O. M. You were glad you had the horse?

Y. M. Of course I was; for if I hadn't had the horse I should have been incapable, and my mother would have captured the chance to set old Sally up. O. M. You were cordially glad you were not caught out and incapable?

Y. M. Oh, I just was!

O. M. Now, then

Y. M. Stop where you are! I know your whole catalogue of questions, and I could answer every one of them without your wasting the time to ask them; but I will summarize the whole thing in a single remark: I did the charity knowing it was because the act would give me a splendid pleasure, and because old Sally's moving gratitude and delight would give me another one; and because the reflection that she would be happy now and out of her trouble would fill me full of happiness. I did the whole thing with my eyes open and recognizing and realizing that I was looking out for my share of the profits first. Now then, I have confessed. Go on.

O. M. I haven't anything to offer; you have covered the whole ground. Could you have been any more strongly moved to help Sally out of her trouble -could you have done the deed any more eagerlyif you had been under the delusion that you were doing it for her sake and profit only?

Y. M. No! Nothing in the world could have made the impulse which moved me more powerful, more masterful, more thoroughly irresistible. I played the limit!

O. M. Very well. You begin to suspect-and I

claim to know that when a man is a shade more strongly moved to do one of two things or of two dozen things than he is to do any one of the others, he will infallibly do that one thing, be it good or be it evil; and if it be good, not all the beguilements of all the casuistries can increase the strength of the impulse by a single shade or add a shade to the comfort and contentment he will get out of the act.

Y. M. Then you believe that such tendency toward doing good as is in men's hearts would not be diminished by the removal of the delusion that good deeds are done primarily for the sake of No. 2 ininstead of for the sake of No. I?

O. M. That is what I fully believe.

Y. M. Doesn't it somehow seem to take from the dignity of the deed?

O. M. If there is dignity in falsity, it does. It removes that.

Y. M. What is left for the moralist to do?

O. M. Teach unreservedly what he already teaches with one side of his mouth and takes back with the other: Do right for your own sake, and be happy in knowing that your neighbor will certainly share in the benefits resulting.

Y. M. Repeat your Admonition.

O. M. Diligently train your ideals upward and still upward toward a summit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in conduct which, while contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits upon your neighbor and the community.

Y. M. One's every act proceeds from exterior influences, you think?

O. M. Yes.

Y. M. If I conclude to rob a person, I am not the originator of the idea, but it comes in from the outside? I see him handling money-for instanceand that moves me to the crime?

O. M. That, by itself? Oh, certainly not. It is merely the latest outside influence of a procession of preparatory influences stretching back over a period of years. No single outside influence can make a man do a thing which is at war with his training. The most it can do is to start his mind on a new tract and open it to the reception of new influences —as in the case of Ignatius Loyola. In time these influences can train him to a point where it will be consonant with his new character to yield to the final influence and do that thing. I will put the case in a form which will make my theory clear to you, I think. Here are two ingots of virgin gold. They shall represent a couple of characters which have been refined and perfected in the virtues by years of diligent right training. Suppose you wanted to break down these strong and well-compacted characters—what influence would you bring to bear upon the ingots? Y. M. Work it out yourself. Proceed.

O. M. Suppose I turn upon one of them a steam'jet during a long succession of hours. Will there be a result?

Y. M. None that I know of.

O. M. Why?

Y. M. A steam-jet cannot break down such a substance.

O. M. Very well. The steam is an outside in

fluence, but it is ineffective because the gold takes no interest in it. The ingot remains as it was. Suppose we add to the steam some quicksilver in a vaporized condition, and turn the jet upon the ingot, will there be an instantaneous result?

Y. M. No.

O. M. The quicksilver is an outside influence which gold (by its peculiar nature-say temperament, disposition) cannot be indifferent to. It stirs the interest of the gold, although we do not perceive it; but a single application of the influence works no damage. Let us continue the application in a steady stream, and call each minute a year. By the end of ten or twenty minutes-ten or twenty years—the little ingot is sodden with quicksilver, its virtues are gone, its character is degraded. At last it is ready to yield to a temptation which it would have taken no notice of, ten or twenty years ago. We will apply that temptation in the form of a pressure of my finger. You note the result?

Y. M. Yes; the ingot has crumbled to sand. I understand, now. It is not the single outside influence that does the work, but only the last one of a long and disintegrating accumulation of them. I see, now, how my single impulse to rob the man is not the one that makes me do it, but only the last one of a preparatory series. You might illustrate it with a parable.

A Parable

O. M. I will. There was once a pair of New England boys-twins. They were alike in good disposi

tions, fleckless morals, and personal appearance. They were the models of the Sunday-school. At fifteen George had an opportunity to go as cabin-boy in a whale-ship, and sailed away for the Pacific. Henry remained at home in the village. At eighteen George was a sailor before the mast, and Henry was teacher of the advanced Bible class. At twenty-two George, through fighting-habits and drinking-habits acquired at sea and in the sailor boarding-houses of the European and Oriental ports, was a common rough in Hong-Kong, and out of a job; and Henry was superintendent of the Sunday-school. At twenty-six George was a wanderer, a tramp, and Henry was pastor of the village church. Then George came home, and was Henry's guest. One evening a man passed by and turned down the lane, and Henry said, with a pathetic smile, "Without intending me a discomfort, that man is always keeping me reminded of my pinching poverty, for he carries heaps of money about him, and goes by here every evening of his life." That outside influence that remark-was enough for George, but it was not the one that made him ambush the man and rob him, it merely represented the eleven years' accumulation of such influences, and gave birth to the act for which their long gestation had made preparation. It had never entered the head of Henry to rob the man-his ingot had been subjected to clean steam only; but George's had been subjected to vaporized quicksilver.