would only
employ them in God's service. I should never expect to see you a
devotee, but it is quite possible to be a good Christian without ceasing
to be a happy, merry-hearted man.'

'You speak like an oracle, Helen, and all you say is indisputably true;
but listen here: I am hungry, and I see before me a good substantial
dinner; I am told that if I abstain from this to-day I shall have a
sumptuous feast to-morrow, consisting of all manner of dainties and
delicacies. Now, in the first place, I should be loth to wait till
to-morrow when I have the means of appeasing my hunger already before me:
in the second place, the solid viands of to-day are more to my taste than
the dainties that are promised me; in the third place, I don't see
to-morrow's banquet, and how can I tell that it is not all a fable, got
up by the greasy-faced fellow that is advising me to abstain in order
that he may have all the good victuals to himself? in the fourth place,
this table must be spread for somebody, and, as Solomon says, "Who can
eat, or who else can hasten hereunto more than I?" and finally, with your
leave, I'll sit down and satisfy my cravings of to-day, and leave
to-morrow to shift for itself--who knows but what I may secure both this
and that?'

'But you are not required to abstain from the substantial dinner of
to-day: you are only advised to partake of these coarser viands in such
moderation as not to incapacitate you from enjoying the choicer banquet
of to-morrow. If, regardless of that counsel, you choose to make a beast
of yourself now, and over-eat and over-drink yourself till you turn the
good victuals into poison, who is to blame if, hereafter, while you are
suffering the torments of yesterday's gluttony and drunkenness, you see
more temperate men sitting down to enjoy themselves at that splendid
entertainment which you are unable to taste?'

'Most true, my patron saint; but again, our friend Solomon says, "There
is nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink, and to be merry."'

'And again,' returned I, 'he says, "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth;
and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but
know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment."'

'Well, but, Helen, I'm sure I've been very good these last few weeks.
What have you seen amiss in me, and what would you have me to do?'

'Nothing more than you do, Arthur: your actions are all right so far; but
I wo