AN INTERLUDE
WHEN a man conceives within his own mind an image of God with the intent to worship it, he does not, in worshipping it, really worship a God who is alive; he does not worship a God who made him and all mankind. That which he worships is only an image of God which he himself has created.
Let any man think of this fact for a little moment and he will see that it is true.
Suppose, for an instance, that, instead of an idea of God, you form in your mind an idea, say, of Cromwell, or of Washington, or of Napoleon, or of Lincoln. Is it not perfectly clear that that image is not the real living Cromwell, Washington, Napoleon, Lincoln, but only a mental picture of one of those men? You may cause that image–that mental picture–to seem to move and to speak and to assume different aspects; you may cause it apparently to will and to act, but it is not the real hero-man who so moves and speaks, wills and acts. It is only an imaginary speech and action of an imagined hero.
The real man is exactly a different thing. He is of real flesh and blood, and his speech and action depend upon his own volition and not upon your imagination. You may, if you choose, decorate the image in your mind with the laurel wreath of hero-worship, and you may cause the most noble and exalted thoughts to seem to pass through the imagined hero’s mind. But it is not the living man whom you crown, nor do those thoughts really pass through the brain of the living man. That which you crown is only your own idea–your own created image of the man; and the thoughts which seem to pass through his mind are, in reality, only your own thoughts which you cause to pass through your own mind.
So it is exactly with the worship of God.
For let the mind form ever so exalted an image of God, that image is, after all, only the creation of the mind; it is only a dead thing, and not the living fact.
When a man prays to such an image of God, he prays not to the actual living Heavenly Father who created him, but to an image of God which he himself has created.
For that image of God is no more really alive than the imagined hero is really a living man.
And as it is in the case of an imagined hero, so it is with that image of God. For let that image seem to move and to act ever so gigantically, it is, after all, only an idea in your own mind–a thing thinner and more unsubstantial than the thinnest ether–a thought without any real potency or any real life.
The actual and living God is exactly and perfectly different from such an ideal image. He is infinite, the idea in the mind is definite; He is omnipotent, the idea in the mind is impotent to create so much as a single grain of dust; He is omniscient, the idea in the mind knows nothing and thinks nothing excepting such knowledges and thoughts that the man’s imagination is pleased to place within its empty skull. He, the Ancient of Days, exists forever and forever; the idea in the mind continues to live only so long as we kneel to pray, and it vanishes instantly we arise from our knees and go about our earthly business. He is the fountain-head of all human intelligence, and has Himself created the rationality of man; that idea of Him–it crumbles and dissolves away before a five-minute argument with any clever sceptic or agnostic who chooses to assault it with the hard, round stones of reasoning and of fact. He, the Heavenly Father, is the fountain of all life; that idea of Him–what power has it to give life to anything? Can it–such an ethereal nothing, the creation of the mind itself–lift up the soul into a resurrection of life when the body of flesh shall grow cold and die? Can it illuminate that black and empty abyss of death with any radiance of life? What power has it to turn aside those floods of doubt which, now and then, bursting their bonds, sweep down upon and overflow the soul, drowning out even the faint little spark of hope which we all so carefully cherish. That image, like the image of the man-hero, is dead and impotent excepting as the man’s own imagination makes it living and potential. Pray to your imaginary God in such times of black terror, and see how little that empty image can help and aid you. It is as powerless to save you from that flood of doubt as the African’s fetich of wood is impotent to save him from the deluge of water that bursts upon and overflows the world about him. When that black and awful torrent–the fear of annihilation–sweeps down upon the man, it, the image, is torn away from his grasp like a dead fragment of wood and is swept away and gone, leaving him to struggle alone and unaided in the overwhelming flood.
And yet man continues to worship this dead, self-created image. He says that God has this imagined attribute and that imagined attribute; that He thinks and feels thus and so, and does this and the other thing, now being angry and now pleased. But, after all, these things belong only to the image in the mind. What God really thinks and feels and intends is beyond the understanding of the man whom He has created.
Why does man worship an image instead of the reality? It is easy to see why he does so. He worships that image, because in worshipping it he worships himself, it being a part of himself. He loves that image because he himself has made it, and because he loves all the things of his own creation. He is willing to do the supposed mandates of that self-created fetich (provided they are not too difficult of performance), because those mandates spring fundamentally from his own imagination, and because he likes to do as he himself wills to do.
Just so we worship, not the real Christ, but an imagined Christ that is not alive.
Christ entered into the city upon Palm Sunday.
This is the way we love to imagine that vast and tremendous fact–the final entrance of divinely human truth into the citadel of life.
We love to think of Him as a white-robed, majestic figure crowned with glory, with smooth hair and shining face–mild, benignant, exalted. We love to picture to ourselves how young men and maidens and little children ran before His coming and spread their garments or fragrant branches of trees in His triumphal way, shouting with multitudinous cadence, “Hosannah in the highest!” How splendid it is to think thus of the King of Glory coming into His city of holiness. Thus imagined, it is a grand and beautiful picture, and we wonder how those scribes and pharisees, those priests and Levites, blinded with their own wickedness, should not have seen the splendor of it all–should have denied and crucified One who came thus gloriously into their city.
But in so depicting that divine coming we bow in submission, not to the living fact, but to a picture of that fact which we ourselves have created in the imagination. That is how we would have liked to see the Messiah of Jehovah-God come into His glory. That is how we would have arranged it if we had had the shaping of events, and we can bow before that image easily enough. But, alas! for us it is not the way in which He really comes. For God does not shape His events as we would have them shaped; He shapes them exactly different.
Read for yourself the truth as it stands written in the Divine Word of Jehovah-God, and then ask your own heart whether you would not have rejected Him as the scribes and pharisees of that day rejected Him.
For in the actuality of fact there could have been and there was no such glory of coming. That which the intelligent, thoughtful men of that day saw was, apparently, a common man, a journeyman carpenter, travel-stained, weary, footsore, riding upon a shaggy little ass, surrounded by a knot of rough fishermen and followed by a turbulent multitude gathered from the highways and the byways. For He had chosen for His associates, not the good and the virtuous, the reputable and the law-abiding citizen; He had chosen the harlot, the publican, the sinner, the outcast. For He proclaimed with His own lips that He was the Saviour of the sinners and not of the righteous. Read for yourself of the multitude that followed Him! How they stripped the clothes from their backs to throw in His path; how they rent and tore the branches from the trees, mutilating and dismembering God’s created, shady things, they knew not why. That mob believed that He was coming to overthrow existing law and order, so that the rich and the powerful might be cast down, and that they, the poor and the destitute, might be set up in their stead. They believed (for He had demonstrated it to them) that He possessed a supernatural power to perform miracles, and that He could and would use that power to overturn existing order. For did He Himself not say with His own very lips that He could overturn the Temple of the Lord and could build it up again in three days. Such was the ignorant mob that shouted and raved when He entered the city riding on an ass. They expected to see something supernatural done, and, when He showed no miracles, they presently, in a day or two, turned against Him like wild beasts and gave Him over to mortal agony and death. Such as that was the crowd that really followed Him, and it was not beautiful and exalted.
There the story stands written in the Book of Books–a Gospel so divine that every single word–yea, every jot and tittle written within it–is holy. There it stands terrible and stern for us scribes and pharisees of intelligent respectability to read. We cannot accept it in its reality; for even now we would deny it as we, scribes and pharisees, priests and Levites, did of old. For, alas! we cannot accept Him in His reality.
We pharisees of old preferred to see their Messiah come according to their idea of order and of righteousness, and when He did not come thus, we could not acknowledge Him. We of to-day build up a beautiful picture of Him, but, in reality, we would deny and revile the living fact as we did before. It could not be otherwise, for God has made us as we are.
You of to-day ought not to blame us because we were afraid when we beheld that Christ of publicans and sinners bursting into our Temple, and, with fury in His voice and in His aspect, thrash those who sat there upon business doing no harm. What wonder when we heard Him say He could tear down our beautiful Temple (the fruit of so much reverential labor) and build it up again in three days–what wonder that we should have been afraid lest the mob, taking Him at His word, should rend and tear down all our sacred things with an insane fury. What wonder that Bishop Caiaphas, seeing all the terrors of violence that threatened the peace of the community, should have said: “It is better that this one Man should perish rather than all of us should die.”
