Doctor Castleton entered the sick-room with his usual impetuosity, saluting us jointly in an off-hand but courteous manner as he crossed the floor to the bedside of Peters, and took one of the invalid's wrists in his hand.

"Ah," he said; "better! The quinine of yesterday has done its work; the bed-time dose of calomel has gone through the liver and stirred up that enemy of human health and happiness, the bile; and the morning dose of salts will, beyond a peradventure, soon be heard from. Now we will throw the whiskey toddy into him, and plenty of it, too; and—yes, we'll go on with the quinine, repeat the calomel to-night, and have him ready for something else by to-morrow."

Now I never like to mention doubtful incidents in such a manner as to suggest my own belief in them; but I then suspected, and I am now morally certain, that Doctor Bainbridge had, in assuming the care of Peters, failed to execute medical orders, and had administered only remedies or pretended remedies of his own, so as to prevent Peters, myself, and the attending physician from detecting any omissions. This, I am aware, is a terrible charge to make—still, I make it: Peters did not get a fourth, if any, of the medicines left for him by Doctor Castleton during the time that Bainbridge cared for the old man.

But if Bainbridge had, with the intention of prolonging the life of Peters, and with greater confidence in his own professional judgment than in that of Castleton, omitted the remedies prescribed, it was soon apparent that the deception might prove in vain. I have already intimated that the older physician's perceptions and intuitions were so quick as sometimes to appear almost uncanny; and after asking a question or two, he began to pour upon a square of white paper, from a small vial which he took from one of his vest pockets, a very heavy white powder; and we soon perceived that the powder was to be poured from the paper to the invalid's tongue. Bainbridge was interested in Peters—not only selfishly and with a motive to learn the facts of the old sailor's strange voyage; but he was also interested in the poor old wreck for the sake of the man himself. I saw that in the opinion of Bainbridge, if that white powder were administered to the invalid it would injure him—probably weaken him, and cause a relapse, and perhaps even an earlier death than otherwise might occur; and I saw that Bainbridge was really apprehensive and annoyed. At last he suggested to Castleton to delay the administration of the intended remedy, if only for a few hours. And when Castleton called attention to his own view of the necessity for quick action, involving the instant administration of the dose, it would obviously have been so unwise to contradict him, that Bainbridge did not risk such a course. But, over-anxious to gain his point, he did something still more impolitic. He suggested a remedy of his own by which, he said, Peters would speedily be relieved—a new drug, I believe, or at least a remedy not known to Castleton. For a moment I looked for an explosion of offended dignity; but Castleton controlled his first impulse, and, not looking at Bainbridge, he centred his apparent attention wholly upon myself, and with exceedingly grave vigor, said,

"I, sir, am a member of the Clare County Medical Society—I was once President of that learned body, and have since then for seven consecutive years been its Secretary—my penmanship being illegible to the other members, and often to myself, preventing many disagreements, by precluding a successful reference to the minutes of past meetings. Now, sir, tell me, as man to man, can I consult with, or listen to suggestions—even to suggestions, though worthy of a gigantic intellect—can I listen to suggestions coming from the mentality of a non-member of our learned body? Before replying, let me say that our society is known throughout all of Egypt—that is, you know, Egypt, Illinois. When a medical savant in Paris, or Leipsig, or London, alleges a discovery, we determine the questions of its originality and its value—the chief purpose of our meeting, however, being to present our own discoveries. Now, sir, I appeal to you whether our rules should or should not be strictly obeyed—and the second clause of section three of those rules and regulations—an ethical necessity, and found in the ethical codes of all well-regulated medical societies the world over—says that a member shall not meet in consultation a non-member, even to save a human life—a decidedly remote possibility."

He paused. Neither Bainbridge nor I spoke. In fact, an expression of our thoughts would have been wholly unnecessary, as Castleton appeared to comprehend what was in our minds, as shown by his continued remarks.

