to think about Adam otherwise than the Jews.
Consequently I hold my tongue, and I do not think at all.

_FAITH_

_We have long pondered whether or no we should print this article, which
we found in an old book. Our respect for St. Peter's see restrained us.
But some pious men having convinced us that Pope Alexander VI. had
nothing in common with St. Peter, we at last decided to bring this
little piece into the light, without scruple._

One day Prince Pico della Mirandola met Pope Alexander VI. at the house
of the courtesan Emilia, while Lucretia, the holy father's daughter, was
in child-bed, and one did not know in Rome if the child was the Pope's,
or his son's the Duke of Valentinois, or Lucretia's husband's, Alphonse
of Aragon, who passed for impotent. The conversation was at first very
sprightly. Cardinal Bembo records a part of it.

"Little Pic," said the Pope, "who do you think is my grandson's father?"

"Your son-in-law, I think," answered Pic.

"Eh! how can you believe such folly?"

"I believe it through faith."

"But do you not know quite well that a man who is impotent does not make
children?"

"Faith consists," returned Pic, "in believing things because they are
impossible; and, further, the honour of your house demands that
Lucretia's son shall not pass as the fruit of an incest. You make me
believe more incomprehensible mysteries. Have I not to be convinced that
a serpent spoke, that since then all men have been damned, that Balaam's
she-ass also spoke very eloquently, and that the walls of Jericho fell
at the sound of trumpets?" Pic forthwith ran through a litany of all
the admirable things he believed.

Alexander fell on his sofa by dint of laughing.

"I believe all that like you," he said, "for I know well that only by
faith can I be saved, and that I shall not be saved by my works."

"Ah! Holy Father," said Pic, "you have need of neither works nor faith;
that is good for poor profane people like us; but you who are vice-god
can believe and do all you want to. You have the keys of heaven; and
without a doubt St. Peter will not close the door in your face. But for
myself, I avow I should need potent protection if, being only a poor
prince, I had slept with my daughter, and if I had used the stiletto and
the cantarella as often as your Holiness."

Alexander could take a jest. "Let us talk seriously," he said to Prince
della Mirandola. "Tell me what merit one can have in telling God th