To the minister he replied that he had been learning a good deal of late, and among other things that the casting away of superstition did not necessarily do much for the development of the moral nature; in consequence of which discovery, he did not feel bound as before to propagate the negative portions of his creed.  If its denials were true, he no longer believed them powerful for good; and merely as facts he did not see that a man was required to disseminate them.  Even here, however, his opinion must go for little, seeing he had ceased to care much for any thing, true or false.  Life was no longer of any value to him, except indeed he could be of service to Amanda.  Mr. Drake might be assured she was the last person on whom he would wish to bring to bear any of the opinions so objectionable in his eyes.  He would make him the most comprehensive promise to that effect.  Would Mr. Drake allow him to say one thing more?—­He was heartily ashamed of his past history; and if there was one thing to make him wish there were a God—­of which he saw no chance—­it was that he might beg of Him the power to make up for the wrongs he had done, even if it should require an eternity of atonement.  Until he could hope for that, he must sincerely hold that his was the better belief, as well as the likelier—­namely, that the wronger and the wronged went into darkness, friendly with oblivion, joy and sorrow alike forgotten, there to bid adieu both to reproach and self-contempt.  For himself he had no desire after prolonged existence.  Why should he desire to live a day, not to say forever—­worth nothing to himself, or to any one?  If there were a God, he would rather entreat Him, and that he would do humbly enough, to unmake him again.  Certainly, if there were a God, He had not done over well by His creatures, making them so ignorant and feeble that they could not fail to fall.  Would Mr. Drake have made his Amanda so?

When Wingfold read the letter of which I have thus given the substance—­it was not until a long time after, in Polwarth’s room—­he folded it softly together and said: 

“When he wrote that letter, Paul Faber was already becoming not merely a man to love, but a man to revere.”  After a pause he added, “But what a world it would be, filled with contented men, all capable of doing the things for which they would despise themselves.”

It was some time before the minister was able to answer the letter except by sending Amanda at once to the doctor with a message of kind regards and thanks.  But his inability to reply was quite as much from the letter’s giving him so much to think of first, as from his weakness and fever.  For he saw that to preach, as it was commonly understood, the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins to such a man, would be useless:  he would rather believe in a God who would punish them, than in One who would pass them by.  To be told he was forgiven, would but rouse in him contemptuous indignation.  “What