to the minds of men the
wonder and the love of God, all else, he thought, would follow after."

"A fanatic!" Freddy said.

"So were all saints."

"'For what shall it profit a man,'" Meg said, "'if he gain the whole
world, and lose his own soul?'" Her voice was significant. "In his
day, Christ was as great a fanatic, if you like to look at things from
that point of view. Fancy fasting forty days and forty nights in the
wilderness, calling upon men to leave their work and follow him,
preaching against the rich! How you would have scoffed at him!"

"If Akhnaton hadn't been a king, if he had merely been a prophet and a
teacher, he'd have been all right. But just you listen, Meg," Freddy
said, "while I read you what a modern writer says about him, and he is
an intense admirer of the character of Akhnaton. This is how he
describes what the messengers must have felt when they hurried back to
Egypt to the new capital of the fanatical king at Tel-el-Amarna,
bearing entreaties from the commander-in-chief of the army in Syria to
send reinforcements to help to deliver his distant kingdom from the
oppression of her enemies." Freddy found the book and opened it.
"Here it is--listen to this: 'The messengers have arrived at the City
of the Horizon,' as Akhnaton called his new capital, 'Their hearts are
full of the agony of Syria. From the beleaguered cities which they had
so lately left, there came to them the bitter cry for succour, and it
was not possible to drown that cry in words of peace, nor in the jangle
of the septrum or the warbling of pipes. Who, thought the waiting
messengers, could resist that piteous call? The city weeps and her
tears are flowing. Who could sit idle in the City of the Horizon, when
the proud empire, won with the blood of the noblest soldiers of the
great Thothmes, was breaking up before their eyes? What mattered all
the philosophies in the world, and all the gods in heaven, when Egypt's
great dominions were being wrested from her? The splendid Lebanon, the
white kingdoms of the sea, Askalon and Ashdod, Tyre and Sidon, Simgra
and Byblos, the hills of Jerusalem, Kadesh and the great Orontes, the
fair Jordan, Turip, Aleppo and distant Euphrates . . . what counted a
creed against these? God, the Truth? The only god was He of the
Battles, who had led Egypt into Syria; the only truth the doctrine of
the sword, which had held her there for so many years.'"

Freddy turned over the leaves of the