said he, "I did not know that you also had come here."

"Yes, sir," said Sandy; "I died the same night you did."

"Dear me!" said the Colonel, "that is very singular, very singular
indeed! Where are you going now, Sandy?"

"I don't know," said Sandy; "these gentlemen here are taking me
somewhere, I don't know where. This is my wife," said he. "Don't you
remember her, sir?"

"Oh yes," said the Colonel, with his most pleasant air, "I remember her
very well, but of course I am not so much surprised to see her here as I
am to see you. But have you no idea where you are going?" he continued.

"No," said Sandy; "but perhaps these gentlemen can tell you." And he
looked inquiringly at his escort, who stood calmly listening to what was
said.

* * * * *

_So far, the Parable, as I had read it, progressed onward with some
coherence and concatenation, a coherence and concatenation growing
perhaps more disjointed as it advanced. Now it began to be broken with
interjectory sentences, and just here was one, the tenor of which I
could not altogether understand, but have since comprehended more or
less clearly. I cannot give its exact words, but only its general form._

_"O wretched man," it said, "how pitiful are thy vain efforts and
strivings to keep back by thine own strength that fiery flood of hell
which grows and increases to overwhelm thy soul! If the inflowing of
good which Jehovah vouchsafes is infinite, only less infinite is the
outflowing of that which thou callest evil and wickedness. How, then,
canst thou hope to stand against it and to conquer? How canst thou hope
to keep back that raging torrent of fire and of flame with the crumbling
unbaked bricks of thine own soul's making? Poor fool! Thou mayst
endeavor, thou mayst strive, thou mayst build thy wall of defence higher
and higher, fearing God, and living a life of virtue, but by-and-by thou
wilt reach the end, and then wilt find thou canst build no higher! Then
how vain shall have been thy life of resistance! First that flood shall
trickle over the edge of thy defence; then it shall run a stream the
breadth of a man's hand; then it shall gush forth a torrent; then,
bursting over and through and around, it shall sweep away all that thou
hast so laboriously built up, and shall rush, howling, roaring, raging,
and burning through thy soul with ten thousand times the fury and
violence that it would have done if thou hadst not striven to