s you, if
you take your stand in the main thoroughfare of the great city
over the hills yonder? Watch them; one is drunk, another is linked
arm in arm with his paramour, a third is handcuffed, and you can
see by the conduct of him who follows that he is as reckless of
life as though the years were for ever. Why these? Ask science,
and it answers _election_--the election of birth and circumstance.
Ask Calvinism, and it, too, answers election--the election of
decrees.'

'But science does not do away with will, Mr. Morell.'

'Well, then, it teaches its impotence, and that is the same thing.
It bases will on organization, and traces conduct to material
sources. Huxley tells us the salvation of a child is to be born
with a sound digestion, and Calvinism says the salvation of a
child is to be born under the election of grace. Logically, the
basis of both systems is the same; the sources of life differ,
that is all. One traces from matter, the other from mind--from the
mind and will of the Eternal.'

'But science fixes it for earth only--you fix it for eternity,'
suggestively hinted the younger man.

'Yes, you are right, Mr. Penrose; we do.'

'Then a man is lost because he cannot be saved, and punished for
things over which he had no control?'

'Ask science,' was the curt reply.

'Well, Mr. Morell, I will ask science, and science will yield
hope. Science says, take a hundred men and a hundred women, and
let them live on a fruitful island and multiply, and in four
generations you will have an improved stock--a stock freer from
atavism, hysteria, anomalies, and insanities. Science holds out
hope; you don't. You say God's will and decrees are eternal, and
what they were a thousand ages since they will be a thousand ages
to come. Science does eventually point to a new heaven and new
earth, but Calvinism throws no light across the gloom.'

The old man quietly shifted his ground by asking his opponent if
he ever asked himself why he did, and why he did not, do certain
things.

'I suppose the reason is because of my choice, is it not?'

'And what governs choice--or, if you like, will?'

'I do, myself.'

'Who are you, and what part of you governs it? Will cannot govern
Will, can it? And can you divorce will from personality?'

'Tennyson answers your question, Mr. Morell.

'"Our wills are ours, we know not how,"

that is the mystery of existence.

'"Our wills are ours, to make them Thine,"

that is th