"Thank you so much. I have brought one suggested by the strange farrago of religions that figured in your last human document. It is a pæan on the growing hospitality of the people towards the gods of other nations. There was a time when free trade in divinities was tabu, each nation protecting, and protected by, its own. Now foreign gods are all the rage."
"THE END OF THE CENTURY" CATHOLIC CREDO.
I'm a Christo-Jewish Quaker,
Moslem, Atheist and Shaker,
Auld Licht Church of England Fakir,
Antinomian Baptist, Deist,
Gnostic, Neo-Pagan Theist,
Presbyterianish Papist,
Comtist, Mormon, Darwin-apist,
Trappist, High Church Unitarian,
Sandemanian Sabbatarian,
Plymouth Brother, Walworth Jumper,
Southcote South-Place Bible-Thumper,
Christadelphian, Platonic,
Old Moravian, Masonic,
Corybantic Christi-antic,
Ethic-Culture-Transatlantic,
Anabaptist, Neo-Buddhist,
Zoroastrian Talmudist,
Laotsean, Theosophic,
Table-rapping, Philosophic,
Mediæval, Monkish, Mystic,
Modern, Mephistophelistic,
Hellenistic, Calvinistic,
Brahministic, Cabbalistic,
Humanistic, Tolstoistic,
Rather Robert Elsmeristic,
Altruistic, Hedonistic
And Agnostic Manichæan,
Worshipping the Galilean.
For with equal zeal I follow
Sivah, Allah, Zeus, Apollo,
Mumbo Jumbo, Dagon, Brahma,
Buddha alias Gautama,
Jahvé, Juggernaut and Juno—
Plus some gods that but the few know.
Though I reverence the Mishna,
I can bend the knee to Vishna;
I obey the latest mode in
Recognizing Thor and Odin,
Just as freely as the Virgin;
For the Pope and Mr. Spurgeon,
Moses, Paul and Zoroaster,
Each to me is seer and master.
I consider Heine, Hegel,
Schopenhauer, Shelley, Schlegel,
Diderot, Savonarola,
Dante, Rousseau, Goethe, Zola,
Whitman, Renan (priest of Paris),
Transcendental Prophet Harris,
Ibsen, Carlyle, Huxley, Pater
Each than all the others greater.
And I read the Zend-Avesta,
Koran, Bible, Roman Gesta,
Ind's Upanischads and Spencer
With affection e'er intenser.
For these many appellations
Of the gods of different nations,
I believe—from Baal to Sun-god—
All at bottom cover one god.
Him I worship—dropping gammon—
And his mighty name is Mammon.
"You are very hard upon the century—or rather upon the end of it," said Lillie.
"The century is dying unshriven," said the satirist solemnly. "Its conscience must be stirred. Truly, was there ever an age which had so much light and so little sweetness? In the reckless fight for gold Society has become a mutual swindling association. Cupidity has ousted Cupid, and everything is bought and sold."
"Except your poems, Lord Silverdale," laughed Lillie.
It was tit for the tat of his raillery of her mathematics.
Before his lordship had time to make the clever retort the thought of next day, Turple the magnificent brought in a card.