with exceeding marvellous love controls and guides Creation toward
some majestic end--even as a musician doth melodize his thought
from small sweet notes to perfect chord-woven harmonies.
Furthermore, that thousands of years hence, this God will embody a
portion of his own Existence in human form and will send hither a
wondrous creature, half-God, half-Man, to live our life, die our
death, and teach us by precept and example, the surest way to
eternal happiness. 'Tis a theory both strange and wild!--hast ever
heard of it before?"

He put the question indifferently, but Theos was mute. That
horrible sense of a straining desire to speak when speech was
forbidden again oppressed him,--he felt as though he were being
strangled with his own unfalling tears. What a crushing weight of
unutterable thoughts burdened his brain!--he gazed up at the
serenely glowing sky in aching, dumb despair,--till slowly ...
very slowly, words came at last like dull throbs of pain beating
between his lips ...

"I think ... I fancy ... I have heard a rumor of such doctrine ...
but I know as little of it as ... as THOU, Sah-luma! ... I can
tell thee no more ... than THOU hast said! ..." He paused and
gaining more firmness of tone went on--"It seems to me a not
altogether impossible conception of Divine Benevolence,--for if
God lives at all, He must be capable of manifesting Himself in
many ways both small and great, common and miraculous, though of a
truth there are no miracles beyond what APPEAR as such to our
limited sight and restricted intelligence. But tell me"--and here
his voice had a ring of suppressed anxiety within it--"tell me,
Sah-luma, thine own thought concerning it!"