No
man in his senses would voluntarily have accepted the position which
had been forced upon me. The Zveltau never introduce aliens into their
households. Their leading ideas and fundamental principles so deeply
affect the conduct of existence, the motives of action, the bases of
all moral reasoning--so completely do the inferences drawn from them
and the habits of thought to which they lead pervade and tinge the
mind, conscience, and even language--that though it may be easy to
"live in the light at home and walk with the blind abroad," yet in the
familiar intercourse of household life even a cautious and reserved
man (and I was neither) must betray to the keen instinctive
perceptions of women whether he thought and felt like those around
him, or was translating different thoughts into an alien language.
This difficulty is little felt between unbelievers and Christians. The
simple creed of the Zinta, however, like that of the Prophet, affects
the thought and life as the complicated and subtle mysteries of more
elaborate theologies, more refined philosophic systems rarely do.
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