This early and deep insight into the fearful connection between evil spirits and wicked men, and their combined influence over the world, was in one sense salutary. The recoil from the bottomless abyss into which we had peeped, produced a rapid and unusual development of the moral nature. In my sisters it took a religious, in myself a philosophical turn.

Those young girls, constitutionally pious and full of gratitude to God, sought renewed strength and comfort in the exercises of faith and religious duty. They devoted themselves to prayer and the study of the Scriptures. With the womanly nature of the vine, which must cling to something of firmer texture and stronger growth, they attached themselves trustingly to the priests and scribes and doctors of the law, with a natural and pardonable feeling. But they avoided Caiaphas.

I do not remember that I ever felt any decided respect or love for the religious institutions of my country. I was born, I suppose, with the element of veneration for the past left out of my mental organization. I never could understand why men look back to the infancy and childhood of the race for the oracles of wisdom. It is rather the business of each century to scrutinize rigidly the inheritance it has received from the preceding century, and to reject everything which is worthless, unphilosophical and immature.

When we get rid of the conventionalisms of an old and perishing system, we become peculiarly open and sensitive to the grand intuitions of natural religion. The gorgeous ceremonies of the temple made little impression even on my boyish fancy: they were tiresome and disgusting to my riper years. But I melted into tender admiration at the thought of John the Baptist, praying and toiling in the wilderness, unseen of men, trusting in God, and receiving to his loving bosom and care, the leper, the robber and the lost ones of the world.

One of the teachers provided me by my excellent uncle Beltrezzor, was a Greek; and the study of that wonderful language and literature led me still farther away from the influence of Judaism, corrupted and failing as it was. I was not slow to assert that the poetry of Æschylus and Homer charmed me more than that of David and Isaiah; and that the philosophy of Plato exceeded in value all the learning of the Scribes.

Beltrezzor was a man of most beautiful and lovely character. Simple in his own tastes and dress, frugal in his own habits, but generous and even lavish to others; cheerful and polite; active and industrious; truthful and unselfish; full of liberal opinions and tender sympathies; he charmed all who knew him by the purity and nobleness of his mind and the suavity of his manners. One of the most opulent and honored men in his adopted country, and an inveterate traveler by habit, he had quietly settled down in the little village of Bethany to consecrate several years of his life to our education and happiness.

Behold the simple ceremonial upon which was based so much goodness of heart and so much wisdom of thought!

“Who was Zoroaster?” asked Martha one day of her uncle.

“Zoroaster, my child, was the friend and companion of Abraham. They lived together in Haran until the Great Being, Ormuzd, the King of Light, called Jehovah by the Jews, summoned them both to leave their country and fill a sacred mission. Zoroaster went to the east and Abraham to the west. Zoroaster like Moses received the book of God on the top of a burning mountain, and gave laws to the people.”

“What kind of laws, uncle?”

“The essential moral teachings are as much like those of Moses as twin sisters are like each other.”

“Then you do not worship idols?”

“No—we detest them.”

“You do not worship any of the gods of the pagan nations?”

“No, my child! There is but one God, Ormuzd, King of Light. All religions come from him. Some are purer and more perfect than others. All true prophets and priests are his servants. False priests and magicians are in league with evil spirits. They are children of Ahrimanes.”

“Because its ritual is more simple, beautiful and sublime; because its doctrines are more rational and philosophical; because the people who believe it and live it, are more liberal and loving and enlightened than the Jews; because it brings the soul nearer to the Power and Beauty of the sun.”

“Uncle,” said Mary, affectionately kissing his hand, “are all the worshipers of Ormuzd as good and pure and sweet-tempered as you are?”

The old man blushed: “The teachings of Zoroaster tend to make men far purer and better than I.”

The sisters sank into a deep reverie. They had a glimpse of that great world of moral light and beauty, which lay entirely outside of the limits of the Jewish faith. They gazed on it with wonder.

“But, uncle,” said Martha, “in the great day of judgment will not the unbelievers be sentenced to eternal punishment?”

