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“Rosendo, I think I see a way. Bring me one of the paper boxes of candles which you have just purchased from Don Mario.”
“Carumba! Padre,” queried the surprised Rosendo, as he returned with the box, “and what is this for?”
“I merely want to get the name of the firm which sold the candles. The Empresa Alemania, Barranquilla. Good! Now listen. I have a method that is roundabout, but certainly promises much. I will write to the firm, appointing them my agents while I pose as Josè Rincón, miner. The agency established, I will send them our gold each month, asking them to return to me its equivalent in bills, deducting, of course, their commission. Then I will send these bills, or such part as we deem wise, to Wenceslas. Each month Juan, who will be sworn to secrecy, will convey the gold to Bodega Central in time to meet Captain Julio’s boat. The captain will both deliver the gold to the Empresa Alemania, and bring back the bills in exchange. Then, from Simití, and in the regular manner, I will send the small packet of bills to Wenceslas as contributions from the parish. We thus throw Don Mario off the scent, and arouse no suspicion in any quarter. As I receive mail matter at various times, the Alcalde will not know but what I also receive consignments of money from my own sources. I think the plan will work out. Juan already belongs to us. What, then, is there to fear?”
And so, as it was arranged, it worked out. Juan reveled in the honor of such intimate relations with the priest and Rosendo, and especially in the thought that he was working in secret for the girl he adored. By the time Rosendo returned again from Guamocó, Josè had sent his first consignment of money to the Bishop, carefully directing it to Wenceslas, personally, and had received an acknowledgment in a letter which caused him deep thought.
“To further stimulate the piety of your communicants,” it read, “and arouse them to more generous contributions to our glorious cause, you will inform them that, if their monetary contributions do not diminish in amount for the coming year, they will be made participants in the four solemn Novenas which will be offered by His Grace, the Bishop of Cartagena. Moreover, if their contributions increase, the names of the various contributors will be included in the one hundred Masses which are to be offered in December at the Shrine of Our Lady of Chiquinquía for their spiritual and temporal welfare. Contributors will also have a High Mass after death, offered by one of His Grace’s assistants, as soon as the notification of death is received here. In addition to these, His Grace, always mindful of the former importance of the parish of Simití, and acknowledging as its special patron the ever blessed Virgin, has arranged to bestow the episcopal blessing upon an image of the Sacred Heart, which will be shipped to his faithful children in Simití when the143amount of their contributions shall have met the expense thereof. Let us keep ever in mind the pious words of the Bl. Margaret Mary, who has conveyed to us the assurance which she received directly from Our Blessed Lord that He finds great joy in beholding His Sacred Heart visibly represented, that it may touch the hard hearts of mankind. Our blessed Saviour promised the gracious Margaret Mary that He would pour out abundantly of His rich treasure upon all who honor this image, and that it shall draw down from heaven every blessing upon those who adore and reverence it. Inform your parishioners that the recital of the offering, ‘O, Sacred Heart of Jesus, may it be everywhere adored!’ carries a hundred days’ indulgence each time.“You will bear in mind that the General Intention for this month is The Conversion of America. Though our Church is founded on the Rock, and is to last forever, so that the gates of hell shall never prevail against her, nevertheless she has been called upon to withstand many assaults from her enemies, the advocates ofmodernism, in the land of liberal thought to our north. These assaults, though painful to her, can never be fatal to her spiritual life, although they unfortunately are so to many of her dear children, who yield to the insidious persuasions of the heretics who do the work of Satan among the Lord’s sheep. New and fantastic religions are springing up like noxious weeds in America of the north, and increasing infidelity is apparent on every hand. The Christ prayed that there might be one fold and one shepherd. It is for us this month to pray for the great day when they will be accomplished. But we must be united over the interests of the Sacred Heart. Therefore, liberal plenary indulgences will be granted to those of the faithful who contribute to this glorious cause, so dear to the heart of the blessed Saviour. We enclose leaflets indicating the three degrees, consisting of the Morning Offering, Our Father and ten Hail Marys daily, for the Pope and his interests, and the degree of reparation, by which a plenary indulgence may be gained.“Stimulate your parishioners to compete joyfully for the statue of the Blessed Virgin, which we mentioned to you in our former communication. Teach them, especially, their entire dependence on Mary, on her prayers to God for their deliverance and welfare. Reveal to them her singularly powerful influence in the shaping of all great historical events of the world; how never has she refused our prayers to exert her mighty influence with her all-potent Son, when she has been appealed to in sincerity, for it rejoices the Sacred Heart of Jesus to yield to the requests of His Blessed Mother. Mary is omnipotent, for she can ask no favor of her Son that He will not grant. Competition for possession of this sacred image, which carries the potent blessing of His Holiness, should be regarded a privilege, and you will so impress it upon the minds of your parishioners.“Finally, His Grace requests that you will immediately procure whatever information you may regarding the mineral resources of the district of Guamocó, and indicate upon a sketch the location of its various mines, old or new, as known to its inhabitants. Diligent and careful inquiry made by yourself among the people of the district will reveal many hidden facts regarding its resources, which should be made known to His Grace at the earliest possible moment, in view of the active preparations now in progress to forestall the precipitation of another political uprising with its consequent strain upon our Holy Church.”
