"Not so the little ones. For them religion is viewed as a matter of documentary evidence, like a bill of sale. They constantly clamour for 'evidence,' 'proofs' and 'verifications.' Their theologians are solicitors and barristers, but not religious men. If I had asked Pericles for 'evidences' of the religious cult practised by his family or gens, the Alcmæonidæ, he would have indignantly told his slaves to put me out of the house, just as if I had asked him to give me 'evidences' of his wife's virtue.
"We held that Religion is not a matter of 'evidences,' any more than Life, Health, Sleep, or Dreams stand in need of being 'proved' by 'evidences.' We know that we live, or that we are in good health; we do not care to listen to long-winded arguments proving it.
"On my rambles in England I met many a clergyman. I remember one who occupied a high position at Canterbury, and was a very learned man. I was rather curious to learn what he thought of the religion of the Greeks. He treated me to the following remarks:
"'The Religion of the Greeks? Why, my dear sir, they had none. The Greeks were pagans, heathens. They believed in all sorts of immoral stories about immoral gods and goddesses; they were sunk in wholesale corruption and rottenness. Their vices smelt to heaven. Did ever any Greek say that he who smiteth you on your left cheek, ought to be offered your right cheek too?'
"'No,' I said, continued Socrates, 'we never said that, because we knew that nobody would ever do it. We did so many noble actions at home and in war that we never felt the urgency of exaggerating actions in words, that we never did in fact.'
"'Is that it?' he answered. 'Do you mean to say that we only say such things, because we never practise them?'
"'Precisely,' said I. '"Incapable of the deed, you try to embrace its shadow, the word," as Democritus said.'
"'Even if we never practised them, is it not sublime to say them? Is it not increasing our moral worth when we profess to be gentle and generous and superhumanly good, not exactly on the day when we make such professions, but possibly on some subsequent day?'
"'I am afraid,' said I, 'this we used to call the talk of sycophants and hypocrites.'