light, flooded my soul. There was nothing visible to the physical sense; but a spiritual influence so joyful, gentle, but powerful, surrounded me that the despair which had overwhelmed me vanished. All doubt as to the future, all hesitation as to the rightfulness of my purpose, left me, and never in after-*life returned. I knew that, however insignificant my individual effort might be, it was in a right direction, and in accordance with the great providential ordering of our race's progress.
This is the most direct personal communication from the Unseen that I have ever consciously had; but to me it is a revealed experience of Truth, a direct vision of the great reality of spiritual existence, as irresistible as it is incommunicable.
During my few months' stay in this friendly household I borrowed medical books from the Doctor's library, for my purpose of becoming a physician was known and approved of.
On one occasion a fellow-teacher laughingly came to me with a dead cockchafer, which had been smothered between her pocket-handkerchiefs, and offered it to me as a first subject for dissection. I accepted the offer, placed the insect in a shell, held it with a hair-pin, and then tried with my mother-of-pearl-handled penknife to cut it open. But the effort to do this was so repugnant that it was some time before I could compel myself to make the necessary incision, which revealed only a little yellowish dust inside. The battle then fought, however, was a useful one. In my later anatomical
