He never saw a fairy, but from time to time he heard snatches of harp music and a lulling voice. At all times he lived in hope and happiness—a state so strange to him that had it not been for the warrant of Robert Kirk’s treatise, he would have supposed himself out of his mind. His household battered on; Sabbaths recurred; his child had been born, a boy, and hastily baptized Benjamin, for there was doubt whether it would live. It lived: he had three children, a wife, a stipend, a God, and the companionship of fairies. It was to the fairies he preached, disregarding Lent to dwell on the wonders of Creation. It was the fairies his mind conversed with, consulting them which text he should draw from the folio Bible that lay always on his desk, which reading of a vexed passage he should follow; and relieved by their assurances that its meaning was quite otherwise and perfectly simple, as he himself had privately thought. They far excelled him in speculation, in subtlety of reasoning, but had their bounds and limits, like mortals. ‘They live much longer than wee; yet die at last, or at least vanish from that State. ‘Tis ane of their Tenets, that nothing perisheth, but (as the Sun and Year) every Thing goes in a Circle, lesser or greater, and is renewed and refreshed in its Revolutions.’ It was this passage that his uncle had particularly censured, declaring that Robert Kirk was no better than an apologist for Hindoos; but Gideon had used the substance of it in a sermon, as an illustration of God’s property of mercy, which even in Heaven refreshes the souls of the elect—at regular intervals, too, as the stars move in their courses. And he had looked toward his invisible congregation, hoping the allusion would please them. He was anxious to show his gratitude—except that he was no longer anxious about anything. So, for seven weeks, he lived in bliss.