I THINK you never saw a happier little family circle than gathered about the breakfast table this morning. The dark cloud which has hovered over us so long, casting its shadow over all the household, has dissipated, and behind it we saw that the sun was still shining, although we faint hearts had begun to believe that we should never sit in the sunshine again.

Old Blobbs has past the crisis and weathered the storm. The staunch old man has baffled pallida mors by resolutely contesting every inch with him. For a day he hovered on the brink of the chasm between the two worlds, but there was no trace of terror, or even of impatience, in his serene face. I think he was so near to Heaven that gleams of its light irradiated him, for I never saw such a rapt face before. I think that he heard the sound of the harps coming faintly to him, as we sometimes hear music coming over the water in the hush of night, for now and then he would close his eyes and listen very attentively, seeming to forget us who were standing around, fearing that at any moment he might see the gate of Paradise and pass through, leaving us disconsolate on this side. And I know, by a quick glow of recognition and a smile of ineffable pleasure, which once lit up his face, that he saw the Maiden Aunt, and a little child who once left us, somewhere in that land so far from us, but so near to him, for he raised his thin white hand as if he would grasp the hand of another. We could not speak to him. In that solemn time we dared not. The doctor sat upon the bedside and watched him with anxious face. Mignon, in the intensity of her grief, sat with her face buried in her hands. She had placed the faded forget-me-not, which the Maiden Aunt sent to her as her dying souvenir, in Blobbs' hand, thinking, perhaps, that he might take it to her, as they do not grow where she is, for memory There is eternal.

It was growing towards sunset, and through the interlacing leaves of the ivy which covers the window, a golden shaft of sunlight shot into the room and fell upon the bed. It caught Old Blobbs' eye. He faintly smiled, turned his head away, and closed his eyes. The doctor lightly felt the pulse and motioned us to be silent. In a few minutes, the doctor beckoned us to retire to another room, and then said to us: "Your friend is sleeping. He has passed the crisis and will be spared to you. It is only necessary that he should be kept quiet."

On the day before the crisis, Parson Primrose called to see Old Blobbs in the performance of official duty, and undoubtedly actuated by a sincere desire to smooth his pathway into the Valley of the Shadow. There was just the faintest expression of impatience upon Blobbs' face, when he saw him enter. Primrose had assumed a conventional, business-like look of grief, not unmixed with a slight anxiety, as if he were not at all certain that Blobbs' pathway needed any smoothing. And I knew that Blobbs was convinced how utterly impotent Primrose was to afford him any consolation or shed any light upon the future.

In a dry, formalistic way, Primrose asked: "My dear brother, are you prepared for the great change!"

I never shall forget Blobbs' look of profound astonishment as he replied: "Yes, sir! Certainly. I have always been prepared for this from my boyhood up. I supposed it was a man's first duty to have his household always in order for such changes—most of all, the common change which may come any minute. Why, of course, sir, I am prepared, and hope I shall meet the change like a gentleman."

Primrose added: "And have you prepared yourself for this great change by attendance upon divine worship?"

"Yes, sir," replied Old Blobbs. "I may say to you, however, as we had better understand each other, that I have not always deemed it important to attend divine worship within four walls. I have been rather oppressed, sir, by this gregarious form of worship, and have not always received satisfaction or consolation from the gentlemen of your cloth—and this, with all respect, sir. I imagine that I have been rather exacting, and expected to find a guide, rather than a companion who knew no more of the way than myself. In such cases, I always found that I got much nearer the Great Father by going out into Nature, the house which He built, and by loving my fellow-man and all the forms of life which He has created, even down to the insects. There has always, I may say, sir, been more satisfaction to me in this warm, active love than in that affection which has been regulated by rules and bounded by dogmas."

"Then you have never settled upon any creed or form of belief," said Primrose.

Blobbs' face again wore an impatient look, as he replied: "Belief with me, sir, has been instinctive. It never had any prescribed form, and never needed defining by any ritual. I have never troubled myself much about any creed, as I have never seen any record of creeds where I may soon go. I do not expect, if I had a creed, that it would be anything but an impediment to me in crossing the river. If I got safely over with it, I am confident, sir, that St. Peter would make me leave it outside the gate, as something for which they had no use inside."

