THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN McGOGGIN.


Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel.
But, once in a way, there will come a day
When the colt must be taught to feel
The lash that falls, and the curb that galls,
and the sting of the rowelled steel.

Life's Handicap.


This is not a tale exactly. It is a Tract; and I am immensely
proud of it. Making a Tract is a Feat.

Every man is entitled to his own religious opinions; but no man--
least of all a junior--has a right to thrust these down other men's
throats. The Government sends out weird Civilians now and again;
but McGoggin was the queerest exported for a long time. He was
clever--brilliantly clever--but his clevereness worked the wrong
way. Instead of keeping to the study of the vernaculars, he had
read some books written by a man called Comte, I think, and a man
called Spencer, and a Professor Clifford. [You will find these
books in the Library.] They deal with people's insides from the
point of view of men who have no stomachs. There was no order
against his reading them; but his Mamma should have smacked him.
They fermented in his head, and he came out to India with a
rarefied religion over and above his work. It was not much of a
creed. It only proved that men had no souls, and there was no God