t length, some hope
may dawn that Mohammedans and Hindoos may be joined in one fold with
us, under one Shepherd, who will only have regained his older name of
the Lord God.'" (Soul, p. 258)
"By all the gods and goddesses of all the nations," said Harrington,
"I cannot understand it. How mankind should need such teaching, if
your theory be true; how, if they need it, it is possible that you
should give it if all external revelation of moral and spiritual
truth be impossible; how, if it is impossible, it should be
impossible for a God, by a Bible, to give the like; how you can get
at the souls of people at all except through the intervention of the
senses and the intellect,--the latter of which you say has nothing to
do with the 'soul,' and surely the former can have as little; or how,
if you can get at them by this intervention, it is impossible that
a Bible should,--is all to me a mystery. But let that pass. If your
last account be true, one thing is clear; that a splendid career
is open to you and your friends. You can immediately employ this
irresistible 'weapon' for the verification of your views and the
conversion of the human race. You can renew, or rather realize, the
triumphs of early Christianity;--I say realize, for you and Mr.
Newman believe them to be, for the most part, fabulous, and that it
was the army of Constantine that conquered the Empire for
Christianity; but you can turn such fables into truths. Surely the
least you can do is to be off as a missionary to China or India. Go
to Constantinople, my dear fellow, and take the Great Turk by the
beard. Nor can Mr. Newman do less than repair to Bagdad, upon a
second and more hopeful mission. You will know when you have demolished
Mohammedanism, and got fairly into Thibet. Alexander's career will
be nothing to it. But alas! I fear it will be only another variety
of that impossible thing,--a book-revelation!"
"Nay," said Fellowes, "we must first finish our mission at home, and
try our weapons upon you and such as you. We must subdue such as
you first."
"Then you will never go," said Harrington.
"Never mind," I said, "Mr. Fellowes; Harrington is very mischievous
to-day. But, as he said he would not contest the ground of your
dictum, that a book-revelation of moral and spiritual truth is
impossible, so he has not entered into it. Will you let me, on a
future day, read to you a brief paper upon it? I have no skill--or
but little--in that erotetic method
|