The Child of the Dawn - Arthur Christopher Benson (good short books txt) 📗

of self-importance. But Amroth showed me that the danger of it lay in the tendency to consider the intellect to be the basis of all life and progress. "The intellectual man," he said, "is inclined to confuse his own acute perception of the movement of thought with the originating impulse of that movement. But of course thought is a thing which ebbs and flows, like public opinion, according to its own laws, and is not originated but only perceived by men of intellectual ability. The danger of it is a particularly arid sort of self-conceit. It is as if the Lady of Shalott were to suppose that she created life by observing and rendering it in her magic web, whereas her devotion to her task simply isolates her from the contact with other minds and hearts, which is the one thing worth having. That is, of course, the danger of the artist as well as of the philosopher. They both stand aside from the throng, and are so much absorbed in the aspect of thought and emotion that they do not realise that they are separated from it. They are consequently spared, when they come here, the punishment which falls upon those who have mixed greedily, selfishly, and cruelly with life, of which you will have a sight before long. But that place of punishment is not nearly so sad or depressing a place as the paradise of delight, and the paradise of intellect, because the sufferers have no desire to stay there, can repent and feel ashamed, and therefore can suffer, which is always hopeful. But the artistic and intellectual have really starved their capacity for suffering, the one by treating all emotion as spectacular, and the other by treating it as a puerile interruption to serious things. It takes people a long time to work their way out of self-satisfaction! But there is another curious place I wish you to visit. It is a dreadful place in a way, but by no means consciously unhappy," and Amroth pointed to a great building which stood on a slope of the hill above the forest, with a wide and beautiful view from it. Before very long we came to a high stone wall with a gate carefully guarded. Here Amroth said a few words to a porter, and we went up through a beautiful terraced park. In the park we saw little knots of people walking aimlessly about, and a few more solitary figures. But in each case they were accompanied by people whom I saw to be warders. We passed indeed close to an elderly man, rather fantastically dressed, who looked possessed with a kind of flighty cheerfulness. He was talking to himself with odd, emphatic gestures, as if he were ticking off the points of a speech. He came up to us and made us an effusive greeting, praising the situation and convenience of the place, and wishing us a pleasant sojourn. He then was silent for a moment, and added, "Now there is a matter of some importance on which I should like your opinion." At this the warder who was with him, a strong, stolid-looking man, with an expression at once slightly contemptuous and obviously kind, held up his hand and said, "You will, no doubt, sir, remember that you have undertaken--" "Not a word, not a word," said our friend; "of course you are right! I have really nothing to say to these gentlemen."

We went up to the building, which now became visible, with its long and stately front of stone. Here again we were admitted with some precaution, and after a few minutes there came a tall and benevolent-looking man, to whom Amroth spoke at some length. The man then came up to me, said that he was very glad to welcome me, and that he would be delighted to show us the place.

We went through fine and airy corridors, into which many doors, as of cells, opened. Occasionally a man or a woman, attended by a male or a female warder, passed us. The inmates had all the same kind of air--a sort of amused dignity, which was very marked. Presently our companion opened a door with his key and we went in. It was a small, pleasantly-furnished room. Some books, apparently of devotion, lay on the table. There was a little kneeling-desk near the window, and the room had a half-monastic air about it. When we entered, an elderly man, with a very serene face, was looking earnestly into the door of a cupboard in the wall, which he was holding open; there was, so far as I could see, nothing in the cupboard; but the inmate seemed to be struggling with an access of rather overpowering mirth. He bowed to us. Our conductor greeted him respectfully, and then said, "There is a stranger here who would like a little conversation with you, if you can spare the time."

"By all means," said the inmate, with a very ingratiating smile. "It is very kind of him to call upon me, and my time is entirely at his disposal."

