"That he does," growled the Squire; "the most contradictory creature!" PARSON.--"Argument is the salt of talk. But now I am afraid I must agree with you, which I was not at all prepared for." Randal bowed, and answered--"No two men of our education can dispute upon the application of knowledge." PARSON (pricking up his ears).--"Eh! what to?" RANDAL.--"Power, of course." PARSON (overjoyed).--"Power!--the vulgarest application of it, or the loftiest? But you mean the loftiest?" RANDAL (in his turn interested and interrogative).--"What do you call the loftiest, and what the vulgarest?" PARSON.--"The vulgarest, self-interest; the loftiest, beneficence." Randal suppressed the half disdainful smile that rose to his lip. "You speak, sir, as a clergyman should do. I admire your sentiment, and adopt it; but I fear that the knowledge which aims only at beneficence very rarely in this world gets any power at all." SQUIRE (seriously).--"That's true: I never get my own way when I want to do a kindness, and Stirn always gets his when he insists on something diabolically brutal and harsh." PARSON.--"Pray, Mr. Leslie, what does intellectual power refined to the utmost, but entirely stripped of beneficence, most resemble?" RANDAL.--"Resemble?--I can hardly say, some very great man--almost any very great man--who has baffled all his foes, and attained all his ends." PARSON.--"I doubt if any man has ever become very great who has not meant to be beneficent, though he might err in the means. Caesar was naturally beneficent, and so was Alexander. But intellectual power refined to the utmost, and wholly void of beneficence, resembles only one being, and that, sir, is the Principle of Evil." RANDAL (startled).--"Do you mean the Devil?" PARSON.--"Yes, sir--the Devil; and even he, sir, did not succeed! Even he, sir, is what your great men would call a most decided failure." MRS. DALE.--"My dear--my dear." PARSON.--"Our religion proves it, my love; he was an angel, and he fell." There was a solemn pause. Randal was more impressed than he liked to own to himself. By this time the dinner was over, and the servants had retired. Harry glanced at Carry. Carry smoothed her gown and rose. The gentlemen remained over their wine; and the Parson, satisfied with what he deemed a clencher upon his favorite subject of discussion, changed the subject to lighter topics, till happening to fall upon tithes, the Squire struck in, and by dint of loudness of voice, and truculence of brow, fairly overwhelmed both his guests, and proved to his own satisfaction that tithes were an unjust and unchristianlike usurpation on the part of the Church generally, and a most especial and iniquitous infliction upon the Hazeldean estates in particular. CHAPTER IX.