IT is necessary here, and at another place, to introduce an interlude into the story. These interludes are designed as threads to connect the different parts of the narrative together. They are each a suggestion instead of a description; for even a description of things holy would too much shock the sense of propriety of us scribes and pharisees.
For the accepted religion of the civilized world has become so enveloped with wrappings of spiritual ideality that it is impossible to strip away those investments and to show the reality in all its nakedness. Such an exposure would too much violate our accepted religious ideas. It would not do for any man to tell just how it was that Christ actually did appear in the midst of that motley multitude; nor would it do for any pharisee among us to listen to the story.
Either the truth would sound blasphemous, or else, if it were accepted and received, then we scribes and pharisees, priests and Levites of to-daywould rise up and stone it and crucify it exactly as we did of old.
Since those times we have grown accustomed to say that we believe in Christ–even though we do not really believe. Expressed belief and real belief are very different matters. What we think we believe in is not the living Christ as He was in the flesh, but a Christ we have created for ourselves–a white-robed, visionary figure that passes through the world of humanity like a spirit rather than like a man of flesh and blood.
For the story of Christ is surrounded by the narrative of such incredibly miraculous happenings that it is necessary for us to create such a spiritual image, or else we cannot believe those narratives at all. It is with us now as it was in those ages past–we cannot bear to have the spiritual image of truth blasphemed by the living fact. In our souls we disbelieve that which seems to us to be unbelievable. We endeavor to stimulate faith, first by saying that we believe, and then by creating for ourselves an imaginary image of Christ who might have performed the miracles if He had really lived.
Nearly all intelligent and thoughtful men really do believe in the existence of an infinitely intelligent and infinitely powerful deity.
For a man has but to gaze about him and hebeholds, with the eyes of his flesh, infinity itself–infinity of what is great; infinity of what is minute; infinity of time; infinity of space.
These are actual entities, for we know that there never was and never can be a time in which there was no created thing–not even vacuum–and we know that there can be no limit to space in which everything–even space itself–ceases to exist. The very material universe exists infinitely, and we behold with the eyes of the flesh. We do not comprehend it, yet we know that it really is.
In the hollow vault of night we behold countless myriads of huge and flaming suns, scattered like dust through the sky, or sparkling in points of radiance, and we know that that created stellar system extends, without limit, into the emptiness of limitless space. We know that each incredibly gigantic sun–flaming with light and heat–follows a perfect and well-assigned orbit. We know that about each of these glorious suns there must revolve scores of planets, like this earth upon which we stand.
Seeing this fact with our eyes, it is not possible for the reason to suppose that all this well-ordered and perfect system of enormous stellar and planetary system was created, is governed, is sustained by blind and chaotic chance. Chancenever built even so much as a brick wall. How could it, then, create a living sun whose heat and light give life to the planets that revolve about it?
There must be a Creator for these things–a Creator infinitely potent, infinitely intelligent–or else those things could not have been created.
On the other hand, man looks about him upon the earth, and there he beholds an equally and infinitely perfect creation. For every one of the myriad blades of grass, and every one of the myriad leaves of the trees, and every one of the myriad flowers of the field, is, in itself, as tremendously perfect in its every minutest particular as is the greatest sun that flames in the empty heavens. Not only does it live in a minute and orderly sequence of progressive existence, but it possesses an infinitely vital power of procreation, so that each tiny seed, under proper circumstances, has the power of filling the entire universe with its progeny.
Every bird, beast, and fish is not only exactly fitted into its surroundings–not only is each perfect even unto every hair, feather, and scale–not only is each endowed with a vitality that enables it upon an instant to adapt itself to the circumstances of its existence; but each in itself is endowed with the same potentiality ofindefinitely procreating its kind with equal bodily perfection.
These things can neither be created nor sustained excepting by an intelligent Creator who makes and sustains them; for it is impossible for any reasoning man to suppose that vacuity and death has created that which is a fact and is alive–that nothingness can have created that which is not only perfect in itself, but which is endowed with such infinite potentiality.
And at the apex of all creation stands man himself, so nicely and perfectly adjusted to the conditions that surround him that it takes only a few degrees in the variation of so small a thing as the temperature of the air to destroy him or to sustain his life. And each man possesses not only volition, but thought and reason to such particularity that each tiny idea may be continued to infinity; or, when applied to the things of nature, may evolve a physical phenomenon that can affect or transform the entire economy of the world in which he lives.
Whence comes this perfect and intelligent life? Man does not cause himself to think, nor does he cause himself to live. He may shape and direct his thoughts, but intelligence comes to him without his own volition. He receives these things,but he does not cause either the one or the other to be created.
That which causes life and intelligence to exist and to inflow into man is and must be infinite vitality and infinite intelligence–an omniscient Creator–or else these things must spring from nothing.
Thus any man who thinks and reasons within himself must perceive that there actually is and does exist a divine and infinite Creator.
But that which we scribes and pharisees, priests and Levites, cannot really accept is the fact that this infinite Creator–this tremendous God, who sustains the universe and who flings blazing suns and planets by the handful through the heavens–that this omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Divinity should actually have become finitely incarnate upon this earth. It is still more impossible for us to believe with our reason that the humble wife of a common carpenter should have given Him birth as a little, whimpering, helpless babe among the cattle of a stable in Palestine.
Our caste has been compelled by the force of circumstances to accept this as a dogma, but we cannot believe it in our hearts. Consequently we build for ourselves an ideal Christ who is so different from the actual Christ that, were thereal Christ to appear to-day, we would crucify Him exactly as we did nineteen hundred years ago.
