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“I think Cantar-las-horas is getting ready to sing the Vespers,chiquita. And so Doña Maria probably needs you now. We will talk more about the eye to-morrow.”
By the light of his sputtering candle that night Josè sat with elbows propped on the table, his head clasped in his hands, and a sketch of the human eye before him. In his confident attempt to explain to Carmen the process of cognition he had been completely baffled. Certainly, light coming from an object enters the eye and casts a picture upon the retina. He had often seen the photographic camera exhibit the same phenomenon. The law of the impenetrability of matter had to be set aside, of course––or else light must be pure vibration, without a material vibrating concomitant. Then, too, it was plain that the light in some way communicated its vibration to the little projecting ends of the optic nerve, which lie spread out over the rear inner surface of the eye. And equally patent that this vibration is in some way taken up by the optic nerve and transmitted to the center of sight in the brain. But after that––what? He laughed again at Carmen’s pertinent question about the mind climbing up into the brain to see the vibrating nerve. But was it so silly a presumption, after all? Is the mind within the brain, awaiting in Stygian darkness the advent of the vibrations which shall give it pictures of the outside world? Or is the mind outside of the brain, but still slavishly forced to look at these vibrations of the optic nerve and then translate them into terms of things without? What could a vibrating nerve suggest to a well-ordered mind, anyway? He might as logically wave a piece of meat and expect thereby to see a world! He laughed aloud at the thought. Why does not the foolish mind leave the brain and look at the picture on the retina? Or why does it not throw off its shackles and look directly at the object to be cognized, instead of submitting to dependence upon so frail a thing as fleshly eyes and nerves?
As he mused and sketched, unmindful of the voracious mosquitoes or the blundering moths that momentarily threatened his light, it dawned slowly upon him that the mind’s awareness of material objects could not possibly depend upon the vibrations of pieces of nerve tissue, so minute as to be almost invisible to the unaided sight. Still more absurd did it appear to him that his own mind, of which he might justly boast tremendous powers, could be prostituted to such a degree that its knowledge of things must be served to it on waving pieces of flesh.
And how about the other senses––touch, hearing? Did the ear hear, or the hand feel? He had always accepted the71general belief that man is dependent absolutely upon the five physical senses for his knowledge of an outside world. And now a little thought showed that from these five senses man could not possibly receive anything more than a series of disconnected vibrations! And, going a step further, anything that the mind infers from these vibrations is unquestionably inferredwithout a particle of outside authority!
He rose and paced the floor. A tremendous idea seemed to be knocking at the portal of his mentality.
What can the mind know? Assuredly nothing but the contents of itself. But the contents of mind are thoughts, ideas, mental things. Do solid material objects enter the mind? Certainly not! Then the mind knows not things, but itsthoughts of things. And instead of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling solid material objects, the mind sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels––what? The contents of itself! Its own thoughts and ideas! And the outer world? Is only what the mindbelievesit to be. But surely his mind saw an outer world through the medium of his eye! No. His mind saw only its own concepts of an outer world––and these concepts, being mental, might take on whatever hue and tinge his mind decreed. In other words, instead of seeing a world of matter, he was seeing only a mental picture of a world. And that picture was in his own mind,and formed by that mind!
The man seized his hat and hurried out into the night. He walked rapidly the full length of the town. His mind was wrestling with stupendous thoughts.
An hour later he returned to his house, and seizing a pencil, wrote rapidly: Matter is mental. We do not see or feel matter, but wethinkit. It is formed and held as a mental concept in every human mind. The material universe is but the human mind’s concept of a universe, and can only be this mentality’s translation to itself of infinite Mind’s purely mental Creation.
“And so,” he commented aloud, sitting back and regarding his writing, “all my miserable life I have been seeing only my own thoughts! And I have let them use me and color my whole outlook!”
He extinguished the candle and threw himself, fully dressed, upon his bed.
72CHAPTER 10
Momentous changes, of far-reaching effect, had come swiftly upon Josè de Rincón during the last few days, changes which were destined after much vacillation and great mental struggle to leave a reversed outlook. But let no one think these changes fortuitous or casual, the chance result of a new throw of Fate’s dice. Josè, seeing them dimly outlined, did not so regard them, but rather looked upon them as the working of great mental laws, still unknown, whose cumulative effect had begun a transformation in his soul. How often in his seminary days he had pondered the scripture, “He left not Himself without witness.” How often he had tried to see the hopeless confusion of good and evil in the world about him as a witness to the One who is of purer eyes than to behold evil. And he had at last abandoned his efforts in despair. Yet that there must be something behind the complex phenomena which men call life, he knew. Call it what he would––law, force, mind, God, or even X, the great unknown quantity for which life’s intricate equations must be solved––yetsomethingthere was in it all which endured in an eternal manifestation. But could that something endure in an expression both good and evil?
