possibly I am only one among many of widely differing opinion,—­that if you take the hope of an after-joy and blessedness away from the weary, perpetually toiling Million, you destroy at one wanton blow their best, purest, and noblest aspirations.  As for the Christian Religion, I cannot believe that so grand and holy a Symbol is perishing among us,—­we have a monarch whose title is ’Defender of the Faith,’—­we live in an age of civilization which is primarily the result of that faith,—­and if, as this gentleman assures me,” —­and he made a slight, courteous inclination toward his opposite neighbor—­“Christianity is exploded,—­then certainly the greatness of this hitherto great nation is exploding with it!  But I do not think that because a few skeptics uplift their wailing ’All is vanity’ from their self-created desert of Agnosticism, therefore the majority of men and women are turning renegades from the simplest, most humane, most unselfish Creed that ever the world has known.  It may be so,—­but, at present, I prefer to trust in the higher spiritual instincts of man at his best, rather than accept the testimony of the lesser Unbelieving against the greater Many, whose strength, comfort, patience, and endurance, if these virtues come not from God, come not at all.”

His forcible, incisive manner of speaking, together with his perfect equanimity and concise clearness of argument, had an evident effect on those who listened.  Here was no rampant fanatic for particular forms of doctrine or pietism,—­here was a man who stated his opinions calmly, frankly, and with an absolute setting-forth of facts which could scarcely be denied,—­a man, who firmly grounded himself, made no attempt to force any one’s belief, but who simply took a large view of the whole, and saw, as it were in a glance, what the world might become without faith in a Divine Cause and Principle of Creation.  And once grant this Divine Cause and Principle to be actually existent, then all other divine and spiritual things become possible, no matter how impossible they seem to dull mortal comprehension.

A brief pause followed his words,—­a pause of vague embarrassment.  The Duchess was the first to break it.

“You have very noble ideas, Mr. Alwyn,”—­she said with a faint, wavering smile—­“But I am afraid your conception of things, both human and divine, is too exalted, and poetically imaginative, to be applied to our every-day life.  We cannot close our ears to the thunders of science,—­we cannot fail to perceive that we mortals are of as small account in the plan of the Universe as grains of sand on the seashore.  It is very sad that so it should be, and yet so it is!  And concerning Christianity, the poor system has been so belabored of late with hard blows, that it is almost a wonder it still breathes.  There is no end to the books that have been written disproving and denouncing it,—­moreover, we have had the subject recently treated in a novel which excites our sympathies in behalf of a clergyman, who, overwhelmed by scholarship, finds he can no longer believe in the religion he is required to teach, and who renounces his living in consequence.  The story is in parts pathetic,—­it has had a large circulation,—­and numbers of people who never doubted their Creed before, certainly doubt it now.”