out after dinner, they seemed to be breaking into some wild scene from fairy-land. The lake lay in the moonlight like a vast magical mirror, whose outlines were lost mysteriously between the shade of the mountains bounding it, and the second and softer world of its own reflections. In the air there was a deep stillness, and the only sound audible was a sound of the distant water that was coming down from Lodore. All this impressed Leigh vividly; the more so because his companion when arrayed in her hat and boating-cloak looked certainly picturesque, and very nearly pretty, as the vague light subdued whatever was commonplace in her, and made her large striking eyes glance the brighter.

Mrs. Norham was quite conscious of the advantages of the situation. When they had rowed a little way from the shore, and had exchanged a few sentences as to the beauty of the night and of the scenery, she returned at once to the subject they had dropped at dinner.

'And so,' she began abruptly, 'you disapprove, do you, of Mr. Biggins, for expressing clearly and honestly his own conviction as to religion? I wish you would tell me why.'

· Well,' said Leigh, 'to go no farther, there seems to me to be a certain bad taste in sneering, for instance, at the practice of prayeras I have known Mr. Biggins do-to a young man whom he knew quite well to be a most devout and sensitive Christian.'

And do you say your prayers, Mr. Leigh?' said Mrs. Norham; and if you do, have they been, let me ask you, of much practical use to you?'

'One may think things good to do,' said Leigh, 'that, to one's own misfortune, one has failed to do oneself. Indeed, I often think that the people who have chosen the bad may be in the best of all positions for understanding the value of the good.'

'And is praying,' said Mrs. Norham sarcastically, a chief feature in your conception of good?'

"I suppose it is not in yours, Mrs. Norham. Do you never say prayers?'

i 'I sincerely hope I do not,' said Mrs. Norham. I have no spare energy that I should let it waste itself in a channel so unprofitable. Prayer is like a vast and constant leak in the conduit of human energies, through which the precious waters waste themselves, when they might be for the healing of the nations. A man's only rational prayer is right action; and the only actions that are right, are those that are social and functional. Man only lives that he may do his duty; and his only duty is towards his fellow men.'

And do we owe, then, no duty to ourselves?'

"None. In the conception that we can do so is the root of all selfishness and of all religion. The desire to serve God, and to purify self as self, are one and the same desire; and are equally a treason against the claims of our fellow men.'

What then?' said Leigh. So far as our own dispositions go, and our own private pleasures, have we no need to govern ourselves? Is the only question what we do? Does it matter nothing what we are?'

'Matter nothing!' said Mrs. Norham; it matters everything. What we do outwardly is the exact outcome of all that we are inwardly; and what Humanity is, is the exact outcome of what the individuals do. And thus there can be no thought, or word, or state of character, which has not for the eyes of science an external effect on the whole great organism—an effect for good or bad, for happiness or for misery.'

'But may not the practice of prayer,' said Leigh, 'put the soul in a better condition to make us work for others?'

Prayer, if you mean by it a cry for God's aid, inspired by a belief that such aid will be given us, unfits the soul for work, not fits it. But in that complex condition of mind that is commonly called prayerful, there is mixed often a quite different element. There is in it not a desire only, but a resolve and a meditation-a resolve to act, and a meditation on the end of action. And this sacred element we Agnostics cherish and value, not only as well as the Christians do, but far better. We only change it in one point. We give the end of action its true name; we direct the meditation to its true allegiance.'

"I know what you mean,' said Leigh. 6 You direct it to Humanity at large-to that great organism which is at present so sad and suffering, but which our own faithful endeavours shall bring some day to complete health and happiness. Yes, that is what you say; I of course know that. I have heard it a hundred times. But there is a gap somewhere. Here, you say, is a great process which every action of ours must either retard or further; but you say nothing of how our hearts are to be inflamed with the desire to further it, and how they are to find rest in the thought that it is. being furthered.'

'And how,' said Mrs. Norham, 'in the Christian world was the heart of the worldly believer to be turned towards his God? You may say by the fear of hell. But is the virtue worth much that is only a disguised cowardice? If, however, what we want is real virtue-the only thing that truly deserves the name-the Agnostic has as good a hope of arousing it as the Christian. As good, did I say? No better. For what the Christian appealed to was at best the higher selfishness. What the Agnostic appeals to is the higher sympathy. Sympathy a feeling for others is as much a part of that nature as sight is; and it is on that firm rock that the Agnostic builds his creed. Well, this simple love and feeling for those who are near to us has belonged to man in all ages; but now at last there is a new future before it. Science has shown to us as a

e

fact the organic unity of our race; and thus our whole race can become an object to us of the same solicitude that our family and our friends have always been; while the new conceptions of evolution and progress are like wind to the fire of our affections, and force it to kindle the vast material that is prepared for it all the present, and all the future. But this is not all. You seem to think that "to prick the sides of our intent" something like fear is needed; and you are right there. But the Agnostic has this too. The Agnostic has conscience, that severe and unfailing monitor, which is raised by the creed of evolution to a new dignity, and is set on a firmer foundation than any religion dreamed of. Conscience, for the Agnostic, is the voice of the whole past of humanity—it is the voice of the Ancient of Days-it is the voice of Man himself; and its sound goes farther than the thunders of Arabian Sinai, as it speaks everywhere with its million million whispers. There, if a Hell is. wanted, the Agnostic has its equivalent, with all the power of the deepest religious fear, and with none of its degradation. For when conscience stings you, you are not like a dumb ox in the hands of a capricious drover. You are your own true self, by an act of your own will guiding yourself. Love man, and fear your conscience. All the law is written in these two commandments. And to these by and by must be added a third sentence, that the perfect love of the one will cast out the fear of the other.'