“In the last day, my child, all the metals in the world will melt with heat, and all human souls, living and dead, will pass in judgment through the fiery element. To the good it will feel like a fragrant bath of warm milk; to the evil it will be a torrent of burning lava. It will consume, however, nothing but the wicked lusts of the heart. Evil will thus be destroyed; and all men, freely forgiven by Ormuzd, will unite in a universal chorus of love and praise.”

My sisters, disgusted as they soon became, with the fanatics, hypocrites and impostors who thronged the temple, were not ready to cut loose from the faith of Moses or the ceremonies of the law. They deplored the corruptions and deadness of the Church. They shrank from the ritualists who had no religion, and from the devotees who had no love in their hearts. They sought consolation by looking eagerly for the Messiah, who was to restore the sceptre to Israel and rekindle the embers of faith and piety in the church.

Martha and Mary pondered upon all they had ever heard or read on this wonderful subject. Born of a virgin, “the Prince of Peace, the Mighty Counselor, the Everlasting Father,” was coming in the flesh? They delighted to search the Scriptures for traces and predictions of his birth, his appearance and his mission. They loved to walk in the grove of olives which crowned the mount in rear of our house, whence they could see the marble colonnades of the temple and its vast roof all fretted with golden spikes, while they conversed arm in arm on their favorite theme.

Some may be surprised at the idea that certain minds were prepared for the reception of the Christian religion by processes directed by divine providence. They suppose that every one who saw the miracles and heard the words of Christ, could have believed in him and followed him if he had chosen. It is a mistake. There were many noble and pious Jews, to whose minds the words and miracles of Christ had no weight whatever; who rejected him unhesitatingly as a dreamer or an impostor. They were not prepared to receive him.

There have been several revelations or dispensations of Divine Truth; and there will unquestionably be more. The new revelation is seldom or never received by the adherents of the old. The force of the decaying system is first broken by schism. After schism comes a spirit of free inquiry, and skepticism is developed. The old foundations are broken up; new ideas, new influences, new life start forth. Then comes the possibility of a renewed development, a reconsideration of principles, the evolution of higher and more spiritual truth.

Christ rejected the Jewish Church long before it rejected him. He neglected its ceremonies; he violated its laws; he disregarded its superstitions; he ignored its magnates; he chose his associates from the publicans and sinners of civil life, and his disciples from the publicans and sinners of the moral world. If he ever comes again, the same phenomena will recur; for the Divine laws repeat themselves, like the return of comets and the revolutions of the sun.

I was acquainted with most of the persons who organized the infant Church of Christ. There were within my knowledge but two exceptions to the general law, that those who acknowledged the Messiah first and most cordially, were outside of the orthodox pale. Thomas Didymus was a rigid Pharisee and ritualist. He believed nothing which he could not see with his own eyes and touch with his own hands. He was the least spiritual of all the disciples.

Not without influence also in preparing us for the new era, was the character of John the Hermit, afterward known as John the Baptist. For several years we paid two annual visits to the tomb of our father, and to the cave of the extraordinary young man who had befriended him in his last illness. One of these visits was made when the angel of spring had touched the snow-wreaths of winter with her silver wand and turned them into flowers. The other was made when the forests of autumn clothed themselves in their festal robes of crimson and gold, to celebrate the approach of death with its prophecy of resurrection.

We chose one beautiful and cloudless morning, and making an early start, mounted upon sure-footed mules, and well provided against those demons of the desert—hunger and thirst—we crept slowly along over the brown hills and through the desolate hollows. Ethopus and two or three more stout domestics always attended us as a bodyguard. We made a picturesque party, encamping in the mouth of the sacred cavern, startling the silence of the wilderness with happy voices, and breaking its wild solitudes with the enchanting presence of beauty and love.

