ages back from our day than your historians attempt. And yet you fix upon the creation of the world cycles after we had been forced by the gradual changes of climate to migrate northward."
"How did the change come about?"
"As the change is taking place on the world now and always has been. The ocean eats morsel by morsel away, and men retreat before its approach, earthquakes occur and countries sink, volcanoes burst out and bury cities, while the earth gradually alters its position, until what was tropical becomes ice-locked. Countries, like fields and gardens, when they are used up, have to lie fallow and rest for years or cycles of centuries. The human race never perished outright at any period; one nation became merged in another, adopting the habits and language of those they went amongst until their own became lost. An earthquake or an outburst of fire might destroy the records of a people or break the historical link, but change is the order of Nature."
"Yet when you reached to this state of perfection, how could your race ever change?"
"As the earth changes, my friend. Men became wearied of peace and plenty after a time, and went over the mountains and waters in search of adventure, and warlike strangers came and conquered us; but that was long after my earth-time."
"Yet you are contented with your life of peace and rest in this paradise?" queried the inquisitive Philip, who already had his own ideas about perfect rest.
He had listened in churches to descriptions about Heaven being an eternity of Sundays, and he had never been much enamoured with this notion of perfect felicity. To sit for ever in crystal halls or on golden thrones, playing the harp and singing an eternal re-
