I have said little about my uncle’s teaching, lest I should bore my readers. But there it came in, and therefore here it must come in. My uncle had, by no positive instruction, but by occasional observations, not one of which I can recall, generated in me a strong hope that the life of the lower animals was terminated at their death no more than our own. The man who believes that thought is the result of brain, and not the growth of an unknown seed whose soil is the brain, may well sneer at this, for he is to himself but a peck of dust that has to be eaten by the devouring jaws of Time; but I cannot see how the man who believes in soul at all, can say that the spirit of a man lives, and that the spirit of his horse dies. I do not profess to believe anything for _certain sure_ myself, but I do think that he who, if from merely philosophical considerations, believes the one, ought to believe the other as well. Much more must the theosophist believe it. But I had never felt the need of the doctrine until I beheld the misery of Charley over the memory of the dead sparrow. Surely that sparrow fell not to the ground without the Father’s knowledge. ‘Charley! how do you know,’ I said, ‘that you can never beg the bird’s pardon? If God made the bird, do you fancy with your gun you could destroy the making of his hand? If he said, “Let there be,” do you suppose you could say, “There shall not be”?’ (Mr Forest had read that chapter of first things at morning prayers.) ‘I fancy myself that for God to put a bird all in the power of a silly thoughtless boy--’ ‘Not thoughtless! not thoughtless! There is the misery!’ said Charley. But I went on-- ‘--would be worse than for you to shoot it.’ A great glow of something I dare not attempt to define grew upon Charley’s face. It was like what I saw on it when Clara laid her hand on his. But presently it died out again, and he sighed-- ‘If there _were_ a God--that is, if I were sure there was a God, Wilfrid!’ I could not answer. How could I? _I_ had never seen God, as the old story says Moses did on the clouded mountain. All I could return was, ‘Suppose there should be a God, Charley!--Mightn’t there be a God!’ ‘I don’t know,’ he returned. ‘How should _I_ know whether there _might_ be a God?’ ‘But _may_ there not be a _might be?_’ I rejoined. ‘There may be. How should I say the other thing?’ said Charley. I do not mean this was exactly what he or I said. Unable to recall the words themselves, I put the sense of the thing in as clear a shape as I can. We were seated upon a stone in the bed of the stream, off which the sun had melted the ice. The bank rose above us, but not far. I thought I heard a footstep. I jumped up, but saw no one. I ran a good way up the stream to a place where I could climb the bank; but then saw no one. The footstep, real or imagined, broke our conversation at that point, and we did not resume it. All that followed was--