crawl murderously, or the sleet lashes the sodden roads?” Alas and alas!  Those of us who dwell amid pleasant sights and sounds are apt in moments of piercing joy to forget the poor who rarely know joy at all.  But we must not be careless.  By all means let those who can do so snatch their enjoyment from the colour, the movement, the picturesque sadness of the fading year; but let them think with pity of the time that is coming, and prepare to do a little toward lifting that ghastly burden of suffering that weighs on so many of our fellows.  Gazing around on the flying shadows driven by the swift wind, and listening to the quivering sough amid the shaken trees, I have been led far and near into realms of strange speculation.  So it is ever in this fearful and wonderful life; there is not the merest trifle that can happen which will not lead an eager mind away toward the infinite.  Never has this mystic ordinance touched my soul so poignantly as during the hours when I watched for a little the dying of the year, and branched swiftly into zigzag reflections that touched the mind with fear and joy in turn.  Adieu, fair fields!  Adieu, wild trees!  Where will next year’s autumn find us?  Hush!  Does not the very gold and red of the leaves hint to us that the sweet sad time will return again and find us maybe riper?

October, 1886.

BEHIND THE VEIL.

“Men of all castes, if they fulfil their assigned duties, enjoy in heaven the highest imperishable bliss.  Afterwards, when a man who has fulfilled his duties returns to this world, he obtains, by virtue of a remainder of merit, birth in a distinguished family, beauty of form, beauty of complexion, strength, aptitude for learning, wisdom, wealth, and the gift of fulfilling the laws of his caste or order.  Therefore in both worlds he dwells in happiness, rolling like a wheel from one world to the other.”  Thus the Brahmans have settled the problem of the life that follows the life on earth.  Those strange and subtle men seem to have reasoned themselves into a belief in dreams, and they speak with cool confidence, as though they were describing scenes as vivid and material as are the crowds in a bazaar.  There is no hesitation for them; they describe the features of the future existence with the dry minuteness of a broker’s catalogue.  The Wheel of Life rolls, and far above the weary cycle of souls Buddha rests in an attitude of benediction; he alone has achieved Nirvana—­he alone is aloof from gods and men.  The yearning for immortality has in the case of the Brahman passed into certainty, and he describes his heavens and his hells as though the All-wise had placed no dim veil between this world and the world beyond.  Most arithmetically minute are all the Brahman’s pictures, and he never stops to hint at a doubt.  His hells are twenty-two in number, each applying a new variety of physical and moral pain.  We men of the West smile at the grotesque dogmatism of the Orientals; and yet we have