A few volunteers presented themselves, but none of them satisfied all the conditions. At last a young man came who had served as the model for the image of the god in his temple. There was no question, therefore, of soundness of limb, and when he underwent the form of examination no spot nor blemish was found on him. The priest asked him whether he was in trouble, and especially whether he was disappointed in love. He said he was in no trouble; that he was betrothed to a girl to whom he was devoted, and that they had intended to be married that month. “I am,” he declared, “the happiest man in the city.” The priest doubted and watched him that evening, but he saw him walking side by side with this girl, and the two were joyous as a youth and a maiden ought to be in the height of their passion. She sat down and sang to him he played to her, and they embraced one another tenderly at parting. The next morning was the day on which he was to be slain. There was an altar in front of the temple, and a great crowd assembled, ranked round the open space. At the appointed hour the priest appeared, and with him was the youth, holding his beloved by the hand, but she was blindfolded. He let go her hand, knelt down, and in a moment the sacrificial knife was drawn across his throat. His body was placed upon the wood, and the priest was about to kindle it when a flash from heaven struck it into a blaze with such heat that when the fire dropped no trace of the victim remained. The girl, too, had disappeared, and was never seen again. In accordance with the god’s decree, no statue was erected, no poem was composed, and no entry was made in the city records. But tradition did not forget that the saviour of the city was he who survived in the great image on which the name of the god was inscribed. THE AGED TREE AN aged tree, whose companions had gone, having still a little sap in its bark and a few leaves which grew therefrom, prayed it might see yet another spring. Its prayer was granted: and spring came, but the old tree had no leaves save one or two near the ground, and a great fungus fixed itself on its trunk. It had a dull life in its roots, but not enough to know that its moss and fungus were not foliage. It stood there, an unlovely mass of decay, when the young trees were all bursting. “That rotten thing,” said the master, “ought to have been cut down long ago.” CONSCIENCE “CONSCIENCE,” said I, “her conscience would have told her.” “Yes,” said my father. “The strongest amongst the many objections to the Roman Catholic doctrine of confession is that it weakens our dependence on the conscience. If we seek for an external command to do what ought to be done in obedience to that inward monitor, whose voice is always clear if we will but listen, its authority will gradually be lost, and in the end it will cease to speak.”