“For a father he careth not sufficiently for his children: human fathers do this better!”—
“He is too old! He now careth no more for his children,”—answered the other night-watchman.
“HATH he then children? No one can prove it unless he himself prove it! I have long wished that he would for once prove it thoroughly.”
“Prove? As if HE had ever proved anything! Proving is difficult to him; he layeth great stress on one’s BELIEVING him.”
“Ay! Ay! Belief saveth him; belief in him. That is the way with old people! So it is with us also!”—
—Thus spake to each other the two old night-watchmen and light-scarers, and tooted thereupon sorrowfully on their horns: so did it happen yester-night at the garden-wall.
To me, however, did the heart writhe with laughter, and was like to break; it knew not where to go, and sunk into the midriff.
Verily, it will be my death yet—to choke with laughter when I see asses drunken, and hear night-watchmen thus doubt about God.
Hath the time not LONG since passed for all such doubts? Who may nowadays awaken such old slumbering, light-shunning things!
With the old Deities hath it long since come to an end:—and verily, a good joyful Deity-end had they!