26 PROLEGOMENON. 



to wit: the man and his scheme of benevolence vs. some 

 institution of earth under the genius of selfishness and sin; 

 or, it might be, some consolidated power of darkness and 

 death, of other ages, of other worlds, vs. light and truth, 

 hope and mercy, progress and the soul. In connection 

 with which, as a totally unpardonable episode, it may be 

 remarked that, however interesting to the archaeologist the 

 history of the Middle Ages may be in the organic develop- 

 ment of the family of man as the unit or multiplex, conser- 

 vative or radical, progressive or retrospective, to meet the 

 Middle Ages, with its claws and scales, its tusks and bristles, 

 in the lap of the nineteenth century, with the warm, genial, 

 life-giving sun flashing beauty, fertility, and progress 

 through the hard old rind of the earth, (the arrow-marks 

 pointing forward !) is not so refreshing to the soul of the 

 man whose eifort and sympathies are with the present hour, 

 and whose hopes and aspirations are in the future. 



But it was the " previous discourse" to the forthcoming 

 story of the Mountain, and some account of the " Sanitarium," 

 that was being indited, and not a dissertation on the philo- 

 sophy of history, or even tragical glimpses into the biography 

 of obscure and insignificant personages, forever paltry and 

 pitiable, forever flat and mean, stale and unprofitable, the 

 mere record of earth-troubles, conflicts with evil spirits 

 and vulturous men, and all the wearisome details of that 

 same thrice painful, sober, and even ghastly, actual, but to 

 which the philosopher or hero cannot allude, and of which 

 much less complain, without signal loss of prestige and 

 divinity. 



It scarcely remains to be determined, now, that the 

 establishment of a Sanitarium on the summit of the 

 Alleghany Mountains is not an impossible dream, delusion, 

 or folly, but a glorious substance and reality, full of bless- 

 ings for suffering man. Can it be said to be premature as 

 a project, or insane as an idea? does it fill the needs of the 

 hour, endorsed by common sense? and is it to be furthered, 

 advanced, and published to the world, in the proportions of 



