CHAPTER XI."FOR THE WORK'S SAKE."That night, at the request of Hatasa, the whole family assembled in her room, and she insisted upon having them engage in their usual religious exercises, to which she listened with profoundest attention, and with a certain amazement; for it was hard for her to grasp at once the idea that God might be worshiped without a temple, a priest, and a sacrifice; but the fact furnished its own best explanation. And the sorrowful woman soon found herself following with a new, strange sort of interest the reading of the gospel, and the earnest, extemporaneous, sympathetic prayer of Ammonius, in which he pleaded with God not to suffer his dear and sorrowful guests, nor the aged and righteous priest, who had so long sought for the truth, to depart from his abode without having learned by blessed experience how freely Jesus can forgive, and what light and peace his gospel can afford to all who believe thereon.After the conclusion of these exercises, Am-nem-hat saith to Ammonius, "There are some things connected with thy simple and beautiful religion about which I would question thee when thou shalt have leisure and inclination to answer me."Then said Ammonius: "Whenever thou wilt! Even now, if thou wilt go with me into another room, where our conversation may not weary the others.""Nay," cried Hatasa. "Go not hence, I beg; for I eagerly desire to hear such conversation."Then said Am-nem-hat: "I know the Jewish scriptures, and also the new books which the Christians have written; but I desire thee to tell me plainly what the evidence is of the fact, upon which thou dost continually insist, that Jesus of Nazareth, whom Pilate crucified, is the Christ.""The evidence is primarily historical and prophetic," said Ammonius, "based chiefly upon the Jewish laws and prophecies concerning him that were written centuries before the advent of our Lord, and that do testify of him.""Yea," answered Am-nem-hat, "but these proofs only go to establish the coming of a Divine Man, in whom not only Plato and Socrates, who knew nothing of the Jews, but the Egyptians also, and many more, believed. I speak not of proofs that Messiah was to come, but of the proof that Jesus, whom Pilate crucified, was he.""The evidences upon this point are twofold," answered Ammonius. "One line of proof which is the most satisfying, and which in fact amounts to positive knowledge, is the personal consciousness of the believer, experimental religion, whereby he knoweth that faith, the conviction of sin, the justification of the believer, and all of the phenomena which must necessarily attend the faith, are true. But this highest, most satisfactory, most scientific form of evidence is of course inaccessible to one that believeth not, except by the testimony of those who have personal experience of the truth. The other line of evidence is founded on the fact that the prophecies foretold for centuries just what Messiah should do and suffer when he might come, and we know that Jesus did and suffered just those things--many of them not possible to be done without the Divinity--as healing of the sick, unstopping the deaf ears, cleansing the lepers, restoring sight to the blind, raising the dead, and preaching good tidings to the poor; all of which things Jesus customarily did, all of which things his followers have done from that day to this; whereby we know that he is Christ indeed.""Dost thou mean to assert that the Christians yet work miracles?" asked Am-nem-hat."Assuredly," replied Ammonius. "Jesus not only did the miracles himself, but did solemnly promise that, wherever his disciples should continue to obey him in all things, they should be able, by faith in his name, to do thaumaturgical works even unto the end of time; and they have certainly done so ever since.""Dost thou really believe that thou hast seen a miracle with thine own eyes?""Yea, verily," said Ammonius, "and many of them."The ancient paused a long time, and seemed lost in profoundest meditation. At length he answered in a tone of inexpressible sadness and weariness: "I was in the temple service at Thebes for nearly half a century, and much of the time a priest. At Ombos I was high-priest for five-and-twenty years, and until some five years ago. I have seen some wonders, indeed, which the people called miracles. but alas! alas! I know just how those things were done! The sun rises and sets, and no man hindereth it! The Nile overfloweth its banks, and refresheth all the land of Kem, and shrinketh back in his accustomed channel; the stars in heaven pursue their bright and tranquil way, and seed-time cometh, and the harvest; and life and death. All nature moves on in obedience to fixed, changeless, universal laws, which have been from the beginning; and I find myself unable to believe that these laws were ever violated, or suspended, in order to furnish evidences of any religion, or for any purpose whatever; although, no doubt, good men may believe that such things have occurred.""And as to that," said Ammonius, "beyond any question thou art right. He hath but a poor conception of our God who thinketh that, in creating a world wherein he intended miracles to occur, he did not know enough to provide natural laws by which these phenomena might come to pass without violating or suspending the established order. But, if I could know that it violates or suspends any law of nature to raise the dead, I would not believe such a fact, although I have seen it done. But why dost thou suppose that the anastasis of the dead is contrary to natural law? Our Lord hath never said so; on the contrary, he came to fulfill, not to violate, the law. Surely thou canst not declare that any miracle violates or suspends, or is without law, unless thou canst first truthfully declare that all laws are known to thee, and that among them there is none by which the dead might be raised up. But although thou art wise and learned, thou knowest that Nature withholdeth many secrets yet from thee. Thou knowest that no man hath mastered all her laws; and even those which we know may be weak, and mean, and narrow, compared with those of which we are profoundly ignorant. But we Christians teach that God is not the author of confusion, but of order; that all laws of nature, physical, mental, spiritual, are but the expression of his will, which must be harmonious throughout, and can not be self-contradictory; and that just as he hath made some law by which water seeks a level, and by which heavy bodies tend toward the center of the world, and by which oil and water, that repel each other by nature, will unite with an alkali to make a new creature, just so he hath established laws by which the miracles are done; so that the anastasis of the dead, or any other miracle, must be as purely and truly a natural phenomenon as is the rising of the sun, or the falling of the dew--not so common, perhaps, because these phenomena involve powers and faculties of the human soul that do not act always and automatically as do the laws of physical nature; so neither does one sleep, or talk, or think always, but only when he wills to do so.""That is a new, strange view of thaumaturgy! Thou sayst 'the miracles are under law'; perhaps, then, other men besides the Christians might be able to perform them.""I know not to what extent it might be possible for other men to exercise the power of faith which is an essential condition in the working of miracles. I suppose they might do wonderful things, that would bear about the same relation to our Christian miracles that their various religions bear to our holy Christianity. And I suppose that the witchcraft and demonology denounced by Moses were the results of the exercise of faith in false gods. But a Christian miracle, depending upon faith in Christ as a primary condition for the exercise of thaumaturgical power, must remain impossible to all who possess not that faith. Thou hast read the Gospels, and thou knowest the Lord hath said, 'If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye might say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the midst of the sea, and it should obey you.' But he also said, 'Without me ye can do nothing.'""I infer," said Am-nem-hat, "that thou thinkest faith to be the law of miracles; thou thinkest that this faith is itself a force in nature sufficient for the accomplishment of physical results; and that they who sincerely believe may, by means of this force, even raise up the dead. Why, then, are not all the dead raised up?""Thou hast stated the law rather too broadly," answered Ammonius. "The faith that worketh miracles must be applied under proper conditions to be of any avail. Water, oil, and alkali do not always produce soap, but only when the proper conditions are observed. So I suppose that no man could be raised up from the dead against his will; and, while there be many Christians that have sought for martyrdom, there be but few that were willing to be raised again, and fewer still that ever requested the brethren to pray for their anastasis, because they preferred to depart, and to be with the Lord, which is far better.""I do remember," said Am-nem-hat, "that many years ago, when Decius was Emperor of Rome, a bitter persecution raged against the Christians at Alexandria. I saw Julian, and Macar, and Epimachus, and Alexander burned at the stake; and truly many seemed to seek for martyrdom rather than to shun it, a fact which we attributed to a certain incorrigible and hopeless wickedness in them, and not, as thou dost, to their assurance of obtaining a better life. I suppose, indeed, that such men as those would not have desired to be restored to a life which they seemed anxious to lose; and it seemeth reasonable enough that, even if it had been possible to do so, they should not have been recalled against their will. Wilt thou not state more fully yet the conditions upon which thou thinkest this thaumaturgy may be exercised?""Faith in Jesus is the primary condition," said Ammonius, "but there are also others. Once a man came unto our Lord and besought him to heal his son, saying that the disciples had been unable to do so. Our Lord did heal him with a word. Afterward the disciples inquired of him why it was that they had failed in doing the same work, and he said unto them that it was because of their unbelief. Now thou must perceive that it was not because of their want of faith in him, for they were then following him; so that it must have been because of their unbelief in their own power and authority to do the work in his name. It seemeth, therefore, that faith on the part of the thaumaturgist in his own power to accomplish the miracle in the Lord's name is one of the conditions of thaumaturgy.""That also seemeth to be a reasonable and proper condition," answered Am-nem-hat. "But are there yet others?""It is written that he did not many wonderful works at Capernaum because of their unbelief. He often said to those who asked his aid, 'Be it unto thee according to thy faith.' And from these facts it seems to follow that faith on the part of him for, or upon, whom the work was to be done, and on the part of those among whom it was to be done, was also one of the conditions upon which the exercise of thaumaturgical power depended.""But," objected Am-nem-hat, "if he was in truth divine, why should he pay any attention to the unbelieving or to the unwilling? Why did he not do the miracles in defiance of them all, as well as if they had been faithful and willing?""Because," answered Ammonius, "our Lord teacheth and requireth only a willing obedience and faith. Not God himself will force the human will; for that which is of compulsion hath no morality. It is of necessity, therefore, neither holy nor unholy. A necessary holiness is a contradiction in terms. God's use of sovereignty hath been to make man free. Besides, faith itself is the law of miracles; to have wrought miracles where no faith was, would have been to violate the very law by which he worked, and so to have