We scribes and pharisees–we are the bulwarks of law and order and of existing religion. Let Christ come to-day and we would crucify Him–if the law allowed us to do so–just as we scribes and pharisees did nineteen hundred years ago. For is it not better, indeed, that one man should die rather than that all existing order should be overturned, and that law and religion should perish?
Go ye down, scribes and pharisees, into the secret, hidden places of your city where the immortal and living image of God lies with its face in the dust of humility. There alone you will find the living Christ, and if you, finding Him in His rags and poverty, can truly take Him by the hand and lift Him up, then will He also raise you up into a life that shall be everlasting. For there is no other God of humanity than that poor and lowly image–no, not in heaven or on the earth or in the abyss beneath the earth.
For out of the dust of misery and of sin He lifts the lowly up and makes him new so that in a life hereafter he shall shine with a glory that is of God’s creating, and not of man’s.
He who has ears to hear let him hear, let him hear; only God be merciful to us poor hypocrites and sinners, who deny His living presence. Happy, indeed, is it for us that His mercy is infinite and endures forever, else we would perish in our own pride of lawfulness and virtue, and be forever lost to any hope of salvation.
XIV
VERITAS DIVINIS, VERITAS MUNDI
A DISTURBANCE even of a great magnitude does not pervade the whole of a community. You may hear, for instance, in the heart of the town that there is a riot going on in the suburbs, but you may not be brought any more actually in touch with it than though it were a hundred miles away. Unless you have the time to spend, and sufficient curiosity to go and hunt it out, you may not see anything of it unless it directly collides with some of your daily habits.
So it was with this riot. The public journals were heavy that morning with reports of gathering disturbances in the upper parts of the city, and there was a general feeling of apprehension of coming trouble. But when it actually came, people living in the houses in the upper reaches of the town saw nothing of it, even though it was then in actual progress within a mile of their own door-sills.
It was not until three or four o’clock in the afternoon that Gilderman heard of the attack made upon the Temple. He had been called away from home for a couple of days, and, being tired, had remained in the house that Sunday morning with his wife. The diamond necklace had been brought home from Brock’s the evening before, and he had that morning given it to Mrs. Gilderman in the bon-bon box, as he had planned. They had both been very happy. It was only on his way to the club that he met Ryan and Stirling West coming to find him with news of the riot. The three went off together down to the rectory of the Church of the Advent, where the Caiaphases were still living until the 1st of May should take the late bishop’s family into their new lodgings.
The attack had been made just after the closing of the morning services, and there were all kinds of exaggerated reports about the affair. West, with a good deal of hesitation, told Gilderman that it was said that Bishop Caiaphas had been assaulted, and that he had only been saved from serious injury by the aid of the police. “That is not so, I know,” said Gilderman. “The bishop wasn’t at the Temple at all to-day. He told me only last night that he was to be out of town this morning, at the consecration of the Church of Beth-el.”
“Is that so?” said West. “Well, these things are always confoundedly exaggerated, you know. I’m precious glad that the dear old boy wasn’t in the beastly row. I heard that he was knocked down and beaten.”
“It’s probably altogether a false report made out of the whole cloth,” said Gilderman.
“Think so?” said West. “Well, I’m glad if it is so. Anyhow, it is certain that there was an attack on the Temple.”
The three young men met the bishop just at the entrance of the park. His brougham drew up to the sidewalk when he caught sight of Gilderman and his friends. He was very agitated. He said that he was on his way to visit Pilate and to see if the governor would not take some steps to prevent the recurrence of any further rioting. He said that Mr. Doling and Mr. Latimer (the latter a cousin of Latimer-Moire’s) had been to see Herod, but it seemed to be somehow very difficult to get the authorities to take any steps in suppressing the disturbance. “I should be very reluctant to think,” said the bishop, and his voice trembled as he spoke–“I should be very reluctant to think that the authorities should take less interest in the protection of church property than of private or city property.”
“Oh, I think that’s hardly likely,” said Gilderman. “I suppose they don’t want to take extreme measures until extreme measures are necessary.”
“I hope it is so,” said the bishop. “I hope that is the reason why they won’t do anything.”
“Would you like me to go up to Pilate’s with you?” asked Gilderman.
“I wish you would, Henry,” said the bishop. “I wish you would.”
As the two bowled away through the park, the bishop gave Gilderman a brief account of the rioting of the morning and the attack in the Temple. There had, it appeared, been a business meeting held in the chapel after the morning service. It had been the custom for some time past to hold such meetings, for the members were always sure of being together at that time. The bishop said he had not altogether approved of these meetings, but it seemed to be more convenient to hold them then than at any other time, and there was more certainty of getting the committee together. There had, he said, been some difficulty for some time past in reaching any decision as to the design for the great chancel window, and Mr. Dorman-Webster had suggested that the committee having the window in charge should that morning meet with the finance committee, and that Duncan, of White & Wall, should then submit his designs to them as a body. There had been two designs made originally, but the design selected by the committee having the matter in charge (the design that the late Mrs. Hapgood had so much liked) had been so much the more expensive of the two that the finance committee had not as yet been able to agree to purchase it. So Mr. Duncan, of White & Wall, had come, bringing around both the colored designs. Mr. Parrott had also come to meet the committee. He was the importer who had brought over the Roman tapestries in gold and silver, and he had brought around colored photographs to show the committee. While the joint committee was sitting a Mr. Wilder Doncaster had come in with the news that part of the mob was coming up in the direction of the Temple. Although, as was said, there had been all morning a general apprehension of a coming riot, it had occurred to no one that the Temple could be the object of attack. No one had any thought of present danger until the mob was actually in the plaza of the Temple. The chapel in which the committee sat opened upon the side street, but, by some mistake, both that door and the door of the chancel had been locked, leaving only the other door leading into the Temple cloisters open. The committee, although they were even yet not exactly apprehensive of any violence, adjourned immediately, and Mr. Wilde went out to see if he could get some one to come and open the street door, so that they might escape the mob, which was then in the plaza. Almost immediately, however, the crowd had broken into the Temple and the cloisters. Mr. Wilde was forced back into the chapel, and a moment or two later the leader of the mob Himself entered at the head of the riot. He had, the bishop said, brought with Him a heavy whip, with which He began striking at the committee. Mr. Reginald Moire, speaking of it afterwards, said that he had seen Dorman-Webster struck twice across the face. All the time of the attack the Man continued repeating, “My Father’s house is called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”
Gilderman listened intently as the two bowled rapidly along. He felt very sorry for his father-in-law. The poor bishop was so agitated that his hands shook and his voice trembled. Gilderman did not like to look at him in his agitation. “If they make another attack upon the sacred building,” said the bishop, in a straining voice, “there is no knowing what damage they may not do. Suppose they should take it into their heads to smash in those beautiful, painted windows or blow up the chancel. I have suffered enough in spirit over our social riots of late, but this is the worst of all. To think of the poor, ignorant creatures attacking the Temple of God itself; it breaks my heart!”
“Oh, well,” said Gilderman, comfortingly, “maybe the worst is passed.” But the bishop only shook his head; there was no comfort for him in Gilderman’s words.
The bishop and Gilderman found Pilate at home and alone in his library. He was smoking a cigar, and he had evidently been reading a book which he had laid face down upon the table. It was one of the nether sort of imported novels. Gilderman, from where he stood, could not read the title of the volume, but there was no mistaking the yellow paper cover, the sharp type, and the disreputable vignette picture of the two laughing, black-stockinged women on the cover.
Pilate tried in every way to elude the subject the bishop sought to force upon him. He tried to talk about the Whitecourt lectures, the Women’s Club, and the street missions, in all of which he knew the bishop was much interested. But the bishop would not talk about anything but the riot, and at last the governor had to submit. “My dear bishop,” he said, “you don’t understand these affairs. One must act deliberately and with caution in such a matter as this.”
“Act deliberately! Act with caution!” cried the bishop. “In the mean time, how are we citizens to be protected from such a mob as this, which may at any moment take it into its head not only to gut the sacred Temple and to smash its windows, but even to attack our very homes?”
“My dear bishop,” the governor began again, “there is not, in my estimation, the slightest danger of any attack upon the private or the public property of this community.”
“But, sir,” said the bishop, “don’t you know that there has already been an attack made upon the Temple and upon the persons of certain citizens gathered there?”
