Leroy filled the glass he held out to him. The glances of the company told him Zouche was ‘on,’ and that it was no good trying to stem the flow of his ideas, or check the inconsequential nature of his speech. Lotys had moved her chair a little back from the table, and with both arms encircling the child, Pequita, was talking to her in low and tender tones. “Brethren, let us pray!” cried Zouche; “For all we know, while we sit here carousing and drinking to the health of our incomparable Lotys, the soul of St. Peter’s successor may be careering through Sphere-Forests, and over Planet-Oceans, up to its own specially built and particularly furnished Heaven! There is only one Heaven, as we all know,--and the space is limited, as it only holds the followers of St. Peter, the good disciple who denied Christ!” “That is an exploded creed, Zouche,” said Thord quietly; “No man of any sense or reason believes such childish nonsense nowadays! The most casual student of astronomy knows better.” “Astronomy! Fie, for shame!” And Zouche gave a mock-solemn shake of the head; “A wicked science! A great heresy! What are God’s Facts to the Church Fallacies? Science proves that there are millions and millions of solar systems,--millions and millions of worlds, no doubt inhabited;--yet the Church teaches that there is only one Heaven, specially reserved for good Roman Catholics; and that St. Peter and his successors keep the keys of it. God,--the Deity--the Creator,--the Supreme Being, has evidently nothing at all to do with it. In fact, He is probably outside it! And of a surety Christ, with His ideas of honesty and equality, could never possibly get into it!” “There you are right!” said Valdor; “Your words remind me of a conversation I overheard once between a great writer of books and a certain Prince of the blood Royal. ‘Life is a difficult problem!’ said the Prince, smoking a fat cigar. ‘To the student, it is, Sir,’ replied the author; ‘But to the sensualist, it is no more than the mud-stye of the swine,--he noses the refuse and is happy! He has no need of the Higher life, and plainly the Higher life has no need of him. Of course,’ he added with covert satire, ‘your Highness believes in a Higher life?’ ‘Of course, of course!’ responded the Royal creature, unconscious of any veiled sarcasm; ‘We must be Christians before anything!’ And that same evening this hypocritical Highness ‘rooked’ a foolish young fellow of over one thousand English pounds!” “Perfectly natural!” said Zouche. “The fashionable estimate of Christianity is to go to church o’ Sundays, and say ‘I believe in God,’ and to cheat at cards on all the other days of the week, as active testimony to a stronger faith in the devil!” “And with it all, Zouche,” said Lotys suddenly; “There is more good in humanity than is apparent.”