“To further stimulate the piety of your communicants,” it read, “and arouse them to more generous contributions to our glorious cause, you will inform them that, if their monetary contributions do not diminish in amount for the coming year, they will be made participants in the four solemn Novenas which will be offered by His Grace, the Bishop of Cartagena. Moreover, if their contributions increase, the names of the various contributors will be included in the one hundred Masses which are to be offered in December at the Shrine of Our Lady of Chiquinquía for their spiritual and temporal welfare. Contributors will also have a High Mass after death, offered by one of His Grace’s assistants, as soon as the notification of death is received here. In addition to these, His Grace, always mindful of the former importance of the parish of Simití, and acknowledging as its special patron the ever blessed Virgin, has arranged to bestow the episcopal blessing upon an image of the Sacred Heart, which will be shipped to his faithful children in Simití when the143amount of their contributions shall have met the expense thereof. Let us keep ever in mind the pious words of the Bl. Margaret Mary, who has conveyed to us the assurance which she received directly from Our Blessed Lord that He finds great joy in beholding His Sacred Heart visibly represented, that it may touch the hard hearts of mankind. Our blessed Saviour promised the gracious Margaret Mary that He would pour out abundantly of His rich treasure upon all who honor this image, and that it shall draw down from heaven every blessing upon those who adore and reverence it. Inform your parishioners that the recital of the offering, ‘O, Sacred Heart of Jesus, may it be everywhere adored!’ carries a hundred days’ indulgence each time.
“You will bear in mind that the General Intention for this month is The Conversion of America. Though our Church is founded on the Rock, and is to last forever, so that the gates of hell shall never prevail against her, nevertheless she has been called upon to withstand many assaults from her enemies, the advocates ofmodernism, in the land of liberal thought to our north. These assaults, though painful to her, can never be fatal to her spiritual life, although they unfortunately are so to many of her dear children, who yield to the insidious persuasions of the heretics who do the work of Satan among the Lord’s sheep. New and fantastic religions are springing up like noxious weeds in America of the north, and increasing infidelity is apparent on every hand. The Christ prayed that there might be one fold and one shepherd. It is for us this month to pray for the great day when they will be accomplished. But we must be united over the interests of the Sacred Heart. Therefore, liberal plenary indulgences will be granted to those of the faithful who contribute to this glorious cause, so dear to the heart of the blessed Saviour. We enclose leaflets indicating the three degrees, consisting of the Morning Offering, Our Father and ten Hail Marys daily, for the Pope and his interests, and the degree of reparation, by which a plenary indulgence may be gained.
“Stimulate your parishioners to compete joyfully for the statue of the Blessed Virgin, which we mentioned to you in our former communication. Teach them, especially, their entire dependence on Mary, on her prayers to God for their deliverance and welfare. Reveal to them her singularly powerful influence in the shaping of all great historical events of the world; how never has she refused our prayers to exert her mighty influence with her all-potent Son, when she has been appealed to in sincerity, for it rejoices the Sacred Heart of Jesus to yield to the requests of His Blessed Mother. Mary is omnipotent, for she can ask no favor of her Son that He will not grant. Competition for possession of this sacred image, which carries the potent blessing of His Holiness, should be regarded a privilege, and you will so impress it upon the minds of your parishioners.
“Finally, His Grace requests that you will immediately procure whatever information you may regarding the mineral resources of the district of Guamocó, and indicate upon a sketch the location of its various mines, old or new, as known to its inhabitants. Diligent and careful inquiry made by yourself among the people of the district will reveal many hidden facts regarding its resources, which should be made known to His Grace at the earliest possible moment, in view of the active preparations now in progress to forestall the precipitation of another political uprising with its consequent strain upon our Holy Church.”
“Money! money! money!” cried Josè. “One would think the Christ had established his Church solely for gold!”
