"Please don't talk so, Mr. Van Berg. Don't you see that he can't look in any other direction? He has been taught to look thither till it is part of his nature to do so. In destroying his faith you may destroy him. Pardon me, if I ask you to please remember that faith in God and a future life is more vitally important to some of us than our daily bread. We may not be able to explain it, but we must hope and trust or perish. To go back to your nautical illustration, suppose some who had been wrecked were clinging to a rocky shore, and trying to clamber up out of the cold spray and surf to warmth and safety; would it not be a cruel thing to go along the shore and unloosen the poor numb hands however gently and scientifically it might be done? Loosing that hold means sinking to unknown depths. With complacent self-approval and with learned Athenian airs, many of the savans of the day are virtually guilty of this horrible cruelty." "I do not take sides with the Athenians who called St. Paul a babbler," said Van Berg, flushing; "yet truth compels me to admit that I could worship more sincerely at the 'Alter of the unknown God,' than before any conception of Deity that modern Theology has presented to my mind. That does not prove much, I am bound to say, for I have never given these subjects sufficient attention to be entitled to have opinions. Still, I like fair play, whatever be the consequences. Your arraignment of talking skeptics is a severe one and strikes me in a new light. Might they not urge, in self-defence, that there was a deeper and darker abyss on the farther side of the rock to which the wrecked were clinging? May they not argue that the grasp of faith may lead to a deeper and more bitter disappointment?" "How can they know that? How can they know what shall be in the ages to come?" replied Miss Burton, speaking rapidly. "This is the situation:--I am clinging to some hope, something that I believe will be truth which sustains me, and the only force of the skeptic's words is to loosen my grasp. No better support is given, no new hope inspired. Believe me," she concluded passionately, "I would rather die a thousand deaths by torture than lose my faith that there is a God who will bring order out of this chaos of broken, thwarted lives, of which the world is full, and that those who seek a 'happier shore' will eventually find it." "You will find it," said Van Berg, in low emphatic tones; and then he added with a shrug, as he rose from the table, "I wish my chances were as good." Ida, who a few weeks before would have heard this conversation with unqualified disgust, had listened with eager eyes and parted lips, and she now said coldly, but with a deep sigh: "Your God and happy shore, Miss Burton, are too vague and far away. Troubles and temptations are in our very hearts." Van Berg looked hastily toward her, but she rose and turned her face from him.