ok, lifting his fallen head and staring at
the minister. "Why, man, you don't suppose I _want_ to live hereafter?
Do you think I'm anxious to have it all over again, or _any_ of it? Is
that why you've been trying to convince me of immortality? I know
there's something in what you say,--more than what you realize. I've
argued annihilation up to this point and that, and almost proved it to
my own mind; but there's always some point that I can't quite get over.
If I had the certainty, the absolute certainty, that this was all there
was to be of it, I wouldn't want to live an hour longer, not a minute!
But it's the uncertainty that keeps me. What I'm afraid of is, that if I
get out of it here, I might wake up in my old identity, with the
potentiality of new experiences in new conditions. That's it I'm tired.
I've had enough. I want to be let alone. I don't want to do anything
more, or have anything more done to me. I want to _stop_."

Ewbert's first impression was that he was shocked; but he was too honest
to remain in this conventional assumption. He was profoundly moved,
however, and intensely interested. He realized that Hilbrook was
perfectly sincere, and he could put himself in the old man's place, and
imagine why he should feel as he did. Ewbert blamed himself for not
having conceived of such a case before; and he saw that if he were to do
anything for this lonely soul, he must begin far back of the point from
which he had started with him. The old man's position had a kind of
dignity which did not admit of the sort of pity Ewbert had been feeling
for him, and the minister had before him the difficult and delicate task
of persuading Hilbrook, not that a man, if he died, should live again,
but that he should live upon terms so kind and just that none of the
fortuities of mortal life should be repeated in that immortality. He
must show the immortal man to be a creature so happily conditioned that
he would be in effect newly created, before Hilbrook would consent to
accept the idea of living again. He might say to him that he would
probably not be consulted in the matter, since he had not been consulted
as to his existence here; but such an answer would brutally ignore the
claim that such a man's developed consciousness could justly urge to
some share in the counsels of omnipotence. Ewbert did not know where to
begin, and in his despair he began with a laugh.

"Upon my word," he said, "you've presented a problem that wou