o keep our consciences for us.
The padre settles all about what is right or wrong, and we slip on
as easily as--'

'A hog or a butterfly!' said the vicar, bitterly.

'Exactly,' answered Luke. 'And, on your own showing, are clean
gainers of a happy life here, not to mention heaven hereafter. God
bless you! We shall soon see you one of us.'

'Never, so help me God!' said the vicar; all the more fiercely
because he was almost at that moment of the young man's opinion.

The vicar stepped out into the night. The rain, which had given
place during the afternoon to a bright sun and clear chilly evening,
had returned with double fury. The wind was sweeping and howling
down the lonely streets, and lashed the rain into his face, while
gray clouds were rushing past the moon like terrified ghosts across
the awful void of the black heaven. Above him gaunt poplars groaned
and bent, like giants cowering from the wrath of Heaven, yet rooted
by grim necessity to their place of torture. The roar and tumult
without him harmonised strangely with the discord within. He
staggered and strode along the plashy pavement, muttering to himself
at intervals,--

'Rest for the soul? peace of mind? I have been promising them all
my life to others--have I found them myself? And here is this poor
boy saying that he has gained them--in the very barbarian
superstition which I have been anathematising to him! What is true,
at this rate? What is false? Is anything right or wrong? except in
as far as men feel it to be right or wrong. Else whence does this
poor fellow's peace come, or the peace of many a convert more? They
have all, one by one, told me the same story. And is not a religion
to be known by its fruits? Are they not right in going where they
can get peace of mind?'

Certainly, vicar. If peace of mind be the summum bonum, and
religion is merely the science of self-satisfaction, they are right;
and your wisest plan will be to follow them at once, or failing
that, to apply to the next best substitute that can be discovered--
alcohol and opium.

As he went on, talking wildly to himself, he passed the Union
Workhouse. Opposite the gate, under the lee of a wall, some twenty
men, women, and children, were huddled together on the bare ground.
They had been refused lodging in the workhouse, and were going to
pass the night in that situation. As he came up to them, coarse
jests, and snatches o