He folded the letter and looked out through the rear door144to where Carmen sat, teaching Cucumbra a new trick. He realized then that never before had he been so far from the Holy Catholic faith as at that moment. And Carmen––
“Good God!” he muttered, as his eyes rested upon the child. “If the Church should get possession of Carmen, what would it do with her? Would it not set its forces to work to teach her that evil is a reality––that it is as powerful as good––that God formed man and the universe out of dust––that Jesus came down from a starry heaven that he might die to appease the wrath of a man-like Father––that Mary pleads with the Lord and Jesus, and by her powerful logic induces them to spare mankind and grant their foolish desires––all the dribble and rubbish of outlandish theology that has accumulated around the nucleus of pure Christianity like a gathering snowball throughout the ages! To make the great States up north dominantly Catholic, Rome must––simplymust––have the children to educate, that she may saturate their absorbent minds with these puerile, undemonstrable, pagan beliefs before the child has developed its own independent thought. How wise is she––God, how worldly wise and cunning! And I still her priest––”
Carmen came bounding in, followed pellmell by Cucumbra. Cantar-las-horas stalked dignifiedly after her, and stopped at the threshold, where he stood with cocked head and blinking eyes, wondering what move his animated young mistress would make next.
“Padre!” she exclaimed, “the sun is down, and it is time for our walk!”
She seized his hand and drew him out into the road. The play of her expression as she looked up and laughed into his face was like the dance of sunbeams on moving water. They turned down the narrow street which led to the lake. As was her wont, in every object about her, in every trifling event, the child discovered rich treasures of happiness. The pebbles which she tossed with her bare toes were mines of delight. The pigs, which turned up their snouts expectantly as she stooped to scratch their dusty backs––the matronly hens that followed clucking after her––the black babies that toddled out to greet theCura––all yielded a wealth of delight and interest. She seemed to Josè to uncover joy by a means not unlike the divining rod, which points to hidden gold where to the eye there is naught but barren ground.
Near the margin of the lake they stopped at the door of a cottage, where they were awaited by the matron who displayed a finger wrapped in a bit of cloth. She greeted the priest courteously.
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“Señor Padre,” she said, “this morning I had the misfortune to cut my finger while peeling yuccas, and I am not sure whether a piece of the skin went into the pot or not.Bueno, the yuccas are all cooked; and now my man says he will not eat them, for this is Friday, and there may be meat with the yuccas. What shall I do? Was it wicked to cook the yuccas, not knowing if a bit of the skin from my finger had fallen into the pot?”
Josè stood dumfounded before such ignorant credulity. Then he shook his head and replied sadly, “No, señora, it was not wicked. Tell your man he may eat the yuccas.”
The woman’s face brightened, and she hastened into the house to apprise her spouse of theCura’sdecision.
“God help us!” muttered Josè under his breath. “Two thousand years of Christianity, and still the world knows not what Jesus taught!”
“But you told me he had good thoughts, Padre dear,” said the little voice at his side, as he walked slowly away with bended head. “And that is enough to know.”
“Why do you say that, Carmen?” asked Josè, somewhat petulantly.
“Because, Padre, if he had good thoughts, he thought about God––didn’t he? And if he thought about God, he always thought of something good. And if we always think about good––well, isn’t that enough?”
Josè’s eyes struggled with hers. She almost invariably framed her replies with an interrogation, and, whether he would or not, he must perforce give answers which he knew in his heart were right, and yet which the sight of his eyes all too frequently denied.
“Padre, you are not thinking about God now––are you?”
“I am, indeed, child!” he answered abruptly.
“Well––perhaps you are thinkingaboutHim; but you are not thinkingwithHim––are you?––the way He thinks. You know, He sends us His thoughts, and we have to pick them out from all the others that aren’t His, and then think them. If the señora and her man had been thinking God’s thoughts, they wouldn’t have been afraid to eat a piece of meat on Friday––would they?”
Cucumbra, forgetting his many months of instruction, suddenly yielded to the goad of animal instinct and started along the beach in mad pursuit of a squealing pig. Carmen dashed after him. As Josè watched her lithe, active little body bobbing over the shales behind the flying animals, she seemed to him like an animated sunbeam sporting among the shadows.
“Why should life,” he murmured aloud, “beginning in radiance,146proceed in ever deepening gloom, and end at last in black night? Why, but for the false education in evil which is inflicted upon us! The joys, the unbounded bliss of childhood, do indeed gush from its innocence––its innocence of the blighting belief in mixed good and evil––innocence of the false beliefs, the undemonstrable opinions, the mad worldly ambitions, the carnal lust, bloated pride, and black ignorance of men! It all comes from not knowing God, to know whom is life eternal! The struggle and mad strife of man––what does it all amount to, when ‘in the end he shall be a fool’? Do we in this latest of the centuries, with all our boasted progress in knowledge, really know so much, after all? Alas! we know nothing––nothing!”