“I know,” said Pilate, “but I think that comes within the province of the city authorities rather than under my authority. I do not feel the riot to be as yet of sufficient magnitude to call out the troops for active aid in suppressing it.”
“But you speak about the mayor. Mr. Dorman-Webster went to see the mayor, and he expresses it as his opinion that the mayor is not to be counted upon for any assistance.”
The governor almost shrugged his shoulders.
“And don’t you mean to do anything at all, then?” cried the bishop. “Are not the laws made to protect us and our property?”
“The laws? Yes, if you please. They are made to protect you, but I am not made to protect you–that is, you alone. The office of governor is made that the executive may protect not only you, but all men. Do you think I would be protecting these poor, misguided people if I called out the militia to shoot them down in the streets? My dear bishop, I cannot undertake to do that until there is absolutely nothing else to be done. Human life is too valuable for that.”
The bishop was staggered for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said, “that I want that the troops should actually fire upon the mob.”
“Then what do you want?” said the governor.
“I would suggest that the presence of the troops might overawe them.”
Governor Pilate shook his head and smiled. “That can no longer be done,” he said. “It has been tried, but it has never succeeded. It must be fire and blood or nothing. No, my dear bishop,” he continued, “you people who are all calling so loudly upon me through the press and the post”–here he laid his hand upon a great packet of letters upon the desk–“you who are so calling upon me to take the law into my own hands and to execute it to your liking for the instant suppression of the rioting–you do not take into consideration the responsibility of my position. You see but one side of the question; I see both sides. I am not only governor of a part of the community such as yourself; I am also governor of the humbler classes of the commonwealth as well. I must consider them equally with you and your kind. I have no right to side myself with you and strike against them. I must stand between you and keep you apart from one another. I may sympathize with you–yes; but I cannot sympathize so far as to do violence against these poor, misguided people. I must hold my hand until nothing else remains to be done than to kill them.”
“I don’t think I understand your position,” said Gilderman, striking in. “It seems to me that there is a right and a wrong, and that it is right to do right and wrong to do wrong. It does not seem to me to be right that the violent and the vicious should be allowed to work their wills upon the peaceful and the innocent.”
“I am sorry that you can’t understand my position,” said the governor, who had turned to Gilderman when he began speaking. “It is very plain to me, Mr. Gilderman. Suppose I should act hastily in this matter and make a mistake. All the blame of that mistake would fall upon me and upon no one else. It does not require any courage for you and those other gentlemen and ladies who write to me, to urge that I should at once act, and act violently, in this matter. To so advise does not take any courage; but it does take a great deal of courage for me to do such a thing upon my own responsibility. Consider the blame that would fall upon me if I should err in such a matter as this. I don’t think I care over much for the opinion of other men, but even I do not care to take unnecessary blame.”
“But surely no blame can attach to you for merely putting a stop to rioting.”
“Perhaps no. Perhaps yes.”
“But,” said the bishop, “even if blame is attached to you, you will have done your duty.”
Again the governor smiled faintly. “That, my dear bishop,” he said, “is a higher plane of ethics than I am able to attain. I would rather be at ease in my mind than in my conscience.” Then he began fingering among his papers, and the bishop saw he wanted him to go. Nevertheless, Bishop Caiaphas would not give up entirely.
“You have no objection to my taking the matter in my own hands?” he said.
“None whatever,” said Pilate.
“Then I shall go and consult my lawyer. I came to you, in the first instance, because it did not seem courteous to act without consulting you before taking any other steps. If I can have this man arrested upon my own responsibility I shall do so.”
“My dear bishop,” said the governor, rising as the bishop arose, “if you will allow me to say so, the very best thing you can do is to go and consult with your lawyer. He will tell you just what to do. The law is open to you. If you choose to put it in operation against this Man, and if you can arrest Him and convict Him, I promise you I will not stretch out my hand to prevent His execution. Only, in doing what you do, you act upon your own responsibility.”
Then the bishop and Gilderman took their leave and the governor sat down, took up his book, and resumed his reading almost with a grunt of satisfaction.
As Bishop Caiaphas was driven rapidly away from the governor’s house he was very angry. He knew that it was very unbecoming in him, as a priest, to be so angry, but he did not care. Presently he burst out: “The idea of that man sitting there alone, debauching his own mind with a low and obscene novel, while this Man and His mob are allowed to overturn the religion of the world!” If Bishop Caiaphas had been a layman he would perhaps have added, “Damn him!”
Gilderman did not say anything, but his heart went out in sympathy to his father-in-law.
Presently the bishop burst out again, “I’ll go down and see Inkerman this evening!” (Mr. Judah Inkerman was his lawyer.)
“I would, sir, if I were in your place,” said Gilderman. “I don’t doubt that he’ll tell you the very best thing to do. He’s got lots of influence with Police Commissioner Robinson, too. And look here, sir,” the young man added, “tell Inkerman not to spare any expense and to send his bill to me.” He wanted to do something to comfort the bishop, and this was all that occurred to him.
“Thank you, Henry,” said Bishop Caiaphas, gratefully. “No man ever had a better son than you.”
Gilderman slipped his hand under his father-in-law’s arm and pressed it.
There was no further demonstration of the rioters against the Temple. The next day the mob gathered again, but this time it did not move towards that holy edifice, but drifted down-town towards the law-courts. As the morning wore along it began to be apprehended that an attack might be made upon the public buildings or the sub-treasury or some of the larger banking-houses, but no such attack was made.
Gilderman had an appointment at the office that morning. He did not go down-town till about noon, and then he found the blockade of cars extended far up into the town. At last his coupé could go no farther. The footman came and opened the door and told Gilderman that it was impossible to go any farther, and that a policeman had said that the streets were packed full of people. As the footman stood speaking to Gilderman, Downingwood Lawton came up to the open door of the coupé. “Hello, Gildy!” he said, “is that you? What are you doing down here? Come down to see the row?”
“Not exactly,” said Gilderman, laughing. And then he explained. “I promised to be down at the office this morning and sign some papers. There seems to be pretty poor show of getting there, according to what my man says.”
“Well, I should rather say so, unless you choose to foot it; and even then it’s only a chance of getting through. By George! I never saw such a jam in my life.”
“Were you down there, then?” said Gilderman.
“Yes; Stirling and I went over to see Belle and Janette De Haven off.”
“They went this morning, did they?”
“Yes, and we went down to see them off–just for a lark, you know. While I was down-town I thought I’d go over to the office and strike the governor for a check, and so I got right into the thick of it all. I left Stirling down there somewhere.”
“What did Stirling stay down there for?”
“I don’t know. Wants to see the row out, I guess.”
“What are they doing down there now?” asked Gilderman.
“Nothing that I can see. The last I saw was the Man himself standing at the top of the court-house steps talking to a lot of lawyers. Where are you going now, Gildy?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Gilderman. “I don’t suppose it’s any use my trying to get down to the office.”
“Not the least in the world. If you’re going back up-town, I’ll thank you for a lift. There isn’t a cab to be had anywhere, or if you do find one it can’t budge out of the block.”
“Jump in, then,” said Gilderman, “and I’ll take you up with me.”
Just at that time the Son of Man, weary, dusty, wayworn, was talking with the lawyers, giving utterance to those three great parables–the last of all He gave to the world. The first parable–the man who had two sons, the one of whom said, I will not go work in the vineyard, and yet went; the other of whom said, I will go, and went not. The second parable–the master of the vineyard who sent his servant to the husbandmen, who stoned him; then his son to the same husbandmen, who killed him outright. The third parable–that of how the king made a marriage feast for his son and yet had to send into the highways and byways for guests. Of how one guest came without a wedding garment, and, as a punishment, therefore, was cast into outer darkness where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. The people listened and did not understand, and Gilderman drove away from Divine Truth in his coupé.
“By George!” said Lawton, as the cab worked its way with difficulty out of the press of vehicles, “isn’t this a lovely state of affairs? I came down from the country yesterday afternoon. I never saw such a sight in my life. Half the trees in the park are stripped as bare as poles. We went by one place where they’d been spreading branches in the street, and everything all a-clutter. It’s a beastly shame, I say, that Pilate and Herod don’t do something to stop it all.”
