st be stupid not to recognize the author of it; one must be mad
not to worship Him. What tribute of worship should I render Him? Should
not this tribute be the same in the whole of space, since it is the same
supreme power which reigns equally in all space? Should not a thinking
being who dwells in a star in the Milky Way offer Him the same homage as
the thinking being on this little globe where we are? Light is uniform
for the star Sirius and for us; moral philosophy must be uniform. If a
sentient, thinking animal in Sirius is born of a tender father and
mother who have been occupied with his happiness, he owes them as much
love and care as we owe to our parents. If someone in the Milky Way sees
a needy cripple, if he can relieve him and if he does not do it, he is
guilty toward all globes. Everywhere the heart has the same duties: on
the steps of the throne of God, if He has a throne; and in the depth of
the abyss, if He is an abyss."

I was plunged in these ideas when one of those genii who fill the
intermundane spaces came down to me. I recognized this same aerial
creature who had appeared to me on another occasion to teach me how
different God's judgments were from our own, and how a good action is
preferable to a controversy.

He transported me into a desert all covered with piled up bones; and
between these heaps of dead men there were walks of ever-green trees,
and at the end of each walk a tall man of august mien, who regarded
these sad remains with pity.

"Alas! my archangel," said I, "where have you brought me?"

"To desolation," he answered.

"And who are these fine patriarchs whom I see sad and motionless at the
end of these green walks? they seem to be weeping over this countless
crowd of dead."

"You shall know, poor human creature," answered the genius from the
intermundane spaces; "but first of all you must weep."

He began with the first pile. "These," he said, "are the twenty-three
thousand Jews who danced before a calf, with the twenty-four thousand
who were killed while lying with Midianitish women. The number of those
massacred for such errors and offences amounts to nearly three hundred
thousand.

"In the other walks are the bones of the Christians slaughtered by each
other for metaphysical disputes. They are divided into several heaps of
four centuries each. One heap would have mounted right to the sky; they
had to be divided."

"What!" I cried, "brothers have treated their brothers li