ing, 'I am called,
but my wife is not,' much to the poor woman's disquiet in this world,
if not to the hazard of her happiness in the next."

"The old man puzzles me sadly at times," said Lady Mabel; "and he has
at hand many a text to sustain his dogmas."

"It is a pity," said L'Isle, "that he will not bear in mind those that
bid us 'Judge not that ye be not judged;' 'Let him that thinketh he
standeth, take heed lest he fall; 'Unto whomsoever much is given, of
him shall much be required;' and many others of the same tenor."

"Pray go on," said Lady Mabel, "and provide me with a refutation of
Moodie's theology of destiny: not that I hope to silence him, for
controversy is to him the breath of life."

Now L'Isle had acquired many things laboriously, but he had gotten his
training in divinity somewhat incidentally, and hesitated, as well he
might, to undertake the task imposed. But spurred on by the deference
she showed to his opinions, he eagerly sought to satisfy, yet not
mislead her. "Moodie is the type of a class," he said, "who are the
most wilful men in the world, yet are even inculcating that man has no
will of his own, but is the play thing of fate. Fatalism, indeed, is
no modern invention, being as old as humanity itself, perhaps,
older. We find it as strongly inculcated by the Greek tragic poet, as
by the modern Calvinist. But the peculiar colors in which we see it
dressed, are derived from the revolt of men's minds against the Romish
doctrine as to good works. Among these, penance, fasting, alms,
pilgrimages, bounty to the church and its servants, come first. This
leads to the keeping of a debt and credit account with heaven; and to
the saints is attributed the power of buying up a stock of works of
supererogation, by which they acquire a mediatory power in themselves.
Human reason has been likened to a drunken clown, who if you help him
up on one side of his horse, falls over on the other. To deter men
from the presumptuous sin of attributing merit to their actions, the
reformers, and also individuals and even orders in the church, have
labored to prove that man acts only in obedience to preordained
decree, and can of himself do nothing good; yet their logic charges
him freely with the _guilt_ of sinning by necessity. I cannot for the
life of me distinguish between fatalism and predestination. Either
binds us with the same chain of necessity, in thought, word and deed,
from the cradle to the grave. To escap