As the coupé drove past the armory they saw that the authorities were at last evidently taking some steps to prevent any fatal culmination of the disturbance. The great armory doors stood wide open, and a crowd of people were gathered about. A couple of soldiers stood on guard, erect, motionless, endeavoring to appear oblivious to the interest of the clustered group of faces looking at them.
“I am glad to see that, anyhow,” said Gilderman, pointing with his cigarette towards the armory.
XV
JUDAS
THE burden of prosecution having devolved upon the Ecclesiastical Court, a decision was not long in being reached. Again it was the universally voiced opinion that it was better that one man should die rather than that a whole nation should perish. It now remained only to arrest the creator of this divine disturbance of mundane peace.
That same afternoon Mr. Inkerman, the lawyer, called on Bishop Caiaphas to say that a follower of the Man had been found who would be willing, he, Inkerman, believed, to betray his Master to the authorities. It would, he opined, be out of the question to attempt an arrest in the midst of the turbulent mob that surrounded Him; such an attempt would be almost certain to precipitate a riot. But if this fellow could be persuaded or bought to disclose where his Master slept at night, the arrest could be made without exciting any disturbance.
“How did you find your man?” asked the bishop.
“Oh, I didn’t find him myself,” said Mr. Inkerman. “Inspector Dolan found him. Dolan says he will bring him up here at five o’clock, if that will suit you.”
“Very well,” said the bishop; “that will suit me exactly.”
At the appointed time there were four or five of the more prominent ecclesiastics present in the bishop’s library–among the others, Dr. Dayton and Dr. Ives. A little after five Mr. Inkerman came quietly into the room accompanied by Gilderman.
“The inspector hasn’t come yet?” he asked.
“No,” said the bishop; “not yet.”
“They’ve just called me up from the station-house, telling me that he was on the way,” said the lawyer.
“How much do you suppose this man will want for his services?” asked the bishop, after a moment or two of pause.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the lawyer. “Thank you”–and he took a cigar from the box the man-servant offered him–“I would not give him very much, though. He’s only a poor devil, and a little money will go a great way with him. Offer him ten dollars.”
“Ten dollars!” exclaimed Dr. Ives. “Rogues must be cheap in these times, sir!” and there was a ripple of amusement.
“Some rogues are and some are not,” said Mr. Inkerman, when the laugh had subsided. “I dare say it would take a pot of money to buy a Herod, and still more to buy a Pilate,” and then again there was a ripple of laughter.
At that moment the servant came in bringing a printed card upon the salver. The card had a semibusiness-like, semisocial look. He handed it to the bishop, who glanced at it. “Oh,” he said, “here he is. Show him up directly.”
He handed the card to Dr. Dayton, who ran his eye over it. “It’s Inspector Dolan,” he said to the others.
In a little while the servant returned, holding open the door and ushering in the two men. The light shone upon the inspector’s uniform, gleaming upon the badge on his breast. He came directly into the room followed by a rather small, rather thin man, with a lean face and reddish hair and beard, and a long, lean neck. The man seemed abashed and ill at ease in the presence of the clergymen. He stood in the farther part of the room, not far from the door. He held his hat in his hand, shifting it and turning it around and around. He was ill clad and rough looking, but his face was rather cunning than stupid. It was not altogether a bad face. His eyes wandered about the room, resting an instant upon each unusual object. There was a large photogravure in colors of Renault’s “Execution in Tangier.” That caught his eye, and his gaze lingered upon it for a moment–the severed head, the prone corpse lying upon the steps, the huge figure of the executioner looming above it, and the splashes of blood trickling over the white marble. He looked at the picture for an instant, and then he looked at the bishop; then he looked back at the picture again.
Bishop Caiaphas was gazing steadily at him. “Well, my man,” he said, at last, “Inspector Dolan tells me that you are willing to help us arrest this Man.” The man’s gaze dropped from the picture to the bishop’s face. He did not reply, but he began again turning his hat around and around in his hands. “What do you know about Him?” the bishop continued.
“Why,” said the man, “I know Him–that is, I’ve been with Him, off and on–that is, near for a year, I reckon.”
“What makes you willing to betray Him?” asked the bishop, curiously. “Have you any cause of enmity against Him?”
The man looked at him with a half-bewildered look, as though not exactly understanding the purport of the question. Then a secondary look of intelligence came into his face. “Oh,” he said, “do you mean have I anything agin Him? Why, no; so far as that goes I haven’t anything agin Him, nor He hasn’t done anything agin me. There was a lot of us together–a kind of company, you know–and I always carried the money for the rest. Sometimes we had a little money, and then sometimes we hadn’t. I was with Him ever since last April a year ago up to last fall, when my father was took sick; and there ain’t nothing in it. He won’t take money Hisself for curing folks, and He wouldn’t let any of us take money.”
“And are you willing to show us where we may find Him?” asked the bishop.
“Why, yes,” said the other; “so far as that goes, I’m willing to do that if I’m paid for it. I haven’t got nothing agin Him, but I don’t owe Him nothing, neither.”
Bishop Caiaphas was looking at the man, trying to get into the workings of his mind. “Of course,” he said, “we are willing to pay you for your trouble. We don’t ask you to help us for nothing.”
“No, sir,” said Iscariot, “I know that. I just mean to speak plain, sir, when I say I’ve got to be paid for doing it. You see, He don’t pay me nothing, and I ain’t beholden to Him for nothing, but, all the same, I ain’t got no spite agin Him.”
“How much do you expect us to pay you?” said the bishop.
“I don’t know,” said the man. “How much do you think it would be worth to you? You see, I’ve got to keep track of Him all the time, and then I’ve got to let you know where He’s going to be, and where you can come up with Him. It may be a matter of four or five days.”
“This gentleman,” said the bishop, indicating Mr. Inkerman, “seems to think that ten dollars would be about right.”
The man looked down into his hat and began again turning it around and around in his hands. “I don’t know that I care to do it for that,” he said. “I don’t know that I care to do it at all, but this gentleman here”–indicating Inspector Dolan–“he comes to me and he says he heard I know where He’s to be found, and that I wasn’t particular about keeping with Him any longer.”
“And how much, then, do you think would be worth while?” said the bishop.
“Oh, well,” said the man, “I don’t just know about that. I wouldn’t mind doing it if you gave me thirty dollars.”
“Thirty dollars!” said Mr. Inkerman; but Bishop Caiaphas held up his hand and the lawyer was silent.
“I’ll give you thirty dollars, my man,” he said, “the day that your Master is apprehended.”
“Thankee, sir,” said the man. Still he stood for a while irresolutely.
“Well,” said the bishop, “what is it?”
“Why, sir,” said the man, “if you’ll excuse me so far as to say–that is, I mean I didn’t take what this here gentleman”–indicating Inspector Dolan again–“said just to mean that I was to help arrest Him. He asked me if I knew where He was at night. I told him yes. He says that if I’d show where He was there was money in it for me. I said I was willing to show him or any man where He was. But I didn’t look to have any hand in arresting Him, though.”
“But, my good fellow,” said the bishop, “I can’t pay you the money unless you do your part. Just as soon as He is arrested, then you shall have your money. Isn’t that satisfactory to you?”
“Oh yes; I suppose so,” said the other, doubtfully. But he still stood, turning his hat about in his hands.
“Well,” said the bishop, “is there anything else?”
“Only, if I might make so bold, sir, who’s to pay me, sir?”
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said the bishop. “Well, I’ll put the money in the hands of Inspector Dolan here, and as soon as the arrest is made he’ll see that you are paid. Will that be satisfactory to you, inspector?” and the bishop turned to the police officer.
“Oh yes; it’ll suit me well enough,” said the inspector.
“Very well,” said the bishop, “we’ll arrange it that way. That is all we need of you now. You may go. Mr. Dolan will settle everything with you after the arrest is duly made.”
After the clergymen had gone, Gilderman and the lawyer lingered for a while. “How do you suppose,” said Gilderman, “that that man could bring himself to do such a thing as that? How do you suppose he thinks and feels?”
“Why, bless your soul, Mr. Gilderman,” said the lawyer, “we can’t possibly enter into the mind of a man like that to understand why he does a certain thing. Those people neither think nor feel as a man in our position thinks and feels. They don’t have the same sort of logical or moral ballast to keep them steady. Any puff of prejudice or self-interest is enough to swerve them aside from their course to some altogether different objective point.”
