A few fleecy clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.
"It will soon be morning,"-- thought Helmsley--"The sun will rise in its same old glorious way--with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it has made from the beginning.

The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of Caesar, the crucifixion of Christ,--the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and fruitfulness, itself indifferent as to what becomes of the atoms germinated under its prolific heat and vitality.

The sun takes no heed whether a man dies or lives--neither does God!" Yet with this idea came a sudden revulsion.

Surely in the history of human events, there was ample proof that God, or the invisible Power we call by that name, did care?
Crime was, and is, always followed by punishment, sooner or later.

Who ordained,--who ordains that this shall be?
Who is it that distinguishes between Right and Wrong, and adjusts the balance accordingly?
Not Man,--for Man in a barbarous state is often incapable of understanding moral law, till he is trained to it by the evolution of his being and the ever-progressive working of the unseen spiritual forces.