degraded miracles to the plane of an arbitrary and sporadic exhibition of divine power, instead of leaving them as they are, the highest result of the very highest form of universal law.""That seemeth reasonable enough," rejoined Am-nem-hat, "and in accordance with my conception of the character of a holy and perfect God. But as I perceive thou clearly comprehendest the Christian system, upon which I have bestowed much thought almost in vain, suffer me to put one other case to thee which seemeth to me to be inexplicable upon any principles which thou hast stated as constituent elements of the law of miracles, if thou art not yet weary of my questions.""Nay," said Ammonius, "I am not weary. Thou mayst ask many things, indeed, which I know not, and can not answer; but, so far as I can give thee any aid, it affordeth me pleasure to answer thee as intelligently as I can.""The matter is this," said Am-nem-hat. "It is recorded in thy sacred books that when the apostles were going about Jerusalem, imparting the Paraclete by the laying on of their hands, and working divers miracles, one Simon, a magician, came unto them and offered money unto them if they would communicate unto him the same power, so that he also might become a thaumaturgist. But one of them, named Peter, did bitterly rebuke him, saying, 'Thy money perish with thee!' Now, the apostles had faith; the people who saw them doing all these wonderful works had faith, and were baptized by Philip. Simon Magus himself had faith as much as any one of them, and, when Peter rebuked him, with fear and trembling he besought Peter, saying, 'Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.' Now, here seem to have been all of the conditions of faith and willingness in Simon of which thou hast spoken, and yet Peter manifestly regarded the desire of Simon as a sort of sacrilege. Why was this so?""Why," said Ammonius, "Peter declared that his thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money was evil; and that his heart was not right in the sight of God, and that he should repent of his wickedness, and that his very thought showed that he was still in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity.""That is very true," answered Am-nem-hat, "but his tender of money to the apostles only proves his appreciation of the value of the power which he desired to purchase. Peter saith not that Simon was a bad man, but that this particular thing was wicked; why was it so in him, and not in them?""Because," replied Ammonius, "it is manifest from the whole record that Simon desired to purchase this power for himself, and to use it for his own purposes.""Certainly so," persisted Am-nem-hat, "but in what respect was it sacrilegious for him to desire to use the power for his own purposes, any more than it would have been to use his brain, or his hand, for his own advancement; or his learning, or skill, for the acquisition and cultivation of which he had, perhaps, expended money?""The answer to thy question," replied Ammonius, "involves some consideration of the very genius of Christianity as a system of divine truth. If, as thou seemest to suppose, the religion of our Lord had been only a system of spiritual truth, it might be difficult to deny that the apostles were selfish, and that Simon was very badly treated. But this is not at all true. Thou knowest that the legislation of Moses was for the Israelites only; that of Egypt for the land and people of Kem only; that of other lands and ages for certain peoples only. But thou canst not have read the scriptures so carefully without learning the fact that Jesus died for all men, and that his truth is designed for all mankind. Thou seest, therefore, that, if Simon Magus could have obtained this power to exercise it for his own purposes, he would have made it the agency by which to gain limitless authority and wealth unto himself, and oppress the poor. Thou seest also that, if any nation or government could exercise thaumaturgical powers, that nation or government would soon become the ruler and the tyrant of the world. Thou seest that, if any church that is in any way connected with, or bound unto, an earthly government, could exercise this power, ecclesiasticism would quickly make mankind its slaves: for manifestly no people could long resist a government that had thaumaturgical power wherewith to enforce obedience to its laws. Thou seest also that if the faith that is effective for miracles could be exercised for any purposes except the edification of the Church and the good of all men, the faith itself might have become a nameless and unappealable tyranny. Nay, if it were ever possible to exercise such power except under such conditions as necessarily and absolutely to preclude the use of it for any private purposes, thou seest that sooner or later, under the influence of inborn selfishness, the thaumaturgists would have made war upon each other, and, in place of seeing nations contending with sword, and bow, and spear, we would have seen them hurling against each other all of the destructive forces of nature, and only chaos and utter ruin could have ended the superhuman strife. It was therefore ordained that the thaumaturgic faith can not be exercised except under conditions which necessarily exclude the use of it for private purposes, and insure its exercise for the good of the common Church only.""Canst thou specify by what means this restricted use of the power hath been enforced? For it seemeth to me that, if it exists, it must be beyond control.""In order to exclude all worldly ambitions and selfishness from the kingdom which he established in the world, our Lord ordained that his Church should be a community in which all men are free and equal--brethren only. Hence he ordained, as the fundamental law of the kingdom, that all private rights of property (including estates, rank, offices, prerogatives) should be forever abolished in his Church, and that Christians should hold them all in common. Hence, the kingdom of heaven is an absolute democracy, social and political, based upon faith in Christ, and community of rights and property among all who believe. Of this community the apostles themselves were the divinely appointed type. They used thaumaturgy for the common good only, and not for personal aggrandizement. The common treasure was put into a bag, and, as if to show the divine scorn of wealth and of all human distinctions that grow out of it, the bag was intrusted to Judas, the only base one of the twelve. It was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, because the law of that kingdom imperatively required the consecration of all that he had to the common good. But, under the power of a living faith, many complied with this law, and the Church prospered. Thus did the bishops that were ordained by the apostles, as Linus at Rome, Polycarp at Smyrna, Evodius at Antioch, and others also. Thus did Paulinus, Cyprian, Hilary, and others. Such has been the law and practice of the common Church even unto this day. For the primary law of the kingdom of heaven demandeth the consecration of all property, and the abdication of all worldly honors, offices, and authority. And Simon Magus desired not part or lot in this kingdom, but his own advantage only. And thou must perceive that thaumaturgical power exercised by such a church must necessarily be for the common good of all, and not for any personal, political, or sectarian purposes; and the faith that worketh wonders must therefore be impossible to any human association except to the church organized upon the foundation which Jesus himself laid, even the communion of the holy; for the liberty, fraternity, and equality, which constitute the socialism and politics of the kingdom, can not exist upon any other foundation. And, of course, thaumaturgic power will vanish even out of the Church if the day shall ever come in which those who believe shall abandon the communal organization of the kingdom of heaven, and establish human statutes as the law thereof.""I think," said Am-nem-hat, "that thy words remove many of the difficulties which have beset my study of thy sacred books. For I now perceive that the parables of Jesus--a species of literary composition unknown, perhaps impossible, to other men--which I supposed to refer to some spiritual, mystical doctrines, were in fact spoken concerning his Church, or kingdom, in this world.""Assuredly so," replied Ammonius. "And thou hast done well to characterize the parable as 'a species of literary composition unknown and impossible to other men'; for no other man hath written a parable, nor do I suppose that any man ever will do so. For he spake as never man spake: he spake in parables; without a parable he spake not. The history, the poem, the fable, the allegory, may be used by other teachers also; but the parable is the language of Jesus alone; and no man can handle it but himself.""I can now understand that strange parable of 'the unjust steward,'" said Am-nem-hat, "although, when I first read the words, 'I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations,' I did even suppose that Jesus represented eternal life to be a vendible thing, and that his religion, like every other, assured the rich that they could purchase salvation with money--although this seemed to be antagonistic to the general current of his teachings.""Verily," replied Ammonius, "the words of Jesus would convey no other meaning, if, indeed, the fundamental law of the Church had not excluded therefrom all the private wealth, honors, and authority after which the Gentiles seek. But, if thou wilt consider that the unjust steward is any believer that useth his means, pecuniary, intellectual, physical, for his own aggrandizement, and not for the common good; that the Lord of that steward is Jesus; that unrighteous mammon is wealth held by private ownership, and that the true riches is wealth held by common title for the good of all--thou canst then understand how, even upon ceasing to be steward (the end of life), one may make amends for past selfishness and mammon-worship, by giving up his property to the common Church. Thou canst understand how it is just that those who come in even at the eleventh hour to work in his vine-yard shall have an equal reward with those who entered early and bore the heat and burden of the day. Thou wilt see that it is true that those who gave up houses and lands for his sake and the gospel's reaped manifold more 'now in this present life' by gaining a communal title in the property of all other believers--an increase which our Lord expressly promises as to all the interests and relationships of life, except as to the wife; for, while, if one leave houses, lands, father, mother, brother, sister, or children, for the gospel's sake, the severed interests and relationships are replaced a hundred-fold by his admission into the kingdom of heaven, monogamic marriage was and is the law of the Church. And thou canst thus give a practical and beautiful meaning to all that our Lord hath said and done; thou wilt see that the social and political system of the gospel is the only kingdom that can ever banish crime, hatred, and selfishness out of human life, and so regenerate the world; thou wilt see that the Scribes and Pharisees persecuted our Lord because his kingdom excluded war, slavery, private-property rights, estates, rank, offices, prerogatives--of all which things they were 'covetous'--just as the Romans and all other established governments persecute the Christians, even unto this day, for the same reasons. For Christ desireth the brotherhood of men; the liberty and equality of men; and that the average talents, energy, and prosperity of all may insure the common weal; and not that some shall be emperors, lords, and masters, whereby it cometh to pass that many must be slaves; not that some be inordinately rich, and others distressfully poor.""I will read the gospels and the Acts again in the light of thine instructions," said