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Page 49
Presently, catching sight of one of the enclosures hard by, I said to
Amroth, "But there are some questions I must ask. What has just
happened had put it mostly out of my head. Those poor suffering souls
that we saw just now--it is well, with them, I am sure, so near the
Master of the Tower--he does not forget them, I am sure--but who are
they, and what have they done to suffer so?"
"I will tell you," said Amroth, "for it is a dark business. Those two
that you have seen--well, you will know one of them by name and fame,
and of the other you may have heard. The first, that old shaggy-haired
man, who lay upon the stones, that was ----"
He mentioned a name that was notorious in Europe at the time of my life
on earth, though he was then long dead; a ruthless and ambitious
conqueror, who poured a cataract of life away, in wars, for his own
aggrandisement. Then he mentioned another name, a statesman who pursued
a policy of terrorism and oppression, enriched himself by barbarous
cruelty exercised in colonial possessions, and was famous for the
calculated libertinism of his private life.
"They were great sinners," said Amroth, "and the sorrows they made and
flung so carelessly about them, beat back upon them now in a surge of
pain. These men were strangely affected, each of them, by the smallest
sight or sound of suffering--a tortured animal, a crying child; and yet
they were utterly ruthless of the pain that they did not see. It was a
lack, no doubt, of the imagination of which I spoke, and which makes all
the difference. And now they have to contemplate the pain which they
could not imagine; and they have to learn submission and humility. It is
a terrible business in a way--the loneliness of it! There used to be an
old saying that the strongest man was the man that was most alone. But
it was just because these men practised loneliness on earth that they
have to suffer so. They used others as counters in a game, they had
neither friend nor beloved, except for their own pleasure. They depended
upon no one, needed no one, desired no one. But there are many others
here who did the same on a small scale--selfish fathers and mothers who
made homes miserable; boys who were bullies at school and tyrants in the
world, in offices, and places of authority. This is the place of
discipline for all base selfishness and vile authority, for all who have
oppressed and victimised mankind."
"But," I said, "here is my difficulty. I understand the case of the
oppressors well enough; but about the oppressed, what is the justice of
that? Is there not a fortuitous element there, an interruption of the
Divine plan? Take the case of the thousands of lives wasted by some
brutal conqueror. Are souls sent into the world for that, to be driven
in gangs, made to fight, let us say, for some abominable cause, and
then recklessly dismissed from life?"
"Ah," said Amroth, "you make too much of the dignity of life! You do not
know how small a thing a single life is, not as regards the life of
mankind, but in the life of one individual. Of course if a man had but
one single life on earth, it would be an intolerable injustice; and that
is the factor which sets all straight, the factor which most of us, in
our time of bodily self-importance, overlook. These oppressors have no
power over other lives except what God allows, and bewildered humanity
concedes. Not only is the great plan whole in the mind of God, but every
single minutest life is considered as well. In the very case you spoke
of, the little conscript, torn from his home to fight a tyrant's
battles, hectored and ill-treated, and then shot down upon some crowded
battle-field, that is precisely the discipline which at that point of
time his soul needs, and the blessedness of which he afterwards
perceives; sometimes discipline is swift and urgent, sometimes it is
slow and lingering: but all experience is exactly apportioned to the
quality of which each soul is in need. The only reason why there seems
to be an element of chance in it, is that the whole thing is so
inconceivably vast and prolonged; and our happiness and our progress
alike depend upon our realising at every moment that the smallest joy
and the most trifling pleasure, as well as the tiniest ailment or the
most subtle sorrow, are just the pieces of experience which we are meant
at that moment to use and make our own. No one, not even God, can force
us to understand this; we have to perceive it for ourselves, and to live
in the knowledge of it."
"Yes," I said, "it is true, all that. My heart tells me so; but it is
very wonderful and mysterious, all the same. But, Amroth, I have seen
and heard enough. My spirit desires with all its might to be at its own
work, hastening on the mighty end. Now, I can hold no more of wonders.
Let me return."
"Yes," said Amroth, "you are right! These wonders are so familiar to me
that I forget, perhaps, the shock with which they come to minds unused
to them. Yet there are other things which you must assuredly see, when
the time comes; but I must not let you bite off a larger piece than you
can swallow."
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