"'Liberality,'" you may say: "True, there should be liberality in this eternal world. Individually we are liberal—we are gentlemen; but it is different with us when you take us as a body. I am for harmony. I admit that at our meetings we do sometimes fight like very devils—life is a conflict, anyway. Sir, the country is full of cursed heresies and growing schisms.—But let me ask—not the doctor here, whom I respect for his immense learning and Cyclopsian (I mean large—not single-eyed) wisdom—what his remedy would be? I ask you, sir, not him."

Here Doctor Castleton stepped close to my side, and speaking into my ear in a ghastly whisper, said, "The ass isn't Regular!" He then drew back, and looked at me as if expecting astonishment on my part.

I then exchanged a few words with Bainbridge, and informed Castleton of the result. "Ah, ha—ah, ha—indeed," he said, with as near an approach to sarcasm as was possible with him. "So my learned young friend thinks that an organ—the liver—weighing nearly four pounds is to be moved with a hundredth of a drop of—of—anything! Damn it, sir, am I awake?"

"Ask Doctor Castleton, sir, what portion of a grain of small-pox virus it would require to disseminate over a whole county, if not checked, a dread disease? Ask him from what an oak-tree grows?"

"Ask him," said Castleton, "how long it takes an acorn to act. In this case we require celerity of action—force and penetration."

"Ask him," said Bainbridge, "if the solar rays have celerity, and force, and penetration; and how much they weigh. It requires fine shot to bring down the essence of a disease——"

"Tell him," shouted Castleton, "that the liver is a mammoth that requires a twenty-four-pounder to penetrate its hide. We don't hunt the rhinoceros with bird-shot."

"Say to the gentleman," said Bainbridge, slightly flushed, but still with dignity, "that in this case the animal is not to be slaughtered, but to be cured."

"Damme," said Castleton, "who says slaughtered?—Have I, a surgeon of renown, a gentleman and a scholar, a member of the County Society, sunk so low that I can be called a murderer? Stop—stop where you are—stop in time. Say to the Gentleman that he has gone too far—say that an apology is in order—say that he treads the edge of a living crater. I am dangerous—so my friends say—devilish dangerous"—a smile crossed the face of Bainbridge; and even so slight and transient an appearance as a passing smile was not lost on Castleton, though he seemed to be looking another way—"I mean dangerous on the field of honor. Quackery, sir, is my abhorrence——"

"Come, come, gentlemen," I said, "you are allowing your professional amour propre to mislead you. Now," I continued, assuming an air of bonhomie, "it seems to me, an outsider, that this whole difference might easily be adjusted. Doctor Castleton here advocates firing twenty-four-pound balls into the patient, and Doctor Bainbridge suggests peppering the invalid with bird-shot. There is certainly room between the bowlders for the bird-shot to slip, and the one will not interfere with the other—I say, give both. Doctor Castleton advises that the dose be immediately given, whilst Doctor Bainbridge appears to think four or five hours hence the better time. I suggest a compromise: let them be given an hour or two hence. There seems to be also some obstacle in the way of one of you giving the other's medicine—so let me administer both the remedies. Now what possible objection can be advanced to this?"

They both laughed; and as Castleton would be on his way home in a few moments, Bainbridge was thoroughly pleased with my proposal. Castleton tacitly consented, and in half a minute seemed to have forgotten the episode—or, at most, gave indication of remembrance only by an apparent desire to be over-agreeable to Bainbridge. A moment later he said to me,

"My dear sir, I hastened my visit here this morning out of consideration for yourself. Last evening after you had departed, Mr. —— called at the Loomis House to see you. I happened to meet him as, in some disappointment at having missed you, he was leaving the hotel, where he had learned that you might be gone for two days. I then offered to deliver any message that he should send to you, this morning. When he was informed that you were but ten miles away, in the country, he said that his business with you was pressing; and he asked if it would be possible for you to return to town for a few hours this morning. Then I said that I would convey to you his wishes, and that if you so desired you could be at your hotel before nine o'clock—at which hour he said he would call at the Loomis House, with the hope of meeting you."