He had long since abandoned all study of the Bible. But in these last days there had begun to dawn upon him the conviction that within that strange book were locked mysteries which far transcended the wildest imaginings of the human mind. With it came also the certainty that Jesus had been in complete possession of those sacred mysteries. There could be no question now that his mission had been woefully misunderstood, often deliberately misinterpreted, and too frequently maliciously misused by mankind. His greatest sayings, teachings so pregnant with truth that, had they been rightfully appropriated by men, ere this would have dematerialized the universe and revealed the spiritual kingdom of God, had been warped by cunning minds into crude systems of theology and righteous shams, behind which the world’s money-changers and sellers of doves still drove their wicked traffic and offered insults to Truth in the temple of the Most High.
Oh, how he now lamented the narrowness and the intellectual limitations with which his seminary training had been hedged about! The world’s thought had been a closed book to him. Because of his morbid honesty, only such pages reached his eye as had passed the bigoted censorship of Holy73Church. His religious instruction had been served to him with the seal of infallible authority. Of other systems of theology he had been permitted only the Vatican’s biased interpretation, for the curse of Holy Church rested upon them. Of current philosophical thought, of Bible criticism and the results of independent scriptural research, he knew practically nothing––little beyond what the explorer had told him in their memorable talks a few weeks before in Cartagena. But, had he known it, these had unbarred the portals of his mind to the reception of the new ideas which, under a most powerful stimulus, were now flowing so steadily through them. That stimulus was Carmen.
To meet with a child of tender years who knows no evil is, after all, a not uncommon thing. For, did we but realize it, the world abounds in them. They are its glory, its radiance––until they are taught to heed the hiss of the serpent. Their pure knowledge of immanent good would endure––ah, who may say how long?––did not we who measure our wisdom by years forbid them with the fear-born mandate: “Thus far!” What manner of being was he who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not?” Oh, ye parents, who forbid your little ones to come to the Christ by hourly heaping up before them the limitations of fear and doubt, of faith in the power and reality of sin and evil, of false instruction, and withering material beliefs! Would not the Christ pray for you to-day, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”?
When Josè met Carmen she was holding steadfastly to her vision––the immanence and allness of God. Each day she created the morrow; and she knew to a certainty that it would be happy. Would he, clanking his fetters of worldly beliefs, be the one to shatter her illusion, if illusion it be? Nay, rather should he seek to learn of her, if; haply she be in possession of that jewel for which he had searched a vain lifetime. Already from the stimulus which his intercourse with the child had given his mental processes there had come a sudden liberation of thought. Into his freer mentality the Christ-idea now flowed.
Mankind complain that they cannot “prove” God. But Paul long since declared emphatically that to prove Him the human mind must be transformed. In the light of the great ideas which had dawned upon him in the past few days––the nature of God as mind, unlimited, immanent, eternal, and good; and the specious character of the five physical senses, which from the beginning have deluded mankind into the false belief that through them comes a true knowledge of the cosmos––Josè’s mentality was being formed anew.
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Hegel, delving for truth in a world of illusion, summed up a lifetime of patient research in the pregnant statement, “The true knowledge of God begins when we know that things as they are have no truth in them.” The testimony of the five physical senses constitutes “things as they are.” But––if Josè’s reasoning be not illogical––the human mind receives no testimony from these senses, which, at most, can offer but insensate and meaningless vibrations in a pulpy mass called the brain. The true knowledge of God, for which Josè had yearned and striven, begins only when men turn from the mesmeric deception of the physical senses, and learn that there is something, knowable and usable, behind them, and of whose existence they give not the slightest intimation.
It was Saturday. The church edifice was so far put in order that Josè found no reason for not holding service on the morrow. He therefore announced the fact, and told Carmen that he must devote the day to preparation. Their lessons must go over to Monday. Seeking the solitude of his house, Josè returned to his Bible.
He began with Genesis. “In the beginning––God.” Not, as in the codes of men, God last, and after every material expedient has been exhausted––but “to begin with.” Josè could not deny that for all that exists there is a cause. Nor can the human mind object to the implication that the cause of an existing universe must itself continue to exist. Even less can it deny that the framer of the worlds, bound together in infinite space by the unbreakable cables of infinite laws, must be omnipotent. And to retain its omnipotence, that cause must be perfect––absolutely good––every whit pure, sound, and harmonious; for evil is demonstrably self-destructive. And, lastly, what power could operate thus but an infinite intelligence, an all-inclusive mind?
