The Book of Gud Part 14

But there was one ghost of an old woman that seemed sore troubled and full of yearning for the beings of the world below, as if she would communicate to them some message and could find not the means of communication. Filled with compa.s.sion, Gud approached the ghost of the old woman and asked if he might be of service to her. But she merely gazed up at him out of troubled eyes and did not speak. Again Gud addressed her and again she answered not; and Gud concluded that she was a very dumb ghost.

Thereupon Gud imagined a powerful medicine and poured it out in a make-believe goblet and gave to the dumb ghost to drink thereof. She accepted it gratefully and drank copiously; and immediately her mouth opened so that she spake volubly.

When she had done with her thanks for the miracle, Gud asked her why she was troubled and why she looked upon the world below with such distress.

"It is quite a long story," she began, as she seated herself upon the Rock of Ages.

This being the only rock in the neighborhood, Gud was obliged to create another rock so that he could be seated also, for the story promised well.

When Gud was comfortably seated, the old ghost of the old woman resumed: "I was the first lady of the land, that you see below us, and the mother of the first family on that poor deluded world. I had a very dear husband who was the father of my children--of that there was no doubt, for he was never jealous. But I was not his first wife, for he had been married before to a most loquacious creature who had talked herself into hysterics and died.

"My husband loved me greatly and in order to escape the sound of women's voices, he brought me to this world which you now see so full of our descendants.

"Then it was only inhabited by savage beasts and we were the first people who trod its wild sh.o.r.es. We settled down in a beautiful cave and made a happy home there and numerous children came to bless our union.

"My husband loved these children and made many toys to amuse them, for he was clever with his jack-knife. One day he came home with a great chunk of dry, soft wood and began to whittle on it, while all the children stood about and wondered what he was making.

"Day by day they watched him as he shaped and carved the wood until he had made a most comical and grotesque object with grinning teeth, and eyes which he blackened with charcoal. The children were afraid of this ugly, carved wooden creature, and yet they loved it because their father had made it for them. So when it was all finished, he perched it up on the mantle over the horsehair sofa and told the children not to touch it.

"When they asked him what it was he said that it was Bahgung; and he told them that while they slept Bahgung stole out of the cave and went on long expeditions and had great adventures. The children loved these tales of the doings of Bahgung, and so my husband made many tales of Bahgung and his adventures.

"I wanted to warn him that the children could not discriminate between fact and fiction and might believe these tales, but I was dumb and could say nothing.

"When my dear husband saw the worry in my eyes he guessed the cause and said: 'When they get older, I will explain to them that these are only fairy tales and they will forget them.'

"But he did not explain, and went on making up more and yet more tales of the might and prowess of the wooden carved Bahgung. If the children were naughty, he told them that Bahgung would punish them, and when they were good he told them that Bahgung would award them.

"One day when I came quietly into the cave I saw my little girl kneeling before Bahgung, and she was talking to him and beseeching him to cause her brother give back a pretty sh.e.l.l which he had taken from her. I was worried at all this, but being dumb I could say nothing.

"It was a few days later that my dear husband was eaten by a crocodile while he was fishing. There being no remains we had a modest private funeral, none but the family being present; and I took up as best I could the duties of providing for my children.

"After their father's death the children talked still more to Bahgung and told him all their troubles. They seemed to love the idol and yet to fear him, and to believe he was alive though they could see him before them as only a carved wooden thing.

"So much they worshiped Bahgung that I feared to destroy him, and I therefore allowed the wooden idol to stand on the mantle over the old horsehair sofa that we had brought with us from another world.

"I still supposed that when the children grew up they would forget this miserable idol of carven wood. But alas! they did not. I did not dare destroy the idol, for the children adored it more than they did me who had brought them into the world of my own flesh and blood. I wanted also to explain to them that Bahgung was only a wooden idol and as dead and worthless as any rotten stick, but being dumb I could say nothing.

"When my children left home, they would come back on pilgrimages, and to me it seemed that they came back more to worship Bahgung than to see their old mother. So in my desire to see my children the more I permitted Bahgung to stand on the mantle above the horsehair sofa in the cave.

"One day my oldest son and oldest daughter came at the same time to visit me and to worship Bahgung. It was then that my son proposed that he take Bahgung to his own cave. Being dumb I could say nothing, but my daughter objected.

"'Very well,' said my son, 'leave the old thing here. I will make a better one of my own.'

"The next time I visited my son, I found that he, too, had made a creature, which he modeled out of clay, even more cleverly than his father had carved. And this creature was sitting on a little pedestal in a small cave of its own and my son was teaching my grandchildren to bring it offerings and make worship and prayers to it--all of which I thought most silly.

"Finally I died and my numerous descendants gave me a grand funeral and paraded Bahgung at the head of the procession and all their lesser idols after him. But being dumb and dead also, I could say nothing.

"So that was how it all started, the idol worship, in that world you see below us, and for thousands on thousands of generations those poor deluded descendants of mine made and worshiped idols of wood and clay and stone and metal, while I hovered over them, knowing all the while how the delusion started in my own dear husband's innocent desire to amuse our children with a home-made toy."

