“But what has all this to do with thy religion?—­a system far different, methinks, from the primitive institutions of these remote ages.”

“The self-same reasoning will apply, and in precisely the same mode, to the miracles of our Lord and His apostles, together with their transmission by records from their times.  The histories of the Old and New Testaments could not have been received at the time they were written, if they had not been true, because the priesthoods of Levi and of Christ,—­the observance of the Sabbath, the passover, and circumcision,—­the ordinances of baptism and the eucharist, are there represented as descending by uninterrupted succession from the time of their respective institution.  It would have been as impossible to persuade men in after-ages that they had been circumcised or baptized, had celebrated passovers and Sabbaths under the ministration of a certain order of priests, if it were not so, as to make them believe they had gone through the seas dryshod, seen the dead raised, and so forth.  But without such a persuasion neither the law nor gospel could have been received.”

“Yet, methinks, if I were the founder of a new religion, and had all the stores of Nature and Omnipotence at my command—­those boasted attributes of thy Law-giver—­I would not have left it liable to doubt, to the sneers and cavils of any one who might question my pretensions, or my right to control their belief.  The truths of Omnipotence should be clear as the sun’s beam, and unquestioned as his existence.”

“’If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither would they believe though one should rise from the dead.’  ’Tis not for lack of proof; ’tis for lack of will.  ’Tis not for lack of testimony, one tithe of which would have gained a ready assent to any of the drivelling absurdities of heathen mythology,—­’tis for lack of inclination; ’tis a wish that these revelations may not be true; and where the heart inclines, the judgment is easily biassed.”

“True, ‘as the fool thinks.’  The proverb is somewhat stale.  I marvel thou findest not its application to thine own bias, perdie!”

“At any rate, if I am fooled, I am none the worse for my belief, if my creed be not true; but if man, as thou wouldest fain hope, is like the beasts that perish, I am still at quits with thee.  And if this dream of thine should prove but a dream, and thou shouldest awake—­to the horrors of the pit, and the torments of the worm that dieth not!”

“Peace, thou croaker!  I did not send for thee to prophesy, but to prove; I would break a lance and hold a tilt at thine argument.  Now, I have a weapon in reserve which shall break down thy defences—­the web of thy reasoning shall vanish.  The fear of punishment, and the hope of future reward, held out as a bait to the cowardly and the selfish, shall be of no avail when the object of my research is accomplished.  Hast thou not heard of the supreme elixir—­the pabulum of life, which, if a man find, he may renew his years, and bid defiance alike to time and the destroyer?  Then what will become of thy boasted system of opinions, begotten by priesthood and nurtured by folly?”