SOCRATES, DIOGENES, AND PLATO ON RELIGION
During the seventh night the gods and heroes met again at Rome in the Coliseum. The splendid moon hung deep from the sky like a huge lantern, and shed her mild and plaintive rays over all the immense building. The immortals, in their light dresses and lighter movements, formed a gorgeous contrast to the sombre stones of the vast edifice. When all had taken their seats, Zeus rose in all his majesty and spake:
"Gods and heroes! We have derived much exquisite distraction from the stories of Alcibiades, Diogenes, Plato, Aristotle, Columbus and Cæsar about the various features of lay-life in England. If now I call upon you, Socrates, to tell us something about the religious life of the English, it is, I need hardly assure you, not in a spirit of mockery that I do so. What we here think about it all, we know, and need not utter it. When Athena in her indignation more than once asked me to hurl my lightning into her former abode at Athens, into the remains of the Parthenon, I told her something in secret—she knows what,—and did not touch the holy temple. Even so shall I deal with the temples of the little ones. We shall listen to you, Socrates, with sympathy and attention."
Up rose the sturdy figure of the sage. His features had become even more illuminated with humanity, and thus more divine, and over his face erred a mild smile. He spoke as follows:
"O Zeus and the other gods and heroes! In my mortal time I frequently listened to the marvellous stories of Herodotus, and while I never permitted myself to question his honesty, as later on Plutarch did, yet I could not help doubting some of his tales about the religions of the various peoples he describes. Had I then known and learnt what I have learnt since in England, I should not have felt the slightest doubt regarding his statements.
"I had been in England for some time before I began to understand something of their curious religions. For, they have not one religion, but quite a number of such. At first I thought they had different religions according to the boundaries of their different counties. I fancied that such a neat geographical distribution might render the whole matter more methodic. But I found that that was not the case. In the same way I tried to find out whether their religions were not distributed according to their sixty different social classes. This too did not work. I then tried their professions; after that, their dress; after that, their income-tax; then, their private games.
"In that way I finally came to reach the true lines of cleavage between their numerous religions. For, to put it briefly, their religions are parallel to and dependent on each man's hobbies.
"If, for instance, an Englishman dislikes wine, and thus leans towards Puritanic ideas, he will be much inclined to adopt the religion of one Calvin, who taught to enjoy life by killing all its joys.