Now let the human mentality continue its own reasoning, if so be that it hold fast to fact and employ logical processes. If “like produces like”––and from thistles figs do not grow––that which mind creates must be mental. And a good cause can produce only a good effect. So the ancient writer, “And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” The inspired scribe––inspired? Yes, mused Josè, for inspiration is but the flow of truth into one’s mentality––stopped not until he had said, “So God created man in His own image”––
Wait! He will drive that home.
––“in the image of God”––not in the image of matter, not in the likeness of evil––“created He him.” But what had now become of that man?
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So Jesus, centuries later, “God is spirit,” and, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Or, man––true man––expresses mind, God, and is His eternal and spiritual likeness and reflection. But, to make this still clearer to torpid minds, Paul wrote, “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” Then he added, “To be spiritually minded is life.” As if he would say, True life is theconsciousnessof spiritual things only.
Is human life aught but a series of states of consciousness? And is consciousness aught but mental activity?––for when the mind’s activity ceases, the man dies. But mental activity is the activity of thought.
“It is the activity of thought,” said Josè aloud, “that makes us believe that fleshly eyes see and ears hear. We see only our thoughts; and in some way they become externalized as our environment.”
His reasoning faculty went busily on. Thought builds images, or mental concepts, within the mind. These are the thought-objects which mankind believe they see as material things in an outer world. And so the world is within, not without. Jesus must have known this when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Did he not know the tremendous effects of thought when he said, “For as a man thinketh, so is he”? In other words, a man builds his own mental image of himself, and conveys it to the fellow-minds about him.
Josè again opened his Bible at random. His eye fell upon the warning of Jeremiah, “Hear, O earth, behold I will bring evil upon this people,even the fruit of their thoughts!” Alas! he needed no warning to show him now the dire results of his own past wrong thinking. Evil is but wrong thinking wrought out in life experience. And so the chief of sins is the breaking of the very first Commandment, the belief in other powers than God, the infinite mind that framed the spiritual universe.
“But we simply can’t help breaking the Commandment,” cried Josè, “when we see nothing but evil about us! And yet––we are seeing only the thoughts in our own minds. True––but how came they there? And whence? From God?”
Josè was quite ready to concede a mental basis for everything; to believe that even sin is but the thought of sin, false thought regarding God and His Creation. But, if God is all-inclusive mind, He must bethe only thinker. And so all thought must proceed from Him. All thought, both good and evil? No, for then were God maintaining a house divided against itself. And that would mean His ultimate dissolution.
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Infinite, omnipotent mind is by very logiccompelledto be perfect. Then the thoughts issuing from that mind must be good. So it must follow that evil thoughts come from another source. But if God is infinite, there is no other source, no other cause. Then there is but the single alternative left––evil thoughts must be unreal.
What was it that the explorer had said to him in regard to Spencer’s definition of reality? “That which endures.” But, for that matter, evil seems to be just as enduring as good, and to run its course as undeviatingly. After all, what is it that says there is evil? The five physical senses. But that again reduces to the thought of evil, for men see only their thoughts. These so-called senses say that the world is flat––that the sun circles the earth––that objects diminish in size with distance. They testify not to truth. Jesus said that evil, or the “devil,” was “a liar and the father of lies.” Then the testimony of the physical senses to evil––and there is no other testimony to its existence and power––is a lie. A lie is––what? Nothing. Reason has had to correct sense-testimony in the field of astronomy and show that the earth is not flat. Where, indeed, has reason not had to correct sense-testimony? For Josè could now see that all such testimony was essentially false. “Things as they are have no truth in them.” In other words, sense-testimony is false belief. Again, a lie. And the habitat of a lie is––nowhere. Did the world by clinging to evil and trying to make something of it, to classify it and reduce it to definite rules and terms, thus tend to make it real? Assuredly so. And as long as the world held evil to be real, could evil be overcome? Again, no. A reality endures forever.
Josè arose from his study. He believed he was close to the discovery of that solid basis of truth on which to stand while teaching Carmen. At any rate, her faith, which he could no longer believe to be baseless illusion, would not be shattered by him.
