ts of
force which we call Thought. We can see the engine move and we know what
law of nature it obeys in moving. But the brain is a more mysterious
structure, for the force which compels it to action we cannot analyze.
The superstitious ancients called this mystery the soul."

"And do you discard that belief?" I asked, trembling and excited to hear
such sacrilegious talk from youth so beautiful and pure.

"What our future is to be after dissolution no one knows," replied
Wauna, with the greatest calmness and unconcern. "A thousand theories
and systems of religion have risen and fallen in the history of the
human family, and become the superstitions of the past. The elements
that compose this body may construct the delicate beauty of a flower, or
the green robe that covers the bosom of Mother Earth, but we cannot
know."

"But that beautiful belief in a soul," I cried, in real anguish, "How
can you discard it? How sever the hope that after death, we are again
united to part no more? Those who have left us in the spring time of
life, the bloom on their young cheeks suddenly paled by the cold touch
of death, stand waiting to welcome us to an endless reunion."

"Alas, for your anguish, my friend," said Wauna, with pityng tenderness.
"Centuries ago _my_ people passed through that season of mental pain.
That beautiful visionary idea of a soul must fade, as youth and beauty
fade, never to return; for Nature nowhere teaches the existence of such
a thing. It was a belief born of that agony of longing for happiness
without alloy, which the children of earth in the long-ago ages hoped
for, but never knew. Their lot was so barren of beauty and happiness,
and the desire for it is, now and always has been, a strong trait of
human character. The conditions of society in those earlier ages
rendered it impossible to enjoy this life perfectly, and hope and
longing pictured an imaginary one for an imaginary part of the body
called the Soul. Progress and civilization have brought to us the ideal
heaven of the ancients, and we receive from Nature no evidence of any
other."

"But I do believe there is another," I declared. "And we ought to be
prepared for it."

Wauna smiled. "What better preparation could you desire, then, than good
works in this?" she asked.

"You should pray, and do penance for your sins," was my reply.

"Then," said Wauna, "we are doing the wisest penance every day. We are
studying, investigating, experimenting i