I was awakened from my reverie by the voice of my companion. His face was upturned to the cloudless sky, and he was murmuring the fine passage in the Merchant of Venice.
"Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins:
Such harmony is in immortal souls."
"Do you know, Charles," said he, "what changed the whole current of my life? what, in fact, brought me back to England?" and there was a slight pause. "What made me a Christian? It was such a night as this. As you now know the chief part of my story, I need have no further concealment on the subject. I had recovered from my wounds, and was preparing to set out for Vienna, when one night a tempest blew down our tents, and left us to trust to the open air for the hours till morning. Tempests in the south are violent, but they are generally brief, and this gale cleared the sky of every cloud. As I lay on the ground, and gazed on the unusual splendour of the stars, the thought occurred to me, Why should doubts of a future state ever come into the mind of man? Why should he hesitate about its reality? Was it not there, before his eyes? Were not the very regions of future existence already within the reach of one of his senses? Why might they not yet be within the reach of all? Of course I do not give you all the vague thoughts which passed through my mind; but the permanence, power, and astonishing multitude of those bright worlds, impressed themselves on me with a new force. I had known all those matters before, but on this night I felt them. My next thoughts were of the power, the wisdom, and the majesty of the mighty Being by whom all this had been formed, moved, and sustained through thousands of years. I need not follow the history of my conversion—for a conversion it was. When I looked round me on the sleeping troops, I saw nothing but clods of the valley—gallant beings, but as insensible to their high inheritance as the chargers they rode. My heart moved me towards them; and perhaps, in some instances, I succeeded in giving them my own ideas. But Austria defies, at least, all human change. I was not a fanatic, and I had no wish to strive with impossibilities. I sent in my resignation; abandoned the 'pride, pomp, and circumstance' of the most tempting of all human pursuits, and returned to England to be, what you see me now."
With this man I could have no reserves, and I freely asked his advice on the plunge which I was about to make into that fathomless tide of good and ill, the world. I mentioned the Church as the profession which my mother had suggested, but for which I did not conceive either my temper or my habits suitable.
"You are right, then, in abandoning the idea altogether," was the answer; "and yet I know no profession more capable of fulfilling all the objects of a vigorous mind. I am not now talking of mitres; they can fall to but few. I speak of the prospects which it opens to all; the power of exerting the largest influence for the highest purposes; the possession of fame without its emptiness, and the indulgence of knowledge without its vanity; energy turned to the most practical and lofty uses of man; and the full feast of an ambition superior to the tinsel of the world, and alike pure in its motives, and immeasurable in its rewards."