Am-nem-hat. "But, verily, many passages thereof already come crowding into my mind that bear new and potent meanings; for I perceive clearly enough that Christianity is not only a system of spiritual truth, but also of social and political truth, that is founded upon the faith, and from that basis assaulteth selfishness in its strong citadel of private rights by elevating the common good into a higher thing than private aggrandizement, and separating the people of his kingdom from all personal honors, prerogatives, and wealth, after which the Gentiles seek.""Thou wilt perceive this all the more clearly," said Ammonius, "if thou wilt reread the gospels with this thought in thy mind; for thou wilt at once perceive that many passages, which in any other view would seem strongly tainted with fanaticism, or rhapsody, or demagoguery, are precisely the things which Jesus ought to have said if his kingdom was, indeed, a social and political democracy founded upon faith and community of rights and property. For the Jews, who supposed that our Lord would overturn the Roman authority and establish a great Israelitish nation instead thereof, were not any more in error than are those who falsely suppose that he would establish no kingdom at all, and that he taught only spiritual truth, as do the Therapeutæ.""I am familiar with the work of Philo 'On a Contemplative Life, or the Devout,'" answered Am-nem-hat, "in which he giveth a full and succinct account of the Therapeutæ; but, indeed, I had supposed that he therein intended to describe the first heralds of the gospel, and the practices handed down from the apostles.""Beyond doubt the Therapeutæ were Christians," continued Ammonius, "but they separated themselves from the apostolical churches in order to lead a more devout life, and they gradually exalted all their conceptions of spiritual truth until they began to despise all temporal surroundings; and in this they departed from the teaching of our Lord: for there is no teacher of men more free from asceticism or stoicism than is Jesus. He was ever busied about and interested in the common, every-day life of common men; he was touched with the feeling of our infirmity in all things; sympathized in all the joys and sorrows of those about him, their trials and triumphs, seeking to lead them, not out of the world, but into a way of life wherein every pure and wholesome feeling, affection, and faculty of the human heart might find full development, exercise, and satisfaction. The vast difference, indeed, between Jesus and the philosophers subsists in the fact that, while they were ever painfully seeking for rules and actions by which the select and favored few might attain a perfect human life, he ordained a simple, perfect system by which to bring the higher, purer life within the reach of all men, especially the poor."In such conversations the time passed quickly; and it was strange to note with what deep interest the sorrowful Hatasa, and also Theckla and Arius, listened to every word, and strove to catch the full signification of every phrase; while Arete heard it patiently, as one might listen to an oft-told but still pleasant story, and old Thopt, as if she knew little and cared less about the whole matter, being satisfied that whatever Ammonius and his wife might do must be right and true.CHAPTER XII.THE ONE THING NEEDFUL.On the same day began Arius to teach Theckla letters; for, although the girl had been remarkably well instructed for an Egyptian maiden, all of her tuition had been oral. But, in accordance with her strong wish to learn how to read and write, the boy began at once with the three alphabets, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and in a single day she learned all of the letters, and the relative power of each, and in a very short time she could make all of the characters with a sharp point ofkeilupon a leaf of papyrus. Then, as leisure served, he would take a single word, as, for example, "spirit," and would pronounce and spell it in the three languages (nishema, pneuma, animus), and she would repeat the three names for the same thing after him, and spell them, and write them down, over and over again, until she had become thoroughly familiar with the letters, the sound, and the form of the written word. The acquisition of a few words every day soon gave her command of a considerable vocabulary in each tongue, and she rapidly learned to associate the words with all familiar objects, and to call them by the right name in either tongue. Then he would select some short passage, generally from the sacred writings, and during the day she would write it over and over again, in each of the languages, while he was absent upon the various duties which pertained to his part of the farm-labor. The girl was continually learning; and it was pleasant to see how soon she began, of her own accord, to select and translate into the different tongues any passage which pleased her. This process of education continued, as we shall hereafter see, during the years which she spent at Baucalis, and finally Theckla became very familiar with the three languages in which the scriptures were then written.On the next evening after that described in the last chapter, all the dwellers at the cottage assembled again in Hatasa's room, by her request, to hold the usual evening service; for the lady had seldom quitted her bed, and she remained deplorably weak, suffering with continual pain in her lungs, the result, perhaps, of her great exposure during the storm, and of the terrible depression of spirits that succeeded it. All through the pagan world, the only known refuge from hopeless sorrow was suicide, and the idea of self-destruction was ever present to her. Perhaps her maternal affection for Theckla alone deterred her from putting an end to her life; for it was not regarded by the heathen as cowardly, criminal, or even immoral, to seek that refuge from misfortune. Cato did it; Seneca approved of it; Epictetus, Aurelius, and all the great lights of pagan antiquity regarded self-immolation as a matter of choice, and often as an act of wisdom. But, from the moment in which Hatasa had been informed that the kind friends who surrounded her were Christians, she felt a desire to know more of them, and of their peculiar religion, strong enough to give her a new interest in life; and she had requested Ammonius to have the service in her room, and told him that, although she was too weak to take any part in their conversation about Christianity, she desired to hear himself and Am-nem-hat discuss any topic pertaining thereto in which they were interested. So, after the usual exercises of reading and prayer, the whole family remained together. The ancient remarked to Ammonius that during the day he had pondered much upon the things spoken of in their former conversation, and suggested, as a difficulty in the way of the acceptance of Christianity, something like the following: "I can understand how a kind and merciful God might lay down certain rules of action, and require obedience to his laws, under whatever penalties he might choose to impose; but it seemeth to me that to require oneto believe, as the sole condition of justification, is arbitrary and unjust. Suppose that one hath some natural bent of mind, or hath been reared and educated in some such way that it is hard, perhaps impossible, for him to believe; yet thy books say: 'Believe and live; he that believeth not is condemned already.' Is not this an arbitrary demand for faith; and doth it not do violence to that very autonomy of the will which thou sayest Jesus himself always respected and venerated?""Thou dost somewhat mistake the matter," said Ammonius. "The Lord does not demand our faith; he simply stateth an actual fact, which is, that the believer is justified by faith, and that he who does not believe is condemned already.""I hardly understand what thou sayest: 'he simply stateth an actual fact.'""I think thou wilt find that there is no arbitrary demand in it. Our Lord gave no command only because he had power and authority to do so; but he knew what was in man, and gave only such commands as his divine wisdom perceived to be necessary for the welfare of mankind. As to the necessity of faith upon which he insists, the case is thus: All men upon earth are under the conviction of sin, and all alike are forever seeking for some escape from the bonds of this conviction. Thou wilt perceive that this conviction hath no reference to any specific, sinful act; for, perhaps, the best and purest men have always been those who felt it most keenly. It is a consciousness of alienation between the human and the divine. It is a natural, intuitive perception, in the heart of every man, that he is not as good as he ought to be, less perfect than he might be. The universal desire to get rid of this conviction of sin hath filled the world with false and ineffectual religions from the very dawn of time; for all men, in every age and clime, have sought for some form of penance or of sacrifice, some means in faith or work, by which to make atonement and secure reconciliation, and thereby shake off this conviction of sin. Hast thou ever heard of any kindred, tribe, or tongue (or even of any individual), that professed to be perfect, sinless, needing no sacrifice, no atonement for sin--that is, for a consciously sinful condition independent of all specific acts of transgression?""Nay," answered Am-nem-hat; "for thou art clearly right in that. All men do by nature bewail their sinful state. Humanity standeth forever like the lepers in Israel, with uplifted hand, crying aloud to heaven and earth, 'Unclean! unclean!' It is a conviction upon which philosophy hath no power. It cometh some time into every human heart, resistless as the precession of the equinoxes, spontaneous as the flowing of the Nile--a natural thing, which a man can no more control than he can reach forth his puny hand and unloose the bands of Orion, or bind the sweet influence of Pleiades, or guide Arcturus and his suns. All literature, all monuments, all ages, and all men, testify unto this terrible truth.""Now the work of Jesus," said Ammonius, "was not to burden this sick and sorrowful nature with any arbitrary law of faith, but was to provide a way by which this universal conviction of sin might be atoned for--a perfect righteousness and sacrifice available by faith for our justification; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. And faith is made the condition, because no other condition could be available for all men alike, whether great or small, rich or poor, learned or ignorant; and Jesus died for all! Thou must see that this faith, instead of being, as thou didst suppose, an arbitrary condition or command, is simply the enabling act, instituted by divine wisdom and compassion, by means whereof we may be able to attain unto reconciliation with God. And without this faith we could never be justified by holy life and works alone, because it is a law of our nature that, just as we become better and purer beings, our conception of the degree of fitness required of us necessarily becomes higher, so that it is impossible for us to get any nearer to it; so that without faith the best men are as much under conviction of sin as the worst; so that without faith it is impossible for us to be consciously justified, because our nature requires a perfect righteousness; and this perfect righteousness and sacrifice must be human, that we may be able to trust its love and willingness to aid us, and must be divine, that we may have faith in its power to save. Hast thou ever heard of any name given under heaven, or among men, which supplies these natural and necessary conditions for our conscious justification and reconciliation with God, and with our own hearts also, except the name of Jesus Christ? If thou hast, please utter it.""Verily," answered Am-nem-hat, "there is none. No religion of which I have heard professeth to know any."The old man seemed lost in