never to make them public, it is impossible for me to give the slightest hint of their purport; but I may say at once, without trespassing the bounds of my pledged word, that if these few concise instructions were known and practised by everyone, doctors would be entirely thrown out of employment, and chemists’ shops would no longer cumber the streets.  Illness would be very difficult of attainment—­though in the event of its occurring each individual would know how to treat him or herself—­and life could be prolonged easily and comfortably to more than a hundred years, barring, of course, accidents by sea, rail and road, or by deeds of violence.  But it will take many generations before the world is universally self-restrained enough to follow such plain maxims as those laid down for me in the writing of my benefactor, Heliobas—­even if it be ever self-restrained at all, which, judging from the present state of society, is much to be doubted.  Therefore, no more of the subject, on which, indeed, I am forbidden to speak.

The other document, called “The Electric Principle of Christianity,” I found so curious and original, suggesting so many new theories concerning that religion which has civilized a great portion of humanity, that, as I am not restrained by any promise on this point, I have resolved to give it here in full.  My readers must not be rash enough to jump to the conclusion that I set it forward as an explanation or confession of my own faith; my creed has nothing to do with anyone save myself.  I simply copy the manuscript I possess, as the theory of a deeply read and widely intelligent man, such as Heliobas undoubtedly was and is; a man, too, in whose veins runs the blood of the Chaldean kings—­earnest and thoughtful Orientals, who were far wiser in their generation perhaps than we, with all our boasted progress, are in ours.  The coincidences which have to do with electrical science will, I believe, be generally admitted to be curious if not convincing.  To me, of course, they are only fresh proofs of what I know, because I have seen the great electric circle, and know its power (guided as it is by the Central Intelligence within) to be capable of anything, from the sending down of a minute spark of instinct into the heart of a flower, to the perpetual manufacture and re-absorption of solar systems by the million million.  And it is a circle that ever widens without end.  What more glorious manifestation can there be of the Creator’s splendour and wisdom!  But as to how this world of ours span round in its own light littleness farther and farther from the Radiant Ring, till its very Sun began to be re-absorbed, and till its Moon disappeared and became a mere picture—­till it became of itself like a small blot on the fair scroll of the Universe, while its inhabitants grew to resent all heavenly attraction; and how it was yet thought worth God’s patience and tender consideration, just for the sake of a few human souls upon it who still remembered and loved Him, to give it one more chance before it should be drawn back into the Central Circle like a spark within a fire—­all this is sufficiently set forth in the words of Heliobas, quoted in the next chapter.