“Could circumstances arise in which it would not be my first interest to be honest?” said Andrew. “Would not my judgment be quickened by the compulsion and the danger? In no danger myself, might I not judge too leniently of things from which I should myself recoil? Selfishly smoother with regard to others, because less anxious about their honesty than my own, might I not yield them what, were I in the case, I should see at once I dared not allow to myself? I can perceive no use in making up my mind how to act in circumstances in which I am not--probably will never be. I have enough to occupy me where I find myself, and should certainly be oftener in doubt how to act, if I had bothered my brains how to think in circumstances foreign to me. In such thinking, duty is of necessity a comparatively feeble factor, being only duty imagined, not live duty, and the result is the more questionable. The Lord instructed His apostles not to be anxious what they should say when they were brought before rulers and kings: I will leave the question of duty alone until action is demanded of me. In the meantime I will do the duty now required of me, which is the only preparation for the duty that is to come.” Although Alexa had not begun to understand Andrew, she had sense enough and righteousness enough to feel that he was somehow ahead of her, and that it was not likely he and George Crawford would be of one mind in the matter that occupied her, so different were their ways of looking at things--so different indeed the things themselves they thought worth looking at. She was silent for a moment, then said: “You can at least tell me what you think of gambling!” “I think it is the meanest mode of gaining or losing money a man could find.” “Why do you think so?” “Because he desires only to gain, and can gain only by his neighbor's loss. One of the two must be the worse for his transaction with the other. Each _must_ wish ill to his neighbor!” “But the risk was agreed upon between them.” “True--but in what hope? Was it not, on the part of each, that he would be the gainer and the other the loser? There is no common cause, nothing but pure opposition of interest.” “Are there not many things in which one must gain and the other lose?” “There are many things in which one gains and the other loses; but if it is essential to any transaction that only one side shall gain, the thing is not of God.” “What do you think of trading in stocks?” “I do not know enough about it to have a right to speak.” “You can give your impression!” “I will not give what I do not value.” “Suppose, then, you heard of a man who had made his money so, how would you behave to him?” “I would not seek his acquaintance.” “If he sought yours?” “It would be time to ask how he had made his money. Then it would be my business.” “What would make it your business?”