Our conductor said to me that he and Amroth had some brief business to transact, and that they would call for me again in a moment. The inmate bowed, and seemed almost impatient for them to depart. He motioned me to a chair, and the moment they left us he began to talk with great animation. He asked me if I was a new inmate, and when I said no, only a visitor, he looked at me compassionately, saying that he hoped I might some day attain to the privilege. "This," he said, "is the abode of final and lasting peace. No one is admitted here unless his convictions are of the firmest and most ardent character; it is a reward for faithful service. But as our time is short, I must tell you," he said, "of a very curious experience I have had this very morning--a spiritual experience of the most reassuring character. You must know that I held a high official position in the religious world--I will mention no details--and I found at an early age, I am glad to say, the imperative necessity of forming absolutely impregnable convictions. I went to work in the most business-like way. I devoted some years to hard reading and solid thought, and I found that the sect to which I belonged was lacking in certain definite notes of divine truth, while the weight of evidence pointed in the clearest possible manner to the fact that one particular section of the Church had preserved absolutely intact the primitive faith of the Saints, and was without any shadow of doubt the perfectly logical development of the principles of the Gospel. Mine is not a nature that can admit of compromise; and at considerable sacrifice of worldly prospects I transferred my allegiance, and was instantly rewarded by a perfect serenity of conviction which has never faltered.

"I had a friend with whom I had often discussed the matter, who was much of my way of thinking. But though I showed him the illogical nature of his position, he hung back--whether from material motives or from mere emotional associations I will not now stop to inquire. But I could not palter with the truth. I expostulated with him, and pointed out to him in the sternest terms the eternal distinctions involved. I broke off all relations with him ultimately. And after a life spent in the most solemn and candid denunciation of the fluidity of religious belief, which is the curse of our age, though it involved me in many of the heart-rending suspensions of human intercourse with my nearest and dearest so plainly indicated in the Gospel, I passed at length, in complete tranquillity, to my final rest. The first duty of the sincere believer is inflexible intolerance. If a man will not recognise the truth when it is plainly presented to him, he must accept the eternal consequences of his act--separation from God, and absorption in guilty and awestruck regret, which admits of no repentance.

"One of the privileges of our sojourn here is that we have a strange and beautiful device--a window, I will call it--which admits one to a sight of the spiritual world. I was to-day contemplating, not without pain, but with absolute confidence in its justice, the sufferings of some of these lost souls, and I observed, I cannot say with satisfaction, but with complete submission, the form of my friend, whom my testimony might have saved, in eternal misery. I have the tenderest heart of any man alive. It has cost me a sore struggle to subdue it--it is more unruly even than the will--but you may imagine that it is a matter of deep and comforting assurance to reflect that on earth the door, the one door, to salvation is clearly and plainly indicated--though few there be that find it--and that this signal mercy has been vouchsafed to me. I have then the peace of knowing, not only that my choice was right, but that all those to whom the truth is revealed have the power to choose it. I am a firm believer in the uncovenanted mercies vouchsafed to those who have not had the advantages of clear presentment, but for the deliberately unfaithful, for all sinners against light, the sentence is inflexible."

He closed his eyes, and a smile played over his features.

I found it very difficult to say anything in answer to this monologue; but I asked my companion whether he did not think that some clearer revelation might be made, after the bodily death, to those who for some human frailty were unable to receive it.

"An intelligent question," said my companion, "but I am obliged to answer in the negative. Of course the case is different for those who have accepted the truth loyally, even if their record is stained by the foulest and most detestable of crimes. It is the moral and intellectual adhesion that matters; that once secured, conduct is comparatively unimportant, if the soul duly recurs to the medicine of penitence and contrition so mercifully provided. I have the utmost indulgence for every form of human frailty. I may say that I never shrank from contact with the grossest and vilest forms of continuous wrong-doing, so long as I was assured that the true doctrines were unhesitatingly and submissively accepted. A soul which admits the supremacy of authority can go astray like a sheep that is lost, but as long as it recognises its fold and the authority of the divine law, it can be sought and found.

"The little window of which I spoke has given me indubitable testimony of this. There was a man I knew in the flesh, who was regarded as a monster of cruelty and selfishness. He ill-treated his wife and misused his children; his life was spent in gross debauchery, and his conduct on several occasions outstepped the sanctions of legality. He was a forger and an embezzler. I do not attempt to palliate his faults, and there will be a heavy reckoning to pay. But he made his submission at the last, after a long and prostrating illness; and I have ocular demonstration of the fact that, after a mercifully brief period of suffering, he is numbered among the blest. That is a sustaining thought."

He then with much courtesy invited me to partake of some refreshment, which I gratefully declined. Once or twice he rose, and opening the little cupboard door, which revealed nothing but a white wall, he drank in encouragement from some hidden sight. He then invited me to kneel with him, and prayed fervently and with some emotion that light might be vouchsafed to souls on earth who were in darkness. Just as he concluded, Amroth appeared with