profoundest meditation, and there was silence in the room, until Theckla said: "Father Am-nem-hat, do thou bid Arius repeat what things he said to me of this matter of faith when he was teaching the alphabets to me this morning. I think it was much plainer than thy learned discoursing with Ammonius.""Yea," said Am-nem-hat, "I beg that Arius will do so, for I much desire to hear thereof."The boy blushed vividly at being so called upon in the presence of his elders, but, at a sign from his father, he stood up before them, saying: "I did not suppose the talk of persons so young could interest those who are so much older and wiser, but, as ye desire to hear it, I can almost repeat it. As Theckla and I were running over the alphabets, in order to get the sound of the letters and the form of the characters, she came upon the letter 'A' a second time, and she cried out: 'Oh, I know that one; it is Latin A, Greek Alpha, Hebrew Aleph.' And I said unto her, 'Theckla, how knowest thou that the characters stand for these sounds?' and she answered, 'Thou didst tell me so, and I did believe thee, boy, and that is how I know it.' Then said I: 'Theckla, thou learnest the alphabet by faith only. If thou wert naturally constituted so that thou couldst not believe, thou couldst never learn anything not tangible to thy senses. If thou wert by nature even indifferent between faith and non-faith, thy progress in the acquisition of knowledge would be slow and painful. Thou shouldst therefore learn, from the learning of these alphabets, that faith is the first, most inevitable act of intelligence. Thou shouldst learn that belief precedes knowledge always, that Faith is the elder sister and leadeth Knowledge by the hand, and that without antecedent faith it is impossible to learn and to know anything except what is palpable to the senses; just as it would be impossible for thee to learn these alphabets without faith.' And thereupon Theckla did pinch mine ear, and laugh at me, saying, 'That all seemeth to be true and plain enough, thou odd boy, but why art thou preaching at me now?' And I did answer: 'Because, thou dear sister, some time thy faith may be demanded for another alphabet than this, even the alphabet of spiritual life; and, when that day shall come, I would have thee remember that just as all human knowledge is builded upon the basis of faith only, so it should not seem a hard thing unto thee that God hath fashioned thy nature so that thou must be incapable of learning even the alphabet of everlasting life except upon the very same condition of faith only. Faith precedeth all knowledge; believe and obey, and finally thou shalt know.' I think this was about what was spoken between us concerning faith.""And it is most wise, beautiful, and instructive talk," said Am-nem-hat, "and serveth to complete the powerful utterances of thy father upon the same lofty and interesting subject. I do thank thee for repeating it."Then spake Hatasa, saying to Ammonius, "Suppose that one hath died without having known the truth concerning Jesus, and without having exercised this faith, is there no hope for such a one?"The trembling voice in which she spoke, and the look of timid, doubtful entreaty which accompanied these words, touched every heart, and made them all feel that by "such a one" the poor lady meant her young and gallant husband Amosis, whose memory seemed ever in her heart.Ammonius answered: "I do not know whether I could make thee understand fully the views which we Christians entertain about such a case as thou hast suggested, but we believe that there is hope for such a man. The great apostle Paul was Saul of Tarsus, and for a long time he did persecute the Christians because they were Christians, yet he declareth himself that he acted in all good conscience before God, believing that it was his duty to do so, and he afterward became the great apostle and a glorious martyr. I doubt not that there are among those who now persecute the Christians some good and just men, that would follow Jesus unto death if they could know him as he is. The conviction of sin, we know, hath no reference to any specific transgression, nor hath the forgiveness of sin. Whether an act be a sin or not dependeth largely upon the intent with which it is done. Now, when the heathen, who know not Jesus nor his divine truth, do yet live just and righteous lives according to the best light and knowledge they possess, and die without the consolation of the faith, the benefit of the atonement accrueth to them in some way, we know not precisely how far, nor to what effect; to all such, indeed, and especially to such as have some living Christian relative or friend that taketh upon himself the rite of baptism for the dead; for, if they have not the law, they are not judged by the law, but by their works and righteousness under the law which they have.""How is that?" said Hatasa, with breathless interest. "Thou sayest a living Christian may be baptized for the dead?""Assuredly," answered Ammonius. "The apostles so taught, and the Church hath always so practiced. If any Christian hath a relative that died without knowledge of Jesus, and such Christian doth believe that the deceased was a just and righteous person according to the measure of light given unto him, and was such that he would have followed our Lord if he had known sufficiently of him, such Christian may receive baptism for the deceased, and the dead shall reap benefit of this vicarious faith and obedience, how and to what extent hath never been clearly revealed unto us.""There is hope in that!" cried Hatasa. "There is consolation in that. Thy Lord must have been full of human love and pity to make provision not only for his friends, but for those good and just men, also, who have ignorantly been his enemies.""Yea, verily," answered Ammonius. "He loveth all men; his mercy endureth forever; his loving-kindness is stronger than height, or depth, or life, or death, or any other creature, as thou mayest assuredly know for thyself if thou wilt believe on him."Then Am-nem-hat said: "There is much in this religion that taketh fast hold upon both the heart and the mind; for it verily seemeth that Jesus seeketh not to impose a system upon man that is in any respect external to man, but rather that he seeketh to show unto man such spiritual food as is most divinely suitable to satisfy that hunger of the soul wherefrom the whole world suffereth already; and he seemeth to propose nothing as matter of faith which was not already a conscious want and need of nature: so that his teachings ought to be accepted as at least the highest utterance of philosophy if even not as divinely true.""Thy profound criticism of the spirit of our religion striketh very nearly to the heart of the whole matter," said Ammonius. "For the world yearned after God whom it knew not, and Jesus plainly declareth that unknown God whom men ignorantly worship. The world groaned and sorrowed under the blind conviction of sin, and, wherever men acquired a local habitation and a name on earth, there they had their holy places also; and in some way--often in a crude and ignorant way, often in a gross and sensual way, often in a heathenish and cruel way--they sought, by sacred rites of penitence and sacrifice, to atone for their wrong deeds done; but the wrongs continually repeated themselves, and the unavailing religions left the world's heart like a troubled sea that can not rest. But Jesus saith the sin for which ye suffer is not a wrong thing done at all; these wicked deeds of yours are not sin, but are the outcroppings of the sin that lieth back of all your deeds. Can a bitter fountain send forth sweet waters? Doth an evil tree bear good fruits? Do ye gather figs from thistles? Cease now your world-old and unavailing efforts to regenerate the heart by the vain expiation of your wicked deeds. Purify the fountain, that the waters thereof may be sweet. Make the tree good, and its fruits shall be good also. For sin is non-conformity to the will of God, and your evil deeds are only the evidences of your enmity against him. So, when the blind yearnings of the world's heart after peace had made sacrifices, not only of every beast and creeping thing upon the earth, but of men also, he saith: 'All these things ye do in vain, for your righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, or ye shall likewise perish. I am the Light, the Truth, the Way--the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world--a perfect righteousness and sacrifice once for all offered for the sin of men. Believe in me, and ye shall be saved; all other sacrifices are in vain.' So every yearning want of the heart is met and satisfied in Christ. All other religions under heaven condemn actions which they suppose to be wicked, and prescribe certain forms of expiation for such as they suppose to be expiable; but Jesus proposes to pardon, not so much the sinful act as the sinner, the sinful nature out of which the act ariseth, and to regenerate this nature so that it will hate what it believes to be wicked, and love what it believes to be holy. For Christ atoneth for all sin, and the act of faith is to personally appropriate the benefit thereof to each one for himself.""True," said Am-nem-hat, "and I undertake to assert that no other religion in the world hath so represented sin to be want of conformity to the will of God, rather than an evil deed; and in this whole matter of sin and the forgiveness thereof, thy religion differeth from paganism more radically than even in the doctrine of one God it differeth from polytheism."And in this and such like conversation the evening wore away until bed-time came, and they separated for the night. The family at Baucalis did not speak or think of these matters as of mere abstract theories of truth, or of philosophy, but as actual, living verities. The Christians felt their religion to be the only real life. They regarded all earthly pursuits, passions, and pleasures, as mere incidents of existence, and religion as the one controlling and all-important thing. Their pleasant home was to them a merely temporary station on the highway whereby they were journeying to a better land; the flesh was only a tabernacle which the spirit must soon forsake; all that pertained to it was for a brief season only; the real life was only begun during their occupancy of this earthly tenement; Christian faith was to them the one thing real and permanent, and earthly existence was of little consequence except as it might stand related to eternal interests. Hence there was a freshness, a vigor, a sense of reality and earnestness, in their way of thinking and speaking of such things, that demonstrated their religion to be no beautiful, speculative philosophy, but a hard, experimental, and all-controlling fact. And so every night during that week the dwellers at Baucalis assembled in Hatasa's room, and passed long hours in the discussion of all the salient points of Christianity in a friendly, careful way, as if, indeed, they had a mutual interest in ascertaining the truth, especially concerning all those ideas upon which the antagonism between Christianity and paganism most plainly appeared. To set down all the various conversations in which they engaged would indeed be to write a treatise upon primitive Christianity, a work in which, perhaps, no interest would be felt in an age in which that system no longer exists upon earth, and is utterly unknown to all except a few self-poised, fearless, unpopular antiquarians, who have been eccentric and independent enough to exhume that ancient religion from out the accumulateddébrisof fifteen centuries of ecclesiastical "progress" which flourisheth over its ruins even as the vine ripens and the roses bloom over the wreck of buried Pompeii. Yet we can not resist the inclination that moveth us to write out our notes of one other evening's conversation that happened between this Christian family and their pagan guests.
CHAPTER XI.
"FOR THE WORK'S SAKE."
