er
his kingly pride. You find another (or perhaps the same) agency, made
visible to a Christian prophet as an angel standing in the sun, calling
to the birds that fly under heaven to come, that they may eat the flesh
of kings. Is there anything impious in the thought that the same agency
might have been expressed to a Greek king, or Greek seer, by similar
visions?--that this figure, standing in the sun, and armed with the
sword, or the bow (whose arrows were drunk with blood), and exercising
especially its power in the humiliation of the proud, might, at first,
have been called only 'Destroyer,' and afterwards, as the light, or sun,
of justice, was recognised in the chastisement, called also 'Physician'
or 'Healer?' If you feel hesitation in admitting the possibility of
such a manifestation, I believe you will find it is caused, partly
indeed by such trivial things as the difference to your ear between
Greek and English terms; but, far more, by uncertainty in your own mind
respecting the nature and truth of the visions spoken of in the Bible.
Have any of you intently examined the nature of your belief in them?
You, for instance, Lucilla, who think often, and seriously, of such
things?

LUCILLA. No; I never could tell what to believe about them. I know they
must be true in some way or other; and I like reading about them.

L. Yes; and I like reading about them too, Lucilla; as I like reading
other grand poetry. But, surely, we ought both to do more than like it?
Will God be satisfied with us, think you, if we read His words merely
for the sake of an entirely meaningless poetical sensation?

LUCILLA. But do not the people who give themselves to seek out the
meaning of these things, often get very strange, and extravagant?

L. More than that, Lucilla. They often go mad. That abandonment of the
mind to religious theory, or contemplation, is the very thing I have
been pleading with you against. I never said you should set yourself to
discover the meanings; but you should take careful pains to understand
them, so far as they _are_ clear; and you should always accurately
ascertain the state of your mind about them. I want you never to read
merely for the pleasure of fancy; still less as a formal religious duty
(else you might as well take to repeating Paters at once; for it is
surely wiser to repeat one thing we understand, than read a thousand
which we cannot). Either, therefore, acknowledge the passages to be, for
the pr