e any different from them?
Mother, does it pay to be religious? It seems to me religious people are
always sober, dull people, always talking reform and disagreeable things
and never having much fun. But I want you to help me, mother, no one
else can, if you can't. I don't seem to be able to pray any. Why should
I pray, if there isn't any super-human, nothing but a force somewhere? I
am just groping in the dark and it's awful dark. And I don't know a soul
here to help me any. Bauer--well--I never said a word to him on
religious matters. I don't know whether he is a Catholic or what he is.
And I don't know any minister in Burrton well enough to go to him. And
the teachers here don't care about the students' religious life, or if
they do I never saw any signs of it, at least not enough to show where
to go now.

"Mother, I can't tell you how I feel over all this. But I'm just about
down and out. If what Dr. Powers said is true, it seems to me we are
living in an awful world. It isn't the world you and father believe in
or you taught me to believe in, and I can't understand it. Oh, mother,
help me, won't you, if you can! WALTER."

Now his letter reached Mrs. Douglas on the anniversary of her marriage.
She was planning as she always did to make the day bright for Paul, had
invited her brothers, Walter and Louis, and was going to make it a great
family gathering.

The boy's letter smote her heart as nothing in all his experience had
ever troubled her. She managed to get through the evening without
betraying her feeling, but when her brothers had gone home, and Helen
and Louis had retired, she showed the letter to Paul.

He read it and then looked up at Esther.

"You are the one to help him through this," he said. "You are the only
person who can do it right now. But you are tired with all the events of
the day. Hadn't you better wait until to-morrow?"

"No," Esther said positively. "He is waiting. When a soul is drifting
down like his, it is a case of rescue."

"Dear," said Paul, quietly, "I don't have any fears for him. He has too
good a mother to make a wreck of his religion."

"He is my son," said Esther proudly. "I would not be worthy of the name
mother if I did not have confidence in the eternal things of redemption.
I will write him tonight. But you must add to my letter, Paul. He needs
us both."

"I will," said Paul, gravely. He was more disturbed over the letter from
Walter than he c