It is, indeed, the crowning truth of the ages that Jehovah did enter finitely into the flesh of a man; that He was miraculously conceived; that He was born in a stable in Bethlehem, and that His mother was the wife of a journeyman carpenter, who had a carpenter-shop in Nazareth. But that truth is not for us; consequently we either become sadducees and deny the resurrection of the soul, or else we are pharisees who, with a helpless hypocrisy, try to cause ourselves, by somehocus-pocusof inverted reasoning, to believe that which we do not believe.
We do not really believe that the actual laws of nature were ever so preposterously violated as the Scriptures tell us. No rational pharisee ever really believed that water, at a touch, can be actually transmuted into wine; or that dead and gangrenous flesh ever was, at a touch, actually transformed into healthy tissues; or that eyes organically imperfect ever were, at a touch, made to receive the light like healthy orbs.
Either we falsify ourselves by saying that we believe these things, or else we benumb our reasoning so as not to think about them at all. Many of us would fain expurgate those miraculousnarratives from the divine word, retaining only such spiritual and intangible ideas as are believable because they have no foundation in fact. Others of us give up the task as hopeless, and declare frankly that we do not know whether they are true or not, but that we are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
These things of divine truth are so preposterous to the common sense that only the ignorant can believe them. Wherefore the Scriptures are given into the hands of the ignorant for preservation, lest we, intelligent pharisees, should alter and amend them to fit our own ideas–in the which case they would inevitably perish.
For it is to be remembered that, while the divine Scriptures have lasted in their entirety through the ages, nearly every system of human philosophy–whether physical or metaphysical–has perished after a generation or two, to give place to another system. So would the Scriptures perish if it were left to us to amend them so as to fit the rational and intelligent science of the age.
We were born to crucify the truth; it is our mission in life, and we must not be blamed when we fulfil our destiny.
Shortly after that visit of the priests andLevites to the baptisms of John, the promised Messiah suddenly appeared in the midst of the motley crowd gathered to hear the truth.
A poor woman, the mother of two ordinary fishermen, thus described the divine miracle that thereupon happened. She told it somewhat thus: “I saw it. There was a great many people around; some saw it and some did not see it. I can’t tell just how it was, but it was after He went down into the water with John. There was a light as if it was sunshine up this way; then something came. It looked like a dove–they all said it was a dove. It looked like it came down upon Him. I don’t know how long it lasted–I saw it for a little and then it was gone. He was standing in the water along with John; then He came out close to where I stood. The folk were calling out ‘Hallelujah!’ all about us. They were crying ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’They crowded so they pushed me into the water. I felt as though I were going crazy, and I, too, kept calling out ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’”
Even in the recounting of such a reality it sounds shocking. How shocking, then, must it have been to those of us who were living when it really happened.
But with this, the mission of John came to an end. The crowds that had gathered about himdeparted hither and thither, and the earth was left bare and desolate where the growing things of the spring-time had been trampled into the dry and dusty soil by the treading of many feet–where the pure waters of the streams had been defiled by human contact.
WITH the dispersion of the great crowd of poor ignorants who had gathered about John the Baptist, we thought that the agitation was ended.
We were mistaken.
For a time nothing more was heard of the Christ whom John had baptized. Then, suddenly, there came rumors, first from one side and then from another; fugitive words telling of a renewed excitement that had begun to ferment obscurely in that same nether class that had followed John to his baptism. Gradually these rumors became more and more dominant, and every day more people heard of and became interested in what was said. The interest was not very great with us, but it was sufficient to keep alive the observation of the daily papers.
The Messiah who had been baptized by John had reappeared, and many people of the poorer classes were gathering about Him in numbersto hear His teachings and to receive His word. These poor people asserted that He performed many miracles; that He could heal the sick and diseased by merely touching them with His hand; that He caused the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, and the blind to see. It was said that many miraculous cures had already been performed by Him.
It happened at this time that a party of men of the literary and artistic world had chartered a vessel and had fitted it up as a floating studio, adorning it with antique furniture, rugs, hangings, and bric-à-brac.
It was a very merry party–a party of sadducees who strenuously believed in no resurrection. There was Archibald Redfern, the writer-artist-man-about-town; Corry King, assistant editor and business manager of theAurora;Marcey, the architect; Chillingham Norcott, the artist; Allington, of the publishing-house of Richard White & Co.; Dr. Ames, Pinwell, and others. During the cruise, Norcott, Pinwell, and Redfern had enriched the panels of the cabin with marines and landscapes and decorative pieces until the interior looked almost like a picture-gallery. Everything was as luxurious as possible. They had engaged Pierre Blanc to go with them and to cook for them, and they paid himsix hundred dollars for the three or four weeks of the cruise. When it is said that Dr. Ames himself selected the wines and liquors, nothing more need be said concerning the provisioning of the expedition.
The cruise had been a complete success, and now they were about returning to the metropolis again. They had run short of ice, and had put in at a small coast town for a fresh supply.
Redfern, who had arrogated to himself the position of head-steward, had gone ashore in the boat with the stewardde facto. There he heard strange and wonderful reports of miracles that were being performed in the neighborhood.
As the boat, returning from the shore, touched the side of the schooner, Redfern came scrambling aboard, and almost immediately his loud, brassy voice was heard from end to end of the vessel, telling of wonders performed and of miracles wrought.
Some of the party were mildly gambling at poker under the awning, waiting Redfern’s return with the ice. Corry King lay stretched out upon a couch in his shirt-sleeves reading a magazine, a tall glass of brandy-and-soda at his elbow. Norcott was sketching listlessly; the others were talking together. They all looked up at the sound of Redfern’s loud voice. Therewas nothing funny in what he said, but they all laughed.