“Come, Padre,” cried Carmen, returning to him, “we are going to just try now to have all the nice thoughts we can. Let’s just look all around us and see if we can’t think good thoughts about everything. And, do you know, Padre dear, I’ve tried it, and when I look at things and something tries to make me see if there could possibly be anything bad about them––why, I find there can’t! Try it, and see for yourself.”
Josè knew it. He knew that the minds of men are so profaned by constantly looking at evil that their thoughts are tinged with it. He was striving to look up. But in doing so he was combating a habit grown mighty by years of indulgence.
“When you always think good about a thing,” the girl went on, “you never can tell what it will do. But goodalwayscomes from it. I know. I do it all the time. If things look bad, I just say, ‘Why look, here’s something trying to tell me that two and two are seven!’ And then it goes away.”
“Your purity and goodness resist evil involuntarily, little one,” said Josè, more to himself than to the child.
“Why, Padre, what big words!”
“No, little one, it is just the meaning of the words that is big,” he replied.
The girl was silent for some moments. Then:
“Padre dear, I never thought of it before––but it is true: we don’t see the meaning of words with the same eyes that we see trees and stones and people, do we?”
Josè studied the question. “I don’t quite understand what you mean,chiquita,” he was finally forced to answer.
“Well,” she resumed, “the meaning of a word isn’t something that we can pick up, like a stone; or see, as we see the lake out there.”
“No, Carmen, the meaning is spiritual––mental; it is not physically tangible. It is not seen with the fleshly eyes.”
“The meaning of a word is the inside of it, isn’t it?”
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“Yes, it is the inside, the soul, of the word.”
“And we don’t see the word, either, do we?” She shook her brown curls in vigorous negation.
“No, little one, we see only written or printed symbols; or hear only sounds that convey to us the words. But the words themselves are mental. We do not see them.”
“No, we think them.” She meditated a while. “But, Padre dear,” she continued, “the inside, or soul, of everything is mental. We never see it. We have to think it.”
“Yes, you are right. The things we think we see are only symbols. They stand for the real things.”
“Padre, they don’t stand for anything!” she replied abruptly.
Josè looked down at her in surprise. He waited.
“Padre, the real things are the things we don’t see. And the things we think we see are not real at all!”
Josè had ere this learned not to deny her rugged statements, but to study them for their inner meaning, which the child often found too deep for her limited vocabulary to express.
“The things we think we see,” he said, though he was addressing his own thought, “are called the physical. The things we do not see or cognize with the physical senses are called mental, or spiritual. Well?” he queried, looking down again into the serious little face.
“Padre, the very greatest things are those that we don’t see at all!”
“True,chiquita. Love, life, joy, knowledge, wisdom, health, harmony––all these are spiritual ideas. The physical sometimes manifests them––and sometimes does not. And in the end, called death, it ceases altogether to manifest them.”
“But––these things––the very greatest things there are––are the souls of everything––is it not so, Padre dear?”
“It must be,chiquita.”
“And all these things came from God, and He is everywhere, and so He is the soul of everything, no?”
He made the same affirmative reply.
“Padre––don’t you see it?––we are not seeing things all around us! We don’t see real things that we call trees and stones and people! We see only what wethinkwe see. We see things that are not there at all! We see––”
“Yes, we see only our thoughts. And we think we see them as objects all about us, as trees, and houses, and people. But in the final analysis we see only thoughts,” he finished.
“But these thoughts do not come from God,” she insisted.
“No,” he replied slowly, “because they often manifest discord and error. I think I grasp what is struggling in your mindchiquita. God is––”
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“Everywhere,” she interrupted.
“He is everywhere, and therefore He is the soul––the inside––the heart and core––of everything. He is mind, and His thoughts are real, and are the only real thoughts there are. He is truth. The opposite of truth is a lie. But, in reality, truth cannot have an opposite. Therefore, a lie is a supposition. And so the thought that we seem to see externalized all about us, and that we call physical objects, is supposition only. And, a supposition being unreal, the whole physical universe, including material man, is unreal––is a supposition, a supposition of mixed good and evil, for it manifests both. It is the lie about God. And, since a lie has no real existence, this human concept of a universe and mankind composed of matter is utterly unreal, an image of thought, an illusion, existing in false thought only––a belief––a supposition pure and simple!”
As he talked he grew more and more animated. He seemed to forget the presence of the child, and appeared to be addressing only his own insistent questionings.
They walked along together in silence for some moments. Then the girl again took up the conversation.
“Padre,” she said, “you know, you taught me to prove my problems in arithmetic and algebra. Well, I have proved something about thinking, too. If I think a thing, and just keep thinking it, pretty soon I see it––in some way––outside of me.”
