“Not a Christian yet, you mean,” answered Cæcilius.
“A person must be born a Christian, sir,” she replied, “in order to take up the religion. It is a very beautiful idea, as far as I have heard anything about it; but one must suck it in with one’s mother’s milk.”
“If so, it never could have come into the world,” said the priest.
She paused for a while. “It is true,” she answered [pg 215]at length; “but a new religion begins by appealing to what is peculiar in the minds of a few. The doctrine, floating on the winds, finds its own; it takes possession of their minds; they answer its call; they are brought together by that common influence; they are strong in each other’s sympathy; they create and throw around them an external form, and thus they found a religion. The sons are brought up in their fathers’ faith; and what was the idea of a few becomes at length the profession of a race. Such is Judaism; such the religion of Zoroaster, or of the Egyptians.”
“You will find,” said the priest, “that the greater number of African Christians at this moment, for of them I speak confidently, are converts in manhood, not the sons of Christians. On the other hand, if there be those who have left the faith, and gone up to the capitol to sacrifice, these were Christians by hereditary profession. Such is my experience, and I think the case is the same elsewhere.”
She seemed to be speaking more for the sake of getting answers than of objecting arguments. She paused again, and thought; then she said, “Mankind is made up of classes of very various mental complexion, as distinct from each other as the colours which meet the eye. Red and blue are incommensurable; and in like manner, a Magian never can become a Greek, nor a Greek a Cœlicolist. They do but make themselves fools when they attempt it.”
“Perhaps the most deeply convinced, the most tranquil-minded in the Christian body,” answered Cæcilius, “will tell you, on the contrary, that there was a time when they hated Christianity, and despised and ill-treated its professors.”
“I never did any such thing,” cried Callista, “since the day I first heard of it. I am not its enemy, but I cannot believe in it. I am sure I never could; I never, never should be able.”
“What is it you cannot believe?” asked the priest.
“It seems too beautiful,” she said, “to be anything else than a dream. It is a thing to talk about, but when you come near its professors you see it is impossible. A most beautiful imagination, that is what it is. Most beautiful its precepts, as far as I have heard of them; so beautiful, that in idea there is no difficulty. The mind runs along with them, as if it could accomplish them without an effort. Well, its maxims are too beautiful to be realized; and then on the other hand, its dogmas are too dismal, too shocking, too odious to be believed. They revolt me.”