Also I told her that among her own people, the Arabs,
another prophet, one Mohammed, had arisen and preached a new faith, to
which many millions of mankind now adhered.
"Ah!" she said; "I see--two new religions! I have known so many, and
doubtless there have been many more since I knew aught beyond these
caves of Kor. Mankind asks ever of the skies to vision out what
lies behind them. It is terror for the end, and but a subtler form of
selfishness--this it is that breeds religions. Mark, my Holly, each
religion claims the future for its followers; or, at least, the good
thereof. The evil is for those benighted ones who will have none of
it; seeing the light the true believers worship, as the fishes see the
stars, but dimly. The religions come and the religions pass, and the
civilisations come and pass, and naught endures but the world and human
nature. Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and not from
without--that he himself must work out his own salvation! He is there,
and within him is the breath of life and a knowledge of good and evil as
good and evil is to him.
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