Do you know that many men believe that the universe was formed by concurrence of mechanical processes and is still slowly developing, that there is no divinity whose love and power guard, guide and lend grace to the lives of men ?" "Oh! yes, I have been obliged to hear many such blasphemous things in Rome!" "And they ran off you like water off the silvery sheen of that swan's plumage as he dips and raises his neck.

Those who deny a God are, in your estimation, foolish or perhaps abominable ?" "I pity them, with all my heart." "And with very good reason.

You are an orphan and what its parents are to a child the divinity is to every member of the human race.

In this Gorgo, and I, and many others whom you call heathen, feel exactly as you do; but you--have you ever asked yourself why and how it is that you, to whom life has been so bitter, have such a perfect conviction that there is a benevolent divinity who rules the world and your own fate to kindly ends?
Why, in short, do you believe in a God ?" "I ?" said Ague, looking puzzled, but straight into his face.

"How could anything exist without God?
You ask such strange questions.