ness of those high cheek-bones that to him had always expressed the tragedy of the African mind. Could he still draw, he wondered. It would be interesting to try. Now, if he had a studio-it would be easy to get one -he could find that out. At first, of course, he would have to get back into practice-obviously, after all these years. It would be interesting to see if he could still do it.

Hetty went to the cupboard and produced grapes.

Oswald Ashcraft took a bunch and turned it. "How these remind me of you, of the old days."

"Do they? I suppose they would. I've always been fond of them."

"They still have sawdust on them."

"Don't be rude."

"I didn't mean to be."

"It isn't the same sawdust."

He ate one.

so much he had had in his mind to do -not necessarily great stuff-but the explanation of humanity as he saw it.

"Pon my word," he said, “I'm almost minded to have another try and start again."

"Why not?" Her tone was joking, but her eyes held him to his aspiration as they had years before.

"Men have started older than I am now—and I've had a grounding -a deuced good one."

"A deuced good one," she agreed and lit another cigarette.

He drew at his. He could take a studio near hers. He had time to spare. It need not interfere with his work in the House. It would be pleasant, too, to have somewhere to withdraw to distinctly.

Hetty talked of new friends— those of the old days were dead or had dispersed. As he visualized it,

you now?" she asked.

"They're delicious."

The taste carried him back across the gap of years to the time when they had eaten them scarcely troubling to shake off the sawdust. "They're delicious still," he said.

They talked on. She was mature now, ripe with wisdom. Fruit, where she had been half-opened flower. But she had still that understanding of him which had taken in its stride the gap of years. With her to help him and keep him to it he might still take up his work more or less where he had left it. It wouldn't be very easy at first but, after all, nothing worth while doing was.

His old eagerness uncoiled, stiffly after so many years. Yes, there was

to work. The momentary pangs of sadness he had felt, when he had inquired about their old companions, had passed. They had all vanished. What could he have expected after so long?

Presently he looked at his watch. It was seven, time to go. He rose.

"I've so enjoyed myself," he said. That dignity of manner which he had so long affected was gone and a little of his youth, swollen now and awkward, had returned. "Especially the grocers' grapes."

"You really liked them?"
"Loved them."

"Yes?" She turned to the cupboard. Presently she came toward him. "I've done some up in a paper bag," she said. "I don't suppose you really like them-but they will

help you to remember that you want to start working again."

seemed so happy, with a happiness which was unlike that he saw around

thought."

With her smile a little grim she nodded. "You really mean you'll start your work again?"

The cab reached Hyde Park Corner, turned and swung into a whirl

As he got into his overcoat she watched him shrewdly and questioningly. At the door, when their hands met he leaned a little toward her, but she did not move.

"Good-by," she said.

"It's au revoir," he laughed.
"Perhaps!" Her eyes were keen.
"Certainly!"
"Perhaps."

She walked with him down the stairs and as far as the open front door of the studios. There with a little flourishing of his hat he left her. After a few steps he looked back. She was still at the top of the steps watching him. He held up the bag of grapes and raised his hand to her. She waved back and disappeared.

In the King's Road he found a taxi. It was night now. The buses and cars glittered into view, gleamed, clattered by and were gone. He leaned back and gripped the knob of his umbrella. Yes, it had been delightful to see Hetty again. Extraordinary how little she had changed; a little lined, naturally, but it was more than twenty years since he had seen her last. And there she was still doing the same things as she had been then.

The taxi reached Sloane Square and the lamplight glistened upon the windows. For a time he sat in quiet contentment. Hetty had

the lodge of the Park it was nearing half past seven. Dinner was not till a quarter past eight but he must have a bath and must shave. He was to have the wife of the chief Whip on his right. Yes, he remembered now; that tiresome Mrs. Dyson Muller on his left and the wife of the chief Whip on his right. It was important that he should make a good impression on her. He would talk about the needs of the navy— her husband had been a sailor before he had taken to politics. Shethrough her husband-might have an important influence on his own

career.

The cab turned up Park Lane. Oswald Ashcraft watched the streams of buses flowing north and south. In no city in the world, he thought, was traffic so well controlled. In no country was the police, or the administration of justice, so perfect

law, order, parliamentary government. He was part of all that, not an important part perhaps not yet. Still—

By the light of a passing car he consulted his watch. Nearly twentyfive to eight. He would have to hurry. That Mrs. Dyson Muller didn't matter; but he must be ready and collected to acquit himself well with his other neighbor. Decidedly!

