prey continually hover about all great kingdoms,--are to be
averted, we must, for the welfare of the country and people, hold
fast to some stated form and outward observance of religious
belief."

He paused. Theos gave him a quick, searching glance.

"Even if such a belief should have no shadow of a true
foundation?" he inquired--"Can it be well for men to cling
superstitiously to a false doctrine?"

Sah-luma appeared to consider this question in his own mind for
some minutes before replying.

"My friend, it is difficult to decide what is false and what is
true--"he said at last with a little shrug of his shoulders--"But
I think that even a false religion is better for the masses than
none at all. Men are closely allied to brutes, . . if the moral
sense ceases to restrain them they at once leap the boundary line
and give as much rein to their desires and appetites as the hyenas
and tigers. And in some natures the moral sense is only kept alive
by fear,--fear of offending some despotic, invisible Force that
pervades the Universe, and whose chief and most terrible attribute
is not so much creative as destructive power. To propitiate and
pacify an unseen Supreme Destroyer is the aim of all religions,--
and it is for this reason we add to our worship of the Sun that of
the White Serpent, Nagaya the Mediator. Nagaya is the favorite
object of the people's adoration,--they may forget to pay their
vows to the Sun, but never to Nagaya, who is looked upon as the
emblem of Eternal Wisdom, the only pleader whose persuasions avail