nduct of
His followers had not repelled them from the belief of it. How can
they imagine you sincere when they see you disobedient? It is in vain
for you to protest that you worship the God of Peace, when you are
found daily in the courts and market-places with clenched fists and
bloody noses. I acknowledge the full value of your offer; but really I
am as anxious for the salvation of your precious time as you appear to
be for the salvation of my precious soul, particularly since I am
come to the conclusion that souls cannot be lost, and that time can.

_Timotheus._ We mean by _salvation_ exemption from eternal torments.

_Lucian._ Among all my old gods and their children, morose as some of
the senior are, and mischievous as are some of the junior, I have
never represented the worst of them as capable of inflicting such
atrocity. Passionate and capricious and unjust are several of them;
but a skin stripped off the shoulder, and a liver tossed to a vulture,
are among the worst of their inflictions.

_Timotheus._ This is scoffing.

_Lucian._ Nobody but an honest man has a right to scoff at anything.

_Timotheus._ And yet people of a very different cast are usually those
who scoff the most.

_Lucian._ We are apt to push forward at that which we are without: the
low-born at titles and distinctions, the silly at wit, the knave at
the semblance of probity. But I was about to remark, that an honest
man may fairly scoff at all philosophies and religions which are
proud, ambitious, intemperate, and contradictory. The thing most
adverse to the spirit and essence of them all is falsehood. It is the
business of the philosophical to seek truth: it is the office of the
religious to worship her; under what name is unimportant. The
falsehood that the tongue commits is slight in comparison with what is
conceived by the heart, and executed by the whole man, throughout
life. If, professing love and charity to the human race at large, I
quarrel day after day with my next neighbour; if, professing that the
rich can never see God, I spend in the luxuries of my household a
talent monthly; if, professing to place so much confidence in His
word, that, in regard to wordly weal, I need take no care for
to-morrow, I accumulate stores even beyond what would be necessary,
though I quite distrusted both His providence and His veracity; if,
professing that 'he who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord', I
question the Lord's security, and haggl