CHAPTER 11
Two weeks after his arrival in Simití Josè conducted his first services in the ancient church. After four years of silence, the rusty bell sent out its raucous call from the old tower that still morning and announced the revival of public worship.
As the priest stepped from the sacristy and approached the altar his heart experienced a sudden sinking. Before him his little flock bowed reverently and expectantly. Looking out at77them, a lump rose in his throat. He was their pastor, and daily his love had grown for these kindly, simple folk. And now, what would he not have given could he have stretched forth his hands, as did the Master, to heal them of their ills and lift them out of the shadows of ignorance! Ah, if he could have thrown aside the mummery and pagan ceremonialism which he was there to conduct, and have sat down among them, as Jesus was wont to do on those still mornings in Galilee! Instead, he stood before them an apostate vassal of Rome, hypocritically using the Church to shield and maintain himself in Simití while he reared away from her the child Carmen.
Yet, what could he do? He had heard the call; and he had answered, “Master, here am I.” And now he was occupying, while waiting to be led, step by step, out of his cruelly anomalous position and into his rightful domain. A traitor to Holy Church? Nay, he thought he would have been a traitor to all that was best and holiest within himself had he done otherwise. In the name of the Church he would serve these humble people. Serving them, he honored the Master. And honoring Christ, he could not dishonor the Church.
Josè’s conduct of the Mass was perfunctory. Vainly he strove to hold in thought the symbolism of the service, the offering of Christ as a propitiation for the world’s sins. But gradually the folly of Milton’s extravagant, wild dream, which the poet clothed in such imperishable beauty, stole over him and blinded this vision. He saw the Holy Trinity sitting in solemn council in the courts of heaven. He heard their perplexed discussion of the ravages of Satan in the terrestrial paradise below. He heard the Father pronounce His awful curse upon mankind. And he beheld the Son rise and with celestial magnanimity offer himself as the sacrificial lamb, whose blood should wash away the serpent-stain of sin. How inept the whole drama!
And then he thought of Carmen. He had seen her, as he looked out over his people, sitting with Doña Maria, arrayed in a clean white frock, and swinging her plump bare legs beneath the bench, while wonder and amazement peered out from her big brown eyes as she followed his every move. What would such things mean to her, whose God was ever-present good? What did they mean to the priest himself, who was beginning to see Him as infinite, divine mind, knowing no evil––the One whose thoughts are not as ours?
He took up the holy water and sprinkled the assemblage. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” But how is the human mind purged of error? By giving it truth. And does the infinite78mind purge the thought of men in any other way? His mind was full as he took up the Missal. “Kyrie Eleison,Christe Eleison.”
He hesitated. With a tug he pulled his mind back to the work before him. But why was he invoking clemency from One who knows no evil? Heretofore he had always thought that God knew evil, that He must recognize it, and that He strove Himself to overcome it. But if God knew evil, then evil were real and eternal! Dreamily he began to intone theGloria in Excelsis Deo. All hail, thou infinite mind, whose measureless depths mortal man has not even begun to sound! His soul could echo that strain forever.
He turned to the Lesson and read: “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” He stopped a moment for thought. TheLordGod! The mist of error watered the false thought––the one lie about God––and out of it formed the man of flesh, the false concept which is held in the minds of mortals. Aye, it was the lie, posing as the Lord of creation, which had formed its false man out of the dust of the ground, and had forced it upon the acceptance of mankind! Josè turned back and read the whole of the first chapter of Genesis, where he felt that he stood upon truth.
The tapers on the altar flickered fitfully. The disturbed bats blundered among the rafters overhead. Outside, the dusty roads burned with a white glare. Within, he and the people were worshiping God. Worship? This? “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” InTruth!
Josè recited the Nicene creed, with the thought that its man-made fetters had bound the Christian world for dreary centuries. Then, the Preface and Canon concluded, he pronounced the solemn words of consecration which turned the bread and wine before him into the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus. He looked at the wafer and the chalice long and earnestly. He––Josè de Rincón––mortal, human, a weakling among weaklings––could he command God by his “Hoc est enim corpus meum” to descend from heaven to this altar? Could he so invoke the power of the Christ as to change bread and wine into actual flesh and blood? And yet, with all the priestly powers which Holy Church had conferred upon him, he could not heal a single bodily ill, nor avert one human misfortune!
Ah, pagan Rome! Well have you avenged yourself upon those who wrought your fall, for in the death conflict you left the taint of your paganism upon them, and it endures in their sons even to this fair day!
