if he survived,
and it would be very incoherent. Besides, human events repeat
themselves, and a good general description of great human calamities
would truthfully apply to several, and so might be fulfilled your half
hundred times, Mr. Case."

"That isn't a bad theory of prophecy," said Case approvingly; "but all
these marvels were in the old time; how came the faculty to be lost?"

"Is it?" asked Bart. "Don't you hear of it in barbarous and savage
conditions of men, now? Our friend Sartliff would say that the faculty
was lost, through the corruptions and clogs of civilization; and he
proposes to restore it."

"No, I don't propose to restore that exactly. I want to find a way
back to Nature for myself, and then teach it to others, when the
power of prophecy will be restored. I want to see man restored to his
rightful position, as the head of this lower universe. There are ills
and powers of mischief now at large, and operative, that would find
their master in a perfect man. One such, under favorable auspices, was
once born into this world; and we know that it is possible. He took
His natural place at the head; and all minor powers and agencies
acknowledged Him at once. I have never been quite able to understand
why He, with His power of clear discernment, should have precipitated
Himself upon the Jewish and Roman power, and so perished, and at so
early a day in His life."

"So that the prophets might be fulfilled," said Case.

"It may have been," resumed Sartliff.

"Upon the merely human theory of the thing," said Bart, "He could
foresee that this was the only logical conclusion of his teachings,
and best, perhaps only means of fixing his messages and doctrines in
the hearts of men. I may not venture a suggestion, Mr. Sartliff," Bart
continued; "but it seems to me, that your search back will necessarily
fail. In searching back, as you call it, for the happy point when the
strength and purity and the inspiration of nature can be united with
all that is good in Christian civilization, if your theory is correct,
your civilized eyes will never discern the place. You will have passed
it before you have re-acquired the power to find it, and your life
will be spent in a vain running to and fro, in search of it. Miracles
have ceased to be wonders, for we work them by ordinary means
now-a-days, and we don't know them when we meet them."

Sartliff arose; he had been for sometime silent. His face was sad.

"It may be.