“I think you are right, sir,” said the bishop, almost with a sigh–“I am afraid you are right. One of the most difficult things with which I have to deal is the inability a man like myself has to comprehend or to come within touch of the mental operation of those poor people. Only this morning, for instance, I had to do with a really deserving case of charity–a man who had had his arm amputated and who had a wife–an intelligent woman–and three or four small children. He is just back from the hospital and in real destitution, and I went to see him, filled with sympathy. But before I had talked with him five minutes I was perfectly convinced that his one and only aim was to get me to give him just as much money as he could squeeze from me. He asked me for twelve dollars a week, and when I told him I could not afford to give him but eight he was perfectly satisfied. A man in our position of life would express gratitude; he expressed little or none. He accepted what was done for him almost as a matter of course. It is terrible to think that you can’t reach these poor people with sympathy or brotherly love and hope to meet with a return of affection–to be conscious that their chief object, when you wish to help them, is to get just as much money out of you as they can. I am always conscious that they feel that I am rich and have got plenty of money to spare, and that it is their right to get all that they can from me.”
Thus spoke the bishop in his wisdom; and what he said was true. A gulf, not wide but as profound as infinity, separates the rich man from the poor man, and there is no earthly means of crossing it.
XVI
A GLIMPSE OF AGONY
IT was unfortunate that Mr. and Mrs. Dorman-Webster’s grand affair, given in celebration of their silver wedding, should have happened just at this time. One of the public journals, commenting upon it, said that giving such an entertainment at such a time was like playing with a spark of fire over a barrel of gunpowder. It might not bring about an explosion, but then an explosion might follow–an explosion whose radius might destroy things of much more value than even Mr. Dorman-Webster’s palace of marble and brownstone.
There had been almost no rioting at night. All the disturbance was during the day; but disjointed groups–sometimes even crowds–would pass occasionally along the street after nightfall with more or less tumult of noise and loud talking. There was a good deal of discussion as to whether it was safe for ladies to be out at night at such a time, but, in spite of the possible danger, nearly every one who had been asked to the Dorman-Websters’ went. It was, indeed, a magnificent affair, and, in spite of the excitement of the riots, a great deal of space was given to it in the newspapers. It was said that Madame Antonini had been paid a thousand dollars to come on from the West, where she was then singing, to appear in the two numbers of the opening musicale. She sang to the accompaniment of a harpsichord that had belonged to a foreign queen, and which Dorman-Webster had, for that especial purpose, added to his famous collection of historical musical instruments of all ages. One of the features of the affair was the massive decoration of the stair-rails from the ground to the third floor with red-and-white rose-buds that were said by the newspapers to have cost two dollars each.
Nearly everybody of the truly Roman caste was there. Gilderman went, but he had not been feeling well, and so had only stayed out the musicale, coming away before the supper, for the sake of a few minutes’ midnight chat with his wife, who had promised, with the nurse’s consent, to be sitting up when he returned. She was much interested in all that he had to tell her, but she appeared tired, and he did not stay very long. As it was still early he went around to the club. The Dorman-Webster entertainment had nearly depleted the “Romans,” and Gilderman sauntered about with that lonely feeling that one always has in being at some place when one knows that one’s friends are somewhere else. He had found Pilate sitting in the reading-room with a litter of papers spread around him.
Pilate was not always asked to such entertainments as that of the Dorman-Websters’. He used to smile about it sometimes with his sphinx-like smile, but perhaps he would have been more than human had he not felt the fact of being left out of such lists of invitations. He looked up as Gilderman came in. “Why, Mr. Gilderman,” he said, “how is it you’re not at the silver wedding?”
“I was there,” said Gilderman, “but I did not stay.”
“Tired of it?”
“Oh no; not at all.”
Then Pilate began again: “By-the-way, Mr. Gilderman, I was very sorry that I did not feel justified in calling out the troops last Sunday, as the bishop wanted me to do. I hope he understood my position.”
“I think he did understand your position,” said Gilderman, almost dryly. Pilate looked at him for a little while with his keen, steady eyes. Perhaps he did not know just what construction to place on Gilderman’s phrase. Gilderman wondered whether he looked guilty of the double meaning he had intended. “Wouldn’t you like to play a game of billiards?” he said.
“Certainly,” said Pilate. And then to the club servant, as he arose from where he sat: “Tell Abraham to fetch the soda-and-whiskey up to the billiard-room when he brings it. You’ll have to allow me ten or a dozen points, Mr. Gilderman,” he said. “I can’t play billiards with you young fellows.” And then they went off together to the billiard-room.
Some little time after midnight the men began dropping in from the Dorman-Websters’ until there was quite a number present. About one o’clock a party of six or eight began playing poker, and in a little while afterwards Gilderman joined the game.
They had been playing maybe not over a quarter of an hour when those hands were dealt to Gilderman and Latimer-Moire which were afterwards so much talked about.
Ryan was dealing at the time, and Gilderman drew three cards to a pair of queens. The first card he turned up was a third queen, the next was an ace. He wondered passively how it would feel to draw a fourth queen, and then he turned up the card. It was the queen of clubs.
He felt struck almost as with a physical shock. He closed his cards slowly and laid them face down upon the table, and he was conscious as he did so that he had been able to infuse a perfect and complete expression of indifference into his face and action. Oh, if it were only possible now for some one to hold a hand to play against him!
Then the play began, and he saw almost immediately that even this desire was to be gratified. One by one the other men dropped out of the game until only Latimer-Moire and himself remained. The betting went steadily on and on, each time being to the full limit. The stakes doubled and quadrupled again and again. It passed through Gilderman’s mind, what if his opponent should, after all, have four kings? Such a chance was almost impossible, but the thought of it caused him a pang as it went through his mind. The rumor of the betting flew through the club, and quite a little crowd presently gathered around the table. Gilderman kept his cards face down upon the board. The men, as they came, went one by one around back of Latimer-Moire and looked into his hand. Nearly all of them laughed when they saw it. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Gildy?” said Stirling West, over Gilderman’s shoulder.
“No, by George!” said Gilderman, without looking around. He put his hand over his cards as he spoke. “I’m playing this hand alone,” he said, “and I’ll play it till the crack of doom, if need be.” As he spoke another sudden, dull spark of apprehension passed through his heart. What if Latimer-Moire should have four kings, after all?
The betting went on and on, and now there was perfect silence.
“Look here, old fellow,” burst out Gilderman, at last, “I tell you plainly you’re up against an almost certain thing. I don’t want to win your money, but I’m not going to give in as long as you keep at it.”
“You haven’t won your money yet, my boy,” cried Latimer-Moire. “Don’t you worry about me; I’ll look after myself,” and a general laugh went around the table.
One or two more bets were made, and then Gilderman called the game.
“I thought you were going to keep it up till the crack of doom,” said Latimer-Moire.
“It’s on your account I call the game,” said Gilderman. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Latimer-Moire laid down a card. It was the ace of clubs. He couldn’t have four aces, for Gilderman had one. What was it he had? What if he had four kings? Gilderman held his breath. Then his heart gave a bound and he knew that he had won. Latimer-Moire laid down a knave. Three more knaves followed, laid down upon the table one by one. What triumph! What glory! Gilderman held his cards firmly in his hand. His impulse was to pretend that he was beaten. “Well, well!” he said, trying to infuse all the disappointment he could into his voice, “who would have believed you would draw four cards and get four jacks by it? Well, well!”
“Let’s see what you’ve got, Gildy,” said West.
But still Gilderman lingered. The triumph was very, very sweet under the tongue of his soul. “Four jacks!” he repeated. “Well, well, well!”
“Oh, show up your hand, Gilderman!” called out a voice from those who stood looking on.
Then Gilderman laid down his hand, spreading all the cards face up upon the green baize tablecloth.
There was a moment or two of silence and then almost a roar of laughter. Stirling West fetched Gilderman a tremendous clap upon the shoulder. “Gildy’s luck forever!” he cried out. Latimer-Moire joined the laugh against himself, but very constrainedly. Gilderman relit his cigar, which had gone out. His hand was chill and trembled in spite of himself. He assumed an air of perfect calmness and indifference, but his bosom was swelling and heaving with triumph. Then he pushed back his chair and arose.
“Hold on, Gildy!” cried out Latimer-Moire. “Ain’t you going to give me a chance to win my money back?”
