"Yet, methinks, if I were the founder of a new religion, and had all the stores of Nature and Omnipotence at my command--those boasted attributes of thy Law-giver--I would not have left it liable to doubt, to the sneers and cavils of any one who might question my pretensions, or my right to control their belief. The truths of Omnipotence should be clear as the sun's beam, and unquestioned as his existence." "'If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither would they believe though one should rise from the dead.' 'Tis not for lack of proof; 'tis for lack of will. 'Tis not for lack of testimony, one tithe of which would have gained a ready assent to any of the drivelling absurdities of heathen mythology,--'tis for lack of inclination; 'tis a wish that these revelations may not be true; and where the heart inclines, the judgment is easily biassed." "True, 'as the fool thinks.' The proverb is somewhat stale. I marvel thou findest not its application to thine own bias, perdie!" "At any rate, if I am fooled, I am none the worse for my belief, if my creed be not true; but if man, as thou wouldest fain hope, is like the beasts that perish, I am still at quits with thee. And if this dream of thine should prove but a dream, and thou shouldest awake--to the horrors of the pit, and the torments of the worm that dieth not!" "Peace, thou croaker! I did not send for thee to prophesy, but to prove; I would break a lance and hold a tilt at thine argument. Now, I have a weapon in reserve which shall break down thy defences--the web of thy reasoning shall vanish. The fear of punishment, and the hope of future reward, held out as a bait to the cowardly and the selfish, shall be of no avail when the object of my research is accomplished. Hast thou not heard of the supreme elixir--the pabulum of life, which, if a man find, he may renew his years, and bid defiance alike to time and the destroyer? Then what will become of thy boasted system of opinions, begotten by priesthood and nurtured by folly?" "And this phantasma, which man has never seen; which exists not upon the least shadow of evidence--which has not even the lowest dictates of sense and plausibility in its favour--on this _Ignis fatuus_, eluding the grasp, and for ever mocking the folly of its pursuers, thou canst build thine hopes, because it flatters thy wishes and thy fears?" "My fears!" said the Baron, rising: "and who speaks of my _fears_? I would chastise thee, thou insolent priest, wert thou not protected by the laws of courtesy." "Yes, _thy_ fears, Baron Monteagle," said this undaunted minister of the truth. "Thou wouldest not care to face thy lady's cousin! His blood yet crieth from the ground!"