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Josè deferred his sermon until the close of the service. He wanted time to think over again what he could say to these simple people. They sat before him, dull, inert, yet impressionable––bare of feet, or wearing hempen sandals, and clad in cheap cottons and calicos, with here and there a flash of bright ribbon among the women, and occasionally a parasol of brilliant hue, which the owner fondly clasped, while impatiently awaiting the close of the service that she might proudly parade it. A few of the men wore starched linen shirts, but without collars. The Alcalde, with his numerous family, and the family of Don Felipe Alcozer, sat well in front. The former regarded Josè expectantly, as the priest turned to deliver his simple sermon.
“My children,” Josè began, “when the good man whom we call the Saviour sent his disciples out into the world he told them to preach the gospel and heal the sick. We have no record that he asked them to do more, for that included his whole mission. I am here to do his work. And, as I believe myself to have been led to you, so I shall preach what I believe to be given me by the great Father of us all. I shall teach you the Christ as I comprehend him. I would I could heal the sick as well. But the gift of healing which Jesus bestowed has been lost to mankind.” He paused and seemed to think deeply. Then he continued:
“I am your servant, and your friend. I want you to believe that whatever I do in your midst and whatever I say to you follows only after I have prayerfully considered your welfare. As time has passed I have seemed to see things in a clearer light than before. What I may see in the future I shall point out to you as you are able to understand me. To that end we must suffer many things to be as they are for the present, for I am learning with you. I shall give you a single thought to take with you to-day. Jesus once said, ‘As a man thinketh, so is he.’ I want you to remember that, if you would be well and happy and prosperous, you must think only about good things. Some day you will see why this is so. But go back now to yourfincasand your fishing, to your little stores and your humble homes, firmly resolving never to think a bad thought, whether about yourself or your neighbor. And pray for yourselves and me––”
He looked off into the gloom overhead. Again he seemed to hear the Man of Galilee: “Ask and ye shall receive.”
“And, my children––”
He thought suddenly of Carmen and her visits to the shales. His face shone for a moment with a new light.
“––let your prayers be no mere requests that God will bless80us, but rather let them be statements that He is infinite good, and that He cannot do otherwise than give us all we need. No, I ask not that you intercede for me; nor shall I do so for you. But I do ask that you join with me in trying to realize that God is good; that He loves us as His dear children; and that He is daily, hourly pouring out His inexhaustible goodness upon us. We shall all see that goodness when we learn to think no evil.”
His eyes rested upon Carmen as he spoke these last words. Then with a simple invocation he dismissed the congregation.
The Alcalde carried Josè off to dinner with him, much against the inclination of the priest, who preferred to be alone. But the Alcalde was the chief influence in the town, and it was policy to cultivate him.
“The blessed Virgin shows that she has not forgotten Simití, Padre, by sending you here,” said Don Mario, when they were seated in the shade of the amplepatio.
Josè knew the Alcalde was sounding him. “Yes, friend,” with just a trace of amusement in his voice. “It was doubtless because of the Virgin that I was directed here,” he replied, thinking of Carmen.
“Excellent advice that you gave the people, Padre; but it is not likely they understood you, poor fools! Now if Padre Diego had been preaching he would have ranted like a windstorm; but he would have made an impression. I am afraid soft words will not sink into their thick skulls.”
Dinner was served in the open, during which the Alcalde chattered volubly.
“Don Rosendo returns soon?” he finally ventured. Josè knew that for some time he had been edging toward the question.
“Quien sabe, señor!” replied the priest, with a careless shrug of his shoulders.
“But––Caramba! he is old to prospect for gold––and alone, too!” Don Mario eyed Josè sharply.
“Ah, you priests!” he burst out laughing. “You are all alike when it comes to money. Padre Diego was up to the same schemes; and before he left he had a hat full of titles to mines.”
“But I am not seeking to acquire mineral property!” exclaimed Josè with some aspersion.
“No? Then you had nothing to do with Rosendo’s trip?”
Josè kept silence.
“Na, Padre, let us be confidential,” said the Alcalde, hitching his chair closer to the priest. “Look, I understand why Rosendo went into the Guamocó country––but you can trust81me to say nothing about it. Only, Padre, if he should find the mine he will have trouble enough to hold it. But I can help you both. You know the denouncement papers must go through my hands, and I send them to Cartagena for registration.”
He sat back in his chair with a knowing look.
