spirit of loyalty, a more generous
treatment of all who are defenceless, a more faithful holding together
among ourselves--weak and strong, favoured and luckless."

Miss Du Prel was silent for a moment. Her sympathy but not her hope had
been roused.

"I wish I could believe in your scheme of redemption," she said; "but,
alas! sacrifice has been the means of progress from the beginning of all
things, and so I fear it will be to the end."

"I don't know what it will be at the end," said the Professor, dryly;
"for the present, I oppose with the whole strength of my belief and my
conscience, the cowardly idea of surrendering individuals to the
ferocity of a jealous and angry power, in the hope of currying favour
for the rest. We might just as well set up national altars and sacrifice
victims, after the franker fashion of the ancients. Morally, the
principles are precisely the same."

"Scarcely; for _our_ object is to benefit humanity."

"And theirs. Poor humanity!" cried the Professor. "What crimes are we
not ready to commit in thy name!"

"That cannot be a crime which benefits mankind," argued Miss Du Prel.

"It is very certain that it cannot eventually benefit mankind, if it
_be_ a crime," he retorted.

"This sequence of ideas makes one dizzy!" exclaimed Hadria.

The Professor smiled. "Moreover," he added, "we know that society has
formed the conditions of existence for each of her members; the whole
material of his misfortune, if he be ill-born and ill-conditioned. Is
society then to turn and rend her unlucky child whose misery was her
own birthday gift? Shall we, who are only too ready, as it is, to
trample upon others, in our haste and greed--shall we be encouraged in
this savage selfishness by what dares to call itself science, to play
one another false, instead of standing, with united front, to the powers
of darkness, and scorning to betray our fellows, human or animal, in the
contemptible hope of gaining by the treachery? Ah! you may quote
authorities, wise and good, till you are hoarse!" cried the Professor,
with a burst of energy; "but they will not convince me that black is
white. I care not who may uphold the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice; it
is monstrous, it is dastardly, it is _damnable!_"

There are some sentences and some incidents that fix themselves, once
for all, in the memory, often without apparent reason, to remain as an
influence throughout life. In this fashion, the afternoon's discussi