‘Hullo, sonny,’ I exclaimed,‘what’s the matter?’
‘Oh, nothing!’ he replied, between his sobs.
‘Then what on earth are you crying for?’
‘Oh, nothing!’ he repeated.
[80]
I respected his delicacy, and probed no farther into the cause of his discomfiture, but I had collected further evidence of my contention that there is more in Nothing than you would suppose. Nor had I gone far before still further corroboration greeted me. For, at the top of the street, I came upon a group of lads in the centre of which was a boy with a very handsome prize. I paused and admired it.
‘And what was this for?’ I asked.
‘Oh, nothing!’ he answered, with a blush.
‘But, my dear fellow, you must have done something to deserve it!’
‘Oh, it was nothing!’ he reiterated, and it was from his companions that I obtained the information that I sought. But here again it was made clear to me that there is a good deal in Nothing. Nothing is worth thinking about. It is a huge mistake to take things at their face value. Nothing may sometimes represent a modest contrivance for hiding everything; and we must not allow ourselves to be deceived.
An old tradition assures us that, on the sudden death of one of Frederick the Great’s chaplains, a certain candidate showed himself most eager for the vacant post. The king told him to proceed to the royal chapel and to preach an impromptu sermon on a text that he would find in the pulpit on arrival. [81] When the critical moment arrived, the preacher opened the sealed packet, and found it—blank! Not a word or pen-mark appeared! With a calm smile the clergyman cast his eyes over the congregation, and then said, ‘Brethren, here is Nothing. Blessed is he whom Nothing can annoy, whom Nothing can make afraid or swerve from his duty. We read that God from Nothing made all things. And yet look at the stupendous majesty of His infinite creation! And does not Job tell us that Nothing is the foundation of everything? “He hangeth the world upon Nothing,” the patriarch declares.’ The candidate then proceeded to elaborate the wonder and majesty of that creation that emanated from Nothing, and depended on Nothing. I need scarcely add that Frederick bestowed upon so ingenious a preacher the vacant chaplaincy. And in the years that followed he became one of the monarch’s most intimate friends and most trusted advisers.