A Twentieth Century Idealist

by Henry Pettit

Adele caught sight of him in that attitude, and gave a shudder. She knew she could not endure to witness the next act. Naught could have induced her to turn spiritually from the poor nature-worshipers at such a moment, yet she could not accept their primitive methods as other than downright cruelty to-day. The sharp glittering knife, the rough stone, the priest’s stolid expression; and above all else, the unsuspecting little kid, so docile, as if among friends. Verily, the trustful eyes of the little animal seemed to speak the very words: “Ye are my friends, while I am yet with you.”

Adele buried her face upon the Doctor’s shoulder, and only heard without seeing the sacrifice which followed.

And behold! one of the most natural yet mysterious of all the phenomena in nature at once followed: Adele, embodying in her own personality the progress made in appreciation of religious ritual upon earth since primitive times, while spared the terror of realism, was more deeply affected than by realism itself; the things done had greater scope and power, the spiritual impression was far more profound and lasting than the effect of any spectacle which had actually been witnessed, and this in the very nature of truth progressive. The mind is greater than the eye, the Spirit of Truth is greater than the mind, the real growth is not in the intellect but in the spirit; aye, “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Knowledge is power, but the spirit giveth immortality.”

Adele heard the cry of pain, the cry of life departing. It was only that of an animal, an innocent kid, but it and its innocence stood in lieu of many human beings. She heard the chant of the natives calling aloud, heavenward! above the cries of the innocent sacrifice; the people seemed themselves to be suffering. They were, yet they were not; not physically, yet their cries sounded as if the knife might be entering their very vitals. No realism apparent to mortal eyes could have been so powerful to affect them spiritually—the noblest, the divine in their personality; not unless nature itself had witnessed by taking part; not unless the veil of the Himalaya Temple had closed again, or “the sun had been darkened over all the earth,” or some such occurrence had transpired to direct attention to an event affecting humanity at large.

Then the strangest part of this primitive ritual followed; enduring in its action, and lasting in memory. An event implying mystery took place, a seeming mystery was suggested, a philosophic truth inculcated. How so by such a primitive uneducated people, yet able to embody what to this day dominates the profoundest concepts of philosophic man?

With the passing of the life by sacrifice, the life from the shed blood as it curdled and sank into the ground, went also the moans and dirges of those for whom the sacrifice had been made. The Lepcha voices changed in quality, manifesting great gain in force of conviction, rose higher and higher, and finally gave vent to cries of exultation, aspiration, exaltation—they chanted a triumph: a victory leading them onwards and upwards towards something beyond in the direction of the Eternal Summits magnificent before their very eyes. It was as if they saw the truth in their faith no longer militant and sacrificing, but triumphant in the Celestial Realm.

Strange, yet a natural consequence of the truth as they saw it: as the life of the kid departed by the blood of sacrifice returning into the earth among the grass of the field from which it had come and upon which it had fed, there arose a new life—a resurrection from the depths of misery and woe; a new song—a triumphal song—a song of the Saved Ones. The native choristers seemed possessed with renewed hope and vitality; and acting under these influences they found the burden of their song changed to suit a new condition which they certainly discerned.

In the case of these Himalaya nature-worshipers, this ordinary killing of a beast for food, as practiced by their ancestors from time immemorial, had been used by the Mind of Nature, the Creator Father, to teach a philosophic truth through the religious sense; the full significance of which was not learned by humanity until millenniums after those primitive ancestors had found it to be a fact in nature.

Truly, this ancient ritual was profound in significance; it had been so from the beginning.

Adele next heard the priest speaking aloud in a clear exulting tone; it sounded as if he were addressing a multitude. She would have given much to have comprehended fully what he said, but it was lost to her; his words passed into the distance over the tree-tops, into space, off towards the Celestial region where the Good Spirit would both hear and understand. Then ensued an interval of suspense; all she heard was the sound of broken twigs and a slight tapping. It was the worshipers attaching some feathers of the fowl and small pieces of raw flesh of the kid to the trees. The feathers were to flutter in the wind as more signals to the Spirits of the Air. The hair of the goat was to be blown by the breeze as more prayers or symbols of propitiation, ever active before the Good Spirits.