I fixed the fire so it would keep burning for a couple of hours and adjusted the fire-screen so that there was no chance of a stray spark landing on the carpet. Then I crossed to the window overlooking the lawn and opened it on the cool spring night. The moon, now suspiciously less virginal in figure but still shamelessly serene in silver, rode in the western sky and the scents of spring drifted in on the light breeze. There was no sound save the distant jingling of the peepers and the near-by rustle of the dry vines outside the window-frame.
"I wish to God I knew who I am," I muttered.
"No doubt you'll be asking me to reconcile predestination and free will," observed Dr. Angus McGregor, minister of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Manhattan.
"That wasn't quite my question, sir," I replied. "I asked you whether you could justify the Lord's putting my soul into another man's body. Am I to be responsible for the sins the other man committed?"
"Ah!" Dr. McGregor remarked, with relish, "It is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. No doubt he kens what he's about. It will all be made known on the great Day of Judgment. Now about predestination and free will, you'll have marked that many grand philosophers and divines have debated the point. 'Tis a nice point. 'Tis the theological _pons asinorum_."
"Yes," I interrupted, "but do you consider that I am bound by this body or will I be returned to my own before I come to the Judgment? And is my soul involved in another man's sins?"
Dr. McGregor drew a deep puff on his pipe. "Oh aye!" he declared. "The principle of vicarious sacrifice has been observed ever since that ne'er-do-weel Cain asked, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Aye, Mr. Tompkins, surely you are involved in the sins of others. Take your own case now. I believe your tale. Fearful and wonderful things have happened in this weary world, before now, by the will of the Lord. It is written by the Roman historian Tacitus that the pagan emperor Vespasian--that grand benefactor to whom the world owes the fine invention of the public comfort station--performed miracles in Egypt, making the blind to see, and healing the cripples. These miracles are as well attested as any in Holy Scripture. If the Lord permitted to a heathen potentate these gifts of spiritual healing, can I deny that He might for His own good reasons permit your soul to inhabit another man's body?"