But Jasper wasn’t done, and things were coming on which it was impossible to foresee. Suddenly I found Jasper on a new trail. This time it was what he called the assassination of Isaac. I discovered that Jasper could talk quite grammatically when he was on his dignity; but, when he struck the abandon and lawlessness of his imagination, he dropped back into his dialect and then he was at his greatest. I found also that he delighted in ponderous and sesquipedalian words. He rolled them under his tongue,—save when the words themselves sometimes rolled his tongue up,—and when he hit assassination, the pronunciation would have made a thoughtful mule smile. But the word was simply a bit of dynamite to blow up his crowd and to kindle new flames in his fancy.
Jasper’s picture of Abraham had the flavour of a poem. He stood him up on a lofty pedestal, painted him as a man without a vice;—the pink of a gentleman, the prince of his tribe, the companion of the Lord God, the faithful father and the Father of the Faithful. Since that day, whenever I get tired or feel that I have done something mean, and want to give my moral nature a set up, I recall Jasper’s poem on Abraham.
The incident upon which he fastened was the tragical story of the sacrifice of Isaac. He told how the Lord waked Abraham up at night and tickled the old gentleman with the thought that there were some new honours coming on for Isaac, and then in a flash, commanded him to take the boy and go on a three days’ run to a mountain and kill and burn him up. The way he portrayed the mental and emotional conflicts of Abraham during those days was like a steel pointed plow in the soil of the soul. Then when they got in sight of the mountain and Abraham halted the cavalcade, and he and the boy, parting from the rest, set out to climb the mountain alone I got mad and felt like ripping the whole schedule into fragments. There was a deadly hush on the crowd. The air was tense, and all who were capable of it turned pale. Just then Jasper gave a slight jerk to the turn of things and came to my relief.
“Why yer reckin Gord try dis thing on Abraham?” Jasper asked in a singularly cool manner. “I tell yer why. Gord not only wants ter know His people iz all rite, but He wants de wurl’ ter know dat dey iz all rite, an’ more dan dat, He wants His people ter hev de comfut dat dey is all rite too. Over in de Hebrews, most near de en’ uv de Bibul, we iz inform’d dat by faith Aberham, wen he wuz tried, offur’d up Isuk. God know’d dat Aberham lov’ Isuk better dan anything on de earth, an’ dat he got mity big hopes ’bout his son’s futur. So de Lord broke on ’im onexpectid an’ order’d ’im ter git out ter Mount Morier an’ put his son ter death. It look mity hard an’ strange ter Aberham, but he wuk’d it out. He say ef Gord es gwine ter carry out de plan ’bout Isuk raisin’ a gret nashun an’ he kill Isuk, den de Lord hay ter rais’ ’im up agin, an’ so he say I’ll do wat de Lord tel me an’ ax no questions.
“By de way, yonder dey iz, on de top uv de mountin. Aberham put up thar a big altur an’ he done tuk dat wood dat Isuk kerried an’ put it under de altur to start de fire. He also got de knife laid out dar shinin’ in de sun, sharp es a razer. He call Isuk an’ Isuk walk up pert an’ willin’ an’ mity intristid in wat’s gwine on, an’ wonderrin’ whar his father gwine to git an offrin’, whar de lam’ fer de slaughter wuz. Den Aberham ondress Aisuk an’ tie his feet an’ han’s an’ lay ’im up on dat altur. Solem time, I tell yer. Den he turn roun’ an’ pick up dat blade an’ he turn roun’ ter de altur an’ up he lif’ his gret arm high over his hed wid de knife in his han’. It stay up dar a sekkun’, an’ den wid a suddin flash down it starts.
“Oh, my Gord! Aberham’s han’ ’s parrerlized; fer de earth farly shuk wid de mity vois uv de Lord Gord: ‘Aberham, Aberham, hol’ on! Lay not thy han’ erpon de chile uv de Promis’. I jes’ wan’ ter try yer!’ Wat dat out dar in de brush erblatin’ and erscramblin’? Gord had prepar’d de sacrerfice, an’ Aberham, undoin’ de boy’s han’s an’ feet, hugs ’im ter his hart and cries and shouts tell it look lik de pillers uv de heavens trimbul’d wid de joy.”
Now this is the way I remember it, but Jasper was never put on paper. If you were not there, you don’t understand. Of course, it was foolish in me, but that great crowd was in such a tumult, and John Jasper seemed in some way so transfigured, and, without knowing why, I was greatly tempted to let out one tremendous yell. There was something in me that needed to be let off, and I cannot tell what I really did, and no matter any way. The strain was so pitiless that I wanted fresh air and would probably have gone out, except that it was the one thing that was physically impossible.
Yet another scene comes back to me. Jasper had paraded his Scriptures in long array in support of his view, that the sun do move, and he had such a tempestuous sense of victory that he turned loose all of his legions upon his scientific antagonists. He called them his “Ferloserfers” and talked hotly about the books which they were all the time sending him. He said that he would like to “huddle all dese books in a pile an’ cornsine ’em ter de flames. Dat’s wat ought ter be done. Dey ar weppuns wid wich Satun wud ’stroy de Word uv Gord.”
The approval of this radical proceeding was accentuated with groans, and shouts, and scornful laughter, which surged through the house like a maddened river. As a fact, I am not much ahead of Jasper in scientific knowledge, but I am not one of those flabby sort who jumped up to say that Jasper was simply voicing what they had believed all the time. Through it all, I kept on believing in the rotation of the earth, just as I had before, and I really thought before I got there that I would get enough fun out of the occasion to supply me for scores of Sundays. The curious result of it all was that Jasper didn’t convert me to his theory, nor did he convert me to his religion, but he did convert me to himself. I found myself turning to him with a respect and kindliness of feeling that greatly surprised me. I felt his greatness. I believed in his sincerity, and to me he was a philosopher, sound in his logic, mighty in his convictions, though he might be wrong in his premises.
Now in plain contradiction of what I have said I must make an admission. In the triumph of his ending Jasper polled his crowd to see how his theory was prospering. He bade everybody who really endorsed his theory that the sun moved to show the hand. I stretched up my arm about four feet, and would have punched the ceiling with my fingers if it could have been done. Yes, I voted that the earth was flat and had four corners, and that the sun drove his steeds from the gates of the morning over to the barns in the West, and I never asked the question for a moment as to how the team was got back during the night. Call me a hypocrite, if it will comfort you to do it; that’s a very gentle way to speak to a reporter, but I was dead sincere. My vote was in favour of Jasper’s logic, his genuineness, his originality, his philosophic honesty, and his religion. If it was hypocrisy to hold up the hand on that occasion, then there was a mammoth pile of hypocrites; for it seemed to me that there were forty hundred of the Brirareus family present and that the last one of them tried to hold up each one of his hands higher than all of his other hands and higher than anybody else’s hands.