ng hundreds of men to atheism, it is enormously increasing the
demand for all my father's books, and already even in these few months
it has doubled the sale of the 'Idol-Breakers.' In old times that would
have been my consolation. Oh! It is heart-breaking to see how religious
people injure their own cause. Surely they might have learned by this
time that punishment for opinion is never right, that it brings only
bitterness, and misery, and more error! How is one to believe that
this is right that God means all this bigotry and injustice to go on
producing evil?"

"Surely it will teach the sharp lesson that all pain teaches," said
Brian. "We Christians have broken His order, have lost the true idea of
brotherly love, and from this arises pain and evil, which at last, when
it touches our own selfish natures, will rouse us, wake us up
sharply, drive us back of necessity to the true Christ-following. Then
persecution and injustice will die. But we are so terribly asleep that
the evil must grow desperate before we become conscious of it. It seems
to me that bigotry has at least one mortal foe, though. You are always
here; you must show them by your life what the Father is THAT is being a
Christian!"

"I know," said Erica, a look of almost passionate longing dawning in her
eyes. "Oh! What a thing it is to be crammed full of faults that hinder
one from serving! And all these worries do try one's temper fearfully.
If they had but a Donovan to live with them now! But, as for me, I can't
do much, except love them."

Brian loved her too truly to speak words of praise and commendation at
such a time.

"Is not the love the crux of the whole?" he said quietly.

"I suppose it is," said Erica, pushing back her hair from her forehead
in the way she always did when anything perplexed her. "But just at
present my life is a sort of fugue on Browning's line

'How very hard it is to be a Christian?'

Sometimes I can't help laughing to think that there was a time when I
thought the teaching of Christ unpractical! Do you mind ringing the bell
for me; the others will be in directly, and will be glad of tea after
that headachy place."

"Is there nothing else I can do for you?" asked Brian.

"Yes, one thing more help me to remember the levers of the second order.
It's my physiology class tonight, and I feel, as Tom would express it,
like a 'boiled owl.'"

"Let me take the class for you."

"Oh, no, thank you," she replied. "I w