“There is only one man here to be afraid of,” he resumed; “and that is Don Felipe Alcozer; although he may never return to Simití.” He reflected a few moments. Then:
“Now, Padre, let us have some understanding about interests in the mine, should Rosendo find it. The mine will be useless to us unless we work it, for there is no one to buy it from us. To work it, we must have a stamp-mill, orarrastras. The Antioquanians are skilled in the making of wooden stamp-mills; but one would cost perhaps two thousandpesos oro. Nobody here can furnish so much money but Don Felipe. I will arrange with him for a suitable interest. And I will fix all the papers so that the title will be held by us three. Rosendo is only apeon. You can pay him for his trouble, and he need not have an interest.”
Josè breathed easier while this recital was in progress. So Don Mario believed Rosendo to have gone in search of the lost mine, La Libertad! Good; for Cartagena would soon get the report, and his own tenure of the parish would be rendered doubly sure thereby. The monthly greasing of Wenceslas’ palm with what Rosendo might extract from the Guamocó sands, coupled with the belief that Josè was maintaining a man in the field in search of Don Ignacio’s lost mine, rendered Cartagena’s interference a very remote contingency. He almost laughed as he replied:
“Rosendo will doubtless prospect for some months, Don Mario, and I am sure we shall have plenty of time to discuss any arrangement of interests later, should occasion arise. But this is the Sabbath day. So let us not talk business any further.”
When the afternoon heat began to wane, Josè left the Alcalde and returned to his cottage. Since the service of the morning he had been fighting a constantly deepening sense of depression. An awful loneliness now gripped his heart, and dank gloom was again sweeping through the corridors of his soul. God, what a sacrifice, to remain buried in that dismal town! His continuance in the priesthood of an abjured faith was violative of every principle of honesty! The time would come when the mask of hypocrisy would have to be raised, and the resultant exposure would be worse then than open apostasy now!
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He entered his dreary little abode and threw himself upon a chair. There had been no reaction like this for days. He looked out into the deserted street. Mud hovels; ragged, thatched roofs; lowlypeonesdrowsing away life’s little hour within! There was scarcely a book in the town. Few of its inhabitants could even read or write. Culture, education, refinement––all wanting. Nothing but primal existence––the barest necessities of real life. He could not stand it! He had been a fool all his years! He would throw everything to the winds and go out into the world to live his life as it had been intended he should live it. He would send his resignation to the Bishop to-morrow. Then he would hire Juan to take him to Bodega Central; and the fewpesoshe had left would get him to Barranquilla. There he would work until he had earned enough for his passage to the great States up north, of which the explorer had told such wonderful tales. Once there, he could teach, or––
His thought turned to Rosendo. He saw him, bent with age, and wearied with toil, alone in the awful solitude of the jungle, standing knee deep in the cold mountain water, while from early dawn till sunset he incessantly swung the heavybateato concentrate the few flakes of precious gold it might contain. And the old man was facing years of just such loneliness and heavy toil––facing them gladly.
He thought of Carmen. Was she worth such sacrifice as he and Rosendo were making? God forgive him! Yes––a thousand times yes! If he betrayed Rosendo’s confidence and fled like a coward now, leaving her to fall into the sooty hands of men like Padre Diego, to be crushed, warped, and squeezed into the molds of Holy Church, could he ever again face his fellow-men?
He jumped to his feet. “Get thee behind me, Satan!” he cried in a voice that echoed through the barren rooms. He smote his chest and paced the floor. Then he stopped still. He heard Carmen’s voice again. It was the same simple melody she had sung the day he awoke from his fever. He stood listening. His eyes filled. Then––
“Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might,Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.”
83CHAPTER 12
In the days that followed, while at times Josè still struggled desperately against the depression of his primal environment, and against its insidious suggestions of license, Carmen moved before him like the shechinah of Israel, symbolizing the divine presence. When the dark hours came and his pronounced egoism bade fair to overwhelm him; when his self-centered thought clung with the tenacity of a limpet to his dreary surroundings and his unfilled longings; when self-condemnation and self-pity rived his soul, and despair of solving life’s intricate problems settled again like a pall upon him, he turned to her. Under the soft influence of her instinct for primitive good, he was learning, even if slowly, to jettison his heavily laden soul, and day by day to ride the tossing waves of his stormy thought with a lighter cargo. Her simple faith in immanent good was working upon his mind like a spiritual catharsis, to purge it of its clogging beliefs. Her unselfed love flowed over him like heavenly balm, salving the bleeding wounds of the spiritual mayhem which he had suffered at the violent hands of Holy Church’s worldly agents.