“And you have returned cured of body and sound of soul, I suppose,” said Ames.
“It isn’t of myself I’m thinking,” said Redfern, in his strident, insistent voice, a voice that almost stunned the hearer if he were near by and not used to it. “It’s not of myself I’m thinking. I’m thinking of you. I tell you, boys, this is the chance of your life. I’m going to take you all ashore this afternoon. Your souls have run down during this cruise, and what you want is to get a good brace of salvation before you get back home again.”
They all went ashore in the afternoon. The town appeared to be singularly deserted. A few guests hung about the third-class summer hotel porch, sitting uncomfortably on the hard, wooden chairs in the shade. An occasional inhabitant appeared here and there on the hot, sandy stretch of street, but everywhere there was a feeling of dull and silent depletion. The party inquired at the hotel office and found that He whom they sought was then supposed to be at a certain place about six miles below the town where there was a high and rocky hill. They found that they could obtain a conveyance, and, after a good deal of jocular chaffing with the fatand grinning hackman, the vehicle was ordered, and a team of four horses. It was a dusty, rattletrap affair, and the party piled in with much noisy confusion, struggling for seats, and sitting in one another’s laps. The hotel guests sat looking on with a sort of outside interest and amusement. Then the hack drove away with a volley of cheers and a chorus of mimic coach-horns.
“Look here, boys,” called out Corry King, “what I want to know is whether Redfern’s taking us down here for our sakes or for his own? Either he has got to take this thing seriously or else we have.”
“It’s all for your sake, my boy! For your sake!” cried out Redfern’s brazen, dominant voice. “I made up my mind last night when I saw the way you bucked up against Marcy’s luck in that last jack-pot that you needed some sort of salvation to pull you through till we get you home again.”
It was three o’clock before they approached their destination. As they drew near they found that everywhere vehicles of all sorts were standing along the road, the horses hitched to the fence at the road-sides. They could see from a distance as they approached that the hill was covered with a restless, swaying mass of people, and then they saw that the crowd was movingvoluminously all in one direction–away from the crest.
“I’m afraid you’re too late to hear Him, gentlemen,” said the driver, and he urged the horses forward with greater speed.
It was true; they were just too late to hear that sermon which voiced the sublimest code of ethics the world has ever heard–sublime, but, in our opinion, impracticable.
Presently they were met, almost suddenly, by the broken, ragged outskirts of the moving crowd that was beginning to pour away from the hill. They had not, until then, any idea how great was the agitation centring around this strange being.
Then, almost in a moment, the crowd became so dense that the hack could make no further progress. “I reckon we’ll have to pull out of the way,” said the driver.
“All right,” said Redfern; “pull away.”
And now the crowd was so thick about them that it was with some difficulty that the driver could edge his horses over to the side of the road. And every instant the mass of men and women grew more and more dense. “Look out where you’re going! Look out there!” cried a chorus of voices, as the crowd melted and dissolved before the horses, closing again around the hack. And now the road was suddenly filling with agreat press of people moving all in one direction; the air was made dense and darkened with clouds of dust. Then the party in the hack saw approaching along the road the nucleus of this denser crowd which so centred about a single point. “Yonder He is,” cried the driver, standing up and pointing with his whip. “That’s Him, there.”
The men were all standing up in the hack.
“Where?” said Redfern.
“That’s Him–that tall man,” said the driver.
The crowd were surging all about them, pushing against the wheels of the hack. The air was full of the tumult of many voices. The horses shrank to one side as the moving mass eddied around them. Then there came a little group of rough men, apparently fishermen. In the midst of them was a tall man. His face was wet with sweat, and drops of sweat ran down His cheeks. He gazed straight before Him and seemed oblivious to everything about Him. The men in the hack all knew that that must be He, and they stood up looking at Him.
Then they saw a miracle.
Suddenly, almost alongside them, there was a commotion and an outcry of voices. The crowd parted, and as those in the hack looked down, they saw a man struggling out of it and pantingand gasping. It was a dreadful sight. He was covered over with hideous, scrofulous sores. No wonder the crowd parted to make way for him. Through his panting he was shouting, hoarsely, “Make me clean! Make me clean!” The crowd surged and swayed with an echoing outcry of voices, and for a moment the man was shut out from the sight of those sadducees. Then they could see that the diseased man was kneeling in the road.
“I will,” said a loud, clear voice that dominated the disturbance. “Be clean!” They could see that He upon whom they were looking had reached out His hand. They could not see what He did, but He appeared to touch the kneeling man. Instantly there was a great shout, and the crowd surged and swept and heaved more tumultuously than ever. They could not see what had happened.
“My God!” cried out the driver, “did you see that?”
“See what?” said Corry King, who stood next him. In spite of himself he felt thrilled with a sympathetic excitement.
“Didn’t you see it? He cured him.”
“Cured him?” said King. “Who? Where is he?”
“Now–don’t you see him? There he is.”
Had they really beheld a miracle? No; they had not. Archibald Redfern burst out laughing. “Didn’t you see it, King?” he jeered. “Where are your eyes?”
That evening it was said that He would heal the sick who would come to Him. The boat party, interested in what they had already heard, went ashore again after dark. The town that had seemed to be dead and empty when they were there before, was now full of people. There were crowds everywhere. The night was hot and oppressive. The sadducees followed whither the crowd seemed to move, the press growing ever thicker and thicker, until, by-and-by, they reached a street densely packed with the throng.
