and you are, therefore, one of the elect. If you are in error, God
alone can convince you of it, for no just man on earth can refute the
sentiment you have just given expression to."

We spoke of many other things in a friendly manner, and in the evening we
parted with the often repeated assurance of the warmest affection and of
the most perfect devotion.

But my mind was full of our conversation, and as I went on pondering over
the matter, I thought that Yusuf might be right in his opinion as to the
essence of God, for it seemed evident that the Creator of all beings
ought to be perfectly simple; but I thought at the same time how
impossible it would be for me, because the Christian religion had made a
mistake, to accept the Turkish creed, which might perhaps have just a
conception of God, but which caused me to smile when I recollected that
the man who had given birth to it had been an arrant imposter. I had not
the slightest idea, however, that Yusuf wished to make a convert of me.

The third time I dined with him religion was again the subject of
conversation.

"Do you believe, dear father, that the religion of Mahomet is the only
one in which salvation can be secured?"

"No, my dear son, I am not certain of it, and no man can have such a
certainty; but I am sure that the Christian religion is not the true one,
because it cannot be universal."

"Why not?"

"Because there is neither bread nor wine to be found in three-fourths of
the world. Observe that the precepts of the Koran can be followed
everywhere."

I did not know how to answer, and I would not equivocate.

"If God cannot be matter," I said, "then He must be a spirit?"

"We know what He is not but we do not know what He is: man cannot affirm
that God is a spirit, because he can only realize the idea in an abstract
manner. God immaterial; that is the extent of our knowledge and it can
never be greater."

I was reminded of Plato, who had said exactly the same an most certainly
Yusuf never read Plato.

He added that the existence of God could be useful only to those who did
not entertain a doubt of that existence, and that, as a natural
consequence, Atheists must be the most miserable of men. God has made in
man His own image in order that, amongst all the animals created by Him,
there should be one that can understand and confess the existence of the
Creator. Without man, God would have no witness of His own glory, and man
must therefore understa