“There are some things I know, and some things I believe,” said the Syrian.  “I know that I have a soul, and I believe that it is immortal.”

“It is science that, by demonstrating the insignificance of this globe in the vast scale of creation, has led to this infidelity,” said Lothair.

“Science may prove the insignificance of this globe in the scale of creation,” said the stranger, “but it cannot prove the insignificance of man.  What is the earth compared with the sun? a molehill by a mountain; yet the inhabitants of this earth can discover the elements of which the great orb consists, and will probably ere long ascertain all the conditions of its being.  Nay, the human mind can penetrate far beyond the sun.  There is no relation, therefore, between the faculties of man and the scale in creation of the planet which he inhabits.”

“I was glad to hear you assert the other night the spiritual nature of man in opposition to Mr. Phoebus.”

“Ah, Mr. Phoebus!” said the stranger, with a smile.  “He is an old acquaintance of mine.  And I must say he is very consistent—­except in paying a visit to Jerusalem.  That does surprise me.  He said to me the other night the same things as he said to me at Rome many years ago.  He would revive the worship of Nature.  The deities whom he so eloquently describes and so exquisitely delineates are the ideal personifications of the most eminent human qualities, and chiefly the physical.  Physical beauty is his standard of excellence, and he has a fanciful theory that moral order would be the consequence of the worship of physical beauty; for without moral order he holds physical beauty cannot be maintained.  But the answer to Mr. Phoebus is, that his system has been tried and has failed, and under conditions more favorable than are likely to exist again; the worship of Nature ended in the degradation of the human race.”

“But Mr. Phoebus cannot really believe in Apollo and Venus,” said Lothair.  “These are phrases.  He is, I suppose, what is called a Pantheist.”

“No doubt the Olympus of Mr. Phoebus is the creation of his easel,” replied the Syrian.  “I should not, however, describe him as a Pantheist, whose creed requires more abstraction than Mr. Phoebus, the worshiper of Nature, would tolerate.  His school never care to pursue any investigation which cannot be followed by the eye—­and the worship of the beautiful always ends in an orgy.  As for Pantheism, it is Atheism in domino.  The belief in a Creator who is unconscious of creating is more monstrous than any dogma of any of the churches in this city, and we have them all here.”

“But there are people now who tell you that there never was any creation, and therefore there never could have been a Creator,” said Lothair.

“And which is now advanced with the confidence of novelty,” said the Syrian, “though all of it has been urged, and vainly urged, thousands of years ago.  There must be design, or all we see would be without sense, and I do not believe in the unmeaning.  As for the natural forces to which all creation is now attributed, we know they are unconscious, while consciousness is as inevitable a portion of our existence as the eye or the hand.  The conscious cannot be derived from the unconscious.  Man is divine.”