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CHAPTER VIII. 



MILLER AT TWENTY-SIX LETTER TO ROSS THE BLESSING OF 

 A TRUE FRIEND ROMANCE THE SHADOW OF RELIGION- 

 FORMER AND PRESENT VIEWS OF RELIGION FREE-THINK- 

 ERS WHO CANNOT THINK AT ALL CHRISTIAN THE HIGH- 

 EST STYLE OF MAN PROJECT OF GOING TO INVERNESS 

 SCHEMES OF SELF-CULTURE. 



HUGH MILLER, then, as we meet him on the 

 threshold of his twenty-sixth summer, has passed 

 through the stages of boyhood and youth, with their 

 changes of mood and development of faculty, and ac- 

 quired that fundamental type of character which he 

 subsequently retained. Steadily prosecuting the enter- 

 prise of self-culture, he is animated by the purest spirit- 

 ual ambition, and experiences, in faculties invigorated 

 and knowledge increased, that deep joy which is the 

 student's reward. He has derived, it is scarce necessary 

 to say, inestimable advantage from the completion of 

 that religious process which had long been going on in 

 his mind. The event which he would have called his con- 

 version, and pronounced of transcendent importance in 

 relation to all other occurrences in his life, has taken 

 place. He knows what he believes. The atmosphere 

 of his soul is clear and calm, and the unfathomable 

 azure of heaven touches with softening radiance all its 

 clouds. Placid resolution, energy peacefully fronting 



