“That is true; but why is there all this wretchedness? Because the world is trying to get along without God. Look!” The bishop stooped and took [pg 181]up a green-backed beetle. “If I cast this insect into the water it will suffer and die. If I fling it into the fire it will writhe and perish in agony. Neither water nor fire is the element for which it was created—in which to exist and be happy. The divine law is the atmosphere in which man is made to live. Because there is deflection from that, and man seeks other ends than that for which he was made, therefore comes wretchedness. The law of God is the law man must know, and knowing, pursue to be perfectly happy and to become a perfect being.”
“Now I have you!” exclaimed Æmilius, with a laugh. “There are no men more wretched than Christians who possess, and, I presume, keep this law. They abstain from our merry-makings, from the spectacles; they are liable to torture and to death.”
“We abstain from nothing that is wholesome and partaken in moderation; but from drunkenness, surfeiting, and what is repugnant to the clean mind. As to the persecution we suffer, the powers of evil rebel against God, and stir up bad men to resist the truth. But let me say something further—if I do not weary you.”
“Not at all; you astonish me too much to weary me.”
“You are dropped suddenly—cast up by the sea on a strange shore. You find yourself where you have never been before. You know not where to go—how to conduct yourself among the natives; what fruits you may eat as wholesome, and must reject as poisonous. You do not know what course to pursue to reach your home, and fear at every step to get further from it. You cry out for a chart to show you where you are, and in what direction you should direct your steps. Every child born into this world is in a like predicament. It wants a chart, and to know its bearings. This is not the case with any animal. Every bird, fish, beast, knows what to do to fulfill the objects of its existence. Man alone does not. He has aspirations, glimmerings, a law of nature traced, but not filled in. He has lived by that natural law—you live under it, and you experience its inadequacy. That is why your conscience, all mankind, with inarticulate longing desires something further. Now I ask you, as I did once before, is it conceivable that the Creator of man, who put in man’s heart that aspiration, that longing to know the law of his being, without which [pg 183]his life is but a miserable shipwreck—is it conceivable that He should withhold from him the chart by which he can find his way?”
“You have given me food for thought. Yet, my doubts still remain.”
“I cannot give you faith. That lightens down from above. It is the gift of God. Follow the law of your conscience and He may grant it you. I cannot say when or how, and what means he may employ—but if you are sincere and not a trifler with the truth—He will not deny it you. But see—here comes some one who desires to speak with you.”
Æmilius looked in the direction indicated, and saw Callipodius coming up from the water-side, waving his hand to him. So engrossed had he been in conversation with Castor, that he had not observed the arrival of a boat at the landing-place.
At once the young lawyer sped to meet his client, manifesting the utmost impatience.
“What tidings—what news?” was his breathless question.