ut not your faith in oracles. God alone knows the future. He who
has recourse to the diviners soils the temple of his heart and shows his
lack of faith in his Creator.

11. "Belief in the diviners and their miracles destroys the innate
simplicity of man and his childlike purity. An infernal power takes hold
of him who so errs, and forces him to commit various sins and give
himself to the worship of idols.

12. "But the Lord our God, to whom none can be equalled, is one
omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent; He alone possesses all wisdom
and all light.

13. "To Him ye must address yourselves, to be comforted in your
afflictions, aided in your works, healed in your sickness and whoso asks
of Him, shall not ask in vain.

14. "The secrets of nature are in the hands of God, for the whole world,
before it was made manifest, existed in the bosom of the divine thought,
and has become material and visible by the will of the Most High.

15. "When ye pray to him, become again like little children, for ye know
neither the past, nor the present, nor the future, and God is the Lord
of Time."

XII.

1. "Just man," said to him the disguised spies of the Governor of
Jerusalem, "tell us if we must continue to do the will of Caesar, or
expect our near deliverance?"

2. And Issa, who recognized the questioners as the apostate spies sent
to follow him, replied to them: "I have not told you that you would be
delivered from Caesar; it is the soul sunk in error which will gain its
deliverance.

3. "There cannot be a family without a head, and there cannot be order
in a people without a Caesar, whom ye should implicitly obey, as he will
be held to answer for his acts before the Supreme Tribunal."

4. "Does Caesar possess a divine right?" the spies asked him again; "and
is he the best of mortals?"

5. "There is no one 'the best' among human beings; but there are many
bad, who--even as the sick need physicians--require the care of those
chosen for that mission, in which must be used the means given by the
sacred law of our Heavenly Father;

6. "Mercy and justice are the high prerogatives of Caesar, and his name
will be illustrious if he exercises them.

7. "But he who acts otherwise, who transcends the limits of power he has
over those under his rule, and even goes so far as to put their lives in
danger, offends the great Judge and derogates from his own dignity in
the eyes of men."

8. Upon this, an old woman who had approa