That night, at the request of Hatasa, the whole family assembled in her room, and she insisted upon having them engage in their usual religious exercises, to which she listened with profoundest attention, and with a certain amazement; for it was hard for her to grasp at once the idea that God might be worshiped without a temple, a priest, and a sacrifice; but the fact furnished its own best explanation. And the sorrowful woman soon found herself following with a new, strange sort of interest the reading of the gospel, and the earnest, extemporaneous, sympathetic prayer of Ammonius, in which he pleaded with God not to suffer his dear and sorrowful guests, nor the aged and righteous priest, who had so long sought for the truth, to depart from his abode without having learned by blessed experience how freely Jesus can forgive, and what light and peace his gospel can afford to all who believe thereon.
After the conclusion of these exercises, Am-nem-hat saith to Ammonius, "There are some things connected with thy simple and beautiful religion about which I would question thee when thou shalt have leisure and inclination to answer me."
Then said Ammonius: "Whenever thou wilt! Even now, if thou wilt go with me into another room, where our conversation may not weary the others."
"Nay," cried Hatasa. "Go not hence, I beg; for I eagerly desire to hear such conversation."
Then said Am-nem-hat: "I know the Jewish scriptures, and also the new books which the Christians have written; but I desire thee to tell me plainly what the evidence is of the fact, upon which thou dost continually insist, that Jesus of Nazareth, whom Pilate crucified, is the Christ."
"The evidence is primarily historical and prophetic," said Ammonius, "based chiefly upon the Jewish laws and prophecies concerning him that were written centuries before the advent of our Lord, and that do testify of him."
"Yea," answered Am-nem-hat, "but these proofs only go to establish the coming of a Divine Man, in whom not only Plato and Socrates, who knew nothing of the Jews, but the Egyptians also, and many more, believed. I speak not of proofs that Messiah was to come, but of the proof that Jesus, whom Pilate crucified, was he."
"The evidences upon this point are twofold," answered Ammonius. "One line of proof which is the most satisfying, and which in fact amounts to positive knowledge, is the personal consciousness of the believer, experimental religion, whereby he knoweth that faith, the conviction of sin, the justification of the believer, and all of the phenomena which must necessarily attend the faith, are true. But this highest, most satisfactory, most scientific form of evidence is of course inaccessible to one that believeth not, except by the testimony of those who have personal experience of the truth. The other line of evidence is founded on the fact that the prophecies foretold for centuries just what Messiah should do and suffer when he might come, and we know that Jesus did and suffered just those things--many of them not possible to be done without the Divinity--as healing of the sick, unstopping the deaf ears, cleansing the lepers, restoring sight to the blind, raising the dead, and preaching good tidings to the poor; all of which things Jesus customarily did, all of which things his followers have done from that day to this; whereby we know that he is Christ indeed."
"Dost thou mean to assert that the Christians yet work miracles?" asked Am-nem-hat.
"Assuredly," replied Ammonius. "Jesus not only did the miracles himself, but did solemnly promise that, wherever his disciples should continue to obey him in all things, they should be able, by faith in his name, to do thaumaturgical works even unto the end of time; and they have certainly done so ever since."
"Dost thou really believe that thou hast seen a miracle with thine own eyes?"
"Yea, verily," said Ammonius, "and many of them."
The ancient paused a long time, and seemed lost in profoundest meditation. At length he answered in a tone of inexpressible sadness and weariness: "I was in the temple service at Thebes for nearly half a century, and much of the time a priest. At Ombos I was high-priest for five-and-twenty years, and until some five years ago. I have seen some wonders, indeed, which the people called miracles. but alas! alas! I know just how those things were done! The sun rises and sets, and no man hindereth it! The Nile overfloweth its banks, and refresheth all the land of Kem, and shrinketh back in his accustomed channel; the stars in heaven pursue their bright and tranquil way, and seed-time cometh, and the harvest; and life and death. All nature moves on in obedience to fixed, changeless, universal laws, which have been from the beginning; and I find myself unable to believe that these laws were ever violated, or suspended, in order to furnish evidences of any religion, or for any purpose whatever; although, no doubt, good men may believe that such things have occurred."
"And as to that," said Ammonius, "beyond any question thou art right. He hath but a poor conception of our God who thinketh that, in creating a world wherein he intended miracles to occur, he did not know enough to provide natural laws by which these phenomena might come to pass without violating or suspending the established order. But, if I could know that it violates or suspends any law of nature to raise the dead, I would not believe such a fact, although I have seen it done. But why dost thou suppose that the anastasis of the dead is contrary to natural law? Our Lord hath never said so; on the contrary, he came to fulfill, not to violate, the law. Surely thou canst not declare that any miracle violates or suspends, or is without law, unless thou canst first truthfully declare that all laws are known to thee, and that among them there is none by which the dead might be raised up. But although thou art wise and learned, thou knowest that Nature withholdeth many secrets yet from thee. Thou knowest that no man hath mastered all her laws; and even those which we know may be weak, and mean, and narrow, compared with those of which we are profoundly ignorant. But we Christians teach that God is not the author of confusion, but of order; that all laws of nature, physical, mental, spiritual, are but the expression of his will, which must be harmonious throughout, and can not be self-contradictory; and that just as he hath made some law by which water seeks a level, and by which heavy bodies tend toward the center of the world, and by which oil and water, that repel each other by nature, will unite with an alkali to make a new creature, just so he hath established laws by which the miracles are done; so that the anastasis of the dead, or any other miracle, must be as purely and truly a natural phenomenon as is the rising of the sun, or the falling of the dew--not so common, perhaps, because these phenomena involve powers and faculties of the human soul that do not act always and automatically as do the laws of physical nature; so neither does one sleep, or talk, or think always, but only when he wills to do so."
"That is a new, strange view of thaumaturgy! Thou sayst 'the miracles are under law'; perhaps, then, other men besides the Christians might be able to perform them."
"I know not to what extent it might be possible for other men to exercise the power of faith which is an essential condition in the working of miracles. I suppose they might do wonderful things, that would bear about the same relation to our Christian miracles that their various religions bear to our holy Christianity. And I suppose that the witchcraft and demonology denounced by Moses were the results of the exercise of faith in false gods. But a Christian miracle, depending upon faith in Christ as a primary condition for the exercise of thaumaturgical power, must remain impossible to all who possess not that faith. Thou hast read the Gospels, and thou knowest the Lord hath said, 'If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye might say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the midst of the sea, and it should obey you.' But he also said, 'Without me ye can do nothing.'"
"I infer," said Am-nem-hat, "that thou thinkest faith to be the law of miracles; thou thinkest that this faith is itself a force in nature sufficient for the accomplishment of physical results; and that they who sincerely believe may, by means of this force, even raise up the dead. Why, then, are not all the dead raised up?"
"Thou hast stated the law rather too broadly," answered Ammonius. "The faith that worketh miracles must be applied under proper conditions to be of any avail. Water, oil, and alkali do not always produce soap, but only when the proper conditions are observed. So I suppose that no man could be raised up from the dead against his will; and, while there be many Christians that have sought for martyrdom, there be but few that were willing to be raised again, and fewer still that ever requested the brethren to pray for their anastasis, because they preferred to depart, and to be with the Lord, which is far better."
"I do remember," said Am-nem-hat, "that many years ago, when Decius was Emperor of Rome, a bitter persecution raged against the Christians at Alexandria. I saw Julian, and Macar, and Epimachus, and Alexander burned at the stake; and truly many seemed to seek for martyrdom rather than to shun it, a fact which we attributed to a certain incorrigible and hopeless wickedness in them, and not, as thou dost, to their assurance of obtaining a better life. I suppose, indeed, that such men as those would not have desired to be restored to a life which they seemed anxious to lose; and it seemeth reasonable enough that, even if it had been possible to do so, they should not have been recalled against their will. Wilt thou not state more fully yet the conditions upon which thou thinkest this thaumaturgy may be exercised?"
"Faith in Jesus is the primary condition," said Ammonius, "but there are also others. Once a man came unto our Lord and besought him to heal his son, saying that the disciples had been unable to do so. Our Lord did heal him with a word. Afterward the disciples inquired of him why it was that they had failed in doing the same work, and he said unto them that it was because of their unbelief. Now thou must perceive that it was not because of their want of faith in him, for they were then following him; so that it must have been because of their unbelief in their own power and authority to do the work in his name. It seemeth, therefore, that faith on the part of the thaumaturgist in his own power to accomplish the miracle in the Lord's name is one of the conditions of thaumaturgy."
"That also seemeth to be a reasonable and proper condition," answered Am-nem-hat. "But are there yet others?"
"It is written that he did not many wonderful works at Capernaum because of their unbelief. He often said to those who asked his aid, 'Be it unto thee according to thy faith.' And from these facts it seems to follow that faith on the part of him for, or upon, whom the work was to be done, and on the part of those among whom it was to be done, was also one of the conditions upon which the exercise of thaumaturgical power depended."
"But," objected Am-nem-hat, "if he was in truth divine, why should he pay any attention to the unbelieving or to the unwilling? Why did he not do the miracles in defiance of them all, as well as if they had been faithful and willing?"
"Because," answered Ammonius, "our Lord teacheth and requireth only a willing obedience and faith. Not God himself will force the human will; for that which is of compulsion hath no morality. It is of necessity, therefore, neither holy nor unholy. A necessary holiness is a contradiction in terms. God's use of sovereignty hath been to make man free. Besides, faith itself is the law of miracles; to have wrought miracles where no faith was, would have been to violate the very law by which he worked, and so to have degraded miracles to the plane of an arbitrary and sporadic exhibition of divine power, instead of leaving them as they are, the highest result of the very highest form of universal law."