It was a dark and narrow street in the suburbs. It was packed full of people, and it was only after much difficulty they were able to reach a point of vantage–a broad flight of wooden steps that led up to the door of a frame church. Thence they could see over the heads of the mob of men and women who filled the street beyond. They could see that the people were bringing the sick through the crowd. Near them was a man carrying a little child in his arms. Its poor little legs were twisted into a steel frame. A woman followed close behind the man. The child lay withits head upon the man’s shoulder and appeared to be crying, though it was too dark to see clearly. The man moved, step by step, forward, and presently was swallowed into the dark mass of humanity beyond. In the distance was a doorway in which stood a figure of a man, black against the dull light of the lamp behind. There appeared to be a number of other figures crowded in the passageway behind Him. People were looking out of the windows of the neighboring houses. They could not see from the church-steps where they stood what He was doing, but He was constantly moving and stooping forward. The tumult and din were dreadful. It appeared a pandemonium of wild, unmeaning excitement. As in the afternoon, it was an excitement that was contagious. “Do you suppose He really is curing them?” said Norcott, and again Archibald Redfern burst out laughing.
“Why, of course He is,” said he.
He had seen no miracle and could see none. How was it possible for a sadducee, who believed in no resurrection, to see a miracle? The wisest sadducee that ever lived, had he seen a miracle, would not have believed it. Had the Almighty blotted out the sun and the moon and written the sign of His Truth in letters of fire all across the blackened canopy of the heavens, Redfern orCorry King would not have believed–they would have misdoubted their own eyesight.
After they had satisfied their curiosity, the party went back to the boat and played poker until nearly two o’clock in the morning.
DR. AND MRS. CAIAPHAS were spending the latter part of the summer at the sea-side with their son-in-law, Mr. Henry Herbert Gilderman.
Mrs. Gilderman was Dr. and Mrs. Caiaphas’s daughter Florence–their eldest girl, and perhaps the best-beloved by the doctor of all the children. She had been married now a little over a year, during nearly all of which time she and her husband had lived abroad.
Gilderman was one of the richest men in the world. His grandfather had laid the foundation of that great Gilderman estate of the present generation, and his father had built well upon the foundation that the first Gilderman had laid. Gilderman had been born into all this great wealth–so great that, perhaps, no man could realize how vast it was. To be born into such a fortune is almost as to be born into royalty. It shuts the inheritor into a shell of circumstancesfrom which there is no escape. Such a man as Gilderman must live his life after a certain routine and in a certain way from which there is no escape. There was no privacy in his life, for all the world looked on and saw what he did. His business of life was to spend money and to enjoy himself. For that purpose, and for that purpose alone, he was born into the world. He had a house in the metropolis, another at the nation’s capital, and still another where the Romans of his class spent the torrid weather of summer. Each of these was a palace, and each was filled with gems of art and rare pieces of china, plate, tapestries, and bric-à-brac that his agents had collected for him from all parts of the world. He had given a hundred and sixty thousand dollars for a single painting, and after it was hung he had, perhaps, hardly looked at it. When he travelled he had a valet to look after him, and to foresee and to fulfil his wishes. He hardly did anything for himself–not even to order a cab or to purchase a railroad-ticket. Other attendants looked after the heaps of luggage which he took with him when he travelled. He had hisavant-courierto prepare soft places for him in which to lodge, and others remained behind to close the places which he left. Now that he was married, his wife–who had fallen verypliantly into her new life, as women do–must also have a maid to accompany her wherever she went. They would almost fill the private car in which they nearly always travelled if they had any distance to go, especially if they travelled upon any of the railroads which Gilderman controlled. There was no escape from this routine. Even when Gilderman would seek to change the monotonous smoothness of his existence with a taste of something rougher–say of the mountains–it was only a pretended roughness covering over the same perpetual smoothness and softness of life. His log-hut in the wilderness was a palace masquerading as a hut of logs. Everything was really soft and warm; the furniture was an artificial reproduction of something rough; the floors were spread with skins of wild beasts that cost three or four or five hundred dollars apiece; there was an open fireplace that was designed and built by Marcy, the architect, and a picture of this pretence of roughness was published in the voluminous Sunday issue of some daily paper for all the world to behold.
Such were the surroundings of Henry Herbert Gilderman. Into these circumstances the mysterious paradox of divine wisdom had placed a selfhood, eager, alertly intelligent, receptive, warm, affectionate. A nature which, perhaps,lacked the gritty strenuosity in which a character grows strong and fibrous and hard, but a nature soft, rich, and lovable–a nature into which the seeds of truth fell easily and struck quick roots and thrust forth a rapid growth. The garden of his soul was rather luxuriant than well tilled, but it was fruitful and beautiful.
As said before, the business of Gilderman’s life was its enjoyments–and the spending of money; the dream of his life was of religious faith, of social reform, of an equitable readjustment of the classes. He read intermittently of advanced socialistic and theological literature. In these readings he would soon grow tired, presently find himself becoming dull and drowsy; but each time he read a few seeds would fall scatteringly in the soft, warm loam of his soul, and would there spring up into the quick, rank growth of which he was very proud.
He loved nothing better than to talk to some intimate friend of his dreams and of his religious and socialistic views. He would talk on such an occasion until his cheeks glowed and his breath came hot and thick. He would, sometimes, afterwards wonder dimly whether he had not been a little foolish–whether he had not talked too much and said too much nonsense.But he enjoyed the intensity of the excitement while it lasted.
His friends loved him.
