"That is a God after my ideal, the same God to whom Job cries, 'Oh that one might plead with God as a man pleadeth with his friend.' But without waiting for this, the sufferer takes the liberty of demanding explanations from the Lord regarding the evil treatment to which he is exposed. 'I will say to God, "Condemn me not; show me wherefore Thou goest against me in judgment. Doth it please Thee to oppress me, to overthrow the work of Thine own hands, and to further the devices of the wicked?"' These are reproaches and imputations which the good God accepts without anger, and which He answers without using thunderbolts. Where is He, the Heavenly Father, who can smite at the follies of His children and pardon after He has punished them? Where does He hide Himself, the Master of the house who kept it in good order, and watched the overseers in order to prevent injustice?" During my disconnected speech the Unknown regarded me with the same indulgent smile, without betraying impatience. But when I had finished, he disappeared. I found myself breathing a stifling atmosphere of carbonic oxide, and standing alone on the gloomy, dirty, autumnal-looking Rue Medici. While I went down the Boulevard Saint Michel I felt vexed with myself, that I had neglected the opportunity of speaking out everything. I had still many shafts in my quiver, if only the Unknown had waited to answer, or to direct an accusation against me. But as soon as the crowd again presses round me in the glaring light of the gas lamps, and all the exposed wares in the shops remind me of the trivialities of life, the scene in the garden appears like a miracle, and I hasten in alarm to my lodging, where meditation plunges me into an abyss of doubt and anxiety. There is a ferment going on in the world, and men are waiting for something new, of which a glimmering has already appeared. France is preparing for a return to the Middle Ages,--the period of faith and of dogma, to which it has been led over the downfall of an empire, and of a miniature Augustus, just as at the time of the decay of the power of Rome and the invasion of the barbarians. One has seen Paris--Rome in flames, and the Goths crowning themselves in the capitol, Versailles. The great heathen Taine and Renan have gone down to perdition, and taken their scepticism with them, but Joan of Arc has again woken to life. The Christians are persecuted, their processions dispersed by gens d'armes; saturnalias are held on carnival days, and shameful orgies take place in the open streets under the protection of the police, and with the aid of money grants from the Government, which to satisfy the discontented offers shows, with or without gladiatorial encounters. "Panem et Circenses" (Dear)--bread and games. All is readily bought with money, honour, conscience, fatherland, love, administration of justice,--truly the infallible and regular symptoms of decay in a community, whence Virtue,