upon friends, confounding them with foes.
For dissenters only assent to more than we. Though Milton was a
heretic to the creed of Athanasius, his faith exceeded that of
Athanasius himself; and the faith of Athanasius that of Thomas, the
disciple, who with his own eyes beheld the mark of the nails. Whence
it comes that though we be all Christians now, the best of us had
perhaps been otherwise in the days of Thomas.

The higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity:
Gabriel rejects more than we, but out-believes us all. The greatest
marvels are first truths; and first truths the last unto which we
attain. Things nearest are furthest off. Though your ear be next-door
to your brain, it is forever removed from your sight. Man has a more
comprehensive view of the moon, than the man in the moon himself. We
know the moon is round; he only infers it. It is because we
ourselves are in ourselves, that we know ourselves not. And it is
only of our easy faith, that we are not infidels throughout; and only
of our lack of faith, that we believe what we do.

In some universe-old truths, all mankind are disbelievers. Do you
believe that you lived three thousand years ago? That you were at the
taking of Tyre, were overwhelmed in Gomorrah? No. But for me, I was
at the subsiding of the Deluge, and helped swab the ground, and build
the first house. With the Israelites, I fainted in the wilderness;
was in court, when Solomon outdid all the judges before him. I, it
was, who suppressed the lost work of Manetho, on the Egyptian
theology, as containing mysteries not to be revealed to posterity,
and things at war with the canonical scriptures; I, who originated
the conspiracy against that purple murderer, Domitian; I, who in the
senate moved, that great and good Aurelian be emperor. I instigated
the abdication of Diocletian, and Charles the Fifth; I touched
Isabella's heart, that she hearkened to Columbus. I am he, that from
the king's minions hid the Charter in the old oak at Hartford; I
harbored Goffe and Whalley: I am the leader of the Mohawk masks, who
in the Old Commonwealth's harbor, overboard threw the East India
Company's Souchong; I am the Vailed Persian Prophet; I, the man in
the iron mask; I, Junius.

CHAPTER XCVIII
The Tale Of A Traveler

It was Samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a
traveler. But stay-at-homes say travelers lie. Yet a voyage to
Ethiopia would cure them of that; for few