“Do what you believe,” said Mr. Clare. “In fact, neither you nor any of us _can_ do otherwise. What we believe, that will we do; nothing else. What we do not show in our lives, we do _not yet_ entirely believe. There is no escape from that logic, Louis, terrible though it be.” He paused, hesitated, then went on with a smile. “For I have just shown you that you have not been living up to what faith you have, which is, after all, not a little. Therefore, you see, it fails just so far of being a real faith, and you cannot ask for more until you have made the most of what you already have. Only go on working, not thinking at all of yourself, living for others, and some day—if not in this world, at least in the next—your eyes will be opened like those of the disciples at Emmaus, and you will say, ‘Did not my heart burn within me, while He talked with me by the way?’” “In the next world!” said Louis thoughtfully. “But if there be no other world, Mr. Clare?” “Ah! my boy, that you must be content to take—yet a while—on trust. When your eyes see the King in His beauty, the land that is very far off will become a reality to you; not until. The best—I was about to say the sole—argument for immortality is my text of this morning: ‘Because He lives, we shall live also.’ ‘And this is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.’” “I’m like Dr. Richards,” said Louis, smiling sadly. “You don’t touch my spiritual optic nerve. But I am glad you tell me _to do_, Mr. Clare, for I want to believe, and cannot. Yet the Herr Pastor told me once,” he continued, smiling, “not to put my trust in anything that I did, for that my righteousness was as filthy rags, and that I must believe in order to be saved.” “The Herr Pastor was quite right, my boy. Your righteousness, and mine also, _is_ as filthy rags compared with His, and compared also with the wedding garment in which we shall sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And have I not told you that, as your faith grows, your salvation from sin grows also? I have not told you that you will ever be able to _say_ that you believe in this world, because I have known of so many whose lives have acknowledged Him while their lips, to their latest breath, denied Him. Am I a poor comforter, Louis?” he added kindly, as the boy looked down and sighed. “No, no; I was thinking of Dr. Richards. He is one of those men you spoke of, and, perhaps, never will believe as you do.” “Frederick Richards is one of the bravest men I ever knew,” said Mr. Clare. He was a very silent man for the next few days; also very gentle and tender towards all around him, especially his wife, whom he watched as she went about the house or sat at work beside him, with eyes of wistful comprehension. It was not until the week was nearly gone that she crept up to him one evening, in the early twilight, and silently laid her head upon his breast.