t others of greater capacity."

"But, Colonel," I protested, "if the criminals were too bold and
powerful to be taken into custody, of what use are the prisons! And how
are they crowded?"

He fixed upon me a look that I could not fail to interpret as expressing
a doubt of my sanity. "What?" he said, "is it possible that the modern
Penology is unknown to you? Do you suppose we practise the antiquated
and ineffective method of shutting up the rascals? Sir, the growth of
the criminal element has, as I said, compelled the erection of more and
larger prisons. We have enough to hold comfortably all the honest men
and women of the State. Within these protecting walls they carry on all
the necessary vocations of life excepting commerce. That is necessarily
in the hands of the rogues as before."

"Venerated representative of Reform," I exclaimed, wringing his hand
with effusion, "you are Knowledge, you are History, you are the Higher
Education! We must talk further. Come, let us enter this benign edifice;
you shall show me your dominion and instruct me in the rules. You shall
propose me as an inmate."

I walked rapidly to the gate. When challenged by the sentinel, I
turned to summon my instructor. He was nowhere visible: desolate and
forbidding, as about the broken statue of Ozymandias,

"The lone and level sands stretched far away."

RELIGION

I.

This is my ultimate and determining test of right--"What, in the
circumstances, would Christ have done?"--the Christ of the New
Testament, not the Christ of the commentators, theologians, priests
and parsons. The test is perhaps not infallible, but it is exceedingly
simple and gives as good practical results as any. I am not a Christian,
but so far as I know, the best and truest and sweetest character in
literature, is next to Buddha, Jesus Christ. He taught nothing new in
goodness, for all goodness was ages old before he came; but with an
almost infallible intuition he applied to life and conduct the entire
law of righteousness. He was a lightning moral calculator: to his
luminous intelligence the statement of the problem carried the
solution--he could not hesitate, he seldom erred. That upon his deeds
and words was founded a religion which in a debased form persists and
even spreads to this day is mere attestation of his marvelous gift:
adoration is a primitive mode of recognition.

It seems a pity that this wonderful man had not a longer life under more