"There is another," said the ancient, "which is conclusive to my mind that the doctrine of thy scriptures is as I have stated it. In Genesis it is written that God said, ’Let _us_ make man in our own image’; and, also, it is written, ’Male and female created he them.’ It seemeth to me that this ’image’ and ’likeness’ hath a deeper signification than the mere similitude of man’s character to that of God can convey. God is a spirit, according to these scriptures, and no resemblance can be imagined between human beings and him in regard to physical constitution. So far as the characters constituted the ’image and likeness,’ the books show that it would include only the first man on one side, and God the Father on the other. But the words are generic: ’us’ and ’our’ the triad, on one side, and ’man’ (that is ’male and female,’ the human race) on the other, and I suppose the ’image and likeness’ spoken of is one found in the essential nature of man, in his constitution and relations. For as in heaven, so in earth; in both, the trilogy includes Father, Mother, Son: trinity is family; and the essential point of the image and likeness between the human and the divine subsists in the fact that human nature necessarily exists as a triad--father, mother, son; just as the divine nature must do. This seemeth to me to be the only ground from which it is possible to predicate divinity of Jesus Christ without involving the whole Christian system in the mazes of polytheism; for if he be divine otherwise than in this fact of generation, there must be more than one God. In strict accordance with this view, I have observed that in those nations which are ignorant of this feminine aspect of the dual god, wives are degraded--are mere chattels, mere slaves; in others, that (like Egypt) recognize the divine feminine nature, but hold that she is inferior to the masculine element of this dualism, wives are tolerated, are not shut up in seclusion, are not mere slaves and chattels; while among the Christians alone who hold the absolute equality of Father and Spirit, womanhood is glorified and made honorable; and Jesus himself elevated marriage almost, if not altogether, into a religious sacrament." "The views you present seem very like the truth," said the boy, musingly, "and they are certainly grand enough to be true. But they are entirely new to me, and I shall not fail to give them such study and meditation as my sense of the magnitude of the subject involved may demand. I have never heard any discussion upon the nature of the relation of the three persons of our Christian trilogy." "I think," said the ancient, "thou wilt find that it is a mere mistake to suppose that there are three, for the sacred books teach me that there are only two, the Father-Ghost, or double God, but one only; and the Son of this one God. The perfectest flowers in nature are hermaphrodites."