deity, and have no personal
existence as represented in our temples, is acknowledged more or less
completely by all those most deeply initiated in the mysteries of our
religion.

"When we offer sacrifices we offer them not to the images behind our
altar, but to God the creator, God the preserver, God the fertilizer,
to God the ruler, to God the omnipotent over good and evil. Thus, you
see, there is no mockery in our services, although to us they bear an
inner meaning not understood by others. They worship a personality
endowed with principle; we the principle itself. They see in the
mystic figure the representation of a deity; we see in it the type of
an attribute of a higher deity.

"You may think that in telling you all this I have told you things
which should be told only to those whose privilege it is to have
learned the inner mysteries of their religion; that maybe I am
untrue to my vows. These, lads, are matters for my own conscience.
Personally, I have long been impressed with the conviction that it
were better that the circles of initiates should be very widely
extended, and that all capable by education and intellect of
appreciating the mightiness of the truth should no longer be left in
darkness. I have been overruled, and should never have spoken had not
this accident taken place; but when I see that the whole happiness of
your life is at stake, that should the secret ever be discovered you
will either be put to death despairing and hopeless, or have to fly
and live despairing and hopeless in some foreign country, I have
considered that the balance of duty lay on the side of lightening your
mind by a revelation of what was within my own. And it is not, as I
have told you, so much the outcome of the teaching I have received as
of my own studies and a conviction I have arrived at as to the nature
of God. Thus, then, my son, you can lay side the horror which you have
felt at the thought that by the accidental slaying of a cat you
offended the gods beyond forgiveness. The cat is but typical of the
qualities attributed to Baste. Baste herself is but typical of one of
the qualities of the One God."

"Oh, my father!" Chebron exclaimed, throwing himself on his knees
beside Ameres and kissing his hand, "how good you are. What a weight
have you lifted from my mind! What a wonderful future have you opened
to me if I escape the danger that threatens me now! If I have to die I
can do so like one who fears not the fut