The prophet bore a quiet share in our animated talk, and partook sparingly of our ample repast. He was full of childlike earnestness and credulity, easily excited to smiles, easily moved to tears. The sphere of his thoughts and feelings was as different from that of the priests and scribes, as though he had been an angel descended from heaven,—full of love and wisdom, without creed, without doctrine, without forms, without ceremonies,—to mock with his sublime perfection the puny ritualist who imagined no religion possible without them all.

It was in the third year after Beltrezzor’s return, that, on approaching the cave of the hermit we saw a poor, emaciated creature, the skeleton, the shadow, of a man, seated on the stone at its mouth. It was long before we could recognize in this pitiable object, my generous deliverer, the Son of the Desert. On feeling the premonitory symptoms of a dangerous fever, he had left his band, which was then prowling about the Jordan, and had come to the cave of the young hermit.

“You nursed my wounded friend. Take care also of me. I am sick in soul and body. You are the only good man in the world. You alone make me believe in God.”

These were the words with which he threw himself down upon the pallet of skins. Long weeks of illness had passed away—and he was restored, standing now on the border of life like a phantom flitting from the tomb. His great, sad, earnest eyes seemed to say that he neither cared to live nor was afraid to die.

We took a deep interest in this forlorn robber, who seemed to act, think and feel so little like a robber. This proud, handsome man, without name, without friends, was an enigma to us. He had sternly declined all reward for his eminent services to us, and we felt under painful obligations to him. When we bade him adieu with ardent wishes for his speedy restoration, Martha, with great dignity and self-possession, took a ring from her finger and deliberately placed it upon his.

He bowed his head low upon her hand; and when he raised it, there were tears in his eyes.

I noticed after a while that these visits to the desert had a singular effect upon Mary. For some time preceding them, there was an exhilaration of spirits, a flush of expectation, a vivacity of manner, which added a new lustre to her charms, a new glow to her beauty. During the visit, however, she was timid, reticent and abstracted: and afterward for weeks there was an unusual quietness of demeanor, as well as a tearfulness of the eye and a pallor of the cheek.

“Lazarus,” said Martha to me one day, “had we not better bring our father’s remains to Bethany and bury them with our mother’s? It would spare us these long trips to the desert.”

Keen-sighted, motherly sister! But I—who had not then met with Helena and knew nothing of love—I answered:

“Oh no! these visits to John are the most delightful events of the year.”

On the fourth spring of these visits Mary took down a little flower-pot with a rose in it for John.

“I bring you a gem,” said she, “of nature’s light—a lamp, a star, to illumine the darkness of the desert.”

The fall visit was looked forward to with unusual pleasure. It was a glorious day. Why was it that the desert seemed more solitary than usual? As we approached the cavern, the silence was appalling. There were no recent footprints on the sands. The spiders had spun their webs across the mouth of the cave. It was utterly deserted. John had gone. He had taken away his pallet of skins, his earthen vessels for food and drink, his sandals, his long staff. The flower-pot lay upon the ground with the little rose-bush in it, long withered and dead.

The sisters burst into tears; and Martha kissed the little one most tenderly on the cheek.

The Spirit of God, which impels men to the great missions of the world, drives them away from the bloom of nature and from the gardens of the soul,—away into the wilderness, where, tempted of devils and sustained by angels, they gather strength for the doom and glory which await them!

Our father’s remains were brought to Bethany. Mary’s cheek grew paler. The dew of tenderness trembled always in her eye. She searched the Scriptures all day long for the coming Messiah. At night she dreamed—

Ah! what?

Of the withered rose-leaves in the deserted cavern.

“Ah! my child, the grass soon grows in the footprints of man. We are easily forgotten. I shall be loved like one dead. I am weary of this Judean air; of this corrupt and discordant society; of these Roman trumpets and banners. I want peace and repose. I long to see once more the sacred fire burning upon the altars. After twenty years of life in Persia, one cannot be satisfied with the Mosaic sacrifices and the olive groves of Bethany.”

Knowing my uncle’s firmness of resolution, and how long he had restrained his natural restlessness for our benefit, I hung my head in mournful silence.

