"O, yea," said Paul, "and measurelessly more.
No misery is like sin, but sin is evil
Not to be told in terms of misery.
The sinner is an enemy of God;
God is against him, and the wrath of God
Abides upon him; such is the evil of sin.
For sin is the transgression of the law,
That law which is the will of God express
In precept, or that law more broad, more deep,
Higher, which is the will of God inwrought
Into the substance of the human heart.
Thou canst not live transgressor of this law
And be at peace; God is too merciful
To suffer it. For mercy it is in God
Which wrath we call; against the sinner, wrath;
But toward the man, mercy eager to save:
The wrath of God is as the shepherd's crook
Which with threat drives the foolish flock to fold.
Hasten, obey, be folded, thou, by Him,
The shepherd and the bishop of thy soul.
Within is safety, life, and peace, and joy;
Ruin, without, and wretchedness, and death."
"A living Will," said Krishna, "in the waste,
The wild waste, of a world of chance and fate—
A Will amid it, nay, much more, a Mind,
A Heart, present, presiding over all
The blind whirl of the things we see, whereof
We seem ourselves a petty part, impelled
Helpless—whither, who knows?—this is to me
A thought greater than the great universe;
Yet does it less than that oppress, appal;
I feel my spirit in me quickened too
While overwhelmed. O were it true indeed!
And were this Being whom thou namest God
Willing to condescend and think on me!
I feel that I could love Him if I could
Believe Him—in the teeth of all that seems
To swear against Him in this dreadful world!"
"The whole creation groaneth, yea," said Paul,
"And travaileth under the curse of sin.
But the blind-bondman universe awaits
With earnest expectation a new day
When he shall be delivered from his thrall,
To share, we know not how, that liberty
Which is the birthright of the sons of God.
Meantime the discord and the perjury
Thou seest of a distracted universe
Forsworn against its Maker! Yet even so
Enough abides unshaken from the firm
Fair order of the first all-wise design,
To testify His everlasting power
Who framed it. But, beyond that perjury
Thou findest in the janglings of the world
Browbeating faith herself to disbelieve,
Is the blaspheming atheous spirit in man
Which will not God. O strife and warfare strange
Within us! Godward-springing instinct fain
To answer 'Abba, Father!' to His call,
And all the while rebellion muttering, 'Nay!'
O wretched, wretched creatures that we are!
Who, who is able to deliver us
Out of the clinging body of this death?
I thank my God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!
"Christ's voice against the clamor of the world,
His still small voice, heard by the inner ear
Of whosoever will heed and obey,
Makes music of this roaring dissonance
Which dins and deafens every one besides.
Hush the gainsaying of the heart within,
O Krishna, the dull heart of unbelief,
And hearken if thou shalt not presently
Hear Him say, Come. It is a heavenly sound,
Heard never save by the anointed ear
Of true obedience; but once heard thereby
It ever after lingers in the sense
A haunting invitation still obeyed.
And still as we obey it, drawing near
And nearer to that Voice forevermore,
Forevermore we hear the harmony
Evolved from the confusions of the world
Grow perfect and the discord die away.
Like as a human father pitieth
His children, so Jehovah God Most High
Pitieth them that fear Him. This long since
We heard through one inspired from God to sing
It cadenced in our sweet and solemn psalms."
Krishna could not but speak his froward thought:
"It looks such contradiction to the fact
Staring us in the face from round about
Us wheresoever in the world we turn
Our eyes and see the seeming pitiless
Ongoing of the blind necessity
That, deaf and blind and irresistible,
Rides like a Juggernaut upon his car
Crushing beneath the wheels the hearts of men
And spirting up their blood to splash his feet!"
Unwonted passion heaved the Indian's breast,
And shook the tones in which he said these things.
Paul gently made reply as one that knew:
"Yea, such the spectacle that sight beholds;
Nor ever other had the mind of man
Guessed, had the voice of God not spoken clear
To Faith, revealing His veiled fatherhood:
The blatant falsehood of the seeming fact
Failed in the ear of Faith hearing that word.
She said: 'It must be true; how otherwise
Than because God Himself who cannot lie
Declared it could such gospel come to men?
Not from the world of sense; that world instead
Gainsays it with all clamor of perjury;
Not from the heart of man averse from God
And full of alien fear through hate of Him:
For filial fear it is, begot of love,
Not alien fear, of conscious hate begot,
That God desires from men and will reward
With pity like a father's for their state.
Yea, such a gospel must from God have come;
Let God be true and the whole world a liar.'
So Faith cried out in passionate protest
Against appearance, and clasped fast her creed.
"But when the fulness of the time was come,
God sent a mighty succor down to Faith
Faint with her fasting in the wilderness.
From His own bosom He His only Son,
Only and well-belovéd, the express
Image of His own person and the bright
Effulgence of the Father's glory, tore
And bade Him, joyful at the mission He:
'Empty Thyself of thine equality
With Me in Godhead; take the lowly form
Of a bondservant; fashioned like a man
Humble Thyself to be obedient
Through all degrees of all obedience
Unfaltering down to that extreme degree
Of death, yea even of death upon the cross!'
For God so loved the world, with pity loved,
That He His own Son and His only gave
That whosoever should on Him believe
Might perish not, but have eternal life.
"A paradox divine of love and pity—
God sparing not His own coequal Son,
But, last impossible proof of love to men,
Giving Him freely up to suffer so,
The just for the unjust, if haply He
Might bring us unto God! His father's heart
Of tenderness toward His obedient Son
Breaking, while He that Son delivered up—
Father and Son together overcome
With love and pity toward a wretched race
Apostate, disobedient, rebel, lost!
Well spake that Savior Son while yet He lived
A heavenly exile here on earth—He now
About to suffer at the hands of whom
He came to save—making the sum of sin
Consist in not believing upon Him.
Not to believe on such as Jesus Christ
Seen living, the exemplar of all good,
That, that, was sin indeed. Yet greater sin,
Yea, sin inclusive and conclusive, this—
Not to believe on Christ raised from the dead!"
Paul interrupted his discourse with pause.
He eased the pressure on his heart with prayer,
While Krishna slowly, softly, sadly said:
'Sin as transgression of a law supreme;
Law as expression of a living Will;
Nay, the existence of a living Will
Sovereign over an ordered universe;
Much more, a Heart behind the Will to feel
Pity and love, such pity and such love,
Not idle passion but at work to save,
Save at vicarious cost so great—these thoughts,
Ill canst thou know how new they are to me,
How strange! Sin, sin—and sinner I, for this,
That I do not believe on him!
"But thou,
Tell me, What is it to believe on him?
I willingly believe that he was good,
Was wise, was gentle, gracious, merciful."
"Believe that he was what he claimed to be,"
Said Paul, "absolute lord of life and thought
To all men, and to thee. Acknowledge Him
Thy Lord; believing is obeying here.
To whom He Master is, to them is He
Also a Savior; trust thyself to Him."
"A fearful act of self-surrender thou,
O Paul," said Krishna, "thus proposest to me.
Take Jesus for my lord in life and thought,
Absolute lord as thou hast strongly said it,
That might be, for what were it but exchange
Of masters, Buddha left for Jesus; true,
Never such claim of mastership made he,
Our Buddha, as thou sayest thy Jesus makes—
But to commit myself into the hands
Of any, whosoever he may be,
To be saved—saved from what, to what, how saved?"—