"And in earlier civilisations even than that," I added. "I believe that in those far-away days men practised the rites and the mysteries which brought them into contact with, and by which they controlled to some extent, the Principalities and Powers of the vast universe which for want of a better word we call Nature. Then Man—as is unfortunately his habit—fell away from his first estate, and began to worship the Principalities and the Powers instead of the God who made him and them, and then God drew a veil between Man and the Great Powers, so that Man should not be tempted by knowing them to worship them. And that is where we are at present. But even now the veil sometimes wears thin in places, and some stray mortal peeps through and catches faint glimpses of the glories and the grandeurs on the other side."
"Then you do not believe that Pan is dead?" said Arthur.
"No more dead than anybody else is dead," I answered, "only separated from us, like all the other so-called dead people, until we are sufficiently advanced in our spiritual life to meet them again. That is really all that death amounts to, when you look it in the face."
"That is so," said Blathwayte in that quiet voice so right.
"I love to think of those early days," I went on, waxing garrulous and tiresome, as I always do when I get on to this subject, "when Man was conversant with the great forces of Nature; when he saw white presences among the hills, and heard the message of the whirlwind and the fire, and took his part in the chantings of the morning stars. It was only when he began to worship these that the evil came. They were but the choirs and the servers and the acolytes in the vast temple of his God, and he did evil when he fell down and worshipped them. It was then that the veil of the temple was let down between them and him."
"And will it soon be lifted again, I wonder?"
"It will be rent in twain when Man is once more in absolute harmony with the Infinite. Don't you remember that in St. John's vision of the Throne, in addition to the Spirits and the Elders, there were four Beasts full of eyes, each with six wings? I believe that these six-winged Beasts—which Isaiah speaks of as Seraphim—are the great forces of Nature, the Powers of wind and water and earth and fire: those Powers which the ancients set up as gods and worshipped."
"Then you believe in the old gods?"
I shook my head. "Not as gods, but as great forces; Man's initial error lay in treating them as gods."
"And you believe that these strange Beings—these Principalities and Powers—are not of evil?" asked Arthur.