He was, unless crossed in his desires, kind to every one whom he met; but he never forgot that he was Henry Herbert Gilderman and the grandson of James Quincy Gilderman.
Gilderman was singularly attracted by the popular interest that centred about John the Baptist, and now about the Christ who taught and healed the poor. He used to talk about these things to his father-in-law when he could get Dr. Caiaphas to discuss the matter. The subject was one not very pleasant to the rector of the Church of the Advent, and he was not often willing to discuss it.
When September arrived, Mrs. Caiaphas did not immediately return to town. Mrs. Gilderman was not at that time feeling at all well, and her mother continued with her for a while. Dr. Caiaphas, however, used to go down on a Saturday morning–generally in Gilderman’s yacht–preach on Sunday, attend to his more pressing parish work on Monday and possibly on Tuesday, and then return directly to his summer home again.
One day Gilderman went down to the metropolis with his father-in-law, having business in townwith his manager. They started late in the afternoon, and took their dinner aboard the yacht, which they had to themselves. They sat smoking on the deck after dinner, each in a great rattan chair. The day had been very hot, and they enjoyed to the full the swift motion and the chill of the night air. It was a beautiful night, soft and mild–the sky dusted over with a myriad stars. The yacht sped forward, with a ceaseless rushing of the water alongside. The cigar-points alternately glowed and paled as they smoked. Dr. Caiaphas buttoned up his coat close to his chin. Every now and then the voice of the sailors forward broke the stillness of the night, or the clinking of dishes and tumblers sounded loud as the steward put away the glass and the china in the saloon.
There was a distant light over across the dark water. It led Gilderman’s thoughts to the subject which had occupied them much of late.
“By-the-way,” he said, “has it never occurred to you, sir, to question whether, after all, the Messiah whom the people are proclaiming over yonder is not really the Divine Truth incarnated?”
“No,” said Dr. Caiaphas, “it has not. And, to tell you the truth, Henry, I would a great deal rather not discuss that phase of the question.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because it is unpleasant to me–because it is distressful to me.” Gilderman was silent, and, by-and-by, Dr. Caiaphas voluntarily continued: “The Divine Word leads us to understand that God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. It is revolting to me to even listen to the supposition that the God of Heaven could have a human son–a carpenter by trade–and that the mother should be the wife of a common carpenter.”
“I think I enter perfectly into your feelings,” said Gilderman, after another little space of silence; “but–I don’t want to force the conversation upon you, you understand, sir–but I must say that it seems to me that you think only of God’s acting according to your own ideas of fitness. I do not believe that He ever acts according to man’s ideas, and maybe He may not have done so in this instance. How do you know, sir, that we may not be mistaken? And, if we are mistaken, what a great wrong are we doing!”
“In that case,” said Dr. Caiaphas, “and, if I am mistaken, speaking for myself, I see nothing for it but to suffer for my own short-sightedness. Every man must exercise his own judgment, and if his judgment is wrong he must suffer for it. I cannot believe that this poor journeyman carpenteris the son of the Almighty God whom I worship. If I am mistaken, I must suffer for it, for I cannot change my mind. And I am so sure in my disbelief,” he added, as though to close the discussion, “that I am willing to stand my chances upon it at the day of judgment, even if that day were to-morrow.”
After that, Gilderman did not say anything more. But in the few words he had said he had begun almost to convince himself that the miracles of which the world was beginning to talk were really worthy of attention.
The next morning, after an eleven-o’clock breakfast aboard the yacht, Gilderman had himself driven down to his office. After the freshness of the open air at the sea-side, the city felt like a steaming oven. Gilderman sat leaning back in the brougham smoking and looking out upon the hot bustle of the street. The ceaselessly streaming crowds on the sidewalk hurried and jostled and pushed, paying no attention to the heat or to their fellow-men or to heaven or to hell, or to anything but the business they were just then so intent upon–each man a little life in himself shut out from all the other little lives around him.
A bulletin was posted on a board in front of a newspaper-office–a square of brownish papercovered with ink-drawn characters. Half a dozen men stood looking at it, but the stream of humanity flowed by, neither thinking of nor caring for the words posted above their heads.
In large letters it proclaimed that John the Baptist had been executed the night before.
It brought a singular shock to Gilderman, who was still impressed by the recollection of the brief talk that he had had with his father-in-law. He said to himself, as he sat leaning back in the carriage, “It’s a confounded shame!”
He thought about it intermittently all the way down to the office and until the brougham stopped at the sidewalk and he got out.
The office was on the first floor of an imposing brown-stone building. Over the great, glazed doors were carved in relief the words:
“Gilderman Building.”
On both sides of the plate-glass windows that looked out into the busy street were gilt letters:
“Office of the Gilderman Estate.”
Now the windows were open, and through them he could see the clerks busy over the books. Theylooked warm, and wore linen or madras jackets. Mr. Wright, the manager, was standing with the cashier looking over a book. They neither of them saw him.
“You may come for me at three o’clock,” Gilderman said to the man, who stood holding open the door of the brougham. And then he turned and went up the steps and through the swinging-door. The electric-fans were whirring, and the air felt cool after the hot street outside.
He went directly through to the manager’s room beyond. Those whom he passed turned and looked after him; he was used to having men look after him in that way. He felt that the fact of his presence became almost instantly known throughout the entire office. There was a silent, indescribable movement among the clerks. He saw the cashier speak to Mr. Wright, the manager, who looked up sharply.
