or sun, of justice, was recognized in the chastisement, called also “Physician” or “Healer”?  If you feel hesitation in admitting the possibility of such a manifestation, I believe you will find it is caused, partly indeed by such trivial things as the difference to your ear between Greek and English terms; but, far more, by uncertainty in your own mind respecting the nature and truth of the visions spoken of in the Bible.  Have any of you intently examined the nature of your belief in them?  You, for instance, Lucilla, who think often, and seriously, of such things?

Lucilla.  No; I never could tell what to believe about them.  I know they must be true in some way or other; and I like reading about them.

L. Yes; and I like reading about them too, Lucilla; as I like reading other grand poetry.  But, surely, we ought both to do more than like it?  Will God be satisfied with us, think you, if we read His words, merely for the sake of an entirely meaningless poetical sensation?

Lucilla.  But do not the people who give themselves to seek out the meaning of these things, often get very strange, and extravagant?

L. More than that, Lucilla.  They often go mad.  That abandonment of the mind to religious theory, or contemplation, is the very thing I have been pleading with you against.  I never said you should set yourself to discover the meanings; but you should take careful pains to understand them, so far as they are clear; and you should always accurately ascertain the state of your mind about them.  I want you never to read merely for the pleasure of fancy; still less as a formal religious duty (else you might as well take to repeating Paters at once; for it is surely wiser to repeat one thing we understand, than read a thousand which we cannot).  Either, therefore, acknowledge the passages to be, for the present, unintelligible to you; or else determine the sense in which you at present receive them; or, at all events, the different senses between which you clearly see that you must choose.  Make either your belief, or your difficulty, definite; but do not go on, all through your life, believing nothing intelligently, and yet supposing that your having read the words of a divine book must give you the right to despise every religion but your own.  I assure you, strange as it may seem, our scorn of Greek tradition depends, not on our belief, but our disbelief, of our own traditions.  We have, as yet, no sufficient clue to the meaning of either; but you will always find that, in proportion to the earnestness of our own faith, its tendency to accept a spiritual personality increases:  and that the most vital and beautiful Christian temper rests joyfully in its conviction of the multitudinous ministry of living angels, infinitely varied in rank and power.  You all know one expression of the purest and happiest form of such faith, as it exists in modern times, in Richter’s lovely illustrations of the Lord’s Prayer.  The real and living