Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.

ment when I beheld a mortal of the nineteenth century who had sufficient faith and intelligence to test the experi- ment formulated in my writings. Oh! what a little thing it is to perform seeming miracles when one has faith, for by faith alone man may do things that seem supernatural." At these words Doctor Paulus Androcydes marveled greatly, but plucking up courage, answered, saying: " Can it be possible that you have wandered over this earth for sixty-three centuries ? Tell me about your many trans- migrations, most learned magician ! " Athothis smiled pleasantly, and replied: " I have in- deed been a traveler in various forms, in many climes. I was originally created from the divine essence forty-five hundred years before the dawn, of what moderns term Christianity. When first driven out of my primitive habitation, I transmigrated to the lowest known form of primordial vegetation. I was then eaten, along with decil- lions of other transmigrated beings, by a hungry cnmcl. My evolutions have been so numerous that hundreds of volumes would not suffice to contain my multiple and varied experiences. Let me but add that had not my children taken the precaution to embalm my original remains I should have continued wandering for ages to come ; but, following the wisdom of their ancestors, in the presence of which your modern science is utterly impo- tent and insignificant, my offspring preserved the earthly casket of their father, believing in the time-hon- ored doctrine of metempsychosis; for in my day and generation all mankind had faith in the immortality of the soul and the final resurrection of the body, and for this reason embalmed their dead, in the fond hope that at some time, even in the most distant future, a great power