Gilderman went directly into his private office. He laid his hat on the table among the newspapers. There was a brass electric-fan on the mantel, and he turned the switch and started it moving, standing before the refreshing coolness. As he did so the other door opened and Mr. Wright came in. The manager bowed and Gilderman acknowledged his presence with a nod.He did not move away from the cooling breezes of the fan.
“I am sorry to have called you away from the sea in such weather as this, Mr. Gilderman,” said the manager.
“I’m sorry to come, Wright. It seems to me we’ve had nothing but hot weather ever since February.”
“How’s Mrs. Gilderman?” asked the manager.
“Not very well,” said Gilderman, briefly. “I suppose you wanted me about those copper-mines?”
“Yes, sir; the transfers will have to be signed this week. I’ve made arrangements with Mr. Pengrist and Walton, of Walton & Boone, to be here. Shall I send word to Mr. Pengrist now?”
“You might as well,” said Mr. Gilderman. As Mr. Wright touched the electric-bell he remembered the bulletin he had just seen posted at the newspaper office. “By-the-way,” said he, “I saw it posted on the bulletin-board as I came down that John the Baptist had been executed.”
“Yes; so I was told awhile ago,” said Mr. Wright. “I think it’s a pity that there should have been any dilly-dallying about it. Herod might as well have acted sharply in the first instance. He has gained nothing by all this delay.”
“I don’t think the Baptist ought to have been executed at all,” said Gilderman, briefly.
Mr. Wright smiled, and then looked quickly sober. He had for the moment forgotten Gilderman’s radical and socialistic proclivities. He thought that they were very foolish, but he was too practical a man and had too much good sense to argue the point.
The messenger-boy appeared at the open door. “Go down to Pengrist & Ball’s,” said Mr. Wright, “and tell Mr. Pengrist that Mr. Gilderman is here.”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy and disappeared.
GILDERMAN had made an appointment by note to dine that evening at the “Romans” with his friend Stirling West. His father-in-law had asked him to dine at the rectory, but he had declined. The truth was, that he was hungering for a taste of that sort of masculine society which he could only find at the club.
The “Romans” was a pseudonym for the International Club. Why it was so called can better be understood than explained. The International Club, though large, was really one of the most select clubs in the metropolis. Its membership was almost entirely composed of plutocrats. With these was a sprinkling intermixture of the politicratic class. The chief ruler of the nation was an honorary member; Governor Pilate was a member, and so were others among the rulers of the nation. But almost the entire body of the club was composed of plutocrats–such men as Mr. Dorman-Websteramong the patriarchs, and Gilderman among the juniors.
The club was always pretty full at this time of the year. Wives and families were yet out of town, and the men came here to dine. Gilderman went early and secured a table by the open window, and sat there reading while he waited for his friend to come. The breeze came in at the open windows every now and then, swaying and bellying the gaudy awning outside. The stony street below looked hot and empty in the sloping light of the sinking sun. Every now and then Gilderman looked around from his paper–the room was beginning to fill. There was a distinct air of informality about everything. Many of the men wore tweed suits.
At last, Stirling West sauntered into the room and dropped into his place. “How d’e do, old man?” said he. “Beastly hot, isn’t it? How did you leave the madam?”
“Not very well–her mother’s with her.”
“So I heard. By-the-way, I see his reverence is at the rectory.”
“Yes; he came down last night in theNautilus. Have a cocktail?”
The dinner was over and they were sitting in the café. Gilderman had been talking to hisfriend concerning his religious views. He had been led into that current of talk from discussing the execution of John the Baptist.
“By Jove! old man,” said Stirling West, “I wish I had your enthusiasm–I do, indeed. I believe you really believe in all that sort of stuff you’re talking to me about.”
The air about them was blue with tobacco smoke. Their coffee-cups at their elbows were empty, except for a black remainder at the bottom; the saucers half full of the scattered cigar-ashes that had been tilted into them.
Gilderman recognized that his talk was out of place, but he still continued. “Why do you call it stuff, Stirling? It’s only stuff to you because you don’t believe in it. The future life in another world is as real to me as–as going out of this café into the smoking-room yonder. What is life without such a belief as that? If you regard this life as all that there is for a man to live, then the world is a pit of misery worse than hell, and God is a jesting devil juggling with the misery and the pangs of mankind whom He created for His own amusement. Just look at it, Stirling, in the light of reason. Here we are with more than we want, trying to tickle our stomachs into an appetite by all this made-up stuff we’ve been eating. Go only just around the corneryonder and you’ll find men and women living like maggots.”
“Oh yes; I know all about that sort of socialistic rot,” put in Stirling West. “But how the deuce am I to help it, old man? I didn’t put ’em there, and I can’t go nosing around in their beastly tenements. What’s the use of thinking and worrying about it, anyhow? What’s the use of stirring up all that sort of a row about a thing a man can’t help?”
“But, don’t you see,” cried Gilderman, enthusiastically, stretching out his hand across the table and opening it tensely, “if this life’s only the first step in a man’s existence, how beautifully all the inequality and the injustice of the world is made equal and orderly in view of the world to come. We are all passing through a little state of probation. What does it matter if a man is rich or poor for these few short years of life?”
“By Jove! it matters a deuced deal, I can tell you,” said Stirling West. “Look here, Gildy, you don’t know, and nobody knows, that he has a life to live after he’s dead.”
“Yes, I do,” said Gilderman; “I know it as well as I know that I’m alive now.” But even as he spoke he knew that there were moments when he doubted it.
“No; you don’t know it. You believe it, but you don’t know it. Well, old man, a bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush, any day. My life’s a bird in the hand–it’s a lark, you know–and I’m going to get all the fun out of it there is in it. I’m dead sure I’m alive now, and I’m not sure of what is to come after I’m dead. You may bet your life I’m not going to throw away my present chances for something I don’t know about.”