A light seemed to flash through Josè’s mental chambers, and he recalled the words of the explorer in Cartagena. Yes, that was exactly what he had said––“every thought that comes into the mind tends to becomeexternalized, either upon the body as a physical condition, or in the environment, or as an event, good or bad.” It was a law, dimly perceived, but nevertheless sufficiently understood in its workings to indicate a tremendous field as yet all but unknown. The explorer had called it the law of the externalization of thought. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” said the Master, twenty centuries before. Did he recognize the law?
Josè’s thought swept over his past. Had his own wrong thinking, or the wrong thought of others, been the cause of his unhappiness and acute mental suffering? But why personalize it? What difference whether it be called his, or the Archbishop’s, or whose? Let it suffice that it was false thought, undirected by the Christ-principle, God, that had been externalized in the wreckage which he now called his past life.
He again stood face to face with the most momentous question ever propounded by a waiting world: the question of causation. And he knew now that causation was wholly spiritual.
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“Padre dear, you said just now that God was mind. But, if that is true, there is only one mind, for God is everywhere.”
“It must be so,chiquita,” dreamily responded the priest.
“Then He is your mind and my mind, is it not so?”
“Yes––”
“Then, if He is my mind, there just isn’t anything good that I can’t do.”
Twilight does not linger in the tropics, and already the shadows that stole down through the valley had wrapped the man and child in their mystic folds. Hand in hand they turned homeward.
“Padre, if God is my mind, He will do my thinking for me. And all I have to do is to keep the door open and let His thoughts come in.”
Her sweet voice lingered on the still night air. There was a pensive gladness in the man’s heart as he tightly held her little hand and led her to Rosendo’s door.
CHAPTER 18
The next morning Josè read to Rosendo portions of the communication from Wenceslas.
“Chiquinquía,” commented the latter. “I remember that Padre Diego collected much money from our people for Masses to be said at that shrine.”
“But where is it, Rosendo?” asked Josè.
“You do not know the story?” queried Rosendo in surprise. “Why, there is not a shrine in the whole of Colombia that works so many cures as this one. Your grandfather, Don Ignacio, knew the place. And it was from him that my––that is, I learned the legend when I was only a boy. It is said that a poor, sick young girl in the little Indian village of Chiquinquía, north of Bogotá, stood praying in her shabby little cottage before an old, torn picture of the blessed Virgin.” He stopped and crossed himself devoutly. Then he resumed:
“Bueno, while the girl prayed, the picture suddenly rose up in the air; the torn places all closed; the faded colors came again as fresh as ever; and the girl was cured of her affliction. The people of the village immediately built a shrine, over which they hung the picture; and ever since then the most wonderful miracles have been performed by it there.”
Josè laughed. “You don’t believe that, do you, Rosendo?” he asked in banter.
“Hombre, yes!” exclaimed the latter a bit testily. “I know150it! Did not Don Felipe go there when the doctor in Mompox told him the little white spot on his hand was leprosy? And he came back cured.”
Leprosy! Josè started as if he had received a blow. He looked furtively at the scar on his own hand, the hand which the leper in Maganguey had lacerated that dreadful night, and which often burned and ached as if seared by a hot iron. He had never dared to voice the carking fear that tightened about his heart at times. But often in the depths of night, when dread anticipation sat like a spectre upon his bed, he had risen and gone out into the darkness to wrestle with his black thoughts. Leprosy! All the gladness and joy left his heart, and a pall of darkness settled over his thought. He turned back into his cottage and tried to find forgetfulness in the simple duties that lay at hand.
“Why is it,” he asked himself, as he sat wearily down at his little table, “that I always think of evil first; while Carmen’s first thought is invariably of God?”
He looked at the ugly scar on his hand. What thought was externalized in the loathsome experience which produced that? he wondered. Was it the summation of all the fear, the weakness, the wrong belief, that had filled his previous years? And now why was he finding it so difficult to practice what Carmen lived, even though he knew it was truth?
“Alas!” he murmured aloud, “it was the seminary that did it. For there my thought was educated away from the simple teachings of Jesus. To Carmen there is no mystery in godliness. Though she knows utterly nothing about Jesus, yet she hourly uses the Christ-principle. It is the children who grasp the simple truths of God; while the lack of spirituality which results from increasing years shrinks maturer minds until they no longer afford entrance to it. For godliness is broad; and the mind that receives it must be opened wide.”
As he sat with his bowed head clasped in his hands, a sweet, airy voice greeted him.
“Why, Padre dear––ah, I caught you that time!––you were thinking that two and two are seven, weren’t you?” She shook a rebuking finger at him.
Framed in the doorway like an old masterpiece, the sunlight bronzing her heavy brown curls, the olive-tinted skin of her bare arms and legs flushing with health, and her cheap calico gown held tightly about her, showing the contour of her full and shapely figure, the girl appeared to Josè like a vision from the realm of enchantment. And he knew that she did dwell in the land of spiritual enchantment, where happiness is not at the mercy of physical sense.