I thanked the doctor; and after consulting Bainbridge, said I would avail myself of the offer to return at once to Bellevue. I appreciated that it would be Bainbridge and not I who would have to manage Peters. It was a disappointment to think of missing Peters' story at first-hand; but I hoped to return by the middle of the afternoon, and I knew that Bainbridge could repeat with accuracy all that the old sailor should say. I doubted whether Bainbridge could extract very much from the old man's senile intellect before my return, as the aged voyager was, both in mind and body, quite feeble, and of little endurance. Besides, when once started and warmed to his subject—and very little information could be gained till he was so started—he would no doubt be garrulous.

Doctor Castleton and I started for town at a brisk trot, the doctor having parted from Bainbridge in the best of humors. His last words, shouted back as we drove off, were, "Don't forget the calomel at nine-thirty, doctor; and add to the treatment whatever you may think best. I trust you implicitly. Send me word if you need help."

Strange man! So pleasant, and so harsh; so grand, and so ignoble; so great, and so small; so broad, and so narrow; so kind, and so unkind. As my mind ran along in this channel, I wondered how one and the same man could express the views that he had proclaimed in connection with his medical association, and yet speak of life and death as he had spoken to me on the day preceding. What did he really believe? Could the actor-temperament, displaying itself on most occasions, in connection with a display at times of his natural self, as we say, account for all his eccentricities?

As we fairly flew along the forest road, nearing our destination by a mile in each three minutes, we came to the only hill on the entire route which was considerable, both in extent and in degree of gradient. Doctor Castleton allowed the gait of his horses to slacken into a slow walk; and—ever nervous, ever active—he reached into the side pocket of his linen duster, and drew forth a small book, apparently fresh from the publisher.

"'The Mistakes of the Gods, and Other Lectures,'" he said, looking at the back of the volume, and reading its title. "Ah, 'The Gods.' The title, sir, almost tells the whole story; and so far as you and I are concerned, it is almost a waste of time for us to open the book—and a crime against themselves for ignorant men to do so."

"The author must be one of your 'holy terrors' that I hear mentioned," I said. "A Western 'bad man' no doubt. Sad! sad! is it not?"

"Oh, no, no; the author is not a cowboy—he's a perfect gentleman—as polished as I am; and there's nothing very sad in the book. It contains several lectures in the line of agnostic agitation, which were from time to time delivered by a very talented, but, as I think, mistaken man. When I say mistaken, I do not mean mistaken in the sense that our church people might apply the term to him; for our church people seem to misunderstand him, almost as greatly as he misapprehends the purposes of nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon Christian workers. But mark my words, sir, you will soon, in England, hear of this young 'infidel' lecturer; for with his keen brain, his invincible logic, his concise and beautiful rhetoric, he will soon be recognized as the most popular living agnostic. His home is not far distant from Bellevue, and I have frequently heard him lecture. I think him the best platform orator I have ever listened to, though I have twice been charmed by the eloquence of Phillips, and a dozen times by that of Beecher. I shall not outrage your own and my own manhood by alluding to anything which the more partisan church people say of this brilliant agnostic; and I say what I do, only because in your distant home you may some day wonder just what is behind an agnostic demonstration such as he is leading up to, and which is certain to centralize the dissatisfied spirit of the country into an anti-church propaganda of no mean proportions. I am opposed to such a movement; but I believe in truth as the only durable weapon, and I love truth for truth's sake—I should refuse to enter the gateway of heaven if liars were admitted. I cannot go into the history of this man, but this much is fact: There are reasons which cause him to believe that in striking at Christianity he is performing a highly praiseworthy action. In this belief he is as sincere and as enthusiastic in his cold logical way, as is any Christian in his belief. If duplicity were possible to this man—or if he could have found it consistent with his sense of right even to keep silence concerning his opinion on religious subjects—he would by this time have been Governor of Illinois; and, with his ability, there is no elective office in the country to which he might not aspire with reasonable certainty of success. He himself is aware of all this, as are all who know him. At the early age of thirty-three, before his views were generally known, he was our Attorney-General. No political party will ever again dare to nominate him for an office."