Gilderman paused for a little while. “Oh, well,” he said, presently, “it doesn’t matter. If God don’t want you to see the truth, you can’t see it, and no man can make you see it. He has His own divine way of regenerating every man. I believe–you don’t believe; I see–you don’t see. It is neither to my credit nor to your discredit. It is simply that we’re made as we are.” A sudden chill of doubt came over him even as he spoke. Such a chill of doubt often struck across his spirit even when he was in the very heat of his enthusiasm. And then again it occurred to him how absurd and out of place it was for him to be discussing such things in the café of the International Club, in the midst of the smoking, the empty coffee-cups, and the humming undertone of masculine talking.
Stirling West sat smoking in meditative silencefor a while. By-and-by he suddenly spoke again. “By-the-way,” he said, “have you seen Olivia Carrington yet?”
Olivia Carrington was a notable concert-hall dancer who had just been imported into the country. Gilderman had thought that his companion had been meditating upon what they had been saying. The sudden change of topic made him feel still more the absurdity of his late enthusiasm. “No, I haven’t seen her,” he said.
“By Jove, she’s a daisy! What do you say to go around to the Westminster and see her this evening?”
“I don’t know. All right, I’ll go with you.”
They pushed back their chairs and arose. Gilderman realized very thoroughly what an egregious fool he had been.
They went out into the smoking-room. A group of men were clustered at the great, wide window that looked out upon the street below. Some of the men were standing, some were sitting. Among them was Pontius Pilate. He looked up at Gilderman as he drew near. He was a large, rather fat, smooth-faced man. His skin was colorless and sallow. He had a high, bald forehead, closely cropped gray hair, a hooked nose, and keen, gray eyes deep set understraight, hard brows. His face was square, and his mouth was set in a singular impassivity of expression. His whole face wore the same air of impassive calm–it was like a mask that covered the life within. He looked rather than spoke recognition as Gilderman approached.
Gilderman drew near. The man who was talking was one Latimer-Moire. He had just returned from an automobile expedition, during which he had come into touch with the marvellous works that were afterwards to stir the whole world into a religious belief. He was telling the others how the divine miracles of Christ appeared to a young Roman who, like himself, looked down upon them from the pinnacle of his earthly station.
“... And, by Jove! I tell you what it is,” he said, “you fellows have no idea of all the crazy hurrah those poor devils are kicking up down there. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. You can’t even get a decent meal anywhere for the crowds of people everywhere who eat up everything. You can’t go anywhere but you hear of the Man and His miracles. It wasn’t till we got to that place, though, that we struck the worst of it all. The town was full of people–a beastly crowd.
“Well, nothing would do Tommy Ryan but hemust see one of those miracles they’re all talking about. So we put up at the hotel, and got some one to show us where He was to be found. Tommy’s man went along with us, and it was a good thing we took him, for when we got near the house, there was the street all packed and jammed with the crowd. It seemed there was a delegation of preachers and elders or something, who had come to interview Him and get Him to do something. Tommy was all for seeing what they were at. So his man, and another fellow he tipped, pushed a way for us through the crowd, and we managed to get into the house. We contrived to edge our way along the entry until we came to a room where He and the ministers were. The place was packed so that we could hardly see anything. Hot? Well, rather! And so close that we could hardly draw a breath. As for the smell–you could cut it with a knife–I thought of all kinds of things you might catch and be sick.
“The ministers and their people were as dead in earnest as though their lives depended upon it. What they wanted was for Him to show them a miracle. As for Him, He just sat there and never made a motion. ‘Show us a sign,’says one of the ministers. ‘If you are, indeed, the Christ, show us a sign.’‘A wicked and adulterous generation,’ said He, ‘ask for a sign, but there shall be no sign given them but the sign of the prophet Jonah.’”
“What did He mean by that?” said young Palliser.
Everybody laughed, and even Governor Pilate smiled.
“But what in the deuce did He mean?” insisted Palliser.
“Mean?” said Latimer-Moire. “How should I know what He meant?”
“What did He look like?” asked Gilderman.
“Look like? Oh, I don’t know; just like any other man. Well, after we had come out of the place, we saw some of His people outside–His mother and His brothers. His brothers had come to look after Him. I felt deucedly sorry for ’em–decent, respectable-looking people enough.”
“By-the-way,” said Sprague, “did you read about His feeding all those people?”
“Oh yes,” said Latimer-Moire; “they were all talking about it down there.”
“Hullo, Stirling,” said a young man who had just that moment joined the group. “How about Olivia Carrington? Are you going to see her to-night?”
West laughed. “Yes,” he said, “I’m going to take Gildy to see her.”
“You see, Gilderman,” said the young fellow, “Stirling’s dead gone on the girl. He goes to the Westminster Gardens every night, and takes her out for a spin along the drive every afternoon.”
Gilderman looked at West, who again laughed.
“They say you’re having Norcott paint her portrait,” said Le Roy Barron.
“No, I’m not,” said West. “Norcott’s doing it off his own bat, for a picture to send to the Academy or somewhere, I believe.”
“By-the-way,” said Barron, “I see poor old Herod’s let them execute John.”
“Yes,” said West, “we may all thank Salome for that. Tommy Ryan was telling me all about it this morning. It seems that there was something going on down at Herod’s place last night, and Ryan was asked. It was a pretty wild sort of affair. After supper, the girl danced for them on the table in the supper-room,à laCarrington. I guess they were all pretty lively–anyhow Herod promised he’d give her whatever she’d ask him. And what does that woman, her mother, do but put her up to asking to have poor John the Baptist put out of the way. Herod would have backed out if he could, but the women held him to his promise.”
