l idea for Mohammed's banner," Michael said at
length. He had driven the thought even of Margaret from his mind.
Suggestion is too potent a drug.

"Was that what he took it from?" Millicent said. "I never thought of
it before--of course, it must have been."

"He must often have watched the evening star as we are watching it now,
when he was a boy living in the desert. Later on, when he became the
warrior prophet, he must have visualized the heavens as the background
of his banner, and taken the evening star and the crescent moon as his
symbols--the star and the crescent of Islam." Michael paused. "In the
same way, the full rays of the sun became the symbol of Aton,
Akhnaton's god and loving father."

"Your friend?" Millicent said eagerly; it pleased her that Michael
should speak of the things nearest his heart. He was allowing her to
approach him.

Michael laughed. "And yours, too, I hope?"

"Why?" Millicent's heart quickened.

"Because Akhnaton was the first man to preach simplicity, honesty,
frankness and sincerity, and he preached it from a throne. He was the
first Pharaoh to be a humanitarian, the first man in whose heart there
was no trace of barbarism." [1]

"Really?" Millicent said. Michael's earnestness forbade levity. "How
interesting! Do tell me more about him."

"He was the first human being to understand rightly the meaning of
divinity."

"But what he taught didn't last. We owe nothing to his doctrines, do
we? Did it ever spread beyond his own kingdom?"

"Like other great teachers, he sacrificed all to his principles. Yet
there can be no question that his ideals will hold good 'till the swan
turns black and the crow turns white, till the hills rise up and travel
and the deeps rush into the rivers.' That's how Weigall ends up the
life he has written of the great reformer. How can you say that we owe
nothing to him? You might as well say that we owe nothing to any of
the great men of whom we have never heard, and yet you know that
thought affects the whole world. Akhnaton made himself immortal by his
prophecies--they were the eternal truths revealed to him by God."

"By a prophet, do you mean that he was a prophet like Moses, Jeremiah,
Isaiah and so on?"

"I mean that prophets were the seers to whom God communicated
knowledge. Prophets were the people to whom He made revelations; he
enlightened their minds; He certainly revealed Himself to Akhnaton, or
how else could he, in