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“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
“The Lord our God is a right-thinking God, and right-thinking is what He desires in His people.”
Josè thought of this as he looked at Carmen. This barefoot girl, who walked humbly, trustingly, with her God, had she not supplied him with a working formula for his every problem, even to the casting out of the corroding fear planted in his heart by that awful experience in Maganguey? Though he had suffered much, yet much had been done for him. The brusque logic of the explorer had swept his mind clear of its last vestige of theological superstition, and prepared it for the truth which, under the benign stimulus of this clear-minded child, would remake his life, if he could now yield himself utterly to it. He must––he would––ceaselessly strive, even though he fell daily, to make his life a pattern of hers, wherein there was no knowledge of evil!
The girl came to the priest and leaned fondly against him. Then a little sigh escaped her lips, as she looked down into his face with pitying affection.
“Padre dear,” she said, in a tone that echoed a strain of sadness, “I––I don’t believe––you love God very much.”
The man was startled, and resentment began to well in his heart. “What a thing to say, Carmen!” he answered reprovingly.
The girl looked up at him with great, wondering eyes. “But, Padre,” she protested, “were you not thinking of things that are not true when I came in?”
“No––I was––I was thinking of the future––of––well,chiquita, I was thinking of something that might happen some day, that is all.” He stumbled through it with difficulty, for he knew he must not lie to the child. Would she ever trust him again if he did?
“And, Padre, were you afraid?”
“Afraid? Yes,chiquita, I was.” He hung his head.
Carmen looked at him reproachfully. “Then, Padre, I was right––for, if you loved God, you would trust Him––and then you couldn’t be afraid of anything––could you? People who love Him are not afraid.”
He turned his head away. “Ah, child,” he murmured, “you will find that out in the world people don’t love God in this day and generation. At least they don’t love Him that way.”
“They don’t love Him enough to trust him?” she asked wistfully.
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“No.” He shook his head sadly. “Nobody trusts Him, not even the preachers themselves. When things happen, they rush for a doctor, or some other human being to help them out of their difficulty. They don’t turn to Him any more. They seldom speak His name.”
“Have––they––forgotten Him?” she asked slowly, her voice sinking to a whisper.
“Absolutely!” He again buried his head in his hands.
The child stood in silence for some moments. Then:
“What made them forget Him, Padre?”
“I guess,chiquita, they turned from Him because He didn’t answer their prayers. I used to pray to Him, too. I prayed hours at a time. But nothing seemed to come of it. And so I stopped.” He spoke bitterly.
“You prayed! You mean––”
“I asked Him for things––to help me out of trouble––I asked Him to give me––”
“Why, Padre! Why––that’s the very reason!”
He looked up at her blankly. “What is the very reason? What are you trying to tell me, child?”
“Why, He is everywhere, and He is right here all the time. And so there couldn’t be any real trouble for Him to help you out of; and He couldn’t give you anything, for He has already done that, long ago. We are in Him, don’t you know? Just like the little fishes in the lake. And so when you asked Him for things it showed that you didn’t believe He had already given them to you. And––you know what you said last night about thinking, and that when we think things, we see them? Well, He has given you everything; but you thought He hadn’t, and so you saw it that way––isn’t it so?”
She paused for breath. She had talked rapidly and with animation. But before he could reply she resumed:
“Padre dear, you know you told me that Jesus was the best man that ever lived, and that it was because he never had a bad thought––isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” he murmured.
“Well, did he pray––did he ask God for things?”
“Of course he did, child!” the priest exclaimed. “He always asked Him for things. Why, he was always praying––the New Testament is full of it!”
Acting on a sudden impulse, he rose and went into the sleeping room to get his Bible. The child’s face took on an expression of disappointment as she heard his words. Her brow knotted, and a troubled look came into her brown eyes.
Josè returned with his Bible and seated himself again at the table. Opening the book, his eyes fell upon a verse of153Mark’s Gospel. He stopped to read it; and then read it again. Suddenly he looked up at the waiting girl.
“What is it, Padre? What does it say?”
He hesitated. He read the verse again; then he scanned the child closely, as if he would read a mystery hidden within her bodily presence. Abruptly he turned to the book and read aloud:
“‘Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.’”
The girl drew a long breath, almost a sigh, as if a weight had been removed from her mind. “Did Jesus say that?” she asked in glad, eager tones.
“Yes––at least it is so reported here,” he answered absently.
“Well––heknew, didn’t he?”
“Knew what, child?”
“Why, Padre, he told the people to know––justknow––that they already had everything––that God had given them everything good––and that if they wouldknowit, they would see it.”
