e begins to wonder if his Ptolemaic fancy that he
was the centre of the universe, and that it was all made for him, is not
nearer the If truth than the pitiless theories which hardly allow him
equality with the flea that perishes.

Suppose if, after all, the stars were really meant as his bedtime
candles, and the sun's purpose in rising is really that he may catch the
8.37!

For, as Sir Thomas Browne says in his solemn English, 'there is surely a
piece of Divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and
owes no homage unto the sun.'

The long winter of materialistic science seems to be breaking up, and
the old ideals are seen trooping back with something more than their old
beauty, in the new spiritual spring that seems to be moving in the
hearts of men.

After all its talk, science has done little more than correct the
misprints of religion. Essentially, the old spiritualistic and poetic
theories of life are seen, not merely weakly to satisfy the cravings of
man's nature, but to be mostly in harmony with certain strange and
moving facts in his constitution, which the materialists
unscientifically ignore.

It was important, and has been helpful, to insist that man is an animal,
but it is still more important to insist that he is a spirit as well. He
is, so to say, an animal by accident, a spirit by birthright: and,
however homely his duties may occasionally seem, his life is bathed in
the light of a sacred transfiguring significance, its smallest acts
flash with divine meanings, its highest moments are rich with 'the
pathos of eternity,' and its humblest duties mighty with the
responsibilities of a god.

DEATH AND TWO FRIENDS

_A DIALOGUE_

(_To the Memory of J.S. and T.C.L._)

PERSONS: SCRIPTOR AND LECTOR.

[This dialogue was written originally as a rejoinder to certain
criticisms on a book of mine entitled, _The Religion of a Literary
Man_--_Religio Scriptoris_--hence the names given to the two 'persons.'
It was written in March 1894, before an event in the writer's life to
which, erroneously, some have supposed it to refer.]

LECTOR. But do you really mean, Scriptor, that you have no desire for
the life after death?

SCRIPTOR. I never said quite that, Lector, though perhaps I might almost
have gone so far. What I did say was that we have been accustomed to
exaggerate its importance to us here and now, that it really matters
less to us than we imagine.

LECTOR. I see. But you must