Second thoughts are by no means best always nor even often.
Charity sometimes tries to induce, one to think better of such a person or such a situation than a first feeling shrinks from,--but it won't do for long: the man or the place will continue to be distasteful.

My spirit apprehends instinctively the right and the true; and through life I have relied on intuitions; which some have called a rashness, recommending colder cautions; but these latter have seldom paid their way.

A country parson was right in his diagnosis of Iscariot's character as that of "a low mean fellow;" and he judged reasonably that all the patient kindliness of One who strove to make such His "own familiar friend" was so much charity almost thrown away, except indeed as to spiritual improvement of the charitable.
* * * * * It is right that in a book of self-revelations, like this genuine autobiography, some special recognition should be made before its close of gratitude to the Great Giver of all good, and of the spiritual longings of His penitent.

These feelings I prefer to show after the author's poetic custom in verse.

Let the first be a trilogy of unpublished sonnets lately written on _What We Shall Be._ I.
"We--all and each--have faculties and powers Here undeveloped, lying deep within, Crush'd by the weight of circumstance and sin; Latent, as germs conceal their hidden flowers, Till some new clime, with genial suns and showers Give them the force consummate life to win: Even so we, poor prisoners of Time, Victims of others' evil and our own, Cannot expand in this tempestuous clime, But full of excellences in us sown, Must wait that better life, and there, full blown, In spiritual perfectness sublime The prizes of our nature we shall gain, Which now we struggle for in vain--in vain!" II.
"Who does not feel within him he could be Anything, everything, of great and good?
That, give him but the chance, he could and would Soar on the wings of triumph strong and free?
And think not this is vanity, for he, If one of Glory's heirs, is of the band 'I said that ye are gods!'-- on this we stand Through the eternal ages infinite, Growing like Christ in hope and love and light As grafted into Him: there shall we see, And know as we are known; no hindrance then Shall bind our wings, or shut our eyes or ears; Led upward, onward, through ten million years, We shall expand in spirit,--but still be Men." III.
"Each hath his specialty; we see in some Music or painting, eloquence or skill, With, or without, an effort of the will, As by spontaneous inspiration come Ev'n in this mingled crowd of good and ill, To make us hail a Wonder:--but Elsewhere Without or let or hindrance we shall use Forces neglected here, but nurtured there; Till all the powers of every classic Muse, Ninefold, may dwell in each--as each may choose: Since Heaven for creatures must have creature gifts, Not only love, religion, gratitude, But also light, and every force that lifts Man's spirit to the heights of Great and Good." For a second take my recent open protest against the pestilential atheism so rife in our midst:-- I.
"My Father! everpresent, everwise, and everkind,-- The Life that pulses at my heart, the Light within my mind,-- My Maker, Guardian, Guide, and God, my never-failing Friend, Who hitherto hast blest me, and wilt bless me to the end,-- How should I not acknowledge Thee in all my words and ways, And bring my doubts to Thee in prayer, the prayer that turns to praise?
How can I cease to trust Thee, who hast guided me so long, And been from earliest childhood to old age my strength and song?
II.
"My Father! Great Triunity! For Thou art One in Three, The mystery of mysteries, a threefold joy to me,-- What deep delight to dwell upon the philosophic plan Of Thy divine self-sacrifice in God becoming man, And taking on Thyself in Christ the sins and woes of all Redeemed to higher glory from the ruin of their fall, As humbled and enlightened and enlivened into love, By the Pure Spirit of sweet peace, the-heart-indwelling Dove! III.
"My Father, Abba, Father! For Thou callest me Thy child, As in Thy holy Jesus and Good Spirit reconciled,-- O Father, in this evil day when atheism is found Dropping its poison seeds about in all our fallow-ground, Shall I keep coward silence, and ungenerously forget The Friend that hitherto hath helped me--and shall help me yet?
Shall unbelief, all unabashed, proclaim that God is Not,-- Nor faith with honest zeal be quick this hideous lie to blot?
IV.