“Well, well!” said he in a cheerful voice, “we have time enough to talk about the whole matter. Get ready now for the scenes which fill the heart of a thinking man with supreme delight.”

This plan of perfecting my education by travel, by coming in contact with idolatrous people and studying heathen philosophies, excited the fears of my good sisters, so contrary was it to the custom of the Jews. They regarded it, indeed, as almost a crime. My uncle, however, was grandly cosmopolitan in all his sentiments, and he had imbued my own mind with his enlightened charity.

Such is the general result of my observation and study of the African species. Susceptible as they are of a beautiful and indefinite moral culture, the development of their intellectual faculties is limited by the thick scull, the small brain, the black skin which they have inherited as a national curse. May it be different in the future! I have received nothing but kindness at their hands, and I feel nothing but kindness for them in my heart.

We learned from Ethopus, through the medium of writing, that he had been stolen by a party of marauding soldiers from his quiet and happy home in Abyssinia, where his father was a petty prince. He had been sold to some magicians in Egypt, who made him a slave, a football, a victim of cruel and unnatural experiments. He had been fed upon toads and serpents and creeping things. The blood of various animals had been injected into his veins. The operation of poisons was studied upon his body. Degradation and terror were imprinted upon his soul. He had been deprived of his manhood and his speech, to bring him into total subjection to his diabolical tyrants.

I had only one misgiving on leaving my sisters in the care of such an old man as our excellent uncle. The wicked Magistus was still living in the same house, separated from us only by a stone wall. He guarded my aunt in the same cruel seclusion, and no doubt kept himself informed by her clairvoyant powers of everything going on in our house as well as in others. He had never made any advances toward us, and there was no communication between us. I knew, however, that a fierce desire for revenge rankled in his heart; and his power was now greater than ever, since he had become a prominent member of the Sanhedrim, and his friend Caiaphas had been appointed high-priest of the temple.

I spent about a year in exploring the wonders of Egypt, and had reached Alexandria for a reluctant departure from that land of fascinations, when a letter was delivered at my door by some one who disappeared as soon as he gave it to the servant. This occasioned me some surprise, and I opened it immediately. On a little piece of parchment which fell out as I did so, I found these words:

The epistle was from my sister Martha. It ran as follows:

“Did he recognize you?” said I, anxiously.

The African shook his head hopefully.

“Then we will take ship for Athens to-morrow. Get everything ready for the voyage.”

Ethopus seemed delighted at these words, and proceeded with the greatest alacrity to execute my orders; not, however, until he had so disguised himself that I positively did not know him when he appeared before me. He was then so long absent on my errands that I became apprehensive for his safety. He suddenly entered the room with an expression of countenance which puzzled my practiced wit to decipher. It was the wildest joy strangely mingled with sadness. He found it impossible to convey his ideas by pantomime. The scene was ludicrous as well as pathetic. After several frantic and fruitless efforts, he seized a burnt coal from the hearth and scribbled on the white wall in great sprawling characters:

and making signs for me to follow him, he darted from the room.

“They are brothers,” said the trader. “Their meeting was both amusing and affecting. This dumb fellow recognized the other first, and fell upon his face, shoulders and hands with frantic kisses. The younger one, not comprehending such a useless outburst of affection, resented it as an intrusion, and would have belabored his brother soundly, had he not been so heavily ironed. The older one was in despair, but suddenly bethought himself of taking off a lot of false hair and beard, and baring his neck and bosom for inspection. The recognition was then soon effected, and they laughed and wept alternately in each other’s arms.”

“He is a slave?” said I.

“Yes—and a most unruly one. He was captured in the late war with the Abyssinians, and although very young, they say he was a superb soldier. I can well believe it. He has already passed through several hands, and was quickly got rid of by them all, on account of his fierce and dangerous character.”

The slave-dealer must have divined the admiration with which I regarded him, for he added with a quiet sneer:

“His braveries are at an end now, for he has been bought for Drusus Hortensius.”

“And who is Hortensius?”

