The Children of the World Part 23

"Than a man's honest confession that he knows nothing at all about certain things."

"If it were only that! But must he, who knows nothing, or desires to know nothing about that which is revealed to all who thirst for information, makes a business of shaking the faith, rendering the ground unsteady beneath the feet of those who do have the knowledge, or think they have?"

"If he really believes he is serving humanity, why should he not do what he thinks productive of good? To be sure, I should not undertake this business. I've not the temperament for it, the friendly importunity, nor any of the other qualities that are necessary to make proselytes."

"You have not? And this treatise--"

"Is not written for those who know or think they know, but for persons, who like me, are still seeking truth, perhaps doubting whether it will ever be possible certainly to know, and meantime think themselves justified in using the boundaries between knowledge and faith for a work which must tend to the advantages of both provinces."

"No," she said, as she suddenly rose, "we shall make no progress in that way. You're my superior in dialectics, and I see it's only chivalrous in you to avoid the contest. But answer one question plainly: is it really true that you not only have no G.o.d, but do not even feel any sorrow for it, any sense of something wanting, of cheerless desolation and loneliness, when you survey a world, from which to you the breath of a personal Creator has vanished?"

"And suppose I really did feel neither sorrow nor want, and yet did not find the world utterly cheerless?"

She gazed at him with a steady look, as if she were obliged to weigh such an answer before she could fully understand it. Her eyes grew dim, she retreated a step and sank down on the chair which stood beside the sofa.

"You poor, poor mortal!"

"We agreed not to philosophize, Madame," he answered smiling. "But, even in ordinary conversation, I suppose one may be permitted to remind the other of contradictions in which he has involved himself. Does he who has just told you that he feels no want, needs no consolation, seem poor in your eyes? Then see how ill it fares with the toleration of which you boasted. You allow every form of faith to exist, except that which acknowledges it has nothing that resembles a creed. The jew, the mussulman, the fire-worshipper, the idolater, who sees his G.o.d in a stock or stone--all seem respectable to you, and none so poor as an honest seeker after truth, who studies nature and his own heart, and cannot think all the signs and wonders he there beholds explained, when he uses for them a formula which means anything or nothing. Can you really consider it of any importance, that I should use the same word, if to me it expresses something totally different? Do you feel allied to an idolater, because in his language he gives a block of wood the same name that to you in yours, means the creator of heaven and earth?

Would you not, though you might respect his conviction, have greater reason to say to him: 'Poor, poor mortal!'--?"

"'Blessed are the poor in spirit!'" she replied. "You certainly will not question those words, neither will you deny that every religious feeling springs from the consciousness of our own incompleteness, that he who lacks nothing, who is sufficient unto himself, cannot know the loftiest emotion: devotion to something loftier, richer, stronger--the ideal of what is highest and n.o.blest, which we call G.o.d. And therefore the idolater stands nearer to me than the atheist. He shares with me the human need of worshipping, of bowing before some powerful, inscrutable being. Is he to blame if his ideas of this dim power are so narrow and gloomy, that in order to be able to reverence something, he forgets that he carved these G.o.ds himself?"

"Certainly not," replied Edwin gravely. "As little as you are to blame, for adoring a G.o.d you have carved yourself or rather suffered others to fashion. Oh! my honored friend, do not be angry with me, but the difference between the poor doll that the south sea islander believes to be the creator of the world, and the G.o.d of our ordinary christianity, does not seem to me great enough to create such a stir.

Are not both carved after _our_ pattern, one more rudely, the other more delicately, the former bedecked with barbaric finery and painted in gaudy hues, the latter, according to the taste of our times, adorned with more or less art and fantastic splendor, but always a work of our own minds? I will not speak of those really poor mortals, whom you also will hardly call blessed or think specially well fitted for their heavenly kingdom: of those who, under the forms of the Christian faith, practise the grossest idolatry, the merest image worship. But how do even the most enlightened, the most intellectual, who take the scriptural words 'G.o.d is a spirit' in the most solemn sense, imagine this spirit? In their holy zeal, they ascribe to it every quality that seems worthy of honor and love in themselves or others. And this ideal being, which they have created in their own image, and only endowed with the thoughtlessly collected attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, this G.o.d-man or man-G.o.d, they set on a throne somewhere in s.p.a.ce, give him the world for a globe, and the lightning for a sceptre, and are perfectly convinced that in the fullest power and majesty, he will guide the stars on their courses, and decide the destinies of mortals with mercy and justice. And meantime the sorrows of the world take their course, evil reigns, the unequal distribution of blessings still exists, and the all-merciful, omniscient, all-righteous, and omnipotent G.o.d, does not move his little finger to effect a change; his most eager devotees must seize upon very common place, earthly means to keep the world in its grooves; but where these are not enough, where the whole cannot sufficiently protect the individual, then arises the old sardonic consolation: 'Help yourself, and G.o.d will help you.' So we're again thrown back on ourselves. It is still our strength, our intellect, our good purposes! And yet earnest men, who have their doubts about the contradictory stories concerning the government of the world by a G.o.d who is just and good according to human ideas, are blamed if they seek to help themselves through life by their own efforts, and at the same time try whether they cannot make things harmonize without nursery tales." He had risen and was pacing up and down the room in increasing excitement.