"That seemeth reasonable enough," rejoined Am-nem-hat, "and in accordance with my conception of the character of a holy and perfect God. But as I perceive thou clearly comprehendest the Christian system, upon which I have bestowed much thought almost in vain, suffer me to put one other case to thee which seemeth to me to be inexplicable upon any principles which thou hast stated as constituent elements of the law of miracles, if thou art not yet weary of my questions."
"Nay," said Ammonius, "I am not weary. Thou mayst ask many things, indeed, which I know not, and can not answer; but, so far as I can give thee any aid, it affordeth me pleasure to answer thee as intelligently as I can."
"The matter is this," said Am-nem-hat. "It is recorded in thy sacred books that when the apostles were going about Jerusalem, imparting the Paraclete by the laying on of their hands, and working divers miracles, one Simon, a magician, came unto them and offered money unto them if they would communicate unto him the same power, so that he also might become a thaumaturgist. But one of them, named Peter, did bitterly rebuke him, saying, 'Thy money perish with thee!' Now, the apostles had faith; the people who saw them doing all these wonderful works had faith, and were baptized by Philip. Simon Magus himself had faith as much as any one of them, and, when Peter rebuked him, with fear and trembling he besought Peter, saying, 'Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.' Now, here seem to have been all of the conditions of faith and willingness in Simon of which thou hast spoken, and yet Peter manifestly regarded the desire of Simon as a sort of sacrilege. Why was this so?"
"Why," said Ammonius, "Peter declared that his thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money was evil; and that his heart was not right in the sight of God, and that he should repent of his wickedness, and that his very thought showed that he was still in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity."
"That is very true," answered Am-nem-hat, "but his tender of money to the apostles only proves his appreciation of the value of the power which he desired to purchase. Peter saith not that Simon was a bad man, but that this particular thing was wicked; why was it so in him, and not in them?"
"Because," replied Ammonius, "it is manifest from the whole record that Simon desired to purchase this power for himself, and to use it for his own purposes."
"Certainly so," persisted Am-nem-hat, "but in what respect was it sacrilegious for him to desire to use the power for his own purposes, any more than it would have been to use his brain, or his hand, for his own advancement; or his learning, or skill, for the acquisition and cultivation of which he had, perhaps, expended money?"
"The answer to thy question," replied Ammonius, "involves some consideration of the very genius of Christianity as a system of divine truth. If, as thou seemest to suppose, the religion of our Lord had been only a system of spiritual truth, it might be difficult to deny that the apostles were selfish, and that Simon was very badly treated. But this is not at all true. Thou knowest that the legislation of Moses was for the Israelites only; that of Egypt for the land and people of Kem only; that of other lands and ages for certain peoples only. But thou canst not have read the scriptures so carefully without learning the fact that Jesus died for all men, and that his truth is designed for all mankind. Thou seest, therefore, that, if Simon Magus could have obtained this power to exercise it for his own purposes, he would have made it the agency by which to gain limitless authority and wealth unto himself, and oppress the poor. Thou seest also that, if any nation or government could exercise thaumaturgical powers, that nation or government would soon become the ruler and the tyrant of the world. Thou seest that, if any church that is in any way connected with, or bound unto, an earthly government, could exercise this power, ecclesiasticism would quickly make mankind its slaves: for manifestly no people could long resist a government that had thaumaturgical power wherewith to enforce obedience to its laws. Thou seest also that if the faith that is effective for miracles could be exercised for any purposes except the edification of the Church and the good of all men, the faith itself might have become a nameless and unappealable tyranny. Nay, if it were ever possible to exercise such power except under such conditions as necessarily and absolutely to preclude the use of it for any private purposes, thou seest that sooner or later, under the influence of inborn selfishness, the thaumaturgists would have made war upon each other, and, in place of seeing nations contending with sword, and bow, and spear, we would have seen them hurling against each other all of the destructive forces of nature, and only chaos and utter ruin could have ended the superhuman strife. It was therefore ordained that the thaumaturgic faith can not be exercised except under conditions which necessarily exclude the use of it for private purposes, and insure its exercise for the good of the common Church only."
"Canst thou specify by what means this restricted use of the power hath been enforced? For it seemeth to me that, if it exists, it must be beyond control."
"In order to exclude all worldly ambitions and selfishness from the kingdom which he established in the world, our Lord ordained that his Church should be a community in which all men are free and equal--brethren only. Hence he ordained, as the fundamental law of the kingdom, that all private rights of property (including estates, rank, offices, prerogatives) should be forever abolished in his Church, and that Christians should hold them all in common. Hence, the kingdom of heaven is an absolute democracy, social and political, based upon faith in Christ, and community of rights and property among all who believe. Of this community the apostles themselves were the divinely appointed type. They used thaumaturgy for the common good only, and not for personal aggrandizement. The common treasure was put into a bag, and, as if to show the divine scorn of wealth and of all human distinctions that grow out of it, the bag was intrusted to Judas, the only base one of the twelve. It was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, because the law of that kingdom imperatively required the consecration of all that he had to the common good. But, under the power of a living faith, many complied with this law, and the Church prospered. Thus did the bishops that were ordained by the apostles, as Linus at Rome, Polycarp at Smyrna, Evodius at Antioch, and others also. Thus did Paulinus, Cyprian, Hilary, and others. Such has been the law and practice of the common Church even unto this day. For the primary law of the kingdom of heaven demandeth the consecration of all property, and the abdication of all worldly honors, offices, and authority. And Simon Magus desired not part or lot in this kingdom, but his own advantage only. And thou must perceive that thaumaturgical power exercised by such a church must necessarily be for the common good of all, and not for any personal, political, or sectarian purposes; and the faith that worketh wonders must therefore be impossible to any human association except to the church organized upon the foundation which Jesus himself laid, even the communion of the holy; for the liberty, fraternity, and equality, which constitute the socialism and politics of the kingdom, can not exist upon any other foundation. And, of course, thaumaturgic power will vanish even out of the Church if the day shall ever come in which those who believe shall abandon the communal organization of the kingdom of heaven, and establish human statutes as the law thereof."
"I think," said Am-nem-hat, "that thy words remove many of the difficulties which have beset my study of thy sacred books. For I now perceive that the parables of Jesus--a species of literary composition unknown, perhaps impossible, to other men--which I supposed to refer to some spiritual, mystical doctrines, were in fact spoken concerning his Church, or kingdom, in this world."
"Assuredly so," replied Ammonius. "And thou hast done well to characterize the parable as 'a species of literary composition unknown and impossible to other men'; for no other man hath written a parable, nor do I suppose that any man ever will do so. For he spake as never man spake: he spake in parables; without a parable he spake not. The history, the poem, the fable, the allegory, may be used by other teachers also; but the parable is the language of Jesus alone; and no man can handle it but himself."
"I can now understand that strange parable of 'the unjust steward,'" said Am-nem-hat, "although, when I first read the words, 'I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations,' I did even suppose that Jesus represented eternal life to be a vendible thing, and that his religion, like every other, assured the rich that they could purchase salvation with money--although this seemed to be antagonistic to the general current of his teachings."
"Verily," replied Ammonius, "the words of Jesus would convey no other meaning, if, indeed, the fundamental law of the Church had not excluded therefrom all the private wealth, honors, and authority after which the Gentiles seek. But, if thou wilt consider that the unjust steward is any believer that useth his means, pecuniary, intellectual, physical, for his own aggrandizement, and not for the common good; that the Lord of that steward is Jesus; that unrighteous mammon is wealth held by private ownership, and that the true riches is wealth held by common title for the good of all--thou canst then understand how, even upon ceasing to be steward (the end of life), one may make amends for past selfishness and mammon-worship, by giving up his property to the common Church. Thou canst understand how it is just that those who come in even at the eleventh hour to work in his vine-yard shall have an equal reward with those who entered early and bore the heat and burden of the day. Thou wilt see that it is true that those who gave up houses and lands for his sake and the gospel's reaped manifold more 'now in this present life' by gaining a communal title in the property of all other believers--an increase which our Lord expressly promises as to all the interests and relationships of life, except as to the wife; for, while, if one leave houses, lands, father, mother, brother, sister, or children, for the gospel's sake, the severed interests and relationships are replaced a hundred-fold by his admission into the kingdom of heaven, monogamic marriage was and is the law of the Church. And thou canst thus give a practical and beautiful meaning to all that our Lord hath said and done; thou wilt see that the social and political system of the gospel is the only kingdom that can ever banish crime, hatred, and selfishness out of human life, and so regenerate the world; thou wilt see that the Scribes and Pharisees persecuted our Lord because his kingdom excluded war, slavery, private-property rights, estates, rank, offices, prerogatives--of all which things they were 'covetous'--just as the Romans and all other established governments persecute the Christians, even unto this day, for the same reasons. For Christ desireth the brotherhood of men; the liberty and equality of men; and that the average talents, energy, and prosperity of all may insure the common weal; and not that some shall be emperors, lords, and masters, whereby it cometh to pass that many must be slaves; not that some be inordinately rich, and others distressfully poor."
