“That may have arisen, in part,” said Bart, “from the dim sight of the seer, and the difficulty of clothing extraordinary visions in the garb of ordinary things.  It is not easy, however, for the common mind to see why, if God had a special message for His children of such importance that He would provide a special messenger to communicate it, and had a choice of messengers, it should reach them finally, in a form that nobody could interpret.  With God every thing is in the present, all that has happened, and all that will, is as the now is to us.  If a man can reach the power or faculty of getting a glimpse of things as God sees them, he would make some utterance, if he survived, and it would be very incoherent.  Besides, human events repeat themselves, and a good general description of great human calamities would truthfully apply to several, and so might be fulfilled your half hundred times, Mr. Case.”

“That isn’t a bad theory of prophecy,” said Case approvingly; “but all these marvels were in the old time; how came the faculty to be lost?”

“Is it?” asked Bart.  “Don’t you hear of it in barbarous and savage conditions of men, now?  Our friend Sartliff would say that the faculty was lost, through the corruptions and clogs of civilization; and he proposes to restore it.”

“No, I don’t propose to restore that exactly.  I want to find a way back to Nature for myself, and then teach it to others, when the power of prophecy will be restored.  I want to see man restored to his rightful position, as the head of this lower universe.  There are ills and powers of mischief now at large, and operative, that would find their master in a perfect man.  One such, under favorable auspices, was once born into this world; and we know that it is possible.  He took His natural place at the head; and all minor powers and agencies acknowledged Him at once.  I have never been quite able to understand why He, with His power of clear discernment, should have precipitated Himself upon the Jewish and Roman power, and so perished, and at so early a day in His life.”

“So that the prophets might be fulfilled,” said Case.

“It may have been,” resumed Sartliff.

“Upon the merely human theory of the thing,” said Bart, “He could foresee that this was the only logical conclusion of his teachings, and best, perhaps only means of fixing his messages and doctrines in the hearts of men.  I may not venture a suggestion, Mr. Sartliff,” Bart continued; “but it seems to me, that your search back will necessarily fail.  In searching back, as you call it, for the happy point when the strength and purity and the inspiration of nature can be united with all that is good in Christian civilization, if your theory is correct, your civilized eyes will never discern the place.  You will have passed it before you have re-acquired the power to find it, and your life will be spent in a vain running to and fro, in search of it.  Miracles have ceased to be wonders, for we work them by ordinary means now-a-days, and we don’t know them when we meet them.”