"You reject the good with the bad," she replied shaking her head. "Who denies the imperfection of our ideas of the supreme being? Who a.s.serts that our human images and comparisons describe his real nature? They are all mere make-shifts, a species of flying machine to enable us, who are denied wings on earth, to approach as near him as possible? Do you wish to deprive the poor mortals who languish in the dust, of this solace?"

"I? You're again forgetting that I wish to deprive no one of his religion, nor arouse in any one who is satisfied higher desires; nor to seek to guide him to what affords me happiness. Let them soar as high as they wish and can; but they, too, ought to permit the plain pedestrian, who climbs the rough path to the summit step by step, to move quietly on his way, and not throw stones at him from their balloons."

"Who does so? Who, that has understood the law of love, the most sacred tenet of our religion?"

He approached her and took her hand, exclaiming eagerly: "Not you, my honored friend. You will not cease to include in your prayers, the man who acknowledges that he does not join in the words, 'we all believe in one G.o.d.' Perhaps you will prefer not to a.s.sociate with him, as with all our love for our neighbor, we do not choose an outcast for a companion. But ask yourself, how many of your brothers and sisters in faith have advanced so far in toleration that they will not only permit every one to be happy in his own way, but even endure those who feel no desire for what is called heavenly bliss, who see the circle of their duties and privileges, toils and joys, coupled here on earth, and do not wish to be more perfect, wiser, or more immortal than one can become with human intellect and powers? Yet the word 'G.o.dless' is still the harshest that can be said of a fellow man, and people speak of envy, hatred, revenge, and malice, as traits natural to humanity. But all neighborly love is refused the poor fellow creature, who confesses that he can form no idea of a personal ruler of the world, according to the human pattern, and the one word 'atheist' is sufficient to forever brand the most peaceful citizen, the n.o.blest philanthropist, the most earnest seeker after truth. Yet we talk of an age of enlightenment! We boast of our freedom of thought, our scientific triumphs, and even men of science fear to express their deepest thoughts in their works, even those which are not even intended for the ma.s.ses, in order to be sure of their peace, if not of their lives! Their real, inmost conviction, they whisper like some guilty secret into the ears of those whom they have recognized as kindred spirits, while childish folly, criminal stupidity, are permitted to display themselves in every street, and the holiest things are used by cunning speculators for very worldly purposes."

"What am I to answer?" said the Frau Professorin, with an expression of the deepest anxiety. "You yourself are n.o.ble and pure enough in your intentions, to be permitted without danger to your social duties, to disclaim what we call duties toward G.o.d. But what would be the consequence with the great majority, whose 'sensibilities are not so delicate, to whom piety, unconscious devotion to an inscrutable being, nay if you will, the _fear_ of G.o.d, is a necessary check to their sensual natures, if you suddenly left them to themselves, and relieved them of all responsibility? Or what compensation can you offer n.o.bler souls, of deeper feelings, that feel a need of sanctification, to make amends for a destroyed or diminished confidence in the love of G.o.d? My dear friend, if you had ever enjoyed the deep bliss of knowing yourself a child of G.o.d, you would willingly overlook the vagueness, the childish narrowness, that to pure reason this idea may seem to contain, and understand that it is natural to consider innovators dangerous, or even to strive to crush as enemies of mankind, those who threaten to deprive their brothers of this consolation."

"I understand, I excuse it--and yet I ask that it may cease," replied Edwin, "for really the danger with which the children of the world threaten the children of G.o.d, is a purely imaginary one. The offence we give is very harmless. No mind which, in your sense of the word, is religiously disposed, will endure to think of the world without a personal Creator. No seduction can take place where the germ of the fall did not previously exist. And the vacillating or utterly frivolous cannot be of so much importance to you as peace and tolerance. I cannot forsee the future, but I have a conviction that the time will never come, when all men will declare that they are of age and have outgrown the childhood that renders them happy, any more than that political freedom will ever become a necessity to all. Only let people cease to measure differences in viewing the world by moral standards, to regulate for the individual his capacities and wants, G.o.d and the world, to call him to account for mere opinions which have a very slight influence upon his actions. To be sure, those ideas of G.o.d, freedom, immortality, which even the free thinkers of the last century recognized as an inalienable possession of mankind, have at last, in popular opinion, been called in question by our intrusive, persistent investigation. But I'm as sure as of my own existence, that a time will come when honest children of the world will be permitted, without suspicion, to renounce that trinity also, and is not the hope of contributing to such a future worth the toil of the n.o.blest? Then for the first time the word tolerance will have attained its full sense; then conversations like ours will be conducted without the slightest tinge of vehemence or bitterness, which have blended here and there with our words to-day, and for which I in particular, as a philosopher, who ought to have learned to be patient and trust to time, sincerely beg my honored friend's pardon."

He bent toward her, took her hand, and raised it to his lips. She absently permitted him to do so, absorbed in thoughts which she apparently could not express in words. He had already reached the door, when she said sudden:

"Does Leah know these opinions of yours?"

