I

“But the Americans are neither Pagans⁠—which is consoling⁠—nor fetish-worshipping heathens: they are all true and honest votaries of Mammon, their great God, their one and only God. And is it not natural that the Demiurgic Dollar should be the national Deity of America? Have not deities been always conceived after man’s needs and aspirations? Thus in Egypt, in a locality where the manufacture of pottery was the chief industry, God was represented as a potter; in agricultural districts, as a god of harvest; among warring tribes as an avenger, a Jehovah. And the more needs, the more deities; the higher the aspirations, the better the gods. Hence the ugly fetish of a savage tribe, and the beautiful mythology of a Greek Civilisation. Change the needs and aspirations of the Americans, therefore, and you will have changed their worship, their national Deity, and even their Government. And believe me, this change is coming; people get tired of their gods as of everything else. Ay, the time will come, when man in this America shall not suffer for not being a seeker and lover and defender of the Dollar.⁠ ⁠… “Obedience, like faith, is a divine gift; but only when it comes from the heart: only when prompted by love and sincerity is it divine. If you can not, however, reverence what you obey, then, I say, withhold your obedience. And if you prefer to barter your identity or ego for a counterfeit coin of ideology, that right is yours. For under a liberal Constitution and in a free Government, you are also at liberty to sell your soul, to open a bank account for your conscience. But don’t blame God, or Destiny, or Society, when you find yourself, after doing this, a brother to the ox. Herein, we Orientals differ from Europeans and Americans; we are never bribed into obedience. We obey