"I will read the gospels and the Acts again in the light of thine instructions," said Am-nem-hat. "But, verily, many passages thereof already come crowding into my mind that bear new and potent meanings; for I perceive clearly enough that Christianity is not only a system of spiritual truth, but also of social and political truth, that is founded upon the faith, and from that basis assaulteth selfishness in its strong citadel of private rights by elevating the common good into a higher thing than private aggrandizement, and separating the people of his kingdom from all personal honors, prerogatives, and wealth, after which the Gentiles seek."
"Thou wilt perceive this all the more clearly," said Ammonius, "if thou wilt reread the gospels with this thought in thy mind; for thou wilt at once perceive that many passages, which in any other view would seem strongly tainted with fanaticism, or rhapsody, or demagoguery, are precisely the things which Jesus ought to have said if his kingdom was, indeed, a social and political democracy founded upon faith and community of rights and property. For the Jews, who supposed that our Lord would overturn the Roman authority and establish a great Israelitish nation instead thereof, were not any more in error than are those who falsely suppose that he would establish no kingdom at all, and that he taught only spiritual truth, as do the Therapeutæ."
"I am familiar with the work of Philo 'On a Contemplative Life, or the Devout,'" answered Am-nem-hat, "in which he giveth a full and succinct account of the Therapeutæ; but, indeed, I had supposed that he therein intended to describe the first heralds of the gospel, and the practices handed down from the apostles."
"Beyond doubt the Therapeutæ were Christians," continued Ammonius, "but they separated themselves from the apostolical churches in order to lead a more devout life, and they gradually exalted all their conceptions of spiritual truth until they began to despise all temporal surroundings; and in this they departed from the teaching of our Lord: for there is no teacher of men more free from asceticism or stoicism than is Jesus. He was ever busied about and interested in the common, every-day life of common men; he was touched with the feeling of our infirmity in all things; sympathized in all the joys and sorrows of those about him, their trials and triumphs, seeking to lead them, not out of the world, but into a way of life wherein every pure and wholesome feeling, affection, and faculty of the human heart might find full development, exercise, and satisfaction. The vast difference, indeed, between Jesus and the philosophers subsists in the fact that, while they were ever painfully seeking for rules and actions by which the select and favored few might attain a perfect human life, he ordained a simple, perfect system by which to bring the higher, purer life within the reach of all men, especially the poor."
In such conversations the time passed quickly; and it was strange to note with what deep interest the sorrowful Hatasa, and also Theckla and Arius, listened to every word, and strove to catch the full signification of every phrase; while Arete heard it patiently, as one might listen to an oft-told but still pleasant story, and old Thopt, as if she knew little and cared less about the whole matter, being satisfied that whatever Ammonius and his wife might do must be right and true.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL.
On the same day began Arius to teach Theckla letters; for, although the girl had been remarkably well instructed for an Egyptian maiden, all of her tuition had been oral. But, in accordance with her strong wish to learn how to read and write, the boy began at once with the three alphabets, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and in a single day she learned all of the letters, and the relative power of each, and in a very short time she could make all of the characters with a sharp point ofkeilupon a leaf of papyrus. Then, as leisure served, he would take a single word, as, for example, "spirit," and would pronounce and spell it in the three languages (nishema, pneuma, animus), and she would repeat the three names for the same thing after him, and spell them, and write them down, over and over again, until she had become thoroughly familiar with the letters, the sound, and the form of the written word. The acquisition of a few words every day soon gave her command of a considerable vocabulary in each tongue, and she rapidly learned to associate the words with all familiar objects, and to call them by the right name in either tongue. Then he would select some short passage, generally from the sacred writings, and during the day she would write it over and over again, in each of the languages, while he was absent upon the various duties which pertained to his part of the farm-labor. The girl was continually learning; and it was pleasant to see how soon she began, of her own accord, to select and translate into the different tongues any passage which pleased her. This process of education continued, as we shall hereafter see, during the years which she spent at Baucalis, and finally Theckla became very familiar with the three languages in which the scriptures were then written.
On the next evening after that described in the last chapter, all the dwellers at the cottage assembled again in Hatasa's room, by her request, to hold the usual evening service; for the lady had seldom quitted her bed, and she remained deplorably weak, suffering with continual pain in her lungs, the result, perhaps, of her great exposure during the storm, and of the terrible depression of spirits that succeeded it. All through the pagan world, the only known refuge from hopeless sorrow was suicide, and the idea of self-destruction was ever present to her. Perhaps her maternal affection for Theckla alone deterred her from putting an end to her life; for it was not regarded by the heathen as cowardly, criminal, or even immoral, to seek that refuge from misfortune. Cato did it; Seneca approved of it; Epictetus, Aurelius, and all the great lights of pagan antiquity regarded self-immolation as a matter of choice, and often as an act of wisdom. But, from the moment in which Hatasa had been informed that the kind friends who surrounded her were Christians, she felt a desire to know more of them, and of their peculiar religion, strong enough to give her a new interest in life; and she had requested Ammonius to have the service in her room, and told him that, although she was too weak to take any part in their conversation about Christianity, she desired to hear himself and Am-nem-hat discuss any topic pertaining thereto in which they were interested. So, after the usual exercises of reading and prayer, the whole family remained together. The ancient remarked to Ammonius that during the day he had pondered much upon the things spoken of in their former conversation, and suggested, as a difficulty in the way of the acceptance of Christianity, something like the following: "I can understand how a kind and merciful God might lay down certain rules of action, and require obedience to his laws, under whatever penalties he might choose to impose; but it seemeth to me that to require oneto believe, as the sole condition of justification, is arbitrary and unjust. Suppose that one hath some natural bent of mind, or hath been reared and educated in some such way that it is hard, perhaps impossible, for him to believe; yet thy books say: 'Believe and live; he that believeth not is condemned already.' Is not this an arbitrary demand for faith; and doth it not do violence to that very autonomy of the will which thou sayest Jesus himself always respected and venerated?"
"Thou dost somewhat mistake the matter," said Ammonius. "The Lord does not demand our faith; he simply stateth an actual fact, which is, that the believer is justified by faith, and that he who does not believe is condemned already."
"I hardly understand what thou sayest: 'he simply stateth an actual fact.'"
"I think thou wilt find that there is no arbitrary demand in it. Our Lord gave no command only because he had power and authority to do so; but he knew what was in man, and gave only such commands as his divine wisdom perceived to be necessary for the welfare of mankind. As to the necessity of faith upon which he insists, the case is thus: All men upon earth are under the conviction of sin, and all alike are forever seeking for some escape from the bonds of this conviction. Thou wilt perceive that this conviction hath no reference to any specific, sinful act; for, perhaps, the best and purest men have always been those who felt it most keenly. It is a consciousness of alienation between the human and the divine. It is a natural, intuitive perception, in the heart of every man, that he is not as good as he ought to be, less perfect than he might be. The universal desire to get rid of this conviction of sin hath filled the world with false and ineffectual religions from the very dawn of time; for all men, in every age and clime, have sought for some form of penance or of sacrifice, some means in faith or work, by which to make atonement and secure reconciliation, and thereby shake off this conviction of sin. Hast thou ever heard of any kindred, tribe, or tongue (or even of any individual), that professed to be perfect, sinless, needing no sacrifice, no atonement for sin--that is, for a consciously sinful condition independent of all specific acts of transgression?"
"Nay," answered Am-nem-hat; "for thou art clearly right in that. All men do by nature bewail their sinful state. Humanity standeth forever like the lepers in Israel, with uplifted hand, crying aloud to heaven and earth, 'Unclean! unclean!' It is a conviction upon which philosophy hath no power. It cometh some time into every human heart, resistless as the precession of the equinoxes, spontaneous as the flowing of the Nile--a natural thing, which a man can no more control than he can reach forth his puny hand and unloose the bands of Orion, or bind the sweet influence of Pleiades, or guide Arcturus and his suns. All literature, all monuments, all ages, and all men, testify unto this terrible truth."
"Now the work of Jesus," said Ammonius, "was not to burden this sick and sorrowful nature with any arbitrary law of faith, but was to provide a way by which this universal conviction of sin might be atoned for--a perfect righteousness and sacrifice available by faith for our justification; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. And faith is made the condition, because no other condition could be available for all men alike, whether great or small, rich or poor, learned or ignorant; and Jesus died for all! Thou must see that this faith, instead of being, as thou didst suppose, an arbitrary condition or command, is simply the enabling act, instituted by divine wisdom and compassion, by means whereof we may be able to attain unto reconciliation with God. And without this faith we could never be justified by holy life and works alone, because it is a law of our nature that, just as we become better and purer beings, our conception of the degree of fitness required of us necessarily becomes higher, so that it is impossible for us to get any nearer to it; so that without faith the best men are as much under conviction of sin as the worst; so that without faith it is impossible for us to be consciously justified, because our nature requires a perfect righteousness; and this perfect righteousness and sacrifice must be human, that we may be able to trust its love and willingness to aid us, and must be divine, that we may have faith in its power to save. Hast thou ever heard of any name given under heaven, or among men, which supplies these natural and necessary conditions for our conscious justification and reconciliation with God, and with our own hearts also, except the name of Jesus Christ? If thou hast, please utter it."
"Verily," answered Am-nem-hat, "there is none. No religion of which I have heard professeth to know any."
The old man seemed lost in profoundest meditation, and there was silence in the room, until Theckla said: "Father Am-nem-hat, do thou bid Arius repeat what things he said to me of this matter of faith when he was teaching the alphabets to me this morning. I think it was much plainer than thy learned discoursing with Ammonius."
