hey were gods indeed compared with such worshippers,
I imagined my worthy friend Fellowes in the corner where the Bible,
in its 120 languages, is now kept, employed in delivering a lecture
on the admirable clearness of those intuitions of spiritual truth
which constitute each man's particular oracle, and the superfluity
of all 'external' revelation. This was, I confess, a little too
much for my gravity, and I was involuntarily guilty of the
rudeness for which I now apologize." It was certainly a ridiculous
vision enough; and we made ourselves very merry by pursuing it for
a little while.

Presently the company resumed their solutions off the great problem.
The Deist remarked, "that one and only one thing was plain, and
indubitable,"--for he was a dogmatist in his way;--it was, "that
intellect and power to an indefinite extent had been at work in
the universe, but whether the Being to whom these attributes
belonged took any cognizance of man, or his actions, he had never
been able to make up his mind." "Yet surely it does make a slight
difference," said Harrington, "since if God takes no cognizance of
man, then, as Cicero long ago remarked of the idle dogs of Epicurus,
--I mean gods of Epicurus, I beg their pardon, but really it does
not matter which consonant comes first,--atheism and deism are much
the same thing." "Why," said the Deist, "there is as much difference
as in the theories of our 'intuitional' friends here, one of whom
admits, and another denies, the future existence of man; for if we
be the ephemeral insects the latter supposes, it little matters
what system of religion we espouse or abjure. However, I am clear
that, if God require any duty of us, it is that we should reverence
him as the Creator of all things,--prayer to him is an absurdity,--and
perform those offices of honest men which are so clearly the dictates
of conscience,--the reward and punishment being exclusively the
result of present laws."

"Which laws," said his next neighbor, "often secure no reward or
punishment at all,--or rather, often give the reward to the vice of
man, and the punishment to his virtue." "Very true," rejoined the
Deist, "and I must say,"--sagely shaking his head,--"that such
things make me often suspect the whole of that slippery, uncertain
thing called 'natural religion,' whether as taught by the elder
deists or modified by our modern spiritualists. Surely they may be
abundantly charged with the same faults with whi