“So long as one has faith,” he writes, “in the general moral summation of the experience of mankind, as the philosophy of reason assures us, one should not despair. But the material fact of the Present, the dark moment of no-morality, consider that, my suffering Brothers. And reflect further that in this great City of New York the majority of citizens consider it a blessing to have a rojail (titman) for their boss and leader. … How often have I mused that if Ponce de Leon sought the Fountain of Youth in the New World, I, Khalid, sought the Fountain of Truth, and both of us have been equally successful!
“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. …