All this was very strange to me, fresh from beautiful and romantic Greece, where altars were erected to a thousand gods: fresh from the schools of philosophy, where the only deity taught was a spiritual essence, infinite, inconceivable, unfathomable. I listened, however, with interest to the recital of miracles which were certainly astounding; to parables which were replete with spiritual wisdom; and to discourses—for my sisters treasured all his words by heart and repeated them to me—which were radiant with a certain divine light and beauty. I was ready to concede that this man must be the greatest philosopher of the age. This was the opinion of our good uncle, who, however, took no trouble to see or hear the worker of such great miracles. He said there was nothing new under the sun; that all things repeated themselves over and over again; that all wisdom had been spoken and every miracle performed ages and ages ago. The Son of God was in his mind synonymous with a disciple of the Sun. Beltrezzor was sorry that I did not remain a year at Rome, for he said the practical atmosphere of that city would have moderated and utilized the ideality I had drawn from Athens. He was greatly pleased, however, with my conduct at the supper of Hortensius. “The man who sees any reason,” he would say, “why Hortensius should be more wealthy, more powerful, more respected, more glorious than Anthony, has not incorporated into his soul the first ray of the divine principle of fire, and is altogether ignorant of the power and beauty of the sun.” A few weeks after my return, Beltrezzor transferred the whole of my father’s estate, improved and augmented, into my hands. No reasonings, no entreaties could induce him to abandon or even to defer his long-contemplated journey to the extreme East. A strange, sad home-sickness had apparently seized him; and he waited with a childish impatience for the arrival of the caravan from Egypt which was to escort him to Assyria. It came at length; and our adieus were long and bitter. We were bound to him not only by a pious gratitude for his rich gifts and his unvarying kindness, but by a genuine love of his sweet, sincere and noble nature. We wept at the thought of the dear old man going away into that far-off, marvelous Orient, without a wife or child to comfort his declining years. My sisters also seemed overwhelmed with grief, that one so good and so beloved had rejected to the last, with a quiet, polite incredulity, all the evidences of the divine mission of Jesus. The old man’s parting words to me, as he leaned from his camel, whispering in my ear, were these: “Beware, my son, of the spirit of fanaticism which has fallen upon your good sisters. I bequeath you this verse from one of the sacred books in Persia. It is my last and best gift to you. Do not forget it:— “‘It is more truly pious to sow the ground with diligence, than to say ten thousand prayers in idleness.’ “Adieu!”