mounted, weighty horn-handle--"I could deaden it in such wise that
the SOUL could no more hold any communication with it, and it
would lie an inert mass in the cranium, of no more use to its
owner than a paralyzed limb."

"You mean to infer that the brain cannot act without the influence
of the soul?"

"Precisely! If the hands on the telegraph dial will not respond to
the electric battery, the telegram cannot be deciphered. But it
would be foolish to deny the existence of the electric battery
because the dial is unsatisfactory! In like manner, when, by
physical incapacity, or inherited disease, the brain can no longer
receive the impressions or electric messages of the Spirit, it is
practically useless. Yet the Spirit is there all the same, dumbly
waiting for release and another chance of expansion."

"Is this the way you account for idiocy and mania?" asked Alwyn
incredulously.

"Most certainly; idiocy and mania always come from man's
interference with the laws of health and of nature--never
otherwise. The Soul placed within us by the Creator is meant to be
fostered by man's unfettered Will; if man chooses to employ that
unfettered Will in wrong directions, he has only himself to blame
for the disastrous results that follow. You may perhaps ask why
God has thus left our wills unfettered: the answer is simple--that
we may serve Him by CHOICE and not by COMPULSION. Among the myriad
million worlds that acknowledge His goodness gladly and
undoubtingly, why should He seek to force unwilling obedience from