?" asked Paul. "Who can tell?"

"Why," asked the minister, "do you not believe that there is a God in
the heavens--a God Who is at once our Father and our Judge?"

"I see little signs of either," he replied. "It is easier to believe
in the Devil than to believe in God! All we know is that we are here,
and we have to fight our battles and do our work."

"But do you mean to say," asked the minister, "that you feel no
responsibility towards God?"

"Look here, sir," replied Paul, "this world in which we live is not a
very big affair, and it's one of millions upon millions of other
worlds. Now I put it to you: What do you think the God Who made all
this--if there is a God at all--Who made all these millions of worlds
swirling through space, cares about little insects like you and me, who
just crawl upon the face of this tiny globe. Still, as I said, we have
our life to live and our work to do, and we must act according to the
instincts of our being."

"But if the instincts of your being lead you to do something wrong?"
said the minister.

"What is right, and what is wrong?" asked Paul. "All I know is that I
have my own plans of life. I have my programme marked out, and I mean
to carry the programme through."

The minister did not quite understand what he meant. "But what about
your relations with your fellow-men, my young friend?" he asked.

"What of them?" asked Paul. "I was reading the other day the life of
Napoleon, who said that if a million men stood between him and the
objects he desired to obtain he would sacrifice those million men."

The minister, a simple-minded man, who thought but little outside the
narrow groove in which he worked, was somewhat aghast at this statement.

"And do you mean to say that is your sentiment?" he said.

For the moment the spirit of mischief entered Paul's heart. It seemed
pleasant to him to shock this godly man and to make him feel that he
had no sympathy with the conventional morality he preached.

"It seems to me," said Paul, "that, if there is a God, He helps those
who help themselves. The battle is to the strong, and the race to the
swift. If you do not win, somebody else does. Well, I don't mean to
be beaten in the battle, and if there is someone who stands in my way
of getting to the goal I desire to reach, that someone has got to be
swept out of the way."

One event we must mention which was destined to have a marked influence
on Paul's life. It need