He paused. A dull pain, a feeling of regret, overpowered him, which he did not know how to explain. "We have never discussed these questions,"

he replied, "or as school children say, we've not yet _come_ to them.

We're still at the Greek philosophers."

"But when you progress so far, shall you tell her openly what you think?"

"Certainly, as openly as I have told you. Surely if I showed no reserve toward you by your personal request and as a matter of friendship, to my pupil, I should believe myself to be fulfilling a sacred duty in speaking plainly. For this knowledge her nature yearns; she will digest it, it will be trans.m.u.ted into a part of her blood. Could you be so intolerant, so envious, as to seek to deprive this excellent girl of what will be a positive benefit to her?"

For a moment she was silent. "I must be perfectly frank with you," she said, and the embarra.s.sment which flushed her cheeks gave her a winning expression. "My old friend, Leah's father, asked me to question you about your belief. He found one of his daughter's exercise books, in which were certain expressions and sentences that startled him. He himself is entirely dest.i.tute of dogmatic fanaticism, as I've already told you, but he is a true child of G.o.d, and is now alarmed and grieved to discover that his only daughter aims to be no different from her teacher: an upright child of the world. Therefore--"

"I understand," Edwin interrupted with a bitter smile. "You need proceed no farther with his apology. Give my compliments to the worthy gentleman, who will not permit his child to eat from the broad dish, because his own mouth is formed to take nourishment from the narrow bottle. But from what I know of the girl, she will find proper sustenance in spite of this guardianship, though with rather more difficulty. The only loser will be myself. Those grave thoughtful eyes always had a good influence over me. But I might have known it would come to this some day, so--without ill-feeling--farewell."

She called to him to detain him. But he had already pa.s.sed through the ante-room, without ill-feeling, as he had himself said, but not without a sense of bitter sorrow. "And these are the best of them!" he murmured. "If such things happen when the wood is green, what marvel is it that the dry, dead branches and knots, which can nevermore put forth leaf or blossom, crackle so merrily when a heretic is to be burned!"

He returned home and spent the remainder of the evening in quiet conversation with Balder, with whom he soon regained his lost cheerfulness, though the shadows would not wholly vanish from his sorely wounded soul. Both slept very little that night. When the pump handle creaked the next morning, they had been up a long time. Balder at his turning lathe, and Edwin wandering about the room, now and then turning the leaves of a book, both silent, as they usually were during the first part of the day.

Reginchen brought up with the breakfast tray a carefully folded package and a letter. They had just been left for Edwin.

When he had unfastened the strings and broken the seal, a beautiful porcelain plate appeared, on which was painted a bouquet of corn flowers, poppies, and wheat; on the edge, in gold letters, was the inscription: "A memento from a grateful pupil." There was also a sealed book, without any address, but the letter was from the old gentleman, and ran as follows:

"My Deeply Honored Friend:

"_You already know what I have to communicate in these lines, which in consequence of the great esteem, and love I have always felt for you, I can hardly force my pen to write, I have never presumed to suppose that I alone possess the truth; but to secure to my child the happiness that I have enjoyed in my own life, is a matter that lies very near my heart. If peace does not come to her when sought in my way, I shall not forbid her to seek it in another; but I think she's still too young to clearly perceive the right path, and therefore I would rather leave her for a time without a guide, than see her moving along a road I think dangerous. Nevertheless, I shall always be grateful to you for having so kindly devoted your time to her. My daughter, who desires to be respectfully remembered to you, begs you to accept the accompanying specimen of her work--the forfeit of the wager you perhaps still remember. A book, in which she was in the habit of keeping an account of her progress with you, I will beg you to take charge of for a time, as I do not wish her to return to these studies at present, and cannot expect her to entirely give up the pages which are precious in her eyes. And now farewell, dear Herr Doctor. May you ever be prosperous and remember with the old affection,_

"_Your sincerely grateful_

"Philipp Konig."

Enclosed in another envelope was a sum of money, not very large in itself, but munificent considering the circ.u.mstances of the man who lived in the little house on the lagune. Edwin instantly sat down at the table, sealed up the money again and wrote the following lines:

"Honored Friend and Patron:

"_Deeply as I regret that my visits to your house which had become so pleasant must be so suddenly discontinued, I cannot help respecting the motive which prompted your letter, and in all friendship bid you and my dear pupil farewell--until we meet again! Thank your daughter most warmly for her beautiful work of art, which affords me the greatest delight. But I do not understand how you imagine yourself to be in my debt. You cannot expect me to accept a fee for my small beginning at teaching, any more than you would call upon a customer to pay for a half finished picture._

"_With kindest regards, yours_,

"E."

"There," said he to Balder, "we've done with that too! I can put the little bottle of violet perfume on this painted plate--two frail mementoes of a life and memories quite out of place in our tun. Come, child! We'll get to work again. Everything flows steadily on; ought not certain memories to find their way also to the great ocean?"

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

A fortnight had elapsed. The autumnal storms, which had burst over the country, had stripped the last withered leaf from the top of the acacia tree, and the little garden with its shade loving plants, as well as the dry tendrils of the bean vines, were destroyed by the ceaseless rain.