Again he laughed,—­Heliobas had listened with a keen and sarcastic enjoyment of the whole story.

“Undoubtedly your ‘Zabastes’ was no phantom!”—­he observed emphatically—­“His was evidently a very real existence, and he must have divided himself from one into several, to sit in judgment again upon you in this present day!  History repeats itself,—­and unhappily all the injustice, hypocrisy, and inconsistency of man is repeated too,—­and out of the multitudes that inhabit the earth, how few will succeed in fulfilling their highest destinies!  This is the one bitter drop in the cup of our knowledge,—­we can, if we choose, save ourselves,—­but we can seldom, if ever, save others!”

Alwyn stopped short, his eyes darkening with a swift intensity of feeling.

“Why not?”—­he asked earnestly—­“Must we look on, and see men rushing toward certain misery, without making an effort to turn them hack?—­to warn them of the darkness whither they are bound?—­ to rescue them before it is too late?”

“My friend, we can make the effort, certainly,—­and we are bound to make it, because it is our duty,—­but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred we shall fail of our persuasion.  What can I, or you, or any one, do against the iron force of Free-Will?  God Himself will not constrain it,—­how then shall we?  In the Books of Esdras, which have already been of such use to you, you will find the following significant words:  ’The Most High hath made this world for many, but the world to come for few.  As when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it giveth much mold wherein earthen vessels are made, and but little dust that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world.  There be many created but few shall be saved.’—­God elects to be served by choice—­and not by compulsion; it is His Law that Man shall work out his own immortal destiny,—­and nothing can alter this overwhelming Fact.  The sublime Example of Christ was given us as a means to assist us in forming our own conclusions,—­but there is no coercion in it,—­ only a Divine Love.  You, for instance, were, and are, still perfectly free to reject the whole of your experience on the Field of Ardath as a delusion,—­nothing would be easier, and, from the world’s point of view, nothing more natural.  Faith and Doubt are equally voluntary acts,—­the one is the instinct of the immortal Soul, the other the tendency of the perishable Body,—­and the Will decides which of the two shall conquer in the end.  I know that you are firm in your high and true conviction,—­I know also what thoughts are at work in your brain,—­you are bending all your energies on the task of trying to instil into the minds of your fellow-men some comprehension of the enlightenment and hope you yourself possess.  Ah, you must prepare for disappointment!—­for though the times are tending toward strange upheavals and terrors, when the trumpet-voice of an inspired Poet may do enormous good,—­ still the name