One evening the minister of the Hanover Chapel called at the house in which he was lodging, and, seeing him deeply engrossed in his books, complimented him upon his studious habits. "I hear you are becoming quite a scholar, Mr. Stepaside," he said.
"Why, but it's becoming well known in the town," persisted the minister. "I noticed that you took a lot of prizes on prize-giving day in the Mechanics' Institute, and all sorts of complimentary things were said about you in the papers. I am sorry, however, that I've not seen you at chapel lately."
"You've not forgotten the advice which the wise man gave in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, I hope?" said the minister.
"'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,'" replied the minister. "I hope you have not forgotten that."
"Where is He--what is He?" asked Paul. "Who can tell?"
"Why," asked the minister, "do you not believe that there is a God in the heavens--a God Who is at once our Father and our Judge?"
"I see little signs of either," he replied. "It is easier to believe in the Devil than to believe in God! All we know is that we are here, and we have to fight our battles and do our work."
"But do you mean to say," asked the minister, "that you feel no responsibility towards God?"
"Look here, sir," replied Paul, "this world in which we live is not a very big affair, and it's one of millions upon millions of other worlds. Now I put it to you: What do you think the God Who made all this--if there is a God at all--Who made all these millions of worlds swirling through space, cares about little insects like you and me, who just crawl upon the face of this tiny globe. Still, as I said, we have our life to live and our work to do, and we must act according to the instincts of our being."
"But if the instincts of your being lead you to do something wrong?" said the minister.
"What is right, and what is wrong?" asked Paul. "All I know is that I have my own plans of life. I have my programme marked out, and I mean to carry the programme through."
The minister did not quite understand what he meant. "But what about your relations with your fellow-men, my young friend?" he asked.
"What of them?" asked Paul. "I was reading the other day the life of Napoleon, who said that if a million men stood between him and the objects he desired to obtain he would sacrifice those million men."