“Who has said that God is a being in our shape and form, Raoul?  None know that—–­ none can know it; none say it who reverence and worship him as they ought!”

“Do not your priests say that man has been created in his image? and is not this creating him in his form and likeness?”

“Nay, not so, dear Raoul, but in the image of his spirit—­that man hath a soul which partakes, though in a small degree, of the imperishable essence of God; and thus far doth he exist in his image.  More than this, none have presumed to say.  But what a being, to be the master of all those bright worlds!”

“Ghita, thou know’st my way of thinking on these matters, and thou also know’st that I would not wound thy gentle spirit by a single word that could grieve thee.”

“Nay, Raoul, it is not thy way of thinking, but thy fashion of talking, that makes the difference between us.  No one who thinks can ever doubt the existence of a being superior to all of earth and of the universe; and who is Creator and Master of all.”

“Of a principle, if thou wilt, Ghita; but of a being, I ask for the proof.  That a mighty principle exists, to set all these planets in motion—­to create all these stars, and to plant all these suns in space, I never doubted; it would be to question a fact which stands day and night before my eyes; but to suppose a being capable of producing all these things is to believe in beings I never saw.”

“And why not as well suppose that it is a being that does all this, Raoul, as suppose it what you call a principle?”

“Because I see principles beyond my understanding at work all around me:  in yonder heavy frigate, groaning under her load of artillery, which floats on this thin water; in the trees of the land that lies so near us; in the animals, which are born and die; the fishes, the birds, and the human beings.  But I see no being—­know no being, that is able to do all this.”

“That is because thou know’st not God!  He is the creator of the principles of which thou speak’st, and is greater than thy principles themselves.”

“It is easy to say this, Ghita—­but hard to prove.  I take the acorn and put it in the ground; in due time it comes up a plant; in the course of years, it becomes a tree.  Now, all this depends on a certain mysterious principle, which is unknown to me, but which I am sure exists, for I can cause it myself to produce its fruits, by merely opening the earth and laying the seed in its bosom.  Nay, I can do more—­so well do I understand this principle, to a certain extent at least, that, by choosing the season and the soil, I can hasten or retard the growth of the plant, and, in a manner, fashion the tree.”

“True, Raoul, to a certain extent thou canst; and it is precisely because thou hast been created after the image of God.  The little resemblance thou enjoyest to that mighty Being enables thee to do this much more than the beasts of the field:  wert thou his equal, thou couldst create that principle of which thou speakest, and which, in thy blindness, thou mistakest for his master.”