"Perhaps," interposed Mr. Islay, whose ears had been open for some moments toward this conversation,--"perhaps such minds find the proof insufficient only because they have not yet been able to look at it in the right light." "What light do you mean?" asked Doctor Remy, a little doubtfully. "The light of a renewed heart and an obedient life. No man apprehends the truths of Christianity clearly, nor believes them with a belief that is worth anything, until he feels his own personal need of them. When that time comes, he catches hold of them, without proof, as it were,--or, at least, without other proof than their felt adaptation to that intense need,---just as a man who is hungry and thirsty accepts convenient food without troubling himself about its chemical analysis. Then, holding them fast, and feeling how perfectly they meet his wants, what strength and satisfaction they give to his mind, and what symmetry and dignity they impart to his life, he begins to look back over the long line of prophecy and testimony for proof, and finds it ample. Men are prone to forget, Dr. Remy, that the natural order--as we see in children--is through the heart to the intellect, not through the intellect to the heart." "But," objected Doctor Remy, "if a man is not sensible of any such personal need, how is he to be made to feel it?" "Who can tell?" responded Mr. Islay, solemnly. "If the eye sees no comeliness in Christ, to desire Him, if the heart feels no void which craves His fulness, no pang which needs His healing, who can tell when the one will be opened, the other emptied or smitten? 'The wind bloweth where it listeth.' But I can tell you, Doctor Remy, how a man can postpone the time of conviction to the last moment, perhaps to the very end." "Indeed," answered Doctor Remy, lifting his eyebrows. "May I ask for the formula?" "Simply by leading a life of deliberate, habitual sin and selfishness. There is nothing like sin for blinding the eyes, and misleading the judgment, in regard to spiritual things. Indeed, if I desired to shake my own faith in Christ to the very centre, I know no way in which I could do it so surely as by committing some dreadful crime--murder, for instance. All my views of life and death, earth and heaven, would at once become distorted and confused, just as all my thoughts and aims would immediately take a new direction." Mr. Islay being on the same side of the table as his interlocutor, could not observe the latter's sudden change of countenance; but Bergan, sitting opposite, was surprised to see the doctor's face darken with some powerful emotion, while he shot a furtive, suspicious glance at the speaker. Yet his voice, when he spoke, was studiously low and even, so much so that its latent venom was unnoticed by the majority of the party.