“Christianity!” said Sally; “well, I ain’t sure I believe in that myself; but I do believe in Christ.” “I congratulate you,” said the doctor. “It’s an innocent superstition, Metzerott; and, in a world of misery like this, why not let a child believe it, if it add to his happiness?” “Because it ain’t true,” said the shoemaker sturdily. “My good friend,” said Dr. Richards, “what is truth? Things are true relatively, never absolutely. I defy you to mention a single absolute truth.” “The sun shines,” said Metzerott, whose Teutonic mind caught fire at the barest hint of metaphysics. “How do you know it does?” “Because I see it.” “Prove that to a man born blind.” “A man born blind is like a lunatic, or an idiot, as far as the sunlight is concerned,” said Karl, after some thought; “it can’t be proved to him. He can feel it though,” he added. “Ah! concurrent testimony! But that is only an aggregation of single testimony, that is of relative truths, and merely amounts to a high probability, not to an absolute truth.” “Well,” said Metzerott, “until you bring me a man with all his senses complete, and stand him in the sunshine before me, and have him say it ain’t bright and ain’t warm, I think it’s as near to an absolute truth as you are likely to come.” “As near, yes, I grant that. But come, suppose _I_ tell you—having all my senses complete—that to me the sunshine is dark and cold; what would you say then?” “I know what I’d like to _do_,” said Karl Metzerott. Now, to let the reader into a secret, the doctor had been all along amusedly aware of the similarity between this argument and certain others he had, in his student days, carried on. The reference to personal experience was therefore intentionally made, and he was much elated to find the shoemaker take his stand upon doing, instead of quibbling as to the exact meaning of shining and heat, or the state of mind a man must be in to experience these. “Well, what would you do?” he asked. “I’d wait for the Fourth of July,” said the shoemaker grimly; “and then I’d stand you out there, before my door, till you dropped with a sunstroke.” “Without my hat?” asked the doctor. Karl nodded, and the two men broke into a roar of laughter, which effectually settled the question of Louis and the Christmas Tree; for Karl was too pleased with his victory to be unrelenting. “Now there is a man,” said the doctor to himself as he drove home, “who believes with all his heart that the sun shines. He proved it, too. If I could meet a man who believed like that in the Bible! But there is nothing corresponding to that sunstroke test of his in theology; and Christians know it. I—yes, really—I almost wish there were. Pooh! what a fool I am! Get up!” Which energetic reminder, addressed to his horse, so quickened that quadruped’s movements as to land the doctor speedily at his own door. CHAPTER XI. YGDRASIL.