hem, and
not suffer his worship to fall into disrepute.'

'Really, Robert,' said his father, 'I am afraid to think what you
will come to. You will end in denying there is a God at all. You don't
believe in hell, and now you justify suicide. Really--I must say--to say
the least of it--I have not been accustomed to hear such things.'

The poor old man looked feebly righteous at his wicked son. I verily
believe he was concerned for his eternal fate. Falconer gave a pleased
glance at me, and for a moment said nothing. Then he began, with a kind
of logical composure:

'In the first place, father, I do not believe in such a God as some
people say they believe in. Their God is but an idol of the heathen,
modified with a few Christian qualities. For hell, I don't believe there
is any escape from it but by leaving hellish things behind. For suicide,
I do not believe it is wicked because it hurts yourself, but I do
believe it is very wicked. I only want to put it on its own right
footing.'

'And pray what do you consider its right footing?'

'My dear father, I recognize no duty as owing to a man's self. There is
and can be no such thing. I am and can be under no obligation to myself.
The whole thing is a fiction, and of evil invention. It comes from the
upper circles of the hell of selfishness. Or, perhaps, it may with some
be merely a form of metaphysical mistake; but an untruth it is. Then for
the duty we do owe to other people: how can we expect the men or women
who have found life to end, as it seems to them, in a dunghill of
misery--how can we expect such to understand any obligation to live for
the sake of the general others, to no individual of whom, possibly, do
they bear an endurable relation? What remains?--The grandest, noblest
duty from which all other duty springs: the duty to the possible God.
Mind, I say possible God, for I judge it the first of my duties towards
my neighbour to regard his duty from his position, not from mine.'

'But,' said I, 'how would you bring that duty to bear on the mind of a
suicide?'

'I think some of the tempted could understand it, though I fear not
one of those could who judge them hardly, and talk sententiously of the
wrong done to a society which has done next to nothing for her, by the
poor, starved, refused, husband-tortured wretch perhaps, who hurries at
last to the might of the filthy flowing river which, the one thread
of hope in the web of despair, crawls through the cit