"Then, you have believed in no doctrine, and belonged to no church, my dear friend?" said Primrose.

"You mistake me, sir," said Blobbs, rather impatiently. "I have always believed in charity, which is greater than faith or hope, and in the sublime words which Christ, and Confucius before Christ, uttered: 'Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.' I have always belonged to the great church of humanity, which, I think, sir, in ages to come, will be the church of mankind——"

"When the millenium comes, and man is perfect?" interposed Primrose.

"No, sir!" replied Blobbs, emphatically. "I look for no millenium of perfection. Man can never fully develop, if this world shall stand for millions of ages yet. To assume that, would be to deny the principle of infinity which is in him. The perfect development can never be attained except in eternity. We must be freed from this frail envelope of the body before the soul can rise, untrammelled."

"Upon what, then, if you have no doctrine, or creed, or church, do you depend for your salvation?" said Primrose.

"Upon the love of our common Father," replied Blobbs. "He has carried me, sir, in the hollow of His hand since childhood, and has never done me harm. I am not afraid now, sir, to trust myself to Him, confident that He knows better than I what is best for me, and that He will do what is best. I think that He will solve all these mysteries, so that what is dark to my feeble comprehension will become quite light. I am willing, sir, to trust myself to Him, and, sir, if you can throw any light upon the place to which I am going, I shall be very grateful to receive it. As to the manner of going, I am quite willing to leave that to Him who knows more than I."

Primrose, after a few generalities, took his leave, satisfied that at least he had done his duty, but Old Blobbs turned his face to the wall with a feeble smile and a shake of the head.

I think Blobbs was fully convinced, as well as the rest of us, that he should not live long, for on that same day he handed me his diary, which he desired me to keep. He has since that time expressed his willingness to have me use what I please of it. On looking it over, I found some thoughts which perhaps may interest you.

In one place he says:

"I think I have but one regret in leaving this world. When I look into the past and see what is doing, I would like to live into the future some centuries, to see what a magnificent world this will be."

Again he says:

"Every man carries in his breast an aspiration and a skeleton. The one is a yearning for an ideal which is never realized here. He will never find it, be his search ever so long or so faithful. It must always end in the fate of the Prince who sought the fountain of perpetual youth, and the alchemists who wasted their lives and energies looking for the philosopher's stone. And yet it seems to me this unattainable ideal is one of the surest proofs of immortality. The other is the reverse of the ideal—a fearful secret—a chained tiger—a terrible power. Sometimes it assumes only the form of a melancholy. Sometimes of a despair which kills."

Again:

"The keen, earnest love of Nature always involves the warmer love of man as the noblest type of Nature, and yet the love of Nature is the compensation for the loss of man. When all men forget you—when the bright hues with which you have invested the ideal of the soul fade like a morning mist—when the heart in its lowest depths of despair finds only artificial instead of real men, when you even despair of humanity—vivifying Nature remains a faithful friend, and brings compensation in her flowers and birds, her mountains and cataracts."

Again:

"Sympathy with anything that is beautiful can never be completely exercised when you are alone. It must find expression, and there must be the presence of another who shall be the recipient of that expression. Worship demands isolation, which begets reverence. Sympathy demands the presence of another, and begets friendship or love, according to the nature of the object and the companion. Either in the presence of nature, which inspires friendship, or of music and some forms of art, which inspire love, the presence of the second person is essential to complete sympathy; and he who has sought either love or friendship, and lost both, is richer than he who has never sought either."

Blobbs' diary contains also some pretty severe strictures, which I might be tempted to give you were it not for the fact that he will now soon be with us again and speak for himself. I saw him this morning, and he is quite like himself again. He took me by the hand and said: "Well, my dear boy, they say the old ship is going to weather the storm."

I congratulated him upon his improvement, and he added:

"I thought we were getting into the haven and coming to anchor. But the voyage isn't quite over yet, so we must clear away the decks, crowd on all sail and out again into the blue waters, with the rest of our little fleet, and trust all to the good Pilot at the helm, Who knows what is best, after all."

August 28, 1869.