"That is a very interesting account of the origin of idol worship,"

commented Gud, "I never heard so plausible a theory."

"Theory!" repeated the old ghost, "but it isn't theory, I would have you know. It is plain fact--did I not see the whole beginning of this folly with my own eyes, and did I not heft that old carca.s.s of rotten wood with my own hands?"

"Perhaps," admitted Gud, "still--" and he peered searchingly through the haze at the world below--"still, I do not see them worshiping idols down there now? The only idols I can see are in the museums along with the stuffed mermaids and two-headed serpents."

"Of course," replied the old ghost, "they have long since grown too sophisticated to worship material idols of wood and stone, but they have idols just the same, which they call 'G.o.ds not made with hands'."

Gud felt a little uncomfortable at this remark, but before he could think of anything to say the ghost of the first woman of that land which lay below them, continued. "I will tell you how that came about, too, for I was hovering near at the time. There was a lazy philosopher. He had no idol except a worm-eaten old wooden one which some one had given him, and which he kept in a hovel. One day the shanty caught fire from a defective flue and his idol was burned and there was no insurance. The philosopher was too lazy to make another and too poor to buy one, for the idol makers by that time were charging high prices. So the lazy fool sat out on a stump and dreamed how to get another idol without working to pay for it.

"His thoughts, as I read them at that time, ran something like this: 'An idol is a material creature of wood or stone or metal, which is used by the worshiper as a material nucleus to concentrate the attention and stimulate the imagination. The imagination constructs an immaterial being or G.o.d to dwell within the material idol. As this imagined G.o.d is the creature that answers supplications and heaps curses on one's enemies, therefore the benefits to the worshiper must come from the use of his own imagination. Now it would be more difficult to imagine a G.o.d without having the idol to start from, hence if one could achieve it he would use his imagination more and thereby get a better G.o.d.'

"So the philosopher set his imagination to work and imagined himself a G.o.d without going to the expense of buying an idol. He was so well pleased with his wholly imagined G.o.d that he went out and proclaimed to others, and soon he had a host of lazy chaps who agreed to pay him for the privilege of worshiping his imagined G.o.d and thus saving the cost of idols.

"The scheme was so lucrative that other philosophers set up other psychic idols, and that is what they have down there now. If you doubt me, look over there in the left corner of the nearer hemisphere and you can see the smoke of a war. Those people are fighting, trying to make each other accept their particular psychic idols."

Gud looked and saw the war, that it was great and that there was much smoke; and even a faint stench was wafted up to him of the flesh of unbelievers being burned by the faithful.

Gud looked also toward another quarter and saw other smoke. "And what is that war?" he asked, pointing it out.

"That," replied the old ghost, "is a war between two groups who both want to worship the same psychic idol, but one group wishes to worship it in silence and meditation and the other wishes to worship it with drums and cymbals."

Gud sniffed the ether from that direction and found that it also smelled of burning flesh. He did not like the odor and he arose as if to go toward the unhappy world.

"Where are you going?" asked the old ghost.

"I was just wondering, whether, if those unhappy people had a real G.o.d would they not quit all this war and devote their time to harmonious worship?"

"Don't be a fool," laughed the old ghost, "if you go down there as a stranger preaching some new G.o.d they will pour oil on you and set you up to light the town for a night."

Gud sighed and sat down on the stone again. "I suppose they would," he admitted, "and I suppose now that I have given you back your power of communication, you will be wanting to go down there and find a good medium and preach atheism through spirit messages, since you know what a fraud all their G.o.ds are."

"I shall do nothing of the sort," declared the old ghost. "Of course, if I could have had a great doctor like you to have restored my speech while I was yet alive, then I could have explained to my children just how it all started, and this folly would have never been. But it is too late now."

"What are you going to do?" asked Gud, for he saw that the old ghost had arisen with a very determined look on her face as if she surely meant to do something.

"I am going down there," she a.s.serted; "but I shall not bother with any silly mediums. I am going to materialize as a woman of great wealth and beauty, and I am going to captivate and hire the best sculptors and architects in the land, and under my direction they will build an enormous fine temple and set up a great idol, the splendor of which that miserable world has never seen--"

"Just what kind of an idol?" interrupted Gud.

"An image of Bahgung, of course," cried the old ghost. "What else would you suppose? Wasn't he the first of all their idols, and the best of all them?"

"But--" said the astonished Gud, "I thought that you did not believe in that idol and disliked to see your children worship him."

"So I did, in a way, because it was only a crude, wooden carving that my silly husband had made with his jack-knife--but Bahgung was a great G.o.d for all of that. Why, didn't he heal my youngest child of that terrible fever when I prayed to him that fearful night? And didn't he tear the great stone from the cliff that rolled down and killed the tiger? And didn't he--"

But Gud heard no more, for he was racing madly through the ether and pinching himself to see if he were real.