ising, as so hopeful a view of some matter or other?'

'Honestly--if you will neither betray me to your son and daughter,
nor consider me as having in anywise committed myself--it was Paul of
Tarsus's notion of the history and destinies of our stiff-necked nation.
See what your daughter has persuaded me into reading!' And he held up a
manuscript of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

'It is execrable Greek. But it is sound philosophy, I cannot deny. He
knows Plato better than all the ladies and gentlemen in Alexandria put
together, if my opinion on the point be worth having.'

'I am a plain soldier, and no judge on that point, sir. He may or may
not know Plato; but I am right sure that he knows God.'

'Not too fast,' said Raphael with a smile. 'You do not know, perhaps,
that I have spent the last ten years of my life among men who professed
the same knowledge?'

'Augustine, too, spent the best ten years of his life among such; and
yet he is now combating the very errors which he once taught.'

'Having found, he fancies, something better!'

'Having found it, most truly. But you must talk to him yourself, and
argue the matter over, with one who can argue. To me such questions are
an unknown land.'

'Well.... Perhaps I may be tempted to do even that. At least a
thoroughly converted philosopher--for poor dear Synesius is half heathen
still, I often fancy, and hankers after the wisdom of the Egyptian--will
be a curious sight; and to talk with so famous and so learned a man
would always be a pleasure; but to argue with him, or any other human
being, none whatsoever.'

'Why, then?'

'My dear sir, I am sick of syllogisms, and probabilities, and pros and
contras. What do I care if, on weighing both sides, the nineteen pounds
weight of questionable arguments against, are overbalanced by the twenty
pounds weight of equally questionable arguments for? Do you not see that
my belief of the victorious proposition will be proportioned to the one
over-balancing pound only, while the whole other nineteen will go for
nothing?'

'I really do not.'

'Happy are you, then. I do, from many a sad experience. No, my worthy
sir. I want a faith past arguments; one which, whether I can prove it
or not to the satisfaction of the lawyers, I believe to my own
satisfaction, and act on it as undoubtingly and unreasoningly as I
do upon my own newly-rediscovered personal identity. I don't want to
possess a faith. I want a faith which will possess