"I think thou wilt find that there is no arbitrary demand in it. Our Lord gave no command only because he had power and authority to do so; but he knew what was in man, and gave only such commands as his divine wisdom perceived to be necessary for the welfare of mankind. As to the necessity of faith upon which he insists, the case is thus: All men upon earth are under the conviction of sin, and all alike are forever seeking for some escape from the bonds of this conviction. Thou wilt perceive that this conviction hath no reference to any specific, sinful act; for, perhaps, the best and purest men have always been those who felt it most keenly. It is a consciousness of alienation between the human and the divine. It is a natural, intuitive perception, in the heart of every man, that he is not as good as he ought to be, less perfect than he might be. The universal desire to get rid of this conviction of sin hath filled the world with false and ineffectual religions from the very dawn of time; for all men, in every age and clime, have sought for some form of penance or of sacrifice, some means in faith or work, by which to make atonement and secure reconciliation, and thereby shake off this conviction of sin. Hast thou ever heard of any kindred, tribe, or tongue (or even of any individual), that professed to be perfect, sinless, needing no sacrifice, no atonement for sin--that is, for a consciously sinful condition independent of all specific acts of transgression?" "Nay," answered Am-nem-hat; "for thou art clearly right in that. All men do by nature bewail their sinful state. Humanity standeth forever like the lepers in Israel, with uplifted hand, crying aloud to heaven and earth, ’Unclean! unclean!’ It is a conviction upon which philosophy hath no power. It cometh some time into every human heart, resistless as the precession of the equinoxes, spontaneous as the flowing of the Nile--a natural thing, which a man can no more control than he can reach forth his puny hand and unloose the bands of Orion, or bind the sweet influence of Pleiades, or guide Arcturus and his suns. All literature, all monuments, all ages, and all men, testify unto this terrible truth."