“Not to-night,” said Gilderman; “some other time maybe, my boy, but I can’t spoil such luck by playing another hand to-night, old fellow.”
“Why, confound it–hold on, Gilderman, you can’t go away without giving me some show. Just a couple more hands.”
“Not to-night,” said Gilderman, and then he walked away with Stirling West. Pilate had come to the table and was standing looking down at the cards that still lay face up upon the board. Some one was explaining the game to him. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been playing the game for about forty years now and I don’t think I ever saw a piece of luck like that. Four queens against four jacks!”
Gilderman, as he walked away, heard the words and his bosom swelled with a still bigger load of triumph. As he whirled home in the electric cab he lay back in the leather cushions and gave himself up to the delight of his triumph. He was filled full with a great and pervading joy. That last queen! What a delicious shock when he turned up the card and saw what it was! What a glorious piece of luck! And then he thought, what should he do with the money? He did not want Latimer-Moire’s money. He would hand it over to the bishop; that was what he would do. Suppose he gave it to that one-armed fellow the bishop had spoken about the other day. No; it was too much to give in a lump to a poor devil like that. He revolted somehow from the thought of doing that; he would hand it over to the bishop.
Presently the cab stopped at the sidewalk in front of his own home. The chauffeur jumped down and opened the door and Gilderman stepped out. He lingered for a little while after the cab had whirled away into the darkness. The night was very mild and pleasant, and the moon was beautiful. So he stood for a while smoking his cigar, thinking of his luck and feeling very happy. The white clouds of smoke drifted pallidly away in the milky moonlight.
Suddenly there was a disturbance some little distance up the street, and a lot of figures came out from the park. Then they came marching down the sidewalk. Even in the distance Gilderman could see the gleam of brass buttons and of official badges, and he knew that they had been making some arrest. As the crowd approached, Gilderman walked slowly up the broad stone steps to the wide vestibule above. The porter opened the door at his coming, but Gilderman did not immediately enter. He stood upon the top step smoking a last puff or two at his cigar before he threw it away, and watching, with a sort of idle curiosity, for the crowd to go past on the other side of the street. Presently they were there, passing under the wide aureola of light of the double cluster of electric lamps at the curb.
Then Gilderman saw who it was that they had arrested–it was He.
Gilderman could not see whether He had handcuffs upon the wrists, but two policemen walked one upon each side of Him. Two or three policemen came behind them, and there was quite a crowd of men besides, one of them with his head tied up in a bloody cloth. As they came under the circle of light one face was turned and looked straight at Gilderman. The features appeared to be calm and emotionless. There was no hat upon the head, and Gilderman was almost sure he saw red drops of moisture, as of sweat, shining on His brow. Then they had gone by and Gilderman stood looking after them. The hall porter had also come farther out into the vestibule to see the crowd as it passed by.
As Gilderman stood gazing after the departing figures another figure came down the street, this time upon the same side as that on which he stood. It was a man walking rather close to the curb. Presently he also came within the circle of light directly in front of the house. He seemed to shrink for a moment and then walked out into the street. He looked up quickly towards Gilderman as he passed, and then Gilderman recognized him. He was that one of the disciples whom he remembered having seen a few days before–the short, thick-set man with the bald head and curly hair and beard. He turned his face towards Gilderman as he passed. Gilderman came partly down the steps. “Stop a minute, my man,” he said; “I want to speak to you.”
The man hesitated for an instant and then stood still. He hung back in the partial darkness of the street, and as Gilderman approached he seemed to shrink back farther still.
“Was that your Master who went by just now?” asked Gilderman.
“Yes, sir,” said the man.
“Where are they going to take Him?” asked Gilderman.
“I don’t know,” said the man; “I didn’t have time to ask.”
He was looking furtively down the street. The crowd had disappeared in the distance, but Gilderman could hear the sound of voices and the tread of feet far away. There was just a flitting glimpse of them as they passed under a circle of light a block or so away.
“Where are you going now?” asked Gilderman.
“I don’t know,” said the man. “I’m going to see where they take Him.”
He stepped farther back into the street as he spoke. He lingered for a moment and then turned and went away in the direction the others had taken. After he had gone a little distance he began running. Gilderman could hear his footsteps passing away down the street farther and farther. He saw a glimpse of his figure flitting under a corner lamp, and then he was gone.
So it is that the life of that young man came just within touch of the agony suffered alone in the darkness of the garden. So it is that we all of us, rich in our possessions of happiness and of wealth, live each his life, unconscious of the divine travail going on beneath until suddenly the end of all comes and we stand face to face with that which has been done. So it is that, all unconsciously to us, beneath the thin and crackling shell of mundane life, God is working out His end and we know nothing of it.
We laugh, we sing, we dance, we love, we hate, we triumph and strive for joys that turn to ashes in the mouth, and all the time the divine phenomenon of life is working out its completion beneath those shadowy appearances of things real. Now and then, maybe, like this young man, we suddenly come face to face with the Divine Humanity and maybe feel the soul quake at His presence. Then the face passes by and we see it and think of it no more except as an incident.
As Gilderman turned and went up into his warm and well-lighted house, filled with its richness and delectabilities, he wondered passively what would be done to the Man; what would be the end of it all with Him. The baby was awake and crying, and as Gilderman went to his room he caught a fleeting glimpse of the silently moving nurse passing across the dim upper hall.
Oh, the triumph of finding that a fourth queen had been dealt him! Four queens! He saw just how that queen of clubs had looked when he turned it up. How the fellows had roared when he showed his hand!
He looked at his watch as he wound it up. It was half-past two o’clock.
XVII
THE END OF THE WORLD
AND so came the end. As all the world knows, we fulfilled our allotted mission and crucified the Truth.
Caiaphas was a merciful man–kind, gentle, and with a very loving heart. But his religion was cruel, relentless, and devoid of mercy. According to his creed, all men who disobeyed the laws of social order suffered eternal punishment as a penalty forever and forever in the life to come. Also, according to that creed, all men were in danger unless they believed the almost unbelievable things of Scripture. He himself would not have tortured or tormented a mouse for doing wrong or for going astray, but he assented, almost with equanimity, to the monstrous assertion that God Almighty would torture and torment a man forever and forever for sin or for disbelief.
It is strange that the religion of such a good man as Caiaphas should be of such a monstrous sort; it is still more strange that such doctrines should have appeared to him not only to be sacred and holy beyond measure, but to be the actual foundation of existing social order.
Nevertheless, such he held to be the case, and his dogmas appeared to him to be singularly sacred. For his religion he was cheerfully ready to sacrifice his own life or the life of another man.
Whether he reasoned about the matter or did not reason about it the fact remained that that dreadful thing was his religious creed, and when he deemed it in danger of overthrow he fulminated that terrible saying: “It is better that one man should die rather than that a whole nation should perish.”
So the one Man died, and the nation, having fulfilled its mission, perished also as a nation.
When Christ yielded up the spirit it was said that the sun was darkened and the earth shook and the veil of the Temple was rent in twain. But we–priests and Levites, scribes and pharisees–saw nothing of that. That cataclysm was seen only by the few who saw with the eyes of the spirit. To us the burning sun rode as majestically as ever; to us the earth stood firm; to us that Temple of Faith (that was never to be completed) stood also firm upon its foundations.
We came and went about our daily business, unconscious that anything had happened. For so it is, we see and think only of the things of the earth; for so it is that there is to us no other light than the light of the sun of this world, no other things than the things of this mundane universe–beyond these all is void and darkness. These mundane things stood firm and unshaken when the Son of Man yielded up the spirit, and only those who saw beneath the shell of things beheld the darkness and the terror.
A poor carpenter had died that the Law and the Gospel might be preserved, and a few rough fishermen–a few poor, ignorant, superstitious outcasts thought that they saw the flaming orb of day turned into a smoky blackness; that they felt the earth strain and crack beneath their feet; that they beheld the bulwarks of religion split in twain from top to bottom.
Gilderman was worried that morning because the baby had caught cold. The day was pleasant and the sun shone brightly. Do you think he would have believed you if you had told him, in the midst of his worries, that the most tremendous cataclysm of the world was about to occur?
He felt a great sense of relief when Dr. Wellington entered the study. “I’m so glad you’ve come,” said Gilderman, and the two shook hands almost cordially. At that same moment the old world came to an end and a new world began.