The streets had dried. Park Lane glittered beneath its lamps. At Grosvenor Gate the taxi was checked

D

URING the last half century we have come into cognizance of, and to a certain degree control over, subtler, swifter and more powerful forces than have been hitherto generally known to man. We have had the age of the conquest of land and sea-the science of the physical forces of the "gross" visible universe; with the corresponding science of the outer and gross body of man. Now comes the age of the conquest of the air, the science of the invisible fine particles of the atmosphere; and the corresponding science of the finer part of man, and of the fine forces-thought and emotionthat he wields within the subtler universe, as in the physical world he uses his muscular force or the machinery of his inventive brain.

When a man who fails to find his answer to the problems of life in the truth taught by the orthodox churches, turns as he frequently does to investigate the heterodox "new movements" of the time, he turns to people who have been pioneers in the study of these finer forces. They are divided roughly into two groups: Mental Scientists and Psychic Scientists. Mental Scientists see the Ultimate Power behind this universe as "Divine Mind," the allpervading Principle of Intelligence,

and man as Its "perfect idea," who only needs to recognize his perfection to be free from all trouble and limitation. Psychic Scientists see this universe and ourselves as under the direction of beings of higher worlds beyond this-Masters, adepts, Initiates, "guides." They are content to follow what they consider to be communications or orders from these beings, believing that these are as much of God and truth as we can expect to know for the present.

To the first group belong Christian Science, New Thought, the Unity and Divine Science movements, and many other societies with many names-but all teaching the same general principles. To the second, the Psychic or Occult group, belong the Theosophists and the Spiritualists, of whom there are also various schools and subdivisions.

The first and stoutest pioneer of the "supreme-Mind" group, was Christian Science-to whom, both as a race and as individuals, we owe a tremendous debt. "Through them (the Christian Scientists)," says a non-Scientist writer, "the world was shaken from its worst and grossest materialism; doctors caused to investigate methods of mental healing; people all over the world brought to realize that there are other methods

of healing disease besides drugs. But their greatest work has been the training of an army of many thousands who have recognized the power of thought, and who have endeavored to train themselves instantly to substitute for thoughts of evil and sickness, thoughts of good and health. The influence of such constructive, positive thinking, daily and hourly going forth upon their communities and upon the world in general, can scarcely be estimated."

The Christian Science theory of life is summed up in the "Scientific Statement of Being" (page 468 "Science and Health"):

"There is no life, truth, intelligence nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is real and eternal; matter is unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

Of course the weak point that the modern immediately spots in this, is that nobody knows what matter is. The old distinction between what is spiritual and what is material, has been shaded almost to the vanishing point, since the atom is resolved into electrons and their nucleus-thus making of "matter" that most ethereal and elusive and still unfathomed substance, pure electricity. Somehow one feels rather remote from people who are still flinging the old mud at much-abused mysterious "matter." More acceptable to the modern scientific student is the New Thought theory that there is no atom or point in space where life, substance, and some sort of law and in

telligence, are not. And that matter, once we do finally discover its real nature, will probably be found to be as "pure" and eternal as-if not identical with-spirit itself.

Christian Science says that God is "incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love"; that these terms are synonymous (they are by no means synonymous in the dictionary), and refer to one absolute God, whose attributes are "justice, mercy, wisdom, goodness and so on."

But how can an absolute God have relative attributes? Justice, mercy, wisdom and goodness are relative attributes of finite beings in a relative world. They are human attributes that we know and admire in human beings. Are you not here and throughout the new philosophies that now in this age of man's intensive development of the mental faculty, declare God to be a Universal or Infinite Mind-are you not creating God in your own image quite as much as the orthodox church people who declare Him to be a Person?

One of the most confusing things in both Christian Science and New Thought literature, is this constant loose interchange of absolute and relative, personal and impersonal terms. Consider such phrases as "thinking in the absolute," "the absolute the region of causes," "God is spirit, incorporeal," yet "God sees us all as perfect, pure," "Principle and Its idea," "Life is Mind," yet "Life is not limited," and so on. It has been this slipshod manner of speaking and reasoning, this arbitrary alteration of standard definitions to suit special theories, that has