"This is all wrong," I said; "it savors of religious persecution."

"True," said Castleton, "it does; but the fact is as I state it. He would if he ran for office lose enough votes from his own party to allow his opponent to win."

"But, my dear doctor," I said, "I fail to catch your reasons for thinking this man mistaken. You surely would not have him be untrue to himself?"

"Oh, no—never that! I mean that he is intellectually mistaken in thinking that the world is still to be benefited by agnostic agitation among the masses. Voltaire had a good reason for proclaiming and teaching his views, because in France, in his day, religious infidelity was necessary to political liberty. Tom Paine had a good reason for his course, because Christianity, misrepresented at that time by mistaken or corrupt men, was arrayed on the side of the despot, and so continued up to the beginning of the French Revolution. But this man has no good excuse for a fight against church influence in the United States, now in 1877. The influence of the Christian church is now certainly exerted for good, and does not attempt to restrict the liberty of any man, or of society."

"But did you not just say that this agnostic's views would forever prevent his election to public office, here in this great free country, in the year 1877 and onward?"

"We cannot have a free country and not allow a man to vote against another, even if his vote were influenced by the cut of a candidate's trousers."

"Yes," I said; "but if the cut of a candidate's trousers influenced a man's vote, such a man would be a good object for education. Your agnostic would no doubt say that the influence of church is to be fought so long as it judges of a man's capability to do one thing well by his opinion on a totally different subject."

"You will never educate the people out of their prejudices; but I myself should vote against this man because his course shows his views to be inconsistent with statesmanship. No person desires to restrict another's individual opinions; we only combat this man's because of their effects, as he combats those of his opponents. There are as many agnostics, proportionally, that would not vote for a Presbyterian, for instance, for public office, as there are Presbyterians who, under like circumstances, would not vote for an agnostic."

"But in what way does the belief, or want of belief, of an agnostic, prevent an otherwise able man from being a statesman?" I asked.

"No doubt some of the best statesmen living are agnostics; but they are not agnostic agitators. Men who are able to digest and assimilate agnostic opinions, are able to initiate those ideas for themselves; and only men who are able to properly digest and assimilate such ideas should have them at all."

"Can you," I asked, "state an instance in which what you indicate as premature education of the masses in agnostic ideas, might lead to injury to the persons so instructed, or to society at large?"

"Yes, sir, I can. Your ignorant American—the 'cracker' element of the South, your ignorant Italian, and your ignorant Irishman are injured by taking away their religious beliefs. The first of these, when church people, dress neatly, are honorable, and have some upward-tending ambitions; whilst those of them that are infidels are reduced—men and women—to a state of ambitionless inertia and tobacco saturation—if no worse. The two latter are either under religious control, or under secret-society control. If the lower-class Irishman or Italian, unendowed with judgment to rightly use the little knowledge he already possesses—to properly interpret his own feelings or guide his own impulses—has not his church with its priestly control, he will have his secret-society with its secret executive control, its bovine fury, and its senseless pertinacity, the poison-bowl and the dagger. For my part, if a man must either seek liberty from ambush, and learn independence through treachery, or else be on his knees before a graven image, suited to his mental calibre—let us keep him on his knees till he can rise to something better than murder. Why, sir, an Irish Republican (a rarity)—an editor, once said to me that some of our Irish emigrants have hair on their teeth when they get to America; and, though I may be wrong, I never see an Italian organ-grinder without first thinking of a dagger between my ribs, and then settling down to a comfortable feeling that if the fellow's a Catholic the confessional stands between me and such a danger. The man who attempts to teach such fellows about complete liberty should be responsible for any consequent acts."

