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The old man to whom he had been given in care, To Dobrizhoffer came one day and said, The trouble which our youth was thought to bear, With such indifference, hath deranged his head. He says that he is nightly visited. His Mother and his Sister come and say That he must give this message from the dead Not to defer his baptism, and delay A soul upon the earth which should no longer stay.

A dream the Jesuit deem'd it; a deceit Upon itself by feverish fancy wrought; A mere delusion which it were not meet To censure, lest the youth's distempered thought Might thereby be to farther error brought; But he himself its vanity would find,— They argued thus,—if it were noticed not. His baptism was in fitting time design'd The father said, and then dismiss'd it from his mind.