“And, even were the orthodox deity taken for granted, with her girlish heart and tender sympathy with every living creature, Ijain’s whole nature rose in revolt against the savage truculence of the deity of the churches. She, instinctively, endorsed the sentiments of the philosopher of Ferney:—
‘Whoever dares to say “God has spoken to me,” is criminal before God and men; for would God, the common father of all men, have communicated himself to an individual? God to walk! God to talk! God to write upon a little mountain! God to become man! God-man to die upon the cross! Ideas worthy of a Punch! To invent all these things is the last degree of rascality; to believe them, the extreme of brutal stupidity!’
“Yes, Ijain, if, in the reading of the Riddle of the Universe, we must postulate deity, let us have God expressive of the ripest knowledge, the loftiest aspirations, the most transcendental spiritual vision of modern humanity, not the coarse and barbaric eidolon of credulous and unlettered savages. In respect of our intelligence, in mercy upon our feelings, give us God up to date.
“The lesson the ‘story’ teaches is that
He prayeth best who loveth best,
All things both great and small;
that the world, in its noblest aspect, is an arena for generous and unselfish endeavour; that, in service to your brother man, you are offering the very service to God that any god born of a noble and spiritual ideal would most readily accept. Ijain’s lesson is, Help Man, and, if it so please you, call it worshiping God. The most divine of all the sayings attributed to the Nazarine is, in regard to a kindly, helpful deed, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”
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