"Still, doctor," I said, "the road to universal knowledge cannot be all smooth. Ground must be broken by somebody. If there is anything in Christianity that bars the way to final freedom of mind for the whole human race, then I myself say, clear away the obstructions—the work cannot begin too soon or continue too vigorously."

"I see nothing in true Christianity but good for the human race—surely you speak only to call out my own views. If there is anything in any church policy or polity which requires reforming, let it be reformed."

"Excuse me, doctor," I said; "but I had thought you yourself an agnostic. Do you not think that if a religion will not bear the test of cold reason, it should be discarded from the lives of men?"

"No, I do not. The human mind is not comprised in intellect alone—it has its moral or emotional side, wholly apart from reason. Religion is not to be reasoned about—it is to be felt. No founder of a religion ever claimed for it a place in man's reason. Now just think for a minute. Let us leave the ignorant, and consider what the best of men are—men who have attained a mental cultivation certainly as great as will ever be possible to the masses. Take the very highest society in England and America—to what extent are its members controlled by reason, and to what extent by feeling and by the fixed sentiments growing out of feeling? Ratiocination does not influence one of their actions in a million. There is not within my knowledge a single instance where a purely rational conception has been the basis of practice, in opposition to feeling."

"Surely," I said, "you do not mean to say that educated men are not governed in the main by reason?"

"I mean just what I say—that I do not know, in practice, a single instance in which they are so governed in opposition to feeling. Pshaw, pshaw! young man; if we are to compel the acts of practical daily life to conform with a dialectic demonstration of what is best for us—to do only what is in reason best for us—we must simply cease to live, though we do continue to breathe. Even in physics, of what use are logical demonstrations, when the premises are only a foundation more unstable than quicksand—purely provisional?

"Now if these agnostics were truthful—which they try to be; and were consistent—which they are not, they would be in a trying situation. Reason shows no advantage to a man in kissing his wife; he has no syllogistic endorsement for supporting her and the children; in fact, he has no business to have children—all the result of feeling or sentiment, all rubbish, and beneath the intellect of a man who worships Pure Reason! And if the demands of man's moral or affectional nature are a reason for such indulgences, then his aspirations to the great primal cause of the known, the unknown, and (to us here and now) unknowable wonders and mysteries of the universe without, and of ourselves within, is also justifiable in reason, and ought not by wit and eloquence to be juggled out of the ingenuous mind. The masses are governed by religion, directly and indirectly, to an extent much greater than at first thought appears. The daily life of the agnostic himself is shaped by his Christian heredity and environment. Now our Author furnishes no substitute for this intuitive demand of being. If reason can supply nothing in place of religion, why not allow those who possess religious conviction to retain so agreeable, and to others beneficial, a belief?—Now right here I can detect the voice of the agnostic agitator—this is his strongest situation, and he simply smiles when you make this opening for him. The voice says, 'Agreeable? Agreeable to burn forever in hell? Well, well, my friend—our ideas of pleasure differ.' This is sophistical twaddle. It is not the Christian that suffers from a fear of hell—it is the sinner, through his guilty conscience. Conscience, conscience; the only barrier between us and hell on earth! Christians are comforted by the thought of a loving Christ—Christians, in my experience, do not suffer."

"Why, sir," I said, "I cannot but wonder that you are not yourself a professed Christian."

"Never mind me, young man.—But here we are on the edge of town. I could, if I wanted to, preach a sermon capable of converting every heathen within sound of my voice. Once, at a camp-meeting, I did preach a sermon; and I tell you, the old people looked mighty sober, and the younger and more susceptible of my auditors covered their faces with their hands and seemed to shake with grief and contrition. But, pshaw, pshaw; people don't go to hear either witty agnostics lecture, or preachers preach, to get something for their brain-boxes to reason about. Believe me "—tapping the volume, still in his hand—"this sort of thing won't make anybody reason. After all, the question is one of swapping off Christ for an Illinois lawyer."