Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/598

 the ancient Greeks were of the divinity of their Zeus and the Romans of their Jupiter; as the ancient Hebrews were convinced of the divinity of their gloomy Jehovah, and as the orthodox adherents of that creed are still convinced of the coming of a Messiah—”

“Good!” came from the table of the theologians. Not minding the interruption, my friend continued—“as the ancient Hindoos were convinced of the omnipotence of their world’s creator,—Brahma; as they were convinced of the immortality of the soul, which migrates from one body to another, and, thus purified, returns to the Eternal Being from which it originated; as the later Hindoos were convinced that, besides Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu also were eternal, omniscient, and almighty gods; as they were convinced of the truth of the ingenious, ennobling, and poetical, original idea of their religion, that in this world good and evil will ever fight until the evil shall be subdued and forever extinguished—”

“Well! very well!” responded the theologians.

“—and as all of us who have unwittingly become Christians in our infancy are convinced that, although without the will of our omnipotent, omniscient, most wise, benevolent, just, indulgent, and merciful God, not one hair may fall from our head, yet every one of us who commits a mortal sin is doomed to eternal perdition.”

After these words the theologians remained silent; but a subdued expression of approval was heard from the table of the philosophers.

“For the time being, then,” continued my friend, “let us suppose, my honored guests, that my brain has really been supplanted by the brain of Newton. How odd, how childish, then, must appear to me this so-called enlightened age! We study the past ages and compassionately smile at, nay, we ridicule, the godlike simplicity, awkwardness, and roughness of our ancestors, without reflecting that later ages will likewise ridicule us. We boast that our age is an age of enlightenment and progress—and millions of our neighbors live in beastly stupidity. We rejoice that the humane maxims which have been unknown for centuries have