Externalization of thought? Yes; or rather, the externalization of truth. Josè fell into abstraction, his eyes glued to the page. There it stood––the words almost shouted it at him! And there it had stood for nearly two thousand years, while priest and prelate, scribe and commentator had gone over it again and again through the ages, without even guessing its true meaning––without even the remotest idea of the infinite riches it held for mankind!
He turned reflectively to Matthew; and then to John. He remembered the passages well––in the past he had spent hours of mortal agony poring over them and wondering bitterly why God had failed to keep the promises they contain.
“And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”
All things––when ye askbelieving! But that Greek word surely held vastly more than the translators have drawn from it. Nay, not believing only, butunderstandingthe allness of God as good, and the consequent nothingness of evil, all that seems to oppose Him! How could the translators have so completely missed the mark! And Carmen––had never seen a Bible until he came into her life; yet she knew, knew instinctively, that a good God who was “everywhere” could not possibly withhold anything good from His children. It was the simplest kind of logic.
But, thought Josè again, if the promises are kept, why have we fallen so woefully short of their realization? Then he154read again, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” The promise carries a condition––abiding in his words––obeying his commands––keeping the veryfirstCommandment, which is that “Ye shall have no other gods before me”––no gods of evil, sickness, chance, or death. The promises are fulfilled only on the condition of righteousness––right-thinking about God and His infinite, spiritual manifestation.
He turned to Carmen. “Chiquita,” he said tenderly, “you never ask God to give you things, do you?”
“Why, no, Padre; why should I? He gives me everything I need, doesn’t He?”
“Yes––when you go out to the shales, you––”
“I don’t ask Him for things, Padre dear. I just tell Him IknowHe is everywhere.”
“I see––yes, you told me that long ago––I understand,chiquita.” His spirit bowed in humble reverence before such divine faith. This untutored, unlearned girl, isolated upon these burning shales, far, far from the haunts of men of pride and power and worldly lore––this barefoot child whose coffers held of material riches scarce more than the little calico dress upon her back––this lowly being knew that which all the fabled wealth of Ind could never buy! Her prayers were not the selfish pleadings that spring from narrow souls, the souls that “ask amiss”––not the frenzied yearnings wrung from suffering, ignorant hearts––nor were they the inflated instructions addressed to the Almighty by a smug, complacent clergy, the self-constituted press-bureau of infinite Wisdom. Her prayers, which so often drifted like sweetest incense about those steaming shales, were not petitions, butaffirmations. They did not limit God. She did not plead with Him. She simplyknewthat He had already met her needs. And that righteousness––right-thinking––became externalized in her consciousness in the good she sought. Jesus did the same thing, over and over again; but the poor, stupid minds of the people were so full of wrong beliefs about his infinite Father that they could not understand, no, not even when he called Lazarus from the tomb.
“Ask in my name,” urged the patient Jesus. But the poor fishermen thought he meant his human name to be a talisman, a sort of “Open Sesame,” when he was striving all the time, by precept and deed, to show them that they must ask in hischaracter, must be like him, to whom, though of himself he could do nothing, yet all things were possible.
Josè’s heart began to echo the Master’s words: “Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” He put his arm about Carmen and drew her to him.
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“Little one,” he murmured, “how much has happened in these past few weeks!”
Carmen looked up at him with an enigmatical glance and laughed. “Well, Padre dear, I don’t think anything ever reallyhappens, do you?”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Mistakes happen, as in solving my algebra problems. But good things never happen, any more than the answers to my problems happen. You know, there are rules for getting the answers; but there are no rules for making mistakes––are there? But when anything comes out according to the rule, it doesn’t happen. And the mistakes, which have no rules, are not real––the answers are real, but the mistakes are not––and so nothing ever really happens. Don’t you see, Padre dear?”
“Surely, I see,” he acquiesced. Then, while he held the girl close to him, he reflected: Good is never fortuitous. It results from the application of the Principle of all things. The answer to a mathematical problem is a form of good, and it results from the application of the principle of mathematics. Mistakes, and the various things which “happen” when we solve mathematical problems, do not have rules, or principles. They result from ignorance of them, or their misapplication. And so in life; for chance, fate, luck, accident and the merely casual, come, not from the application of principles, but from not applying them, or from ignorance of their use. The human mind or consciousness, which is a mental activity, an activity of thought, is concerned with mixed thoughts of good and evil. Butit operates without any principle whatsoever. For, if God is infinite good, then the beliefs of evil which the human mind holds must be false beliefs, illusions, suppositions. A supposition has no principle, no rule. And so, it is only the unreal that happens. And even that sort of “happening” can be prevented by knowing and using the principle of all good, God. A knowledge of evil is not knowledge at all. Evil has no rules. Has an accident a principle? He laughed aloud at the idea.
