ust exist in other celestial bodies, though probably in different
forms; in many planets it had already ended, in many it was still to
come; but surely all those millions of worlds had had, or would have,
life.

Religions, wishing to explain the origin of the world, paled and
trembled before the infinite. It was like the Cathedral tower, which
covered with its bulk a great part of the heavens, hiding millions of
worlds, but which was of insignificant size compared to the immensity
it hid, less than an infinitesimal part of a molecule--nothing. It
seemed very great because it was close to men, concealing immensity,
but when men looked above it, getting a full grasp of the infinite,
they laughed at its Lilliputian pride.

"Then," inquired timidly the old organ-blower, pointing to the
Cathedral, "what is it they teach us in there?"

"Nothing," replied Gabriel.

"And what are we--men?" asked the Perrero.

"Nothing."

"And the governments, the laws, and the customs of society?" inquired
the bell-ringer.

"Nothing. Nothing."

Sagrario fixed her eyes, grown larger by her earnest contemplation of
the heavens, on her uncle.

"And God," she asked in a soft voice; "where is God?"

Gabriel stood up, leaning on the balustrade of the gallery; his figure
stood out dark and clear against the starry space.

"We are God ourselves, and everything that surrounds us. It is life
with its astonishing transformations, always apparently dying, yet
always being infinitely renewed. It is this immensity that astounds us
with its greatness, and that cannot be realised in our minds. It is
matter that lives, animated by the force that dwells in it, with
absolute unity, without separation or duality. Man is God, and the
world is God also."

He was silent for a moment and then added with energy:

"But if you ask me for that personal God invented by religions, in the
likeness of a man, who brought the world out of nothing, who directs
our actions, who classifies souls according to their merits, and
commissions Sons to descend into the world to redeem it, I say seek
for Him in that immensity, see where He hides His littleness. But even
if you were immortal you might spend millions of years passing from
one star to another without ever finding the corner where He hides His
deposed despotic majesty. This vindictive and capricious God arose in
men's brains, and the brain is a human being's most recent organ, the
last to develop itself. Whe