"Ho! Christian soldier,--to the front! and boldly speak aloud The dear old truths denied by yonder Sadducean crowd,-- That every inch and every instant we are guided well By Him who made, and loved, and loves us more than tongue can tell; That, though there be dread mysteries of cruelty and crime, And marvellous long-suffering patience with these wrongs of time, Still, wait a little longer, and we soon shall know the cause For every seeming error in the Ruler's righteous laws! V.
"A little longer, and our faith and hope and works of love Shall reap munificent reward in those blest orbs above, Where He (who being God of old became our brother here) Shall welcome us and speed us on' from glorious sphere to sphere, Until before His Father's throne the Spirit with the Son Shall give to every Christian then the crown his Lord hath won; And through the ages in all worlds our wondrous ransomed race Shall bless the Universal King of Providence and Grace!" For a third, my testimony as to the wonders that surround us: I have called this poem The Infinities.
I.
"Lift up your eyes to yon star-jewelled sky, Gaze on that firmament caverned on high,-- Marvellous universe, infinite space, Studded with suns in fixt order and place, Each with its system of planets unseen, Meshed in their orbits by comets between, Worlds that are vaster than mind may believe, Whirling more swiftly than thought can conceive, O ye immensities! Who shall declare The glory of God in His galaxies there?
II.
"Look too on this poor planet of ours, Torn by the storms of mysterious powers, Evil contending with good from its birth, Wrenching in battle the heartstrings of earth,-- Ah! what infinities circle us here, Strangeness and wonderment swathing the sphere! Providence ruleth with care most minute, Yet is fell cruelty torturing the mute, Infinite marvels of wrong and of right, Blessing and blasting each day and each night.
III.
"All things in mystery; riddles unread; Nothing but dimness of guesses instead; Only beginning, where none see the end, Nor where these infinite energies tend; Saving that chrysalis-creatures are we, Till we grow wings in that aeon-to-be! Everything infinite: Nature, and Art, The schemes of man's mind, and the throbs of his heart; Infinite cravings for better, and best, Tempered by infinite longings for rest.
IV.
"Then, as the telescope's miracle drew Infinite Heaven's vast worlds into view, So doth the microscope's marvel display Infinite atomies, wondrous as they! A mere drop of water, a bubble of air, Teems with perfections of littleness there; Infinite wisdom in exquisite works All but invisible everywhere lurks, While we confess as in great so in small, Infinite skill in the Maker of all.
V.
"And there be grander infinities still, Where, in Emmanuel, good has quench'd ill; Infinite humbleness, highest and first, Choosing the doom of the lowest and worst; Infinite pity, and patience,--how long?
Infinite justice, avenging all wrong, Infinite purity, wisdom, and skill, Bettering good through each effort of ill, Infinite beauty and infinite love, Shining around and beneath and above!" And let this simple hymn be the old man's last prayer, bridging over the long interval of well-nigh fourscore years between cradle and grave with a child's first piety:-- _Love and Life._ "'My son, give Me thine heart;' Yes, Abba, Father, yes! Perfect in goodness as Thou art, I will not give Thee less.
"But I am dark and dead, And need Thy grace to live; Father, on me Thy Spirit shed, To me that sunshine give! "Thus only can I say When Thou dost ask my love, I will return in earth's poor way Thy gift from heaven above.
"There is no good in me But droppeth from on high, Then quicken me with life from Thee, That I may never die.
"For if I am a son-- O grace beyond compare!-- A child of God, with Jesus one, In Him I stand an heir; "In Him I live and move, And only so can give An immortality of love, To Thee by whom I live.
"Then melt this heart of stone, And grant the heart of flesh, That all I am may be Thine own, Renewed to love afresh." About the much-vexed question of Eschatology and the final state of the dead, I have long since grown to the happy doctrine of Eternal Hope--ultimately for all; perhaps even siding with Burns, who (as the only logical way of eliminating evil) gives a chance to the "puir Deil:" albeit the path for some must be through the terrible Gehenna of fire to purify, and with few stripes or many to satisfy conscience and evoke character.