be possessed by
creatures who were in every respect mortal, both in the
conformation of their bodies, and in the internal belief of their
souls. Of these wise and good men some granted the existence of the
supposed deities, but denied that they cared about the actions of
mankind any more than those of the inferior animals. A merry,
jovial, careless life, such as the followers of Epicurus would
choose for themselves, was what they assigned for those gods whose
being they admitted. Others, more bold or more consistent, entirely
denied the existence of deities who apparently had no proper object
or purpose, and believed that such of them, whose being and
attributes were proved to us by no supernatural appearances, had in
reality no existence whatever.'

In all this, and indeed in all the character of Agelastes, there is
nothing more than shallow scholarship, such as may be found in many of
'the learned' in all ages, whose learning is worn as a fine garment,
perhaps as one of comfort, but _not_ as the armor in which to earnestly
do battle for life. A contempt for the vulgar, or at best a selfish
rendering of life agreeable to themselves, is all that is gathered from
such systems of doubt--and this was in all ages the reproach of all
Greek philosophy. It was not meant for the multitude nor for the
barbarian. It embraced no hope of benefiting all mankind, no scheme for
even freeing them from superstition. Such ideas were only cherished by
the Orientals, and (though mingled with errors) subsequently and _fully_
by the early Christians. It was in the East that the glorious doctrine
of love for _all_ beings, not only for enemies, but for the very fiends
themselves, was first proclaimed as essential to perfect the soul--as
shown in the beautiful Hindu poem of 'The Buddha's Victory,'[17] in
which the demon Wassywart, that horror of horrors, whose eyes are clots
of blood, whose voice outroars the thunder, who plucks up the sun from
its socket the sky, defies the great saint-god to battle:

'The unarmed Buddha mildly gazed at him,
And said in peace: 'Poor fiend, _even thee I love_.'
Before great Wassywart the world grew dim;
His bulk enormous dwindled to a dove. * * *
--Celestial beauty sat on Buddhas face,
While sweetly sang the metamorphosed dove:
'Swords, rocks, lies, fiends, must yield to moveless love,
And nothing can withstand the Buddha's grace.'