ed in colonial possessions, and was famous for the
calculated libertinism of his private life.

"They were great sinners," said Amroth, "and the sorrows they made and
flung so carelessly about them, beat back upon them now in a surge of
pain. These men were strangely affected, each of them, by the smallest
sight or sound of suffering--a tortured animal, a crying child; and yet
they were utterly ruthless of the pain that they did not see. It was a
lack, no doubt, of the imagination of which I spoke, and which makes all
the difference. And now they have to contemplate the pain which they
could not imagine; and they have to learn submission and humility. It is
a terrible business in a way--the loneliness of it! There used to be an
old saying that the strongest man was the man that was most alone. But
it was just because these men practised loneliness on earth that they
have to suffer so. They used others as counters in a game, they had
neither friend nor beloved, except for their own pleasure. They depended
upon no one, needed no one, desired no one. But there are many others
here who did the same on a small scale--selfish fathers and mothers who
made homes miserable; boys who were bullies at school and tyrants in the
world, in offices, and places of authority. This is the place of
discipline for all base selfishness and vile authority, for all who have
oppressed and victimised mankind."

"But," I said, "here is my difficulty. I understand the case of the
oppressors well enough; but about the oppressed, what is the justice of
that? Is there not a fortuitous element there, an interruption of the
Divine plan? Take the case of the thousands of lives wasted by some
brutal conqueror. Are souls sent into the world for that, to be driven
in gangs, made to fight, let us say, for some abominable cause, and
then recklessly dismissed from life?"

"Ah," said Amroth, "you make too much of the dignity of life! You do not
know how small a thing a single life is, not as regards the life of
mankind, but in the life of one individual. Of course if a man had but
one single life on earth, it would be an intolerable injustice; and that
is the factor which sets all straight, the factor which most of us, in
our time of bodily self-importance, overlook. These oppressors have no
power over other lives except what God allows, and bewildered humanity
concedes. Not only is the great plan whole in the mind of God, but every
single minutest life is c