So the annihilation of the ages was beheld by the scribes, the pharisees, the priests, Levites, and Romans.
XVIII
THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH
WHEN men have slain the Living Truth and a new age has arisen from its death, the world still rolls onward in its course and mankind does not know that anything has happened. Children are born into the world, men and women are married, others die, and only a few poor, lowly ones know the significance of that death and resurrection. Thus it must ever be. In the outer world there is no sign; each man pursues his own business and pleasure with just the same avidity as though God’s Truth had not perished in the flesh to rise again into the glory of resurrection.
Yea; judgment-day may come and the angel may blow his trumpet until the earth shall crack and heaven itself shall tremble, but the ears of man are deaf to the blast and his eyes are blind to the terrors that overhang the soul. In his ears are stoppers of clay and over his eyes is a film of flesh, and neither sound nor sight can reach him.
What wonder, then, that men not only deny their Creator and their Redeemer, but even refuse to believe that the soul within them is alive. To them the body seems alive and not the soul; to them it seems as though this world is the end of everything.
Mrs. Gilderman, though she had not recovered from her confinement with the rapidity that a washerwoman might have done under the same circumstances, was, nevertheless, so nearly quite well by the end of the month as to be able to be down-stairs and about the house. She did not go much abroad. Maybe on a fine afternoon she would take a spin in the park in the automobile or out along the river, but she did not go shopping, and was yet watched by her nurse with the jealous care due to a convalescent patient of such pre-eminent importance. But, though she did not go abroad, her friends came to see her, and she often held receptions in her own room with tea and wafers, maybe, and a babble of feminine chatter. She was conscious that her imported blue tea-gown was vastly becoming to her blond beauty, and she made the most of it, lying back in a nest of blue silk, silver-embroidered cushions.
It was about this time that she made Gilderman promise to have his portrait painted. “I want Reginald to have it to say,” she said, “that that is the way my father looked in the year that I was born.”
So Gilderman had commissioned Norcott to paint a full-length portrait of himself with a bit of realistic background showing a glimpse of the famous Cyprian Adonis fragment. No one living could do those little realistic bits of background as could Norcott.
During this same month the Biddington-De Vaux wedding was to come off at the national capital–Arabella Stewart Biddington and Lord George De Vaux, an attaché to a foreign embassy. Gilderman, on the score of relationship to Miss Biddington, had, of course, to go. That same day he was also to give a sitting to Norcott. He was growing very tired of these sittings. There had been a great many of them, for Norcott was endeavoring to make the work a chef-d’œuvre. At first Gilderman had been very much interested in the artist, his surroundings, and the studio in which he worked. Not only had Norcott much to say for himself, but he had collected about him an enormous amount of bric-à-brac, rugs, tapestries, and hangings. You would have pronounced the anteroom to the studio to have been cluttered were the things gathered there less fine and interesting than they were. The studio itself was a great, high-ceilinged room with a big skylight. There was more bric-à-brac, rugs, tapestries here, but in the wider spaces they did not seem so crowded together as in the anteroom. Gilderman had become pretty well acquainted with all these surroundings by now, and they were no longer so interesting to him as they had been at first. He sat there in the morning of the Biddington-De Vaux wedding feeling rather bored. He had to take the trip to the capital in the afternoon, too. That also was a bore in prospect.
The outer door of the reception-room of Norcott’s studio was so arranged that when it opened a chime of bells was rung. Norcott was working silently and industriously and Gilderman was sitting thinking about the nuisance of the impending journey, when suddenly the chime of bells rang out upon the silence of the studio. Presently Norcott’s Moorish servant came bringing in a card. Norcott looked at it. “It’s Santley Foord, Mr. Gilderman,” he said. “Would you like him to come in? He’s a very interesting fellow, and it might entertain you.”
“Santley Foord?” said Gilderman. And then, remembering the name: “Oh yes; he’s the fellow who wrote and illustrated those very interesting articles about the West-China imbroglio for the Mundane Sphere, is he not?”
“Yes, that’s the man.”
“I’d be very glad to meet him,” said Gilderman, welcoming any break in the monotony of the sitting.
Then Santley Foord came in. He was a lively, brisk little man, with a face burned russet-brown by the sun, a mustache nearly white, and very light, closely cropped gray hair. He had a strong jaw and chin, and his little eyes were as bright and as black as beads and danced and twinkled and were never still for a moment. Norcott introduced Gilderman, who bowed with a manner that was very urbane. Santley Foord was evidently extremely gratified by the introduction.
“I was very much interested in your West-China articles,” said Gilderman. “It seemed to me that your sketches were strikingly clever, too. That one with the dead bodies lying on the snow and the flock of crows around them and the long line of road cut through the snow and stretching away to the distance against the gray sky impressed me extremely.”
“I am highly flattered that you should have noticed it, Mr. Gilderman,” said Foord. “One can always get a capital effect of snow in reproductive process. And then, I suppose, the subject was very fetching. I stood there in the snow sketching the scene over the back of my Tartar pony, with the sketch-book resting on the saddle, while my two Kalmuck men brewed some tea in a deserted hut at the road-side.” Then he began describing incidental scenes connected with the circumstances of the massacre. He talked well, and Gilderman listened much interested.
From this subject, at a question from Norcott, the narrator branched out into his experience in a Tartar village. He described his introduction to a fat old Tartar chief, and he mimicked the obese Oriental with an almost startling vividness. Gilderman laughed heartily, and as he did so he registered in his own mind that he would give a man’s dinner-party and would ask Santley Foord. It would be very entertaining. How Stirling West would enjoy the fellow.
“But, after all,” said Foord, “you don’t have to go out to the far East to find such things. I’ve come across a mine of interest here that nobody seems to know or to think anything about. Did you, for instance, know that the disciples of that carpenter, about whom there was so much talk awhile ago, are still living here in the very midst of the city, a community in themselves? They claim to have had supernatural experiences and to have seen visions and all that sort of thing. They have strange religious ceremonies and meetings, in which they appear to go off into a trance state, and a good many of the poor people among whom they live believe all that they say to be a bona-fide fact.”
“I thought all that trouble was over and done with now,” said Gilderman.
“Oh no, indeed. Why, I’m going to meet Dolan–Inspector Dolan, you know–at eleven o’clock to-day, and we’re going down to a meeting that those people are going to hold this morning. I’m going to make a sketch of it. They are quite the most interesting thing I have come across for a long time, and I think the world will be rather struck to find that these strange folk are living in its very midst without its knowing anything at all about them.”
“Really!” said Gilderman. And then, after a moment of pause: “Do you know, Mr. Foord, I’d like immensely to go with you and Dolan and see these people.”
Santley Foord laughed. “Well, Mr. Gilderman, to tell you the honest truth, I don’t believe you would like it very much. The surroundings are not especially pleasant. I’ve got used to all those kinds of sights and smells by this time. One gets used to no end of such things knocking about on the rough side of the world, but I don’t believe you’d like it.”
Gilderman laughed in answer. “I don’t know that I would especially like the sights and smells,” he said, “but I’d like very much to see what these poor people are doing.” And then, after a brief second of hesitation, he continued: “Such things interest me very much. I saw the Man Himself two or three times while He was alive, and spoke to Him once face to face. He impressed me very singularly.”
“Did He, indeed?” said Santley Foord.
Gilderman had found it very hard one time to confess this to his wife. It had not been so hard to repeat the narrative in part to Stirling West, and since then he had described the scene in the cemetery several times to friends who had asked him about it. He described it now, growing conscious as he did so of how flat his narrative was compared to the clever way in which Foord would have told the story.
Foord listened very interestedly. “By Jove!” he said, when Gilderman had ended, “I would have given a deal to see that, Mr. Gilderman. It beats anything I ever saw down in India, and I’ve seen some very strange things there, too.” Then he began a vivid description of the old trick: how he had once seen some jugglers put a woman under a basket that was just big enough to cover her, and of how one of the Indians had run the basket through and through with a sword. His description of the woman’s screams and of the trick blood that flowed from under the basket and over the hot, white stones of the pavement was almost horribly startling, and Gilderman, as he listened, again registered a determination that he would ask Santley Foord to a man’s dinner some time in the near future.
