The girl studied him for a few moments. The man had always been an enigma to her. She could not understand a nature that soared into the spiritual empyrean one moment, and in the next fell floundering into the bottomless pit of materialism. The undulating curve which marked the development of the Rincón mind was to her a thing incomprehensible.
“Padre dear,” she said at length, a little sadly. “When you 253 look at the first chapter in the Bible and read there how God made everything, and man in His image, in the image of Mind, you see, and are very happy. But when you go on to the second chapter and read how the Lord God––not God, but the Lord God––made a man of dirt, and how this dirt man listened to his false thoughts and fell, why, then you are unhappy. Don’t you see any difference between them? Can’t you see that one is a story of the real creation; and the other is the human mind’s interpretation of the creation––an interpretation made according to the way the human mind thinks the creating ought to have been in matter? You told me this yourself. And the second chapter shows how far the human mind can go––it shows how limited it is. The human mind couldn’t get any farther than that––couldn’t make a man out of anything but dirt. It couldn’t understand the spiritual creation. And so it made a creation of its own. It couldn’t understand God; and so it made a Lord God, just like itself. Can’t you see? Padre dear, can’t you? And if you see, can’t you stick to it and live it, until all the unreal passes away?”
Josè smiled into her earnest little face. “I will never cease to try, chiquita,” he said. “But we were talking about loving Diego, weren’t we? Yes, you are right, we must try to love him, for the good Jesus said we must love our enemies.”
“But, if we love everybody, then we haven’t any enemies. You can’t love a real enemy––and so there aren’t any real ones. We see in other people only what is in our own thought. If we see evil as real, why, then we will see bad men and women all around us, for we only look at our thoughts. But, if we look only at God’s thoughts––Padre dear, I didn’t see anything but God’s thought when Padre Diego had me in his arms. I knew it wasn’t real, but was just the human way of looking at things. And I knew that love was the great principle of everything, and that it just couldn’t fail, any more than the principle of algebra could fail to solve my problems. Well,” she concluded with a little sigh, “it didn’t.”
“Dear little girl, you must be patient, very patient, with your blundering old Padre Josè. He is groping for the light––”
In an instant, throwing the canoe into imminent danger of upsetting, the impulsive girl had hurled herself into his lap and clasped her arms about his neck. Juan and Lázaro by a quick and skillful effort kept the craft upright.
“Oh, Padre dear!” she cried, “I didn’t mean to say a word that would make you unhappy––Padre dear, I love you so! Padre, look at your little girl, and tell her that you love her!”
He clasped her fiercely. “No––no!” he murmured, “I––I must not––and––yet––chiquita––I adore you!” He buried his face in her shoulder.
Juan made a wry mouth as he looked at the girl in the priest’s arms. Then he suggested that a separation would more evenly balance the boat. Carmen laughed up at him, but slipped down into the keel and sat with her head propped against Josè’s knees.