“Do your people, then,” rejoined the Israelite, “distinguish the type from the original? They call the sun their god, and, descending even from this to a baser object, they kneel before an earthly flame! Ye amuse the outward but blind the inward eye; and while ye hold to them the earthly, ye draw from them the heavenly light! ‘Thou shalt not make unto thyself any image or any likeness.’”
“How do you name the Supreme Being?” asked the Parsee.
“We call him Jehovah Adonai, that is, the Lord who is, who was, and who will be,” answered the Jew.
“Your appellation is grand and sublime,” said the Parsee; “but it is awful too.”
A Christian then drew nigh, and said,—
“We call him Father.”
The Pagan and the Jew looked at each other, and said,—
“Here is at once an image and a reality: it is a word of the heart.”
Therefore they all raised their eyes to heaven, and said, with reverence and love, “Our Father!” and they took each by the hand, and all three called one another brothers!