t I strove outwardly to appear calm. I felt I must listen
further to the story of Atvatabar.

"Our other deities," continued the king, "are the ideal inventors and
their inventions. These give man empire over nature. All those who
have given man power of flight, who multiply his power to run, those
who multiply the power of the eye to see, the hand to labor or to
smite, the voice or pen to transmit ideas to great distances and to
great multitudes, stand in the pantheon in ideal grandeur. There are
the lords of labor, the deities of space and time. They are those gods
that breathe the breath of life into unborn ideas, and lo! from brain
and hand spring the creatures of their will."

The officers and sailors were listening to the discourse of the king
with rapt attention. We were anxious to learn as much as possible
about this strange religion of Atvatabar.

"We also worship art and ideal artists," continued the king, "the
soul-developers, who work for noble and humane ideas expressed in
their most beautiful garb; the builders of earthly palaces for the
soul in literature, music, manners, painting, dancing, sculpture,
decoration, tapestry and architecture which are represented by ideal
statues composed from groups of living artists. These in their ideal
or collective perfection are the gods who counteract the evils of an
arid and mechanical civilization by arousing feeling, imagination,
truth, beauty, tenderness, patriotism and faith in the souls of their
fellows.

"The spiritual forces are typified by a goddess, the incarnation of
spirit power, of romantic, ideal, hopeless love. Her ministers are the
priests of sorcery, necromancy, magic, theosophy, mesmerism,
spiritualism and other kindred spiritual powers. These perform
miracles, create matter, and impart life to dead bodies. The souls of
her priests and priestesses have the power to leave the body at will,
and to achieve a present Nirvana of one hundred years."

CHAPTER XVII.

GNAPHISTHASIA.

The day following our arrival in Calnogor his majesty the king had
projected for us a journey to the palace of art at Gnaphisthasia,
which stood on the slope of a mountain in a rich valley lying one
hundred miles southwest of Calnogor. The palace itself was surrounded
by high walls of massive porcelain, beautifully adorned with sculpture
mouldings, and midway on each side massive gateways, each formed of
rounded cones, rising to a great height and covered with sc