bterfuge,
beneath which thy cowardice seeks to hide itself. And if there should
be something in it after all? No! no! it cannot be. I insist that it
cannot be! But yet, if there should be! Woe to thee if thy sins should
all have been registered above!--if they should be counted over to thee
this very night! Why creeps this shudder through my frame? To die!
Why does that word frighten me thus? To give an account to the Avenger,
there, above the stars! and if he should be just--the wails of orphans
and widows, of the oppressed, the tormented, ascending to his ears, and
he be just? Why have they been afflicted? And why have I been
permitted to trample upon them?

Enter PASTOR MOSER.

MOSER. Your lordship sent for me! I am surprised! The first time in
my life! Is it to scoff at religion, or does it begin to make you
tremble?

FRANCIS. I may scoff or I may tremble, according as you shall answer
me. Listen to me, Moser, I will prove that you are a fool, or wish to
make fools of others, and you shall answer me. Do you hear? At the
peril of your life you shall answer me.

MOSER. 'Tis a higher Being whom you summon before your tribunal. He
will answer you hereafter.

FRANCIS. I will be answered now, this instant, that I may not commit
the contemptible folly of calling upon the idol of the vulgar under the
pressure of suffering. I have often, in bumpers of Burgundy, tauntingly
pledged you in the toast, "There is no God!" Now I address myself to
you in earnest, and I tell you there is none? You shall oppose me with
all the weapons in your power; but with the breath of my lips I will
blow them away.

MOSER. 'Twere well that you could also blow away the thunder which will
alight upon your proud soul with ten thousand times ten thousand tons'
weight! That omniscient God, whom you--fool and miscreant--are denying
in the midst of his creation, needeth not to justify himself by the
mouth of dust. He is as great in your tyrannies as in the sweetest
smile of triumphant virtue.

FRANCIS. Uncommonly well said, parson. Thus I like you.

MOSER. I stand here as steward of a greater Master, and am addressing
one who, like myself, is a sinner--one whom I care not to please. I
must indeed be able to work miracles, to extort the acknowledgment from
your obdurate wickedness--but if your conviction is so firm, why have
you sent for me in the middle of the night?

FRANCIS. Because time hangs heavy on my hands, and the chess-