“Come and see if these are more to your taste, since fine raiment and foolish ornaments fail to tempt you.”
“Oh, how curious and beautiful!” cried Gladys, looking down upon a collection of Hindoo gods and goddesses, in ebony or ivory: some hideous, some lovely, all carved with wonderful delicacy, and each with its appropriate symbol,—Vishnu, and his serpent; Brahma, in the sacred lotus; Siva, with seven faces; Kreeshna, the destroyer, with many mouths; Varoon, god of the ocean; and Kama, the Indian Cupid, bearing his bow of sugar-cane strung with bees, to typify love’s sting as well as sweetness. This last Gladys examined longest, and kept in her hand as if it charmed her; for the minute face of the youth was beautiful, the slender figure full of grace, and the ivory spotless.
“You choose him for your idol? and well you may, for he looks like Felix. Mine, if I have one, is Siva, goddess of Fate, ugly, but powerful.”
“I will have no idol,—not even Felix, though I sometimes fear I may make one of him before I know it;” and Gladys put back the little figure with a guilty look, as she confessed the great temptation that beset her.
“You are wise: idols are apt to have feet of clay, and tumble down in spite of our blind adoration. Better be a Buddhist, and have no god but our own awakened thought; ‘the highest wisdom,’ as it is called,” said Helwyze, who had lately been busy with the Sâkya Muni, and regarded all religions with calm impartiality.
“These are false gods, and we are done with them, since we know the true one,” began Gladys, understanding him; for she had read aloud the life of Gautama Buddha, and enjoyed it as a legend; while he found its mystic symbolism attractive, and nothing repellent in its idolatry.
“It needs no proving; the knowledge of it was born in me, grows with my growth, and is the life of my life,” cried Gladys, out of the fulness of that natural religion which requires no revelation except such as experience brings to strengthen and purify it.
“All are not so easily satisfied as you,” he said, in the sceptical tone which always tried both her patience and her courage; for, woman-like, she could feel the truth of things, but could not reason about them. He saw her face kindle, and added, rapidly, having a mind to try how firmly planted the faith of the pretty Puritan was: “Most of us agree that Allah exists in some form or other, but we fall out about who is the true Prophet. You choose Jesus of Nazareth for yours; I rather incline to this Indian Saint. They are not unlike: this Prince left all to devote his life to the redemption of mankind, suffered persecutions and temptations, had his disciples, and sent out the first apostles of whom we hear; was a teacher, with his parables, miracles, and belief in transmigration or immortality. His doctrine is almost the same as the other; and the six virtues which secure Nirvâna, or Heaven, are charity, purity, patience, courage, contemplation, and wisdom. Come, why not take him for a model?”