about yourself, William? Or is Saul really going to be found among the
prophets, after all?"

He colored, but made no reply. I opened the Bible and read two or three
of the shorter Psalms,--then, from the New Testament, a portion of the
Sermon on the Mount.

"It must have been very sweet," I observed, "for those who were able to
receive Jesus as the true Messiah, and his teachings as infallible, to
hear these words from his lips."

"And do you not so receive them?" William asked.

"We will not speak of that; my opinion is of no weight."

"But you must have thought much of these things," he persisted; "tell
me what result you have arrived at."

"Candidly, then," I said, "I have read and pondered much on what this
book contains. It seems to me, that, if it teaches anything, it clearly
teaches, that, no matter how we flatter ourselves that we are doing as
we choose, and carrying out our own designs and wishes, we are all the
time only fulfilling purposes that have been fixed from all eternity.
Since, then, we are the subjects of an Inexorable Will, which no
entreaties or acts of ours can alter or propitiate, what is there for
us to do but simply to bear as best we can what comes upon us? It is a
short creed."

"And a gloomy one," he said.