and preached a new faith, to
which many millions of mankind now adhered.

"Ah!" she said; "I see--two new religions! I have known so many, and
doubtless there have been many more since I knew aught beyond these
caves of Kor. Mankind asks ever of the skies to vision out what
lies behind them. It is terror for the end, and but a subtler form of
selfishness--this it is that breeds religions. Mark, my Holly, each
religion claims the future for its followers; or, at least, the good
thereof. The evil is for those benighted ones who will have none of
it; seeing the light the true believers worship, as the fishes see the
stars, but dimly. The religions come and the religions pass, and the
civilisations come and pass, and naught endures but the world and human
nature. Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and not from
without--that he himself must work out his own salvation! He is there,
and within him is the breath of life and a knowledge of good and evil as
good and evil is to him. Thereon let him build and stand erect, and not
cast himself before the image of some unknown God, modelled like his
poor self, but with a bigger brain to think the evil thing, and a longer
arm to do it."

I thought to myself, which shows how old such reasoning is, being,
indeed, one of the recurring qualities of theological discussion, that
her argument sounded very like some that I have heard in the nineteenth
century, and in other places than the caves of Kor, and with which, by
the way, I totally disagree, but I did not care to try and discuss the
question with her. To begin with, my mind was too weary with all the
emotions through which I had passed, and, in the second place, I knew
that I should get the worst of it. It is weary work enough to argue
with an ordinary materialist, who hurls statistics and whole strata
of geological facts at your head, whilst you can only buffet him with
deductions and instincts and the snowflakes of faith, that are, alas! so
apt to melt in the hot embers of our troubles. How little chance, then,
should I have against one whose brain was supernaturally sharpened,
and who had two thousand years of experience, besides all manner of
knowledge of the secrets of Nature at her command! Feeling that she
would be more likely to convert me than I should to convert her, I
thought it best to leave the matter alone, and so sat silent. Many a
time since then have I bitterly regretted that I did so, for thereby I