The Child of the Dawn

by Arthur Christopher Benson

XXXIII

I came to myself very gradually and dimly, with no recollection at first of what had happened. I was lying on my back on some soft grassy place, with the air blowing cool over me. I thought I saw Amroth bending over me with a look of extraordinary happiness, and felt his arm about me; but again I became unconscious, yet all the time with a blissfulness of repose and joy, far beyond what I had experienced at my first waking on the sunlit sea. Again life dawned upon me. I was there, I was myself. What had happened to me? I could not tell. So I lay for a long time half dreaming and half swooning; till at last life seemed to come back suddenly to me, and I sat up. Amroth was holding me in his arms close to the spot from which I had sprung.

"Have I been dreaming?" I said. "Was it here? and when? I cannot remember. It seems impossible, but was I told to jump down? What has happened to me? I am confused."

"You will know presently," said Amroth, in a tone from which all the fear seemed to have vanished. "It is all over, and I am thankful. Do not try to recollect; it will come back to you presently. Just rest now; you have been through strange things."

Suddenly a thought began to shape itself in my mind, a thought of perfect and irresistible joy.

"Yes," I said, "I remember now. We were afraid, both of us, and you told me to leap down. But what was it that I saw, and what was it that was told me? I cannot recall it. Oh," I said at last, "I know now; it comes back to me. I fell, in hideous cowardice and misery. The wind blew shrill. I saw the cliffs stream past; then I was unconscious, I think. I seem to have died; but part of me was not dead. My flight was stayed, and I floated out somewhere. I was joined to something that was like both fire and water in one. I was seen and known and understood and loved, perfectly and unutterably and for ever. But there was pain, somewhere, Amroth! How was that? I am sure there was pain."

"Of course, dear child," said Amroth, "there was pain, because there was everything."

"But," I said, "I cannot understand yet; why was that terrible leap demanded of me? And why did I confront it with such abject cowardice and dismay? Surely one need not go stumbling and cowed into the presence of God?"

"There is no other way," said Amroth; "you do not understand how terrible perfect love is. It is because it is perfect that it is terrible. Our own imperfect love has some weakness in it. It is mixed with pleasure, and then it is not a sacrifice; one gives as much of oneself as one chooses; one is known just so far as one wishes to be known. But here with God there must be no concealment—though even there a man can withhold his heart from God—God never uses compulsion; and the will can prevail even against Him. But the reason of the leap that must be taken is this: it is the last surrender, and it cannot be made on our terms and conditions; it must be absolute. And what I feared for you was not anything that would happen if you did commit yourself to God, but what would happen if you did not; for, of course, you could have resisted, and then you would have had to begin again."

I was silent for a little, and then I said: "I remember now more clearly, but did I really see Him? It seems so absolutely simple. Nothing happened. I just became one with the heart and life of the world; I came home at last. Yet how am I here? How is it I was not merged in light and life?"