Space forbids the criticism of Mr. Spencer's doctrine of the relativity of knowledge and of the speculations concerning the Infinite and Absolute based upon the writings of Hamilton and Mansel. I have been restricted, also, to the negative side of the question, but so far as inconceivability enters as a factor into the argument against Religion, I contend that it has broken down; that so far as that element affects the problem, Religion has as high credentials as Science. THE BETTER PART. BY WILLIAM ALLEN DROMGOOLE. Some barks there are that drift dreamily down stream, ever near to the shore where the waters are shallow. Some catch the current and go bounding on with sweep and swirl until the river, placid at last, slips into the tideless Everlasting. Some, alas! commanded by iron-hearted Fate, are headed _up_ stream to fight--who dares call it Folly's battle?--against the current which yields only to the invincible will and the tireless arm. They lie who swear that life turns on mere accident. There are no accidents in fate. The end is but a gathering of the means; the means but byways to the end; and at the last fate is master still, and we its victims are, as was _she_, my Claudia. I am an old woman, childless and loveless; I know what it is to stand alone with life's hollow corpses,--corpses of youth, and love, and hope. Perhaps this is why my heart turned to her in her sweet youth and guileless innocence. I used to fancy, when I saw her, a child under the old-fashioned locust's shade that fell about her father's modest place, that she was unlike other children. She had a thoughtful face--not beautiful, but soulful. I thank God now that the child was spared that curse. Fate set snares enough without that deadliest one of beauty. Yet she had soul; her eyes betrayed its strength and mirrored its deep passion,--that mightiest, holiest passion which men call _genius_. Her genius merely budded; fate set its heel against the plant and crushed it. I knew her from her birth; knew her strong-hearted mother, and her gentle father, who slipped the noose of life when Claudia was a tiny thing, too young to more than lisp his name. Yet, with his last breath he blessed her, and blessed the man into whose arms he placed her, and left her to his care. "You have said you owe me something," said the dying man; "if so, pay it to my child, my girl-babe, in fatherly advice and guidance." That man had been a felon and would have met a felon's doom but for the friend whose child had been confided to his guidance. He had saved him by silence and by loans which had beggared him in lending. He was a strong man, and left his daughter something of his strength for heritage, and that was all. But from her mother, her great-souled mother, the child received enough of courage, and of hope, and faith, and energy, to make her life a _sure_ thing at all events.