itself to another hell?  Father Riley was good enough to tell us last week of the state of unbaptised infants after death.  Will you please consider coldly the infinite, good God setting a difference for all eternity between two babies, because over the hairless pate of one a priest had sprinkled water and spoken words?  Can you not see that this is untrue because it is absurd to our God-given senses of humour and justice?  Do you not see that such a God, in the act of separating those children, taking into heaven the one that had had its little head wetted by a good man, and sending the reprobate into what Father Riley terms, ’in a wide sense, a state of damnation’—­”

Father Riley smiled upon him with winning sweetness.

“—­do you not see that such a God would be shamed off his throne and out of heaven by the pitying laugh that would go up—­even from sinners?

“You insist that the truth touching faith and morals is in your Bible, despite its historical inaccuracies.  But do you not see that you are losing influence with the world because this is not so—­because a higher standard of ethics than yours prevails out in the world—­a demand for a veritable fatherhood of God and a veritable brotherhood of man—­to replace the caricatures of those doctrines that Christianity submits.”

“Our young friend seems to think exceeding well of human nature,” chirped Father Riley.

“Yes,” rejoined Bernal.  “Isn’t it droll that this poor, fallen human nature, despised and reviled, ‘conceived in sin and born in iniquity,’ should at last call the Christian God and Saviour to account, weigh them by its own standard, find them wanting, and replace them with a greater God born of itself?  Is not that an eloquent proof of the living God that abides in us?”

“Has it ever occurred to you, young man, that human nature has its selfish moments?” asked the high-church rector—­between sips of claret and water.

“Has it ever occurred to you that human nature has any but selfish moments?” replied Bernal.  “If so, your impression was incorrect.”

“Really, Mr. Linford, have you not just been telling us how glorious is this nature of man—­”

“I know—­I will explain to you,” he went on, moving Father Riley to another indulgent smile by his willingness to instruct the gray-bearded Congregationalist who had interrupted.

“When I saw that there must be a hell for all so long as there is a hell for one—­even for Spencer—­I suddenly saw there was nothing in any man to merit the place—­unless it were the ignorance of immaturity.  For I saw that man by the very first law of his being can never have any but a selfish motive.  Here again practical psychology sustains me.  You cannot so much as raise your hand without an intention to promote your happiness—­nor are you less selfish if you give your all to the needy—­you are still equally doing that which promotes your happiness.