cious
religion now. I hope you like the society of this poor devil whom your
damned tracts and hymns and priests have driven out of his wits. Five
men in this place, they tell me, five men in this place who might have
been fathers of families, and every one of them thinks he is God the
Father. Oh! you may talk about the ugliness of science, but there is no
one here who thinks he is Protoplasm."

"They naturally prefer a bright part," said MacIan, wearily. "Protoplasm
is not worth going mad about."

"At least," said Turnbull, savagely, "it was your Jesus Christ who
started all this bosh about being God."

For one instant MacIan opened the eyes of battle; then his tightened
lips took a crooked smile and he said, quite calmly:

"No, the idea is older; it was Satan who first said that he was God."

"Then, what," asked Turnbull, very slowly, as he softly picked a flower,
"what is the difference between Christ and Satan?"

"It is quite simple," replied the Highlander. "Christ descended into
hell; Satan fell into it."

"Does it make much odds?" asked the free-thinker.

"It makes all the odds," said the other. "One of them wanted to go up
and went down; the other wanted to go down and went up. A god can be
humble, a devil can only be humbled."

"Why are you always wanting to humble a man?" asked Turnbull, knitting
his brows. "It affects me as ungenerous."

"Why were you wanting to humble a god when you found him in this
garden?" asked MacIan.

"That was an extreme case of impudence," said Turnbull.

"Granting the man his almighty pretensions, I think he was very modest,"
said MacIan. "It is we who are arrogant, who know we are only men. The
ordinary man in the street is more of a monster than that poor fellow;
for the man in the street treats himself as God Almighty when he knows
he isn't. He expects the universe to turn round him, though he knows he
isn't the centre."

"Well," said Turnbull, sitting down on the grass, "this is a digression,
anyhow. What I want to point out is, that your faith does end in asylums
and my science doesn't."

"Doesn't it, by George!" cried MacIan, scornfully. "There are a few men
here who are mad on God and a few who are mad on the Bible. But I bet
there are many more who are simply mad on madness."

"Do you really believe it?" asked the other.

"Scores of them, I should say," answered MacIan. "Fellows who have
read medical books or fellows whose fathers and uncles had something