ff for it. We are a very small sect.
We call ourselves the _Neu Reformirte_. We have a place of worship in
New York."

This was the first agnostic whom I had ever met. I thought of the woman
in Jerusalem who ran about with the torch to burn up heaven and the water
to extinguish hell-fire. Yes, the sect was very old. The Sadducees
never denied anything; they only inquired as to truth. Seek or _Sikh_!

I confess that Mr. Solomon somewhat weakened the effect of his grand free-
thought philosophy by telling me in full faith of a Rabbi in New York who
was so learned in the Cabala that by virtue of the sacred names he could
recover stolen goods. Whether, like Browning's sage, he also received
them, I did not learn. But _c'est tout comme chez nous autres_. The
same spirit which induces a man to break out of orthodox humdrumness,
induces him to love the marvellous, the forbidden, the odd, the wild, the
droll--even as I do. It is not a fair saying that "atheists are all
superstitious, which proves that a man must _believe_ in something." No;
it is the spirit of nature, of inquiry, of a desire for the new and to
penetrate the unknown; and under such influence a man may truly be an
atheist as regards what he cannot prove or reconcile with universal love
and mercy, and yet a full believer that magic and ghosts may possibly
exist among the infinite marvels and mysteries of nature. It is admitted
that a man may believe in God without being superstitious; it is much
truer that he may be "superstitious" (whatever that means) without
believing that there is an anthropomorphic _bon Dieu_. However this may
be, Mr. Solomon made me reflect often and deeply for many a long year,
until I arrived to the age of Darwin.

I also made at Cape May the acquaintance of a very remarkable man, whom I
was destined to often meet in other lands in after years. This was
Carrol (not as yet General) Tevis. We first met thus. The ladies wanted
seats out on the lawn, and there was not a chair to be had. He and I
were seeking in the hotel-office; all the clerks were absent, and all the
chairs removed; but there remained a solid iron sofa or settee, six feet
long, weighing about 600 pounds. Tevis was strong, and a great fencer;
there is a famous _botte_ which he invented, bearing his name; perhaps
Walter H. Pollock knows it. I gave the free-lance or _condottiero_ a
glance, and proposed to prig the iron sofa and lay waste the enemy. It
was a