“Certainly not,” he replied; “certainly not with those who have leisure and means to carry it further. But I find that it is more than I can do, by my unassisted efforts, to reform myself, and if I can succeed in saving my own soul, I shall be quite contented. It is, I fear, more than I shall be able to do.” “I see, sir, you are no philanthropist,” said Priscilla. “Perhaps not, I am comparatively a young man, but am quite old-fashioned in many of my notions.” “One of those, I dare say, who have eyes only in the back side of their heads, and live only among tombs,” said I, in a tone between jesting and earnest. “I have not yet sufficiently mastered the wisdom of antiquity to be authorized to cry out against it,” he replied. “I make no doubt, however, but you, dear lady, and you my learned friend, are quite competent to reject the old wisdom for the new.” “On the contrary, I am inclined to think that my present tendency is to reject the new for the old, the modern for the ancient. Or, rather, it seems to me that the progress of modern science is rapidly and surely leading us back to the ancient wisdom.” “There were in the old world, as there are in the modern, two wisdoms, the wisdom from above, and the wisdom from below. May I be permitted to ask to which of these you regard modern science as conducting?” “There has been in regard to these ancient wisdoms,” said Priscilla, “much misconception. The world in its nonage was imposed upon, and induced to call evil good and good evil. The wisdom I assume, and am laboring to diffuse, is that which the priests have branded as Satanic. Satan is my hero. He was a bold and daring rebel, and the first to set the example of resistance to despotism, and to assert unbounded freedom. For this all the priests, all rulers, despots, all who would hold their brethren in bondage, have cursed him. I take his part, and hope to live to see his memory vindicated, and amends made for the wrong which has been done him.” “That is a candid avowal, my fair lady, and one which we seldom, especially among your sex, hear made. I suspect, that Madame Priscilla has listened or will listen to the modern spiritualism, which seems to me to be a revival of demonic worship. May I entreat you, dear lady, to pause and reconsider the conclusion to which you have come? The ancient Gentiles deserted the true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and all things visible and invisible, and followed strange gods, erected their temples and consecrated their altars to devils, to fallen spirits, and I need not tell you how their minds became darkened, and their hearts corrupted. Do not, I entreat you, seek to revive the gross, cruel, and obscene superstitions of the ancient Gentiles, and on which Christianity has made an unrelenting war from the first.” “I was sure, Mr. Merton, you were a parson. Will you deny it now?” said Priscilla.