Carmen’s days were filled to the brim with a measure of joy that constantly overflowed upon all among whom she moved. Her slight dependence upon her impoverished material environment, her contempt of itsennui, were constant reminders to Josè that heaven is but a state of mind. Even in desolate Simití, life to her was an endless series of delightful experiences, of wonderful surprises in the discovery of God’s presence everywhere. Her enthusiasms were always ardent and inexhaustible. Sparkling animation and abounding vitality characterized her every movement. Her thought was free, unstrained, natural, and untrammeled by those inherited and educated beliefs in evil in which Josè had early been so completely swamped. In worldly knowledge she was the purest novice; and the engagingnaïvetéwith which she met the priest’s explanations of historical events and the motives from which they sprang charmed him beyond measure, and made his work with her a constant delight. Her sense of humor was keen, and her merriment when his recitals touched her risibility was extravagant. She laughed at danger, laughed at the weaknesses and foibles of men, when he told of the political and social ambitions which stirred mankind in the outside world. But he knew that her merriment proceeded not from an ephemeral sense of the ludicrous, but from a righteous appraisal84of the folly and littleness of those things for which the world so sorely strives.
And daily the little maid wrapped herself about his heart. Daily her wondrous love coiled its soft folds tighter around him, squeezing from his atrabilious soul, drop by drop, its sad taciturnity and inherent morbidness, that it might later fill his empty life with a spiritual richness which he had never known before.
On the day following the opening of the church Carmen had asked many questions. It was the first religious service she had ever voluntarily attended. To her former queries regarding the function of the church edifice, Rosendo had vouchsafed but one reply: it was the house of God, and in it the people used to gather to learn of Him. But she protested that she had no need of the musty, ramshackle, barn-like old building as a locus in which to center her thought upon God. She walked with Him, and she much preferred the bright, sunlit out-of-doors in which to commune with Him. Josè explained the need of a central gathering place as a shelter from the hot sun. But the images––the pictures of Saints and Virgin––and the Mass itself?
“They are what the people are accustomed to, dear child, to direct their thought toward God,” he explained. “And we will use them until we can teach them something better.” He had omitted from the church service as far as possible the collects and all invocations addressed to the Virgin and the Saints, and had rendered it short and extremely simple. Carmen seemed satisfied with his explanation, and with his insistence that, for the sake of appearance, she attend the Sunday services. He would trust her God to guide them both.
The days sped by silently and swiftly. Josè and the child dwelt together apart from the world, in a universe purely mental. As he taught her, she hung upon his every word, and seized the proffered tutelage with avidity. Often, after the day’s work, Josè, in his customary strolls about the little town, would come across the girl in the doorway of a neighboring house, with a group of wide-eyed youngsters about her, relating again the wonder-tales which she had gathered from him. Marvelous tales they were, too, of knight andhidalgo, of court and camp, of fairies, pyxies, gnomes and sprites, of mossy legend and historic fact, bubbling from the girl’s childish lips with an engagingnaïvetéof interpretation that held the man enchanted. Even the schoolmaster, who had besought Josè in vain to turn Carmen over to him, was often a spellbound listener at these little gatherings.
The result was that in a short time a delegation, headed85by the Alcalde himself, waited upon Josè and begged him to lecture to the people of Simití in the church building at least two or three evenings a week upon places and people he had seen in the great world of which they knew nothing. Josè’s eyes were moist as he looked at the great, brawny men, stout of heart, but simple as children. He grieved to give up his evenings, for he had formed the habit of late of devoting them to the study of his Bible, and to meditation on those ideas which had so recently come to him. But the appeal from these innocent, untutored people again quenched the thought of self, and he bade them be assured that their request was granted.
The new ideas which had found entrance into Josè’s liberated mentality in the past few days had formed a basis on which he was not afraid to stand while teaching Carmen; and his entire instruction was thenceforth colored by them. He knew not why, in all the preceding years, such ideas had not come to him before. But he was to learn, some day, that his previous tenacious clinging to evil as a reality, together with his material beliefs and his worldly intellectuality, had stood as barriers at the portals of his thought, and kept the truth from entering. His mind had been already full––but its contents were unbelief, fear, the conviction of evil as real and operative, and the failure to know God as immanent, omnipotent and perfect mind, to whom evil is forever unknown and unreal. Pride, egoism, and his morbid sense of honesty had added their portion to the already impassable obstruction at the gateway of his thought. And so the error had been kept within, the good without. The “power of the Lord” had not been absent; but it had remained unapplied. Thus he had wandered through the desolate wilderness; but yet sustained and kept alive, that he should not go down to the pit.
