whether such stuff be of 'this sort or of that, so the Form thou give it be heroic, 'be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of 'the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a king'dom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee, "here or ' nowhere," couldst thou only see!

'But it is with man's Soul as it was with Nature: the 'beginning of Creation is-Light. Till the eye have vision, the whole members are in bonds. Divine moment, when over the tempest-tost Soul, as once over 'the wild-weltering Chaos, it is spoken: Let there be 'Light! Ever to the greatest that has felt such mo

ment, is it not miraculous and God-announcing; even 'as, under simpler figures, to the simplest and least? The mad primeval Discord is hushed; the rudely'jumbled conflicting elements bind themselves into separate Firmaments: deep silent rock-foundations are 'built beneath; and the skyey vault with its everlasting Luminaries above: instead of a dark wasteful Chaos, we have a blooming, fertile, Heaven-encompassed 'World.

'I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a ' Chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. Produce! ' Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal 'fraction of a Product, produce it in God's name! 'Tis 'the utmost thou hast in thee; out with it then. Up, up! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called To-day, for 'the Night cometh wherein no man can work.'

CHAPTER X.

-PAUSE.

THUS have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily as, in such circumstances, might be, followed Teufelsdröckh through the various successive states and stages of Growth, Entanglement, Unbelief, and almost Reprobation, into a certain clearer state of what he himself seems to consider as Conversion. Blame not the word,' says he; rejoice rather that such a word, signifying such a thing, has come to light in our Modern Era, "though hidden from the wisest Ancients. The Old 'World knew nothing of Conversion: instead of an 'Ecce Homo, they had only some Choice of Hercules. 'It was a new-attained progress in the Moral Develop'ment of man: hereby has the Highest come home to "the bosoms of the most Limited; what to Plato was 'but a hallucination, and to Socrates a chimera, is now clear and certain to your Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys, ' and the poorest of their Pietists and Methodists.'

It is here then that the spiritual majority of Teufelsdröckh commences: we are henceforth to see him 'Work in Welldoing,' with the spirit and clear aims of a Man. He has discovered that the Ideal Workshop he so panted for, is even this same Actual ill-furnished Workshop he has so long been stumbling in. He can say to himself: Tools? Thou hast no Tools? Why,

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'there is not a Man, or a Thing, now alive but has tools. 'The basest of created animalcules, the Spider itself, 'has a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power'loom, within its head; the stupidest of Oysters has a Papin's-Digester, with stone-and-lime house to hold it ' in every being that can live can do something; this 'let him do.-Tools? Hast thou not a Brain, furnished, furnishable with some glimmerings of Light; ' and three fingers to hold a Pen withal? Never since 'Aaron's Rod went out of practice, or even before it, was there such a wonder-working Tool: greater than all recorded miracles have been performed by Pens. For strangely in this so solid-seeming World, which ⚫ nevertheless is in continual restless flux, it is appointed 'that Sound, to appearance the most fleeting, should be 'the most continuing of all things. The WORD is well 'said to be omnipotent in this world; man, thereby divine, can create as by a Fiat. Awake, arise! Speak 'forth what is in thee; what God has given thee, what ' the Devil shall not take away. Higher task than that ' of Priesthood was allotted to no man: wert thou but 'the meanest in that sacred Hierarchy, is it not honour ' enough therein to spend and be spent?

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By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously 'degrade into a handicraft,' adds Teufelsdröckh, have 'I thenceforth abidden. Writings of mine, not indeed 'known as mine (for what am I?), have fallen, perhaps not altogether void, into the mighty seedfield of 'Opinion; fruits of my unseen sowing gratifyingly meet me here and there. I thank the Heavens that I have ' now found my Calling; wherein, with or without per'ceptible result, I am minded diligently to persevere.