L. No, May, not a bit of it right is right, and wrong is wrong.  It is only the fool who does wrong, and says he “did it for the best.”  And if there’s one sort of person in the world that the Bible speaks harder of than another, it is fools.  Their particular and chief way of saying “There is no God” is this of declaring that whatever their “public opinion” may be is right and that God’s opinion is of no consequence.

May.  But surely nobody can always know what is right?

L. Yes, you always can, for to-day; and if you do what you see of it to-day, you will see more of it, and more clearly, to-morrow.  Here for instance, you children are at school, and have to learn French, and arithmetic, and music, and several other such things.  That is your “right” for the present; the “right” for us, your teachers, is to see that you learn as much as you can, without spoiling your dinner, your sleep, or your play; and that what you do learn, you learn well.  You all know when you learn with a will, and when you dawdle.  There’s no doubt of conscience about that, I suppose?

Violet.  No; but if one wants to read an amusing book, instead of learning one’s lesson?

L. You don’t call that a “question,” seriously, Violet?  You are then merely deciding whether you will resolutely do wrong or not.

Mary.  But, in after life, how many fearful difficulties may arise, however one tries to know or to do what is right!

L. You are much too sensible a girl, Mary, to have felt that, whatever you may have seen.  A great many of young ladies’ difficulties arise from their falling in love with a wrong person; but they have no business to let themselves fall in love, till they know he is the right one.

Dora.  How many thousands ought he to have a year?

L. (disdaining reply).  There are, of course, certain crises of fortune when one has to take care of oneself, and mind shrewdly what one is about.  There is never any real doubt about the path, but you may have to walk very slowly.

Mary.  And if one is forced to do a wrong thing by some one who has authority over you?

L. My dear, no one can be forced to do a wrong thing, for the guilt is in the will:  but you may any day be forced to do a fatal thing, as you might be forced to take poison; the remarkable law of nature in such cases being, that it is always unfortunate you who are poisoned, and not the person who gives you the dose.  It is a very strange law, but it is a law.  Nature merely sees to the carrying out of the normal operation of arsenic.  She never troubles herself to ask who gave it you.  So also you may be starved to death, morally as well as physically, by other people’s faults.  You are, on the whole, very good children sitting here to-day; do you think that your goodness comes all by your own contriving? or that you are gentle and kind because your dispositions are naturally more