‘O earth!’ cried the young priest, striking his breast passionately, ’from what regions shall my eyes open to the true Olympus, where thy gods really dwell?  Am I to believe with this man, that none whom for so many centuries my fathers worshipped have a being or a name?  Am I to break down, as something blasphemous and profane, the very altars which I have deemed most sacred? or am I to think with Arbaces—­what?’ He paused, and strode rapidly away in the impatience of a man who strives to get rid of himself.  But the Nazarene was one of those hardy, vigorous, and enthusiastic men, by whom God in all times has worked the revolutions of earth, and those, above all, in the establishment and in the reformation of His own religion—­men who were formed to convert, because formed to endure.  It is men of this mould whom nothing discourages, nothing dismays; in the fervor of belief they are inspired and they inspire.  Their reason first kindles their passion, but the passion is the instrument they use; they force themselves into men’s hearts, while they appear only to appeal to their judgment.  Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus—­it moves stones, it charms brutes.  Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.

Olinthus did not then suffer Apaecides thus easily to escape him.  He overtook and addressed him thus: 

’I do not wonder, Apaecides, that I distress you; that I shake all the elements of your mind:  that you are lost in doubt; that you drift here and there in the vast ocean of uncertain and benighted thought.  I wonder not at this, but bear with me a little; watch and pray—­the darkness shall vanish, the storm sleep, and God Himself, as He came of yore on the seas of Samaria, shall walk over the lulled billows, to the delivery of your soul.  Ours is a religion jealous in its demands, but how infinitely prodigal in its gifts!  It troubles you for an hour, it repays you by immortality.’

‘Such promises,’ said Apaecides, sullenly, ’are the tricks by which man is ever gulled.  Oh, glorious were the promises which led me to the shrine of Isis!’

‘But,’ answered the Nazarene, ’ask thy reason, can that religion be sound which outrages all morality?  You are told to worship your gods.  What are those gods, even according to yourselves?  What their actions, what their attributes?  Are they not all represented to you as the blackest of criminals? yet you are asked to serve them as the holiest of divinities.  Jupiter himself is a parricide and an adulterer.  What are the meaner deities but imitators of his vices?  You are told not to murder, but you worship murderers; you are told not to commit adultery, and you make your prayers to an adulterer!  Oh! what is this but a mockery of the holiest part of man’s nature, which is faith?  Turn now to the God, the one, the true God, to whose shrine I would lead you.  If He