CHAPTER XXV.
Doubts--Wise King of Jerusalem--Let Me See--A Thousand Years--Nothing New--The Crowd--The Hymn--Faith--Charles Wesley--There He Stood--Farewell, Brother--Death--Sun, Moon, and Stars--Wind on the Heath.
There was one question which I was continually asking myself at this period, and which has more than once met the eyes of the reader who has followed me through the last chapter.

"What is truth ?" I had involved myself imperceptibly in a dreary labyrinth of doubt, and, whichever way I turned, no reasonable prospect of extricating myself appeared.

The means by which I had brought myself into this situation may be very briefly told; I had inquired into many matters, in order that I might become wise, and I had read and pondered over the words of the wise, so called, till I had made myself master of the sum of human wisdom; namely, that everything is enigmatical and that man is an enigma to himself; thence the cry of "What is truth ?" I had ceased to believe in the truth of that in which I had hitherto trusted, and yet could find nothing in which I could put any fixed or deliberate belief.

I was, indeed, in a labyrinth! In what did I not doubt?
With respect to crime and virtue I was in doubt; I doubted that the one was blameable and the other praiseworthy.
Are not all things subjected to the law of necessity?
Assuredly; time and chance govern all things: yet how can this be?
alas! Then there was myself; for what was I born?
Are not all things born to be forgotten?
That's incomprehensible: yet is it not so?
Those butterflies fall and are forgotten.

In what is man better than a butterfly?
All then is born to be forgotten.