“Have you lived in the desert, that you never heard of Hortensius? Hortensius is the richest man in the world at present, and the greatest epicure in Rome. He imitates Lucullus, at least in pride and luxury. He makes suppers for his friends, of incalculable magnificence. His demand for nightingales’ tongues has silenced half the bird-music in the world.”

“Is Hortensius in the city?”

“In the city? No! He lives in Rome, which, he complains, is altogether too small for him. He has an agent in Alexandria, who has a standing order to send him about fifty refractory and incorrigible slaves every year.”

“What does he want them for?”

“Want them for?” laughed the dealer. “Well, you must know that Hortensius has the greatest and rarest fish-ponds in the world. They are miracles of beauty. Hortensius is fond of fish as well as of nightingales’ tongues. But common fish do not tempt his august appetite. Lucullus discovered, in the course of his epicurean studies, that fish fed upon human flesh have a remarkably fine flavor; and moreover that these aquatic cannibals have a special relish for the African species of the genus homo.”

“Wretch!” I muttered.

“Therefore,” continued the trader, without noticing my indignation, “Hortensius, imitating Lucullus, has a negro slave cut into small pieces and thrown into his fish-ponds every week. His children are taken out by their nurses to witness this choice method of refining the pleasures of the table.”

Anthony, for so they had re-named the brother of Ethopus, had picked up a good deal of Latin, in which language the dealer was speaking. He had listened intently and had caught the horrible meaning of his words. The disdainful and defiant look of the young soldier, contemplating the fate which awaited him, was a study for an artist.

“How can I save him from this cruel bondage, from this hideous death?”

“He was purchased yesterday and will be called for to-day, as the ship sails this evening.”

“Will you cancel that bargain and sell him to me?” said I eagerly.

“Yes—for a grand consideration.”

I reflected that I had drawn my last funds from my uncle’s Egyptian agent. Still, I might possibly borrow largely from him and wait a remittance. I named what I considered a liberal price. The trader coldly shook his head. I added a third more to it, determined to sacrifice a year’s travel in order to save Anthony from the fish-ponds of the luxurious Roman. The trader declined without hesitation. I could make no greater offer without consultation with my uncle, and that was impossible. My countenance fell in despair.

“Oh do not take that,” I exclaimed. “This poor fellow values that stone more than life itself. Nothing but the most intense affection could prompt him to such a sacrifice. He believes that stone has delivered him from the bondage of a terrible magician, and wears it over his heart as a protecting genius. Accept my offer instead, which is of greater money value than his gem.”

This speech had a singular effect. The slave-dealer had no generosity, but boundless superstition. He either had an intense fear of magic himself, or he was in collusion with magicians. He immediately acceded to Ethopus’ offer, struck the chains from Anthony’s arms and feet, and put the price of his slave smilingly into his pocket.

“I will replace him with that old fellow there, who would smoke his pipe as he is now doing if we were burying him alive. The agent of Hortensius counts heads and never looks into faces.”

Ethopus was now in a state of feverish anxiety to get aboard the Athenian vessel. The addition of Anthony to our company seemed to increase his fears and his sense of responsibility. I conveyed my baggage and my two servants to the ship, and put them in charge of the captain, while I returned into the city to finish my business and to make a few purchases.

When I reached the vessel again, Ethopus had disappeared! Anthony was in great distress, and the captain and sailors were highly excited. The story they told was a curious one. A tall, wild-looking man, fantastically dressed, came and sat down on the shore near the planks of the ship. Busily engaged in carrying on the small freight which crowds in just before a vessel leaves, the sailors paid no attention to him.

Poor Anthony, who had never seen a ship before, was walking about the vessel in childlike wonder while this terrible abduction was taking place. I was in the deepest distress. I took Anthony and the baggage back to my quarters. I remained a fortnight in Alexandria instituting the most thorough search after our lost friend. It was all in vain. I sailed at last for Athens with a heavy, heavy heart, and a new servant, leaving the poor dumb eunuch in the clutches of Simon Magus.