only
a little while ago human beings were so willing to accept such fragile
evidences about a place of so much importance. If we should find
somewhere to-day an ancient book containing an account of a beautiful
and blooming tropical Paradise secreted in the center of eternal
icebergs--an account written by men who did not even claim to have seen
it themselves--no geographical society on earth would take any stock in
that book, yet that account would be quite as authentic as any we have
of heaven. If God has such a place prepared for us, and really wanted us
to know it, He could have found some better way than a book so liable
to alterations and misinterpretation. God has had no trouble to prove
to man the laws of the constellations and the construction of the world,
and such things as that, none of which agree with His so-called book. As
to a hereafter, we have not the slightest evidence that there is any--no
evidence that appeals to logic and reason. I have never seen what to me
seemed an atom of proof that there is a future life."

Then, after a long pause, he added:

"And yet--I am strongly inclined to expect one."

CCLXV. LOTOS CLUB HONORS

It was on January 11, 1908, that Mark Twain was given his last great
banquet by the Lotos Club. The club was about to move again, into
splendid new quarters, and it wished to entertain him once more in its
old rooms.

He wore white, and amid the throng of black-clad men was like a white
moth among a horde of beetles. The room fairly swarmed with them, and
they seemed likely to overwhelm him.

President Lawrence was toast-master of the evening, and he ended his
customary address by introducing Robert Porter, who had been Mark
Twain's host at Oxford. Porter told something of the great Oxford week,
and ended by introducing Mark Twain. It had been expected that Clemens
would tell of his London experiences. Instead of doing this, he said he
had started a new kind of collection, a collection of compliments. He
had picked up a number of valuable ones abroad and some at home. He
read selections from them, and kept the company going with cheers and
merriment until just before the close of his speech. Then he repeated,
in his most impressive manner, that stately conclusion of his Liverpool
speech, and the room became still and the eyes of his hearers grew dim.
It may have been even more moving than when originally given, for now
the closing words, "homeward bound," had only th