eemed to have
swept suddenly round the silver planet in companionship with a light
mist from the sea,--a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and
covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew. A few fleecy
clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of
the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.

"It will soon be morning,"--thought Helmsley--"The sun will rise in its
same old glorious way--with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it
has made from the beginning. The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the
building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of
Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of Caesar, the crucifixion
of Christ,--the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or
horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and
fruitfulness, itself indifferent as to what becomes of the atoms
germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed
whether a man dies or lives--neither does God!"

Yet with this idea came a sudden revulsion. Surely in the history of
human events, there was ample proof that God, or the invisible Power we
call by that name, did care? Crime was, and is, always followed by
punishment, sooner or later. Who ordained,--who ordains that this shall
be? Who is it that distinguishes between Right and Wrong, and adjusts
the balance accordingly? Not Man,--for Man in a barbarous state is often
incapable of understanding moral law, till he is trained to it by the
evolution of his being and the ever-progressive working of the unseen
spiritual forces. And the first process of his evolution is the
awakening of conscience, and the struggle to rise from his mere Self to
a higher ideal of life,--from material needs to intellectual
development. Why is he thus invariably moved towards this higher ideal?
If the instinct were a mistaken one, foredoomed to disappointment, it
would not be allowed to exist. Nature does not endow us with any sense
of which we do not stand in need, or any attribute which is useless to
us in the shaping and unfolding of our destinies. True it is that we see
many a man and woman who appear to have no souls, but we dare not infer
from these exceptions that the soul does not exist. Soulless beings
simply have no need of spirituality, just as the night-owl has no need
of the sun,--they are bodies merely, and as bodies perish. As the angel
said to the prophet Esdras:--"The Most H