The Zeit-Geist

th of the line we give it. The man who can give his plummet the longest

victory, and then, calm and steadfast, go out to face the world again. If Toyner's had been a smaller soul, the need of his life would have im

distress; and also the fact that the happenings of life do actually come in exact accordance to a man's faith-faith being not the mere expectation that a thing is going to take place, but the inner eye that sees into the heart of things, and knows that its desire must inevitably take place, and why. Thi

ll happen, of course, according to eternal law of inward development; they are not altered by any force from without, because nothing is without: the sun that makes the daisy to blossom is just that amount of sun that it absorbs

ng together upon what appeared to him the side of evil. The God in whom he had learned to trust was a God who, moved by pity, had come out of His natural path to give a chance of salvation to wicked men by the sacrifice of Himself. To what did he owe his own rescue but to this special adjust

is duty was exactly what he had esteemed it to be before Ann Markha

godless hearts, surrounded by every form of folly and sin, and he believed that Ann would keep her promise to him, and that di

disobeyed God, God would leave him to the power of all his evil appetites; he

s favour and an influence over her-moral influence at least; his mind was clear enough to see that what was gained by disobeying God's law was from a religious point of view nil. In

ght was gay on the little wooden town, on its breezy gardens and wastes of flowering weeds, on the descent of the foaming fall, on the clear brown river. Even the

almost hopeless. The source of his strength ha

ing by the little steamboat. Before Toyner realised the situation he found himself in consultation with the new-comer as to the best means of seeking Markham. Did the perfect righteousness require that he should betray Ann's con

interview. When it was over the stranger took Toyner by the arm and told him privately that he was convinced that the young woman knew nothing wha

. Toyner had gone in labouring under horrible emotion. He believed that he was going to get drunk, and the result of hi

ack upon the bit of hot dusty road in the sun he reeled, not with the spi

re glass of spirits, and to go and make promises to Ann that would

r faith in God upon absolute want of faith in man. His heart was better than his head, as is the case with all small-minded souls that have come

t the minister and the minister's God. What right had God to take him up and clothe him and keep him in his right mind for a little while, just to let him fall at the first opportunity? It was quite true that he had deserved it, no doubt; he had done wrong, and he was going to do wrong; but God, who had gone out of His way to mercifully convert him and

he agency in which he was engaged, and went home and took supper, watching the vagaries of his father's senile mania with more than common pi

on to him of what tenderness for

nature, had ebbed away. God's strength was no longer with him; he was going to the devil; he could do nothing for himself, little for others; but he sympathised as never before with all poor lost souls. He was a little surprised, as the day wore

e hell which he was experiencing was intolerable now, because of the heaven which he had seen, and he could not forgive the God who had ordained it. The unreal notion that an omnipotent God can permit what He does not ordain cou

go that night and do all that a man could do to help the poor wretch to whom his heart went out with ever-increasing pity. It would not be much, but he would do what he could, and after that he would tell the authori

hat the act of love and mercy which possessed his soul was a pious one; his motive he believed to be solely his pity for

anksgiving, his faith. His heart within him gave a sneering laugh. He was ter