“What is it, Padre?” asked Carmen.
“Nothing, child––and everything! But we are neglecting our work,” he hastily added, as he roused himself. “What are the lessons for to-day? Come! come! We have much to do!” And arranging his papers, and bidding Carmen draw up to the table, he began the morning session of his very select little school.
More than six months had elapsed since Josè first set foot upon the hot shales of Simití. In that time his mentality had been turned over like a fallow field beneath the plowshare.156After peace had been established in the country he had often thought to consecrate himself to the task of collecting the fragmentary ideas which had been evolved in his mind during these past weeks of strange and almost weird experience, and trying to formulate them into definite statements of truth. Then he would enter upon the task of establishing them by actual demonstration, regardless of the years that might be required to do so. He realized now that the explorer had done a great work in clearing his mind of many of its darker shadows. But it was to Carmen’s purer, more spiritual influence that he knew his debt was heaviest.
Let it not seem strange that mature manhood and extensive travel had never before brought to this man’s mind the truths, many of which have been current almost since the curtain first arose on the melodrama of mundane existence. Well nigh impassable limitations had been set to them by his own natal characteristics; by his acutely morbid sense of filial love which bound him, at whatever cost, to observe the bigoted, selfish wishes of his parents; and by the strictness with which his mind had been hedged about both in the seminary and in the ecclesiastical office where he subsequently labored. The first rays of mental freedom did not dawn upon his darkened thought until he was sent as an outcast to the New World. Then, when his greater latitude in Cartagena, and his still more expanded sense of freedom in Simití, had lowered the bars, there had rushed into his mentality such a flood of ideas that he was all but swept away in the swirling current.
It is not strange that he rose and fell, to-day strong in the conviction of the immanence of infinite good, to-morrow sunken in mortal despair of ever demonstrating the truth of the ideas which were swelling his shrunken mind. His line of progress in truth was an undulating curve, slowly advancing toward the distant goal to which Carmen seemed to move in a straight, undeviating line. What though Emerson had said that Mind was “the only reality of which men and all other natures are better or worse reflectors”? Josè was unaware of the sage’s mighty deduction. What though Plato had said that we move as shadows in a world of ideas? Even if Josè had known of it, it had meant nothing to him. What though the Transcendentalists called the universe “a metaphore of the human mind”? Josè’s thought was too firmly clutched by his self-centered, material beliefs to grasp it. Doubt of the reality of things material succumbed to the evidence of the physical senses and the ridicule of his seminary preceptors. True, he believed with Paul, that the “things that are seen are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal.” But this pregnant utterance conveyed157nothing more to him than a belief of a material heaven to follow his exit from a world of matter. It had never occurred to him that the world of matter might be the product of those same delusive physical senses, through which he believed he gained his knowledge of it. It is true that while in the seminary, and before, he had insisted upon a more spiritual interpretation of the mission of Jesus––had insisted that Christian priests should obey the Master’s injunction, and heal the sick as well as preach the gospel. But with the advent of the troubles which filled the intervening years, these things had gradually faded; and the mounting sun that dawned upon him six months before, as he lay on the damp floor of his little cell in the ecclesiastical dormitory in Cartagena, awaiting the Bishop’s summons, illumined only a shell, in which agnosticism sat enthroned upon a stool of black despair.
Then Carmen entered his life. And her beautiful love, which enfolded him like a garment, and her sublime faith, which moved before him like the Bethlehem star to where the Christ-principle lay, were, little by little, dissolving the mist and revealing the majesty of the great God.
In assuming to teach the child, Josè early found that the outer world meant nothing to her until he had purged it of its carnal elements. Often in days past, when he had launched out upon the dramatic recital of some important historical event, wherein crime and bloodshed had shaped the incident, the girl would start hastily from her chair and put her little hand over his mouth.
“Don’t, Padre dear! It is not true!” she would exclaim. “God didn’t do it, and it isn’t so!”
And thereby he learned to differentiate more closely between those historical events which sprang from good motives, and those which manifested only human passion, selfish ambition, and the primitive question, “Who shall be greatest?” Moreover, he had found it best in his frequent talks to the people in the church during the week to omit all reference to the evil methods of mankind in their dealings one with another, and to pass over in silence the criminal aims and low motives, and their externalization, which have marked the unfolding of the human mind, and which the world preserves in its annals as historical fact. The child seemed to divine the great truth that history is but the record of human conduct, conduct manifesting the mortal mind of man, a mind utterly opposed to the mind that is God, and therefore unreal, supposititious, and bearing the “minus” sign. Carmen would have none of it that did not reflect good. She refused utterly to turn her mental gaze toward recorded evil.