Josè’s days were now so crowded that he was forced to borrow heavily from the night. The Alcalde continued his unctuous flattery, and the priest, in turn, cultivated him assiduously. To that official’s query as to the restitution of the confessional in the church, the priest replied that he could spare time to hear only such confessions from his flock as might be necessary to elicit from him the advice or assistance requisite for their needs. He was there to help them solve their life problems, not to pry into their sacred secrets; and their confessions must relate only to their necessities.
The Alcalde went away with a puzzled look. Of a truth a new sort of priest had now to be reckoned with in Simití––a very different sort from Padre Diego.
In the first days of Josè’s incumbency he found many serious86matters to adjust. He had learned from Rosendo that not half the residents of Simití were married to the consorts with whom they lived, and that many of the children who played in the streets did not know who their fathers were. So prevalent was this evil condition that the custom among the men of having their initials embroidered upon the bosoms of their shirts was extended to include the initial of the mother’s family name. Josè had questioned Rosendo as to the meaning of the letters R. A. S. upon his shirt.
“The S, Padre, is the initial of my mother’s family name. I am Rosendo Ariza, son of the daughter of Saurez. My parents were married by a priest. But half the people of Simití have never been really married.”
Josè sought the cause of this dereliction. Fidel Avila was living with a woman, by whom he had three children. The priest summoned him to the parish house.
“Fidel,” he questioned sternly, “Jacinta, the woman you live with, is your wife?”
“Yes,Señor Padre.”
“And you were married by the Church?”
“No, Padre.”
“But was there a priest here when you began to live with Jacinta?”
“Yes, Padre. TheCura, Don Diego Polo, was here.”
“Then why were you not married by him? Do you not know how wicked it is to live as you are doing? Think of your children!”
“Yes, Padre, and I asked theCura, Don Diego, to marry us. But he charged twentypesos orofor doing it; and I could not afford it. I loved Jacinta. And so we decided to live together without the marriage.”
“But––!” Josè stopped. He knew that the Church recognized no marriage unless it were performed by a priest. The civil magistrate had no jurisdiction in such a case. And a former priest’s rapacity had resulted in forcing illegitimacy upon half the children of this benighted hamlet, because of their parents’ inability to afford the luxury of a canonical marriage.
“Fidel, were your father and mother married?” he asked in kinder tones.
“I do not know, Padre. Only a few people in Guamocó can afford to pay to be married. The men and women live together, perhaps for all time, perhaps for only a few months. If a man wishes to leave his woman and live with another, he does so. If there are children, the woman always has to keep and care for them.”
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“And could you leave Jacinta if you wished, and live with another woman?”
“Yes, Padre.”
“And she would have to lake care of your children?”
“Yes.”
“And all because you are not married?”
“I think so, Padre.”
“Hombre!But that will do, Fidel.”
Oh, the sordid greed of those who abuse their sacred commission! What punishment is mete for such as exploit these lowly folk in the name of religion! Josè strode off to consult the Alcalde.
“Don Mario, the men in Simití who are living with women havegotto be married to them! It is shameful! I shall make a canvass of the town at once!”
The Alcalde laughed. “Costumbre, Padre. You can’t change it.”
Costumbre del país!It is a final answer all through South America. No matter how unreasonable a thing may be, if it is the custom of the country it is a Medean law.
“But you know this is subversive of Church discipline!” Josè retorted warmly. “Look you, Don Mario,” he added suggestively, “you and I are to work together, are we not?”
The Alcalde blinked his pig eyes, but thought hard about La Libertad.“Cierto, Señor Padre!”he hastened to exclaim.
“Then I demand that you summon before me every man and woman who are living together unmarried.”
With a thought single to his own future advantage, the wary Alcalde complied. Within the week following this interview Josè married twenty couples, and without charge. Some offered him a fewpesos. These he took and immediately turned over to Don Mario as treasurer of the parish. Those couples who refused to be married were forced by the Alcalde to separate. But of these there were few. Among them was one Julio Gomez. Packing his few household effects upon his back, and muttering imprecations against the priest, Gomez set out for the hills, still followed by his woman, with a babe slung over her shoulders and two naked children toddling at her bare heels.
Verily, the ancient town was being profoundly stirred by the man who had sought to find his tomb there. Gradually the people lost their suspicions and distrust, bred of former bitter experience with priests, and joined heartily with Josè to ameliorate the social status of the place. His sincere love for them, and his utter selflessness, secured their confidence, and ere his first month among them closed, he had won them, almost to a man.