de me. It was a quarter to one. I sat down
again, poured out more whisky and lit a fresh cigar. I left all the
lights in the room shining. I was determined to drag myself back to the
commonplace and to cheerfulness.

I took a book from the table beside me. It was evidently a book which
Ascher had been reading. A thin ivory blade lay between the pages,
marking the place he had reached. The book was a prophetic forecast
of the State of the future, a record of one of those dreams of better,
calmer times, which haunt the spirits of brave and good men, to which
cowards turn when they are made faint by the contemplation of present
evil things. I read a page or two in one part of the book and a page or
two in another. I read in one place a whole chapter. I discerned in the
author an underlying faith in the natural goodness of man. He believed,
his whole argument was based on the belief, that all men, but especially
common men, the manual workers, would gladly turn away from greed
and lust and envy, would live in beauty and peace, naturally, without
effort, if only they were set free from the pressure of want and the
threat of hunger. The evil which troubles us, so this dreamer seemed
to hold, is not in ourselves or of our nature. It is the result of the
conditions in which we live, conditions created by our mistakes, not by
our vices. I wondered if Ascher, with his wide knowledge of the world,
believed in such a creed or even cherished a hope that it might be true.
Do men, in fact, become saints straightway when their bellies are full?

It is strange how childish memories awaken in us suddenly. As I laid
down Ascher's book there came to me a picture of a scene in my old home.
We were at prayers in the dining-room. My father sat at a little table
with a great heavy Bible before him. Ranged along the wall in front of
him was the long line of servants, the butler a little apart from
the others as befitted the chief of the staff. My governess and I
sat together in a corner near the fire. My father read, in a flat,
unemotional voice, read words which he absolutely believed to be the
words of God. "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of
God."

Well, that is a different creed. To me it seems more consonant with the
facts of life. Man as he is can neither enter into nor create a great
society nor enjoy peace which comes of love. Hitherto the new birth of
the Spirit, which bloweth where it listeth, has been for a few