Once upon a time a Mohammedan prince tried to extract a large sum of money from one of his Jewish subjects. But as he had no valid reason to deprive the poor man of his property, he bethought himself of a ruse. He sent for the victim and having complimented him gracefully upon his learning and wisdom, he asked him which of the three most widely spread religions, the Turkish, the Jewish and the Christian, he held to be most true. The worthy patriarch did not answer the Padishah directly but said, “Let me, oh great Sultan, tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a very rich man who had a beautiful ring and he made a will that whichever of his sons at the time of his death should be found with that ring upon his finger should fall heir to all his estates. His son made a like will. His grandson too, and for centuries the ring changed hands and all was well. But finally it happened that the owner of the ring had three sons whom he loved equally well. He simply could not decide which of the three should own that much valued treasure. So he went to a goldsmith and ordered him to make two other rings exactly like the one he had. On his death-bed he sent for his children and gave them each his blessing and what they supposed was the one and only ring. Of course, as soon as the father had been buried, the three boys all claimed to be his heir because they had The Ring. This led to many quarrels and finally they laid the matter before the Kadi. But as the rings were absolutely alike, even the judges could not decide which was the right one and so the case has been dragged on and on and very likely will drag on until the end of the world. Amen.” Lessing used this ancient folk-tale to prove his belief that no one religion possessed a monopoly of the truth, that it was the inner spirit of man that counted rather than his outward conformity to certain prescribed rituals and dogmas and that therefore it was the duty of people to bear with each other in love and friendship and that no one had the right to set himself upon a high pedestal of self-assured perfection and say, “I am better than all others because I alone possess the Truth.” But this idea, much applauded in the year 1778, was no longer popular with the little princelings who thirty years later returned to salvage such goods and chattels as had survived the deluge of the Revolution. For the purpose of regaining their lost prestige, they abjectly surrendered their lands to the rule of the police-sergeant and expected the clerical gentlemen who depended upon them for their livelihood to act as a spiritual militia and help the regular cops to reëstablish law and order.