“And there was old Zoroaster saying to his Ormuzd, ’I believe thee, O God! to be the best thing of all!’ and asking for guidance.  Ormuzd tells him to be pure in thought, word and deed; to be temperate, chaste and truthful—­and this Ormuzd would have no lambs sacrificed to him.  Life, being his gift, was dear to him.  And don’t forget Mohammed, Nance, that fine old barbarian with the heart of a passionate child, counselling men to live a good life and to strive after the mercy of God by fasting, charity and prayer, calling this the ‘Key of Paradise.’  He went after a poor blind man whom he had at first rebuffed, saying ’He is thrice welcome on whose account my Lord hath reprimanded me.’  He was a fine, stubborn old believer, Nance.  I wonder if it’s not true that the Christians once studied these old chaps to take the taste of their own cruder God out of their minds.  What a cruel people they must have been to make so cruel a God!

“But let’s talk of you, Nance—­that’s it—­light the chandeliers in your eyes.”

He spoke drowsily now, and lay quiet, patting one of her hands.  But presently he was on one elbow to study her again.

“Nance, the Egyptians worshipped Nature, the Greeks worshipped Beauty, the Northern chaps worshipped Courage, and the Christians feared—­well, the hereafter, you know—­but I’m a Catholic when you smile.”

CHAPTER III

REASON IS AGAIN ENTHRONED

Slowly the days brought new life to the convalescent, despite his occasional attacks of theological astigmatism.  And these attacks grew less frequent and less marked as the poor bones once more involved themselves in firm flesh—­to the glad relief of a harried and scandalised old gentleman whose black forebodings had daily moved him to visions of the mad-house for his best-loved descendant.

Yet there were still dreadful times when the young man on the couch blasphemed placidly by the hour, with an insane air of assuming that those about him held the same opinions; as if the Christian religion were a pricked bubble the adherents of which had long since vanished.

If left by himself he could often be heard chuckling and muttering between chuckles:  “I will get me honour upon Pharaoh and all his host.  I have hardened his heart and the heart of his host that I might show these my signs before him.”

Entering the room, the old gentleman might be met with: 

“I certainly agree with you, sir, in every respect—­Christianity was an invertebrate materialism of separation—­crude, mechanical separation—­less spiritual, less ethical, than almost any of the Oriental faiths.  Affirming the brotherhood of man, yet separating us into a heaven and a hell.  Christians cowering before a being of divided power, half-god and half-devil.  Indeed, I remember no religion so non-moral—­none that is so baldly a mere mechanical device for meeting the primitive mind’s need to set its own tribe apart from all others—­or in the later growth to separate the sheep from the goats, by reason of the opinion formed of certain evidence.  Even schoolboys nowadays know that no moral value inheres in any opinion formed upon evidence.  Yet, I dare say it was doubtless for a long period an excellent religion for marauding nations.”