"But had not the heathen their priests, their public rites and sacrifices, equally with the Jews?" "They had. But it was not even pretended that these rites commenced at the time when the things which they commemorate were said to have happened. The Bacchanalia, for example, and other festivals, were established long after the fabulous events to which they refer. The priests of Juno and Venus were not appointed by those imaginary deities, but arose in some after-age, and are therefore no evidence whatever to the truth of their worship." "But where is thy proof in the unwritten evidence--monuments which cannot lie, bearing silent but convincing testimony to the truth of these miracles?" "Twelve stones" it is said, were set up at Gilgal to commemorate the passage over Jordan." "Ay, in thy book we read it." "But mark the intention, to which no lying imposture durst have referred,--to the end, it is written, that when the children of those who had witnessed this miracle, and their children's children, should ask their meaning, it should be told them. Now the miracle for which these stones were set up as a memorial by the eye-witnesses themselves, could not, as before proved, have been imposed upon the people at the time it happened, had it not really occurred." "All this I can safely grant. Yet thou lackest wherewith to conclude thine argument." "Bear with me, my lord, until I have made an end. Let us suppose, for one moment, there was no such miracle wrought as this same passage over Jordan." "Which supposition of thine I do hold to be the truth as firmly as I believe your revelation is an imposture." "And yet if it _should_ be true, my lord?" The minister said this in a tone that made the listener start. He bit his lips. But the feeling had subsided, as, with a sharp and hurried accent, he exclaimed-- "Why this pause? I am prepared to listen."