And on this occasion all this prayer of his was earnest and pathetic enough.  He begged this old chum of his to throw aside his insular prejudices and judge for himself.  What object had he in living at all, if life were merely a routine of food and sleep?  In this selfish isolation, his living was only a process of going to the grave—­only that each day would become more tedious and burdensome as he grew older.  Why should he not examine, and inquire, and believe—­if that was possible?  The world was perishing for want of a new faith:  the new faith was here.

At this phrase George Brand quickly raised his head.  He was accustomed to these enthusiasms of his friend; but he had not yet seen him in the character of on apostle.

“You know it as well as I, Brand; the last great wave of religion has spent itself; and I suppose Matthew Arnold would have us wait for the mysterious East, the mother of religions, to send us another.  Do you remember ’Obermann?’—­

    “’In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
        The Roman noble lay;
      He drove abroad, in furious guise,
        Along the Appian Way;

    “’He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
        And crowned his head with flowers—­
      No easier nor no quicker passed
        The impracticable hours.

    “’The brooding East with awe beheld
        Her impious younger world. 
      The Roman tempest swelled and swelled,
        And on her head was hurled.

    “’The East bowed low before the blast,
        In patience, deep disdain;
      She let the legions thunder past,
        And plunged in thought again.’”

The lad had a sympathetic voice; and there was a curious, pathetic thrill in the tones of it as he went on to describe the result of that awful musing—­the new-born joy awakening in the East—­the victorious West veiling her eagles and snapping her sword before this strange new worship of the Child—­

    “And centuries came, and ran their course,
       And, unspent all that time,
     Still, still went forth that Child’s dear force,
       And still was at its prime.”

But now—­in these later days around us!—­

    “Now he is dead!  Far hence He lies
       In the lorn Syrian town;
     And on his grave, with shining eyes,
       The Syrian stars look down.”

The great divine wave had spent itself.  But were we to sit supinely by—­this was what he asked, though not precisely in these consecutive words, for sometimes he walked to and fro in his eagerness, and sometimes he ate a bit of bread, or sat down opposite his friend for the purpose of better confronting him—­to wait for that distant and mysterious East to send us another revelation?  Not so.  Let the proud-spirited and courageous West, that had learned the teachings of Christianity but never yet applied them—­let the powerful West establish a faith of her own:  a faith in the future of humanity itself—­a faith in future of recompense and atonement to the vast multitudes of mankind who had toiled so long and so grievously—­a faith demanding instant action and endeavor and self-sacrifice from those who would be its first apostles.