n do him?"

"Not much, I suppose, except to confirm him in that gospel of the
sceptic: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in our philosophy!'"

"Humph! Here, then, stands the case. Our most interesting little
parishioner has set her heart on this globe-trotter. There is a big wall
in the way, and it won't do to repeat the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe.
Now, what is to be done to make the young fellow a Catholic? Has he any
prejudices against us?"

"Not one? On the contrary, he rather likes us. He has received all kinds
of hospitality from Catholic priests the wide world over, and he thinks
us a right honest, jolly lot of fellows."

"H'm! I am not sure that that is exactly what St. Liguori or Charles
Borromeo would fancy. But never mind! Now does he know what we hold and
believe?"

"Accurately. He has read our best books."

"Has he had any intercourse with Catholics?"

"A good deal. They have not impressed him. Look at Campion now. Would
any man become a Catholic with his example before him?"

"Hardly indeed, though we must speak kindly of him now, since you
converted him. Had you any chat with him about his difficulties?"

"Yes, several. I walked home with him a few evenings from Campion's. You
know that path over the cliff and down to the coast-guard station?"

"Well. And what is his special trouble? Does he think he has an immortal
soul?"

"There you struck it. That's his trouble; and how to convince him of
that beats me. I asked him again and again whether he was not
self-conscious, that is, perfectly cognizant of the fact that there was
a something, an Ego, outside and beyond the brain and inferior powers
that commanded both? Was there not some intellectual entity that called
up memory, and bade it unseal its tablets? And did he not feel and know
that he could command and control the action of his brain, and even of
every part of it? Now, I said, if the brain is only dumb matter, which
you admit, and cannot create thought, where is this volition, or what is
it? It is not cerebral, for then matter would create thought; that is,
be the creator and the created at the same time."

"Well?"

"He listened attentively and then said quietly: 'Quite true. But if the
Ego is different from the brain and is self-conscious, where does the
self-consciousness go when the brain becomes anaemic and sleeps, or when
the faculties are chloroformed?' 'Oh,' I said, 'the organ is shut do