After a while Foord arose from where he was sitting and sauntered around the room, looking at some of the pictures and sketches. Then, having completed his inspection, he said, in his almost abrupt fashion: “Well, it’s time to go around to the St. George. If you really care to go with us to see these people, Mr. Gilderman, I’ll be glad to take you along.”
“I’d like to see them,” said Gilderman, “but I don’t know whether Norcott’s through with me yet.”
“Just give me five minutes more, Mr. Gilderman,” said Norcott, “and then we’ll call the sitting off for the day.”
Gilderman took Foord around to the St. George with him in his automobile, and they got out together and entered the wide, marble-flagged vestibule almost arm-in-arm. They found Inspector Dolan already there and waiting. He was sitting on one of the leather-covered seats that stood along the wall and was talking to a stranger. He arose as Gilderman and Foord came in, and he looked distinctly surprised to see Gilderman.
“Mr. Gilderman wants to go along with us,” said Foord, and then the inspector laughed.
Gilderman ordered an electric coach, and as they whirled away down-town he offered his cigarette-case to his companions.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you, inspector,” he said, “since that man sold his Master to the bishop that day. Whatever became of him? I wonder if he ever felt sorry for what he had done.”
“Sorry!” said the inspector–“sorry! I should think so. The officers found his dead body hanging to a tree the day after the execution.”
“Oh yes,” said Gilderman, “I remember now reading an account of it. But I did not know it was that man who hanged himself.”
“Yes, sir, that was the man.”
The coach stopped in a narrow and dirty street. Then they all got out and walked for some little distance down the paved court until the inspector at last turned into an alleyway.
The alley opened into another paved court, and here Gilderman found himself in the midst of the sights and smells of which Santley Foord had spoken. There were two or three rather dilapidated houses looking down upon the court. They were shabby, squalid-looking piles, and overhead, from house to house, were stretched clothes-lines, with clothes hanging out to dry, motionless in the dull, heavy air. The court was paved with cobble-stones, and here and there water had settled in stagnant puddles. There were a couple of ash-barrels standing by one of the houses, piled high with ashes and scraps of refuse.
The inspector led the way directly to one of the houses. He put his hand upon the knob of the door and turned it very softly. Then he opened it and entered with Gilderman and Foord at his heels.
Gilderman found himself in a dark, narrow entryway. The walls of the entry had that peculiar, greasy look that seems always to belong to houses of the poorer sort, and there was everywhere a rank and pervading smell. As the inspector closed the door, another door at the farther end of the entry opened and a stout woman, unmistakably Jewish in appearance, stood framed in the space of light behind. She hesitated for a moment, and then said, with a sharp, rasping voice: “What do you want? What are you doing here?”
The inspector walked directly along the passageway towards her. “That’s all right, Sarah,” he said. “It’s Inspector Dolan.”
“What’s the matter now?” said the woman. “I ’ain’t been doing no harm.”
“There’s nothing the matter at all, only these two gentlemen here want to go up-stairs to see your friends on the third floor.”
“There ain’t nobody up on the third floor,” said the woman, sullenly; “they ’ain’t been here for a couple of days.”
The inspector laughed. “That’s all right, Sarah,” he said. “We’ll go up and look for ourselves. Just you stay down here. And don’t you go kicking up a row,” he added, turning suddenly stern in his demeanor.
The woman shrunk back as though threatened with a lash, but she did not go entirely away. She partly followed them and then stood watching with a sort of impotent sullenness as they went up-stairs, the inspector leading the way.
Gilderman was nearly overpowered by the close, heavy atmosphere of the house. His companions did not seem to think anything of it at all, and he knew that the people who lived every day in that atmosphere would not be aware of its close fetor. Surroundings of this sort were infinitely distasteful to him, but since he had come so far he made up his mind that he would go on to the end.
As the three climbed the stairs Gilderman became aware of a strange, droning, sing-song sort of chant, or rather mummer, that grew louder and louder as they ascended. He found it came from one of the rooms on the third floor. The inspector led the way directly to the door of this room, and Santley Foord turned and said to Gilderman: “It’s those people you hear, and, by George! Mr. Gilderman, we’re in luck; they’re about some of their religious ceremonies this minute. I hope you’ll be able to see some of them in a trance state.”
The inspector stood for a while with his hand upon the knob as though listening. Then he said, in a low voice, “I’ll wait outside here.”
“Is it perfectly safe?” asked Gilderman, instinctively lowering his voice to the same pitch as that in which the inspector spoke.
“Lord bless you! yes, Mr. Gilderman,” said Dolan; “they’re as harmless as mice.”
Then he opened the door and Foord stepped into the room, closely followed by Gilderman. There were maybe a dozen or so men in the crowded space. The room was very close and hot. Some of the inmates were sitting around a deal table; two were standing with their backs to a cold and rusty stove, and one was leaning against the wall, his face hidden in his arm, his body shaking as though he were crying. None of them seemed to be aware of the presence of the intruders, and then Gilderman saw with a shock, almost as of awe, that they were indeed in a state as though of entrancement. The faces of all were transfixed, vacant, exalted. They seemed all to be lit with a singular illumination. It was almost as though the faces were translucent and illuminated to that singular roseate brightness by a light from behind. Gilderman had never seen anything like it before. By-and-by a feeling akin to terror began to creep over him. What did it all mean? A strange, groaning murmur coming from the breasts of the men filled the room full of sound, now rising fuller, almost into articulate speech, now quavering away into a dull murmur. It was very impressive–almost awful, to Gilderman.
If Foord was at all impressed he was too busy to yield to his emotions. He had taken out his sketch-book and was sketching rapidly. Inspector Dolan was looking over his shoulder through the half-open door.
None of the three knew what it was that they had come so near to seeing; for the crying man with his face hidden against the wall was Thomas the Doubter.
Still Foord sketched away rapidly, and by-and-by Gilderman found himself becoming interested in the swift, dexterous strokes of the pencil and the quick suggestions of portraiture. “Do you suppose they mind you doing this?” he whispered.
“Lord bless you, no!” said Foord, sotto voce. “They don’t see or know anything when they’re in that state.”
At the sound of the voice the crying man lifted his face for a moment from his hands and looked towards Gilderman with strange, filmy, sightless eyes. His cheeks were drenched with tears. Gilderman knew that though the man looked towards him he did not see him.
As Gilderman continued down-town towards the office, he felt strangely softened and moved–strangely impressed by what he had just seen. Again, as he thought over it all, a feeling as of awe came upon him. He did not understand what it was he had beheld, but the impression lay heavily upon him. A recollection of the morning’s scene, accompanied by the same feeling of awe (though less strong and vivid), recurred again to him that afternoon as he crossed the river to embark upon the other side for the capital. He was standing in the bow of the ferry-boat at the time looking out across the water. He had never seen a human face illuminated as those faces had been. It was as though the spirit shone forth and consumed the fibres of flesh that incased it. Was it then, indeed, true that the spirit was so present in every fibre of flesh that it could thus glorify the human body to that strange illumination? The bright surface of the harbor stretched away before him, shut in by the distant farther shore of clustered buildings. A huge out-going steamer was ploughing its slow and monstrous way down the river. Gilderman saw everything and yet saw nothing as he stood there pondering the remembrances of that morning.
He suddenly awoke to the things of every day as the boat thumped its way into the slip, and he pushed forward with the crowd which, as soon as it had poured off from the boat, presently spread out until he was able to hurry through the waiting-room of the depot to the train.
His man met him at the gate and directed him to the parlor-car, where Stirling West met him. “Hello, Gildy!” he said; “I thought you were going to be left.”
As they went together along between the rows of chairs to the compartment where Tom De Witt and his mother and two sisters already sat, Stirling West nudged Gilderman with his elbow. “Ain’t she a daisy!” he said, in a whisper. And Gilderman, looking down, saw an exceedingly pretty and stylishly dressed blond girl sitting with an elderly man of senatorial appearance.
He felt a distinct pleasure in the prettiness of the girl, and he looked back at her again as he was about to enter the door of the compartment. He was already forgetting what he had that morning seen.
THE END
By MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
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Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation errors repaired.
Text spells the more usual “capitol” as “capital”. This was retained.
Page 218, “Glderman” changed to “Gilderman” (Gilderman when he began speaking)
Page 257, “Ford” changed to “Foord” (said Foord. “One can)