to go to China, would be troublesome for an old man--if such a thing had been suggested to him, no doubt he would have said that he would much prefer to die quietly at home--yet dying quietly, when you come to think of it, is far more bewildering than going to China. It was not that he felt afraid; judgment was not the thing that appalled him. No doubt there were many things in his life that he might have done better, that he would gladly have altered altogether, but these were not the things that oppressed him. Nothing could be farther from the old man’s mind than that thought of “an angry God” which is supposed in so much simple-minded theology to be the great terror of death. It was not an angry God that Sir Ludovic feared. He had that sort of dumb confidence in God which perhaps would not satisfy any stern religionist, but which is more like the sentiment of the relation which God himself has chosen to express his position toward men than any other--a kind of unquestioning certainty that what God would do with him would be the right thing, the most just, the most kind; but then he had no notion what kind of thing that would be, which made it very confusing, very depressing to him. An old man, by the time he has got to be seventy-five, has given over theorizing about life; he has no longer courage enough to confront the unknown--quiet continuance, without any break or interruption, is the thing that seems best for him; but here was an ending about to come, a breaking off--and only the unknown beyond; and no escaping from it, no staving it off, no postponement. All so familiar here, so natural, the well-known chair, the old cosy coat: and beyond--what? he could not tell what: an end; that was all that was certain and clear. He believed everything that a Christian should believe, not to say such primary principles as the immortality of the soul; but imagination was no longer lively nor hope strong in the old man, and what he believed had not much to do with what he felt. This was not an elevated state of mind, but it was true enough. He himself felt guilty, that he could not realize something better, that he could not rise to some height of contemplation which would make him glad of his removal into realms above. This was how he ought to think of it, ought to realize it, he knew.