"Yea," said Am-nem-hat, "I beg that Arius will do so, for I much desire to hear thereof."
The boy blushed vividly at being so called upon in the presence of his elders, but, at a sign from his father, he stood up before them, saying: "I did not suppose the talk of persons so young could interest those who are so much older and wiser, but, as ye desire to hear it, I can almost repeat it. As Theckla and I were running over the alphabets, in order to get the sound of the letters and the form of the characters, she came upon the letter 'A' a second time, and she cried out: 'Oh, I know that one; it is Latin A, Greek Alpha, Hebrew Aleph.' And I said unto her, 'Theckla, how knowest thou that the characters stand for these sounds?' and she answered, 'Thou didst tell me so, and I did believe thee, boy, and that is how I know it.' Then said I: 'Theckla, thou learnest the alphabet by faith only. If thou wert naturally constituted so that thou couldst not believe, thou couldst never learn anything not tangible to thy senses. If thou wert by nature even indifferent between faith and non-faith, thy progress in the acquisition of knowledge would be slow and painful. Thou shouldst therefore learn, from the learning of these alphabets, that faith is the first, most inevitable act of intelligence. Thou shouldst learn that belief precedes knowledge always, that Faith is the elder sister and leadeth Knowledge by the hand, and that without antecedent faith it is impossible to learn and to know anything except what is palpable to the senses; just as it would be impossible for thee to learn these alphabets without faith.' And thereupon Theckla did pinch mine ear, and laugh at me, saying, 'That all seemeth to be true and plain enough, thou odd boy, but why art thou preaching at me now?' And I did answer: 'Because, thou dear sister, some time thy faith may be demanded for another alphabet than this, even the alphabet of spiritual life; and, when that day shall come, I would have thee remember that just as all human knowledge is builded upon the basis of faith only, so it should not seem a hard thing unto thee that God hath fashioned thy nature so that thou must be incapable of learning even the alphabet of everlasting life except upon the very same condition of faith only. Faith precedeth all knowledge; believe and obey, and finally thou shalt know.' I think this was about what was spoken between us concerning faith."
"And it is most wise, beautiful, and instructive talk," said Am-nem-hat, "and serveth to complete the powerful utterances of thy father upon the same lofty and interesting subject. I do thank thee for repeating it."
Then spake Hatasa, saying to Ammonius, "Suppose that one hath died without having known the truth concerning Jesus, and without having exercised this faith, is there no hope for such a one?"
The trembling voice in which she spoke, and the look of timid, doubtful entreaty which accompanied these words, touched every heart, and made them all feel that by "such a one" the poor lady meant her young and gallant husband Amosis, whose memory seemed ever in her heart.
Ammonius answered: "I do not know whether I could make thee understand fully the views which we Christians entertain about such a case as thou hast suggested, but we believe that there is hope for such a man. The great apostle Paul was Saul of Tarsus, and for a long time he did persecute the Christians because they were Christians, yet he declareth himself that he acted in all good conscience before God, believing that it was his duty to do so, and he afterward became the great apostle and a glorious martyr. I doubt not that there are among those who now persecute the Christians some good and just men, that would follow Jesus unto death if they could know him as he is. The conviction of sin, we know, hath no reference to any specific transgression, nor hath the forgiveness of sin. Whether an act be a sin or not dependeth largely upon the intent with which it is done. Now, when the heathen, who know not Jesus nor his divine truth, do yet live just and righteous lives according to the best light and knowledge they possess, and die without the consolation of the faith, the benefit of the atonement accrueth to them in some way, we know not precisely how far, nor to what effect; to all such, indeed, and especially to such as have some living Christian relative or friend that taketh upon himself the rite of baptism for the dead; for, if they have not the law, they are not judged by the law, but by their works and righteousness under the law which they have."
"How is that?" said Hatasa, with breathless interest. "Thou sayest a living Christian may be baptized for the dead?"
"Assuredly," answered Ammonius. "The apostles so taught, and the Church hath always so practiced. If any Christian hath a relative that died without knowledge of Jesus, and such Christian doth believe that the deceased was a just and righteous person according to the measure of light given unto him, and was such that he would have followed our Lord if he had known sufficiently of him, such Christian may receive baptism for the deceased, and the dead shall reap benefit of this vicarious faith and obedience, how and to what extent hath never been clearly revealed unto us."
"There is hope in that!" cried Hatasa. "There is consolation in that. Thy Lord must have been full of human love and pity to make provision not only for his friends, but for those good and just men, also, who have ignorantly been his enemies."
"Yea, verily," answered Ammonius. "He loveth all men; his mercy endureth forever; his loving-kindness is stronger than height, or depth, or life, or death, or any other creature, as thou mayest assuredly know for thyself if thou wilt believe on him."
Then Am-nem-hat said: "There is much in this religion that taketh fast hold upon both the heart and the mind; for it verily seemeth that Jesus seeketh not to impose a system upon man that is in any respect external to man, but rather that he seeketh to show unto man such spiritual food as is most divinely suitable to satisfy that hunger of the soul wherefrom the whole world suffereth already; and he seemeth to propose nothing as matter of faith which was not already a conscious want and need of nature: so that his teachings ought to be accepted as at least the highest utterance of philosophy if even not as divinely true."
"Thy profound criticism of the spirit of our religion striketh very nearly to the heart of the whole matter," said Ammonius. "For the world yearned after God whom it knew not, and Jesus plainly declareth that unknown God whom men ignorantly worship. The world groaned and sorrowed under the blind conviction of sin, and, wherever men acquired a local habitation and a name on earth, there they had their holy places also; and in some way--often in a crude and ignorant way, often in a gross and sensual way, often in a heathenish and cruel way--they sought, by sacred rites of penitence and sacrifice, to atone for their wrong deeds done; but the wrongs continually repeated themselves, and the unavailing religions left the world's heart like a troubled sea that can not rest. But Jesus saith the sin for which ye suffer is not a wrong thing done at all; these wicked deeds of yours are not sin, but are the outcroppings of the sin that lieth back of all your deeds. Can a bitter fountain send forth sweet waters? Doth an evil tree bear good fruits? Do ye gather figs from thistles? Cease now your world-old and unavailing efforts to regenerate the heart by the vain expiation of your wicked deeds. Purify the fountain, that the waters thereof may be sweet. Make the tree good, and its fruits shall be good also. For sin is non-conformity to the will of God, and your evil deeds are only the evidences of your enmity against him. So, when the blind yearnings of the world's heart after peace had made sacrifices, not only of every beast and creeping thing upon the earth, but of men also, he saith: 'All these things ye do in vain, for your righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, or ye shall likewise perish. I am the Light, the Truth, the Way--the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world--a perfect righteousness and sacrifice once for all offered for the sin of men. Believe in me, and ye shall be saved; all other sacrifices are in vain.' So every yearning want of the heart is met and satisfied in Christ. All other religions under heaven condemn actions which they suppose to be wicked, and prescribe certain forms of expiation for such as they suppose to be expiable; but Jesus proposes to pardon, not so much the sinful act as the sinner, the sinful nature out of which the act ariseth, and to regenerate this nature so that it will hate what it believes to be wicked, and love what it believes to be holy. For Christ atoneth for all sin, and the act of faith is to personally appropriate the benefit thereof to each one for himself."
"True," said Am-nem-hat, "and I undertake to assert that no other religion in the world hath so represented sin to be want of conformity to the will of God, rather than an evil deed; and in this whole matter of sin and the forgiveness thereof, thy religion differeth from paganism more radically than even in the doctrine of one God it differeth from polytheism."
And in this and such like conversation the evening wore away until bed-time came, and they separated for the night. The family at Baucalis did not speak or think of these matters as of mere abstract theories of truth, or of philosophy, but as actual, living verities. The Christians felt their religion to be the only real life. They regarded all earthly pursuits, passions, and pleasures, as mere incidents of existence, and religion as the one controlling and all-important thing. Their pleasant home was to them a merely temporary station on the highway whereby they were journeying to a better land; the flesh was only a tabernacle which the spirit must soon forsake; all that pertained to it was for a brief season only; the real life was only begun during their occupancy of this earthly tenement; Christian faith was to them the one thing real and permanent, and earthly existence was of little consequence except as it might stand related to eternal interests. Hence there was a freshness, a vigor, a sense of reality and earnestness, in their way of thinking and speaking of such things, that demonstrated their religion to be no beautiful, speculative philosophy, but a hard, experimental, and all-controlling fact. And so every night during that week the dwellers at Baucalis assembled in Hatasa's room, and passed long hours in the discussion of all the salient points of Christianity in a friendly, careful way, as if, indeed, they had a mutual interest in ascertaining the truth, especially concerning all those ideas upon which the antagonism between Christianity and paganism most plainly appeared. To set down all the various conversations in which they engaged would indeed be to write a treatise upon primitive Christianity, a work in which, perhaps, no interest would be felt in an age in which that system no longer exists upon earth, and is utterly unknown to all except a few self-poised, fearless, unpopular antiquarians, who have been eccentric and independent enough to exhume that ancient religion from out the accumulateddébrisof fifteen centuries of ecclesiastical "progress" which flourisheth over its ruins even as the vine ripens and the roses bloom over the wreck of buried Pompeii. Yet we can not resist the inclination that moveth us to write out our notes of one other evening's conversation that happened between this Christian family and their pagan guests.