"And that aid is not compulsion," said L'Isle, "as every page of Scripture testifies. There is something strangely illogical in the reasoning of those who, starting from the point, that what has been decreed by God is as good as done, and the future as fixed as the past, thence exhort us to plead, because the decree has gone forth; to run in the race, because the victor has been chosen, and the prize adjudged; to strive, because the battle has been fought; and to repent and be saved, because our final destiny was decided before time was. Surely, if this life have any bearing on another, we are running a race, the issue of which is undecided until death; and ours is a real struggle, not merely the acting out of a foregone conclusion, not the dramatic representation of a past event. What would you think of a modern Greek praying zealously that Mohamed II. should not _have taken_ Constantinople? Or of a Roman of to-day besieging heaven with prayers that Rome should not _have been_ taken by the Goths, or sacked by the army of the Constable Bourbon? Yet what is commonly called Calvinist is nothing less than this; praying against past events, or the decrees of fate. Is the papist so absurd in offering his masses for the dead?" The ladies were still complimenting L'Isle on his refutation of Moodie's tenets, so obnoxious to their own convictions, when they met a peasant trudging along, _cujado_ in hand, with the small end of which he occasionally enlivened the motions of an ass toiling under a heavy sack of grain. The muleteer stopped him to enquire where they might find water for their animals in this thirsty land. The peasant pointed back to a thicket near the road, and said: "I would have watered my own beast there, but for the would have watered my own beast there, but for the company I would have fallen among." He then went on his way, and they rode to the spot pointed out, where among the oleander and buckthorn bushes they found a puddle rather than a spring, so well had it been lately stirred up. A gang of eight or nine vagrants, who had been munching their crusts and _sardinhas_ in the shade, now sprung up, and placing themselves between the travelers and the water, vociferously demanded alms. To rid themselves of this motley troop, L'Isle and Mrs. Shortridge threw each of them a small coin. They were not so easily satisfied, but thrusting themselves among the horses, continued to rival each other in whining petitions and adjurations of their favorite saints. Lady Mabel, who had emptied her purse of small coin the evening before, now entreated Moodie to let this second opportunity of alms-giving, so manifestly sent for his benefit, soften his stony heart. But he shook his head grimly, saying: "If they are strong enough to travel, they are strong enough to work; and work they shall, or starve, before they touch a penny of mine!"