'All this,' said Leigh, seems to me but a part of the Christian religion

Mrs. Norham interrupted him. It is a part, then,' she said, 'that is far greater than the whole. But in what you say there is beyond doubt a truth. To direct our human impulses, we must first understand their meaning; and Christianity was an attempt at the logic of human nature. In great measure it was a false logic, and it thus misled men, instead of leading them. But in great measure it was a true logic also. It cultivated the right emotions, though it directed them to a wrong object; and for this reason so much of its language can be still retained by us. Think now of the life of Jesus. Jesus said that he was one with his father. Let us interpret that text by the light of true science; let us say that his life was one with the life of his father Man: and then indeed his words and his example appeal to all of us, with a strange pleading force that I know nowhere else. "Whoso loveth father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me.' Is it not that, that the great cause is for ever saying to each of us? And when we have done a good and a useful deed, or a bad, a hurtful and a selfish one, does not the whole social organism say this to us, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me"?"

Mrs. Norham as she had gone on talking had become less and less self-conscious, and she had become more and more swayed by the

feeling of the moment. Leigh was resting on his oars, watching his companion. He could see her breathing quickly; he saw too, as she raised her eyes to the stars, that there was a certain moisture in them. If a man,' she said, as though absorbed in her own meditation, 'take not up his cross, and follow not after me, he is not worthy of me.' Then she again was silent.

'Tell me,' said Leigh presently, 'why, if for your school the end of life be happiness, do you so closely connect the pursuit of that end with sorrow?'

'Sorrow in itself,' she said, is not an end. No-we cannot maintain that it has any value in itself, as the Christian ascetics do. In itself we are forced to believe it an evil; for our one great hope is for the time when man shall have conquered it. Yes, and in days to come man shall conquer it; and there shall be no more sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away. But,' she went on, changing her position, and becoming more collected, at present, sorrow is still with us, and we must often suffer it now if we desire to conquer it for the future. But even at present life is not made up of sorrow. If we will but live it rightly, it becomes a glad and noble thing, and its shadows, when they cross it, do but add to its brightness. The Christian Church gave it a fictitious darkness, by casting a pale unearthly light upon it, which took the colour out of its fairest objects, and blotched and confused its surface with countless unearthly shadows. But the day-star of science and reason is what we shall henceforth walk by; and under it life's whole aspect will change. We shall none of us be able to say then that we are obliged to live in vain. Nor need we, as you will perhaps imagine, be always living at high-pressure, to come up to the true standard. The exact reverse is true. To make us happy, our nature has two great needs. Instinct makes us wish to be doing something, whether work or play. Reason makes us wish that what we do shall have use and purpose. For those, then, who realise that all the labour of each of us can be made to subserve the well-being and the progress of society, there will be always something to do, and always a satisfying and inspiring reason for doing it. And thus a life's labour may become a life's relaxation as well. We shall partake, in their passage, of the benefits we are conferring on others. Work will come to have all the attraction of play; and the whole duty of man will then be rightly named, not labour, but the same thing metamorphosed-functional amusement. Try to understand this view. What hinders you?'

Do you think,' said Leigh, 'that this vague sense that we are serving Humanity by right action is enough to rouse us to doing what is right, and avoiding what is wrong? Does not the power that such an end has over us depend very largely on our own powers of imagination? and, though it may be strong with those who are

exceptionally imaginative, will it not be almost imperceptible with the common run of men?'

"If,' said Mrs. Norham, 'men were not naturally active animals, if their nature did not require them to energise somehow, if what they had to be roused from were a mere state of torpor, what you say might have force. But the case is quite otherwise. The knowledge of the right end is desired that it may direct action, not that it may initiate action; although by the restful faith that we are working towards the greatest of all ends our activity will be at once sustained and stimulated. You, Mr. Leigh, of all people should understand what I mean here. Your own amusement has probably been your God hitherto; and you have doubtless spared no pains in amusing yourself. Is not that so?'

'I fear it is,' said Leigh.

"Well,' Mrs. Norham went on, and you have done, I suppose, the usual things you have danced, flirted, shot, played cards, driven, and hunted. I conclude, however, you did not shoot because you were in want of food, or play cards because you were in want of money, or drive because you wanted to travel, or hunt because you wanted to possess a fox's body. And yet you could not have cared to simply pop your gun off in the air, or play cards for no stake whatever, or go for a drive without an object, or gallop after dogs who had themselves nothing to run after. Consider, then, what amusement is—that thing you have so enthusiastically lived for. It consists in finding an object for energies which are already existing, but which without that object would be unable to energise pleasurably. Think then-if the pursuit of a fox can give such zest and eagerness to hunting, making the early rising, the danger and the weariness so delightful, may not the sense that you are promoting the good and the progress of mankind give a far greater zest to the useful activity of a lifetime?'

Leigh was silent for some moments. Perhaps you are right,' he said at last. Yes, it certainly is a man's great want to be doing something, whether it be work, pleasure, or distraction. But yet what you say covers but a small part of what we once felt that life ought to be.'

'Do not brood,' said Mrs. Norham, on what you once felt. Do not be testing the true system by its parallelism with a false one. I know,' she went on, 'how one is tempted to nurse such regrets. I have myself felt them, for I was once a Christian myself; and when with my powers of intellect I was forced to break away from my father's faith, and ridicule for his own benefit all that he held most sacred, the pain caused me was probably far greater than anything that you, in your young life, have experienced."

And you too,' said Leigh,' were a Christian once, then??

"I was,' said Mrs. Norham; and so intense and so earnest were