during the course of his former despondency, he imagined he should never attain.
In pursuing the train of his awakened meditation, and passing from thought to thought, Douglas took a wider range, entering into a nice definition, in which he distinctly separated the natural propensities and blind instinct which rule the animal creation, from that high prerogative of reason and of liberty with which man is so eminently and nobly gifted. These ideas, happily, prepared his mind to acknowledge and bless the infinite mercy of an overruling Providence.
Thus, in progression, as from shade to light, his understanding became more illumined, for it had risen to the reception and comprehension of themes such as manifested that he was restored to that order in the link of being from which he had unhappily deviated, and that his change of principles was as complete as it was sincere. By the frequent recurrence of such contemplations, Douglas gradually raised himself from the depth of grief, and vowed a solemn protestation against every criminal indulgence.
Such were the first fruits of his awakened conscience. His mortal part was a prey to the languor of a long convalescence; but by the exercise of his mental powers the virtues which, in after
