life, as a preparation for his higher and better destiny.  The cultured, the scholarly, the ultra-refined, may live well and uprightly by their ’moral sense,’—­if they so choose, provided they have some great ideal to measure themselves by,—­but even these, without faith in God, may sometimes slip, and fall into deeper depths of ruin than they dreamed of, when self-centred on those heights of virtue where they fancied themselves exempt from danger.”

He paused,—­there was a curious stillness in the room,—­many eyes were lowered, and M. le Duc’s composure was evidently not quite so absolute as usual.

“Taken at its best”—­he continued—­“the world alone is certainly not worth fighting for;—­we see the fact exemplified every day in the cases of those who, surrounded by all that a fair fortune can bestow upon them, deliberately hurl themselves out of existence by their own free will and act,—­indeed, suicide is a very general accompaniment of Agnosticism.  And self-slaughter, though it may be called madness, is far more often the result of intellectual misery.”

“Of course, too much learning breeds brain disease”—­remarked Dr. Mudley sententiously—­“but only in weak subjects,—­and in my opinion the weak are better out of the world.  We’ve no room for them nowadays.”

“You say truly, sir,”—­replied Alwyn—­“we have no room for them, and no patience!  They show themselves feeble, and forthwith the strong oppress them;—­they can hope for little comfort here, and less help.  It is well, therefore, that some of these ‘weak’ should still believe in God, since they can certainly pin no faith on the justice of their fellow-man!  But I cannot agree with you that much learning breeds brain disease.  Provided the learning be accompanied by a belief in the Supreme Wisdom,—­provided every step of study be taken upward toward that Source of all Knowledge,—­one cannot learn too much, since hope increases with discernment, and on such food the brain grows stronger, healthier, and more capable of high effort.  But dispense with the Spirit of the Whole, and every movement, though it seem forward, is in truth backward;—­study involves bewilderment,—­science becomes a reeling infinitude of atoms, madly whirling together for no purpose save death, or, at the best, incessant Change, in which mortal life is counted as nothing:—­and Nature frowns at us, a vast Question, to which there is no Answer,—­an incomprehensible Force, against which wretched Man, gifted with all manner of splendid and Godlike capacities, battles forever and forever in vain!  This is the terrible material lesson you would have us learn to-day, the lesson that maddens pupil and teacher alike, and has not a glimmer of consolation to offer to any living soul!  What a howling wilderness this world would be if given over entirely to Materialism!—­Scarce a line of division could be drawn between men and the brute beasts of the field!  I consider,—­though