cording to our
standards."

He looked over for some comment but she made none, and he continued,
his interest deepening, his face kindling:--

"The fifth takes up the subject of Man, as a single one of the myriads
of forms of Life that have grown on the earth's crust, and gives the
best of what we know of him viewed as a species of animal. Does this
tire you?"

Gabriella made the only gesture of displeasure he had ever seen.

"Now," said David, straightening himself up, "I draw near to the root
of the matter. A sixth book takes up what we call the civilization of
this animal species, Man. It subdivides his civilization into different
civilizations. It analyzes these civilizations, where it is possible,
into their arts, governments, literatures, religions, and other
elements. And the seventh," he resumed after a grave pause,
scrutinizing her face most eagerly, "the seventh takes up just one part
of his civilizations--the religions of the globe--and gives an account
of these. It describes how they have grown and flourished, how some
have passed as absolutely away as the civilizations that produced them.
It teaches that those religions were as natural a part of those
civilizations as their civil laws, their games, their wars, their
philosophy; that the religious books of these races, which they
themselves often thought inspired revelations, were no more inspired
and no more revelations than their secular books; that Buddha's faith
or Brahma's were no more direct from God than Buddhistic or Brahman
temples were from God; that the Koran is no more inspired than Moorish
architecture is inspired; that the ancient religion of the Jewish race
stands on the same footing as the other great religions of the
globe--as to being Supernatural; that the second religion of the
Hebrews, starting out of them, but rejected by them, the Christian
religion, the greatest of all to us, takes its place with the others as
a perfectly natural expression of the same human desire and effort to
find God and to worship Him through all the best that we know in
ourselves and of the universe outside us."

"Ah," said Gabriella, suddenly leaning forward in her chair, "that is
the book that has done all the harm."

"One moment! All these books," continued David, for he was aroused now
and did not pause to consider her passionate protest, "have this in
common: that they try to discover and to trace Law. The universe--it is
the expression of Law. Our