through the weakness and credulity of
mankind, doth yet hold the commonalty in thrall and terror--a restraint
which none other scheme might peradventure impose."

"You are too harsh, my lord. I minister not to aught that, my
conscience disapproves. Being of the Reformed Church, I do not mightily
affect creeds and opinions. The Bible is the fountain, pure and
undefiled; its waters fertilise and invigorate the seed of the faith,
but choke and rot the rampant weeds of error and superstition."

"The Bible! A forgery: the invention of a cunning priesthood to mask and
perpetuate their delusions. Prove its falsehoods to be the truth.
Distinguish me thy revelation from the impostures of Mahomet, the dreams
of the Sibyls, and the lying oracles of Heathenrie. Oblige me either to
renounce my reason and the common principles which distinguish truth
from error, or to admit the proof thou shalt allege, which proof, look
thee, must be such as no imposture can lay claim to, otherwise it proves
thy doctrine to be an imposture. If thy religion be true, there _must_
be such a proof. For if the Being who gave this revelation which He
requires all men to receive, have left His own truth destitute of the
only proof which can distinguish it from an imposture, this will be an
impeaching of His wisdom, an error in the very outset of the case,
proving Him not the Allwise, but liable to infirmity and error. This,
thou seest, will bring our debate within a narrow compass."

"Nevertheless, I must own the task is hard," replied the clergyman,
"because of the blindness and impotency of that same reason of which
thou vauntest, and the feebleness of our mental sight; for we cannot
come at any abstract truth whatsoever but by many inferences hanging
together as by a chain, one link of which, not fully apprehended or made
fast, loosens the whole, and the argument falls to the ground."

"Does the reformed doctrine, too, require a belief in what the hearer
may not comprehend?" said the baron, scornfully.

"Nay, there is a sufficiency in the evidence, and a fulness in this
testimony, of which none other history can boast. What book is that, my
lord?"

"The Anabasis."

"By whom?"

"Surely thou art in j'est. 'Tis Xenophon's."

"How? Xenophon!" said the divine; "methinks thou speakest unadvisedly.
My reason or apprehension knoweth not of such a man, or that he writ
this book, and yet thou boldly affirmest the history to be true!"

"I know not that