'Yet it cannot be denied,' said Julia, 'that the greatest benefactors of
mankind have been those who have in solitude, and with patient labor,
pursued truth till they have discovered it, and then revealed it to shed
its light and heat upon the world.'

'For my part,' replied Fausta, 'I must think that they who have sowed and
reaped, have been equal benefactors. The essential truths are instinctive
and universal. As for the philosophers, they have, with few exceptions,
been occupied as much about mere frivolities as any Palmyrene lady at her
toilet. Still, I do not deny that the contemplative race is a useful one
in its way. What I say is, that a religion which enjoined a solitary life
as a duty, would be a very mischievous religion. And what is more, any
such precept, fairly proved upon it, would annihilate all its claims to a
divine origin. For certainly, if it were made a religious duty for one man
to turn an idle, contemplative hermit, it would be equally the duty of
every other, and then the arts of life by which we subsist would be
forsaken. Any of the prevalent superstitions, if we may not call them
religions, were better than this.'

'I agree with you entirely,' said Julia; 'but my acquaintance with the
Christian writings is not such as to enable me to say with confidence that
they contain no such permission or injunction. Indeed some of them I have
not even read, and much I do not fully understand. But as I have seen and
read enough to believe firmly that Christianity is a divine religion, my
reason teaches me that it contains no precept such as we speak of.'

We had now, in the course of our walk, reached what we found to be a broad
and level ledge, about half way to the summit of the hill. It was a spot
remarkable for a sort of dark and solemn beauty, being set with huge
branching trees, whose tops were woven into a roof, through which only