So I saw this same youth pass on, in various stages of this picture, and before him I saw drawn, as though in another picture, a panorama of the edifices and institutions of the religions of all lands.
But the years passed, and the panorama of beliefs swept by, and no one could tell this man what was the Truth.
Yet after this young man had ceased to query and had closed his books, he one day entered alone into one of the great edifices built for the sake of that which he could not understand. In the picture I could see all this. I saw the young man cast himself face down among the cushions of a seat, and there he lay and listened to the music. This, too, I could hear. I could hear the peal of the organ arise like voices of the spirits, going up, up, whispering, appealing, promising, assuring. Then—for I could see and hear with him—there came to that young man when he ceased to seek, the very exaltation he had longed to know.
“Ah! yes, Singing Mouse,” I said, “it was very beautiful. But music is not final. Music is not the Truth. Tell me of these things.”
The Singing Mouse again seemed to hesitate. “It may be,” said the Singing Mouse slowly, “that the Truth will never be found between the covers of any book, no matter how wise. It may be that it never will be found by any who search for it always within walls built by human hands. It may be that no man can convey to another that which is the Truth to him. It may be that the Truth can never be grasped, never be weighed or formulated.
“The ways of Nature are always the same, but Nature does not ask exactness of form. Why, then, shall we ask exactness of faith? The true faith is nothing final, not more than are final the carved stones of the church which offers it so strenuously. The stones crumble and decay, but new churches rise. New faiths will rise. But were not all well?”
At these things I wondered, and over them I thought for a time, but yet I did not understand all that the Singing Mouse had said. As if it knew my thought, the Singing Mouse said to me:
“Your vision is too narrow. You seek the great truths in small places, and wonder that you do not find them. Come with me.”
The Singing Mouse waved its hand, as was its wont, and as in a dream and as though I were now the young man whom we had lately seen, I was transported, by what means I could not tell, into a place far distant. At first it seemed to me there was a figure in vestments, speaking I scarce knew of what. Again there was a church or a cathedral. I could see the rafters as I lay. I could hear the solemn and exalted peal of the organ. I could hear voices that sang up and up, thrilling, compelling.