knowest that the sins of tyrants are accounted virtues, so long as
they retain their ruling powers? The public voice pronounces Lysia
chaste, and Zephoranim faithful; who then shall dare to disprove
the verdict?--'Tis the same in all countries, near and far,--the
law serves the strong, while professing to defend the weak. The
rich man gains his cause,--the beggar loses it,--how can it be
otherwise, while lust of gold prevails? Gold is the moving-force
of this our era,--without it kings and ministers are impotent, and
armies starve, . . with it, all things can be accomplished even to
the concealment of the foulest crimes. Come, come! ..." and he
laid one hand kindly on Theos's arm, "Thou hast a generous and
fiery spirit, but thou shouldst never have been born into this
planet if thou seekest such a thing as Justice! No man will ever
deal true justice to his fellow man on earth, unless perhaps in
ages to come, when the old creeds are swept away for a new, and a
grander, wider, purer form of faith is accepted by the people. For
religion in Al-Kyris to-day is a hollow mockery,--a sham, kept up
partly from fear,--partly from motives of policy,--but every
thinker is an atheist at heart, . . our splendid civilization is
tottering towards its fall, . . and should the fore-doomed
destruction of this city come to pass, vast ages of progress,
discovery, and invention will be swept away as though they had
never been!"

He paused and sighed,--then continued sorrowfully--"There is,
there must be something wrong in the mechanism of life,--some
little hitch that stops the even wheels,--some curious perpetual
mischance that crosses us at every turn,--but I doubt not all is
for the best, and will prove most truly so hereafter!"