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Page 44
"Oh," said the man, looking at us, "I am better, much better. The light
is breaking in, but it is a sore business, when I was so strong in my
pride."
"Ah," said our guide, "it is indeed a slow process; but happiness and
health must be purchased; and every day I see clearly that you are
drawing nearer to the end of your troubles--you will soon be leaving us!
But now I want you kindly to bestir yourself, and talk a little to this
friend of ours, who has not been long with us, and finds the place
somewhat, bewildering. You will be able to tell him something of what is
passing in your mind; it will do you good to put it into words, and it
will be a help to him."
"Very well," said the man gravely, "I will do my best." And the others
withdrew, leaving me with the man. When they had gone, the man asked me
to be seated, and leaning his head upon his hand he said, "I do not know
how much you know and how little, so I will tell you that I left the
world very confident in a particular form of faith, and very much
disposed to despise and even to dislike those who did not agree with me.
I had lived, I may say, uprightly and purely, and I will confess that I
even welcomed all signs of laxity and sinfulness in my opponents,
because it proved what I believed, that wrong conduct sprang naturally
from wrong belief. I came here in great content, and thought that this
place was the reward of faithful living. But I had a great shock. I was
very tenderly attached to one whom I left on earth, and the severest
grief of my life was that she did not think as I did, but used to plead
with me for a wider outlook and a larger faith in the designs of God.
She used to say to me that she felt that God had different ways of
saving different people, and that people were saved by love and not by
doctrine. And this I combated with all my might. I used to say,
'Doctrine first, and love afterwards,' to which she often said, 'No,
love is first!'
"Well, some time ago I had a sight of her; she had died, and entered
this world of ours. She was in a very different place from this, but she
thought of me without ceasing, and her desire prevailed. I saw her,
though I was hidden from her, and looked into her heart, and discerned
that the one thing which spoiled her joy was that I was parted from her.
"And after that I had no more delight in my security. I began to suffer
and to yearn. And then, little by little, I began to see that it is
love after all which binds us together, and which draws us to God; but
my difficulty is this, that I still believe that my faith is true; and
if that is true, then other faiths cannot be true also, and then I fall
into sad bewilderment and despair." He stopped and looked at me fixedly.
"But," I said, "if I may carry the thought further, might not all be
true? Two men may be very unlike each other in form and face and
thought--yet both are very man. It would be foolish arguing, if a man
were to say, 'I am indeed a man, and because my friend is unlike
me--taller, lighter-complexioned, swifter of thought--therefore he
cannot be a man.' Or, again, two men may travel by the same road, and
see many different things, yet it is the same road they have both
travelled; and one need not say to the other, 'You cannot have travelled
by the same road, because you did not see the violets on the bank under
the wood, or the spire that peeped through the trees at the folding of
the valleys--and therefore you are a liar and a deceiver!' If one
believes firmly in one's own faith, one need not therefore say that all
who do not hold it are perverse and wilful. There is no excuse, indeed,
for not holding to what we believe to be true, but there is no excuse
either for interfering with the sincere belief of another, unless one
can persuade him he is wrong. Is not the mistake to think that one holds
the truth in its entirety, and that one has no more to learn and to
perceive? I myself should welcome differences of faith, because it shows
me that faith is a larger thing even than I know. What another sees may
be but a thought that is hidden from me, because the truth may be seen
from a different angle. To complain that we cannot see it all is as
foolish as when the child is vexed because it cannot see the back of the
moon. And it seems to me that our duty is not to quarrel with others who
see things that we do not see, but to rejoice with them, if they will
allow us, and meanwhile to discern what is shown to us as faithfully as
we can."
The man heard me with a strange smile. "Yes," he said, "you are
certainly right, and I bless the goodness that sent you hither; but when
you are gone, I doubt that I shall fall back into my old perplexities,
and say to myself that though men may see different parts of the same
thing, they cannot see the same thing differently."
"I think," I said, "that even that is possible, because on earth things
are often mere symbols, and clothe themselves in material forms; and it
is the form which deludes us. I do not myself doubt that grace flows
into us by very different channels. We may not deny the claim of any one
to derive grace from any source or symbol that he can. The only thing we
may and must dare to dispute is the claim that only by one channel may
grace flow. But I think that the words of the one whom you loved, of
whom you spoke, are indeed true, and that the love of each other and of
God is the force which draws us, by whatever rite or symbol or doctrine
it may be interpreted. That, as I read it, is the message of Christ, who
gave up all things for utter love."
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