David could not help smiling, recognizing the voice of his clerical father-in-law; when he answered, however, he was serious again. “Some day, perhaps, dear Helen,” he said, “I will tell you all about what I think as to such things. But very few of the world's real thinkers believe in revealed religions any more--they have come to see them simply as guesses of humanity at God's great sacred mystery, and to believe that God's way of revealing Himself to men is through the forms of life itself. As to the question of immortality that you speak of, I have always felt that death is a sign of the fact that God is infinite and perfect, and that we are but shadows in his sight; that we live by a power that is not our own, and seek for beauty that is not our own, and that each instant of our lives is a free gift which we can only repay by thankfulness and worship.” He paused for a moment, and the girl, who had still been gazing at him thoughtfully, went on, “Father used to talk about those things to me, David, and he showed me how the life of men is all spent in suffering and struggling, and that therefore faith teaches us---” “Yes, dearest,” the other put in, “I know all that you are going to say; I have read these arguments very often, you know. But suppose that I were to tell you that I think suffering and struggling is the very essence of the soul, and that what faith teaches us is that the suffering and struggling are sacred, and not in the least that they are some day to be made as nothing? Dearest, if it is true that the soul makes this life what it is, a life of restless seeking for an infinite, would it not make the same life anywhere else? Do you remember reading with me Emerson's poem about Uriel, the seraph who sang before God's throne,--how even that could not please him, and how he left it to plunge into the struggle of things imperfect; and how ever after the rest of the seraphim were afraid of Uriel? Do you think, dearest, that this life of love and labor that you and I live our own selves needs anything else to justify it? The life that I lived all alone was much harder and more full of pain than this, but I never thought that it needed any rewarding.” David stopped and stood gazing ahead of him thoughtfully; when he continued his voice was lower and more solemn. “These things are almost too sacred to talk of, Helen,” he said; “but there is one doubt that I have known about this, one thing that has made me wonder if there ought not to be another world after all. I never sympathized with any man's longing for heaven, but I can understand how a man might be haunted by some fearful baseness of his own self,--something which long years of effort had taught him he could not ever expiate by the strength of his own heart,--and how he could pray that there might be some place where rightness might be won at last, cost what it would.”