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Page 46
"Yes, indeed," said Amroth, "it was the body that was tired--the soul is
always fresh and strong--but rest is not idleness. There is no such
thing as unemployment here, and there is hardly time, indeed, for all we
have to do. Every one really loves work. The child plays at working, the
man of leisure works at his play. The difference here is that work is
always amusing--there is no such thing as drudgery here."
We walked all through the village, which stretched far away into the
country. The whole place hummed like a beehive on a July morning. Many
sang to themselves as they went about their business, and sometimes a
couple of girls, meeting in the roadway, would entwine their arms and
dance a few steps together, with a kiss at parting. There was a sense of
high spirits everywhere. At one place we found a group of children
sitting in the shade of some trees, while a woman of middle age told
them a story. We stood awhile to listen, the woman giving us a pleasant
nod as we approached. It was a story of some pleasant adventure, with
nothing moral or sentimental about it, like an old folk-tale. The
children were listening with unconcealed delight.
When we had walked a little further, Amroth said to me, "Come, I will
give you three guesses. Who do you think, by the light of your
psychology, are all these simple people?" I guessed in vain. "Well, I
see I must tell you," he said. "Would it surprise you to learn that most
of these people whom you see here passed upon earth for wicked and
unsatisfactory characters? Yet it is true. Don't you know the kind of
boys there were at school, who drifted into bad company and idle ways,
mostly out of mere good-nature, went out into the world with a black
mark against them, having been bullied in vain by virtuous masters, the
despair of their parents, always losing their employments, and often
coming what we used to call social croppers--untrustworthy, sensual,
feckless, no one's enemy but their own, and yet preserving through it
all a kind of simple good-nature, always ready to share things with
others, never knowing how to take advantage of any one, trusting the
most untrustworthy people; or if they were girls, getting into trouble,
losing their good name, perhaps living lives of shame in big
cities--yet, for all that, guileless, affectionate, never excusing
themselves, believing they had deserved anything that befell them? These
were the sort of people to whom Christ was so closely drawn. They have
no respectability, no conventions; they act upon instinct, never by
reason, often foolishly, but seldom unkindly or selfishly. They give all
they have, they never take. They have the faults of children, and the
trustful affection of children. They will do anything for any one who is
kind to them and fond of them. Of course they are what is called
hopeless, and they use their poor bodies very ill. In their last stages
on earth they are often very deplorable objects, slinking into
public-houses, plodding raggedly and dismally along highroads, suffering
cruelly and complaining little, conscious that they are universally
reprobated, and not exactly knowing why. They are the victims of
society; they do its dirty work, and are cast away as offscourings. They
are really youthful and often beautiful spirits, very void of offence,
and needing to be treated as children. They live here in great
happiness, and are conscious vaguely of the good and great intention of
God towards them. They suffer in the world at the hands of cruel,
selfish, and stupid people, because they are both humble and
disinterested. But in all our realms I do not think there is a place of
simpler and sweeter happiness than this, because they do not take their
forgiveness as a right, but as a gracious and unexpected boon. And
indeed the sights and sounds of this place are the best medicine for
crabbed, worldly, conventional souls, who are often brought here when
they are drawing near the truth."
"Yes," I said, "this is just what I wanted. Interesting as my work has
lately been, it has wanted simplicity. I have grown to consider life too
much as a series of cases, and to forget that it is life itself that one
must seek, and not pathology. This is the best sight I have seen, for it
is so far removed from all sense of judgment. The song of the saints may
be sometimes of mercy too."
XXIV
"And now," said Amroth, "that we have been refreshed by the sight of
this guileless place, and as our time is running short, I am going to
show you something very serious indeed. In fact, before I show it you I
must remind you carefully of one thing which I shall beg you to keep in
mind. There is nothing either cruel or hopeless here; all is implacably
just and entirely merciful. Whatever a soul needs, that it receives; and
it receives nothing that is vindictive or harsh. The ideas of punishment
on earth are hopelessly confused; we do not know whether we are
revenging ourselves for wrongs done to us, or safeguarding society, or
deterring would-be offenders, or trying to amend and uplift the
criminal. We end, as a rule, by making every one concerned, whether
punisher or punished, worse. We encourage each other in vindictiveness
and hypocrisy, we cow and brutalise the transgressor. We rescue no one,
we amend nothing. And yet we cannot read the clear signs of all this.
The milder our methods of punishment become, the less crime is there to
punish. But instead of being at once kind and severe, which is perfectly
possible, we are both cruel and sentimental. Now, there is no such thing
as sentiment here, just as there is no cruelty. There is emotion in full
measure, and severity in full measure; no one is either pettishly
frightened or mildly forgiven; and the joy that awaits us is all the
more worth having, because it cannot be rashly enjoyed or reached by any
short cuts; but do not forget, in what you now see, that the end is
joy."
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