“I think you mean _everlasting_, not eternal, which has nothing to do with time. And no one who used his eyes, Dr. Richards, would claim that the angel is always liberated in _this_ life.” “Then, you believe”— “What I believe, my dear friend, is of very little consequence, unless you can make it out from what I _do_. And yet I do believe in the Love of God and His uncovenanted mercies, to which those He has promised and made sure are as a mote in the sunshine to the boundless atmosphere in which it floats.” “I suppose it makes you happier,” said the doctor, with a sigh; “and I never interfere with any one’s happiness,” he added with a glance at his wife. When the Richardses had been left at their own door, and Mr. Clare and Louis went on alone, the latter said,— “Mr. Clare, I’d give my right hand if I could believe all you said in your sermon to-day.” “Keep your right hand to serve God with, Louis,” was the reply. “If you were more likely to believe without it than with it, He Himself would take it from you.” “I don’t think I am likely to believe either way,” was the boy’s reply. “You see, my father taught me to imitate Christ, to be a little Christ-child, as he called it, yet to think Christianity itself only a fairy tale. And I can’t get over the habit,” he added; “_I can’t_ think of Christ as alive now, or believe that He is God. To me He is dead as King Arthur and Washington and Barbarossa are dead.” “And when you wish to believe Him alive, is it that you may serve Him better, or that you may possess the happiness in the perpetual consciousness of His presence which others enjoy?” asked the clergyman, smiling tenderly upon the wistful face upturned to him. “The last, of course,” returned Louis honestly, “though perhaps I _could_ serve Him better, if you mean working for others,” he added. Mr. Clare smiled. “Leave the better service to Him; He knows what He wants from you,” he said. “For the rest, Prince Louis, are you following out your father’s teaching in asking or wishing _any_ thing for yourself? Is that like Jesus Christ, who pleased not Himself?” “Then what must I do?”