“And what is that?” asked Cimon. “Your father, at least, is wont to say wise things beyond any man I ever knew.”
“That, wide as is the variety of religious beliefs among men, they believe alike in certain main respects. What differences among the faces before us as to color, size, proportion of parts, expression; and yet they are all faces, all human faces, all faces having the same general plan of structure and location of the various organs.”
“Yes,” added the elder; “Homines diversi sed homines, as said a Roman before you. And see how various the costume; and yet it is all clothing,—all clothing that recognizes the warm climate, the season of the year, and to a certain extent the time of day and the convenience of travelers.”
“And you might add,” continued the young man, after a moment of close listening, “that it is just so with the various articulate sounds that come to us. While they differ in tone, in time, in syntax, in dialect, they are all speech, all articulate speech, and, for the most part, speech so much of the Greek pattern as to be intelligible to nearly all of us.”
“Yes,” said Cimon, “and I suppose that it is very much so with the religious beliefs of these people. Though their creeds differ much among themselves, they are alike in many most important particulars. They all recognize a realm of spiritual beings superior to man, a Supreme Deity, his concern in human affairs, messages from him, our responsibility to him, a future state of rewards and punishments, and the main principles of good morals. There may be some exceptions; for these, I understand, are skeptical times in the Roman world. Almost everything is called in question among the philosophers, even the fact that there is something to be called in question; though it is found hard to get men to question that the Romans are masters, that Tiberius reigns, and that Alexandria is the greatest emporium of the world. But the vagaries of the schools make but little impression on the people at large. They never have done so. The more fundamental beliefs have kept a firm hold on all nations and ages. A little pool will show the heavens as well as the ocean. This khan is a little pool; and at the bottom of it, amid many wrinkles and clouds, one can discover many of the larger stars of religious truth which have shone on the world from the beginning.”
“And how do you account for these universal beliefs?” asked Aleph.
“It seems to me that they came from a Divine revelation to the first fathers of the race, and that they were carried forth with them as they gradually dispersed from their original seats, and that they took root so deeply in the needs and reasons of men that no evil circumstances have been able to remove them. It seems to me that as all the routes of trade in our day naturally converge on Alexandria, so the natural highways of thought and need all over the world converge on these fundamental truths.”
“No doubt you also think it reasonable to believe that Deity, who made the deposits with the race, has been personally active all along to preserve it, as a broad ground for responsibility and further enlightenment? In addition to a mighty undertow in human nature itself toward these fundamental truths, there are winds and currents of external circumstance setting in the same direction by the personal agency of the Most High.”
“Just so. But look at those men!”
The two persons pointed at had been sitting not far away in the open court, conversing in a low tone. By degrees their conversation had become more animated and loud, until now they were earnestly gesturing and talking so as to be distinctly understood at a distance. It seemed that one of the disputants was a Phenician, and was endeavoring to settle an account of long standing with an Alexandrian dealer in Tyrian dyes, to whom these goods had from time to time been consigned. This dealer claimed that several of the consignments had been short in both quantity and quality; and so offered about half the regular price for the whole lot.