“By-the-way, Gildy,” said Latimer-Moire, “you’re sort of on the religious lay; what do you think of all this row?”
Governor Pilate turned and looked briefly at Gilderman.
The question was so sudden that Gilderman did not know what to say. “I don’t know that I’m especially on the ‘religious lay,’as you call it,” he said, after a moment’s pause; “but I suppose that every man must believe more or less in something or other.”
As he spoke he felt that his words were rather an excuse for his convictions than a proclamation of them.
“You see, governor,” said Latimer-Moire, “Gilderman still clings to the old theological superstitions of the past ages–heaven and God and a resurrection of the soul and all that sort of thing. He’s a good fellow, is Gildy, but he don’t seem to be able to emancipate himself from the shackles of tradition that his grandfather left behind him. Why, Gildy, my boy, nobody believes in anything nowadays.”
“Don’t they?” said Gilderman. “I think they do. If they don’t believe in heaven and God and the resurrection of the soul, as you phrase it, they must believe in the world, the devil, and themselves.”
“You are wrong, Mr. Gilderman,” said Governor Pilate, calmly, “so far as I am concerned. I don’t believe in anything–not even in myself. I know I like a good dinner and a good glass of wine and a pretty woman, but I don’t believe in them. As for all this about Christ, to tell you the truth, I have not followed it very closely, for it doesn’t interest me particularly. I have heard a good deal said about it now and then–such as you young men have been talking just now–but I have read nothing of it in the newspapers. I find life too short to read everything that’s printed nowadays. If one undertakes to read everything, one reads nothing. I try to pick out what is absolutely needful to me and to leave the rest. I find all I need in the report of current politics and the stock markets.”
Olivia Carrington was acting in the play called “Le Chevalier d’Amour.” The great scene that had made such a hit was where she, as the Marquise, dances upon the top of the table in the inn yard, seducing the jailers from their duty while the scamp of a chevalier escapes. Gilderman sat watching the woman in her gyrations amid a cloud of gauzy draperies. He recognized the pleasure he felt in the seductive spectacle as an evil pleasure, rooted in a nether stratum of masculinebrutality, but, nevertheless, he yielded himself to it.
As the girl came forward in answer to the loud applause and bowed her acknowledgment to the house, she shot a glance like a flash at the box where Gilderman and his friend sat. “Isn’t she a daisy, Gildy?” said Stirling West enthusiastically, as he continued to clap his hands together. “Come on around back of the scenes and I’ll introduce you.”
It was thus that the life of the Romans just touched the divine agony of that other life lived by the poor carpenter who was Jehovah-God in the flesh; it was thus that their two lives just touched but did not commingle.
DURING the winter it became more and more certain that Bishop Godkin was dying, and that Dr. Caiaphas would be chosen his successor.
The poor bishop had been sick for nearly a year past. Then the cause of his illness was found to be an internal malignant disease.
At first, even after the nature of the trouble had been diagnosed, he had battled against his mortal sickness, now feeling better and now again more ill, and for a long time his family had hoped against failing hope that it might not be what the physicians had decided it to be. Then, at last, towards the end, came the time when it became no longer possible to disguise the inevitable fact. Bishop Godkin must die–the end was certain and was very near, and nothing, not all the skill of modern surgery, could save him. It was dreadful for Mrs. Godkin and thetwo Misses Godkin–both elderly spinsters–and they fell, for a time, prostrate under the blow that the attendant physicians had to administer. Then they somewhat rallied again from that prostration, and, after a while, again began now and then to hope, for there were times when there would be a respite in the ghastly sickness.
Meantime the work upon the unfinished temple was being pushed forward with a renewed vigor after the freezing cold of the winter. Stone by stone, bit by bit, it grew towards its slow completion. It seemed to those poor women, in these dark days of their trouble, to be peculiarly tragic to look out of the broad, clear windows of the bishop’s house, across the open plazza-like square, and to see everything over there at the towering structure so busy and full of life; to hear the ceaseless clink-clicking of hammer and chisel, and now and then the creaking of block-and-tackle; to see always the restless moving of the workmen among the blocks of marble, and the débris scattered about under the sheds in front of the south nave–to see all this and then to think of the muffled stillness of the sick-room over yonder, where, maybe, the physician sat listening patiently to the sick man as he maundered on about his discomforts.
Everybody believed that Dr. Caiaphas wouldbe the next bishop–that is, everybody except Dr. Caiaphas himself. He desired the honor so much that he did not dare let himself believe–hardly to let himself hope. He used to go every day or two to visit the dying man. It was always a distressing task to him, but he resolutely set himself to do it as cheerfully as possible. He used to dread it very much; the sight of the unpreventable squalor of a sick-room, even as comfortable as this, was very revolting to him–the smell of the medicines and the sight of the basins and towels, the half-drawn curtains, the silent, shadow-like movements of the trained nurse, and always the sick man himself–the centre of all this attention–sitting propped among the pillows in a great arm-chair by the table. There were generally flowers in the tall tumbler on the table; they only made everything seem still more ghastly with their insistence of something sweet and pretty where nothing could be sweet and pretty.
Dr. Caiaphas used to return from such visits with an ever-haunting recollection of that pinched, haggard, eager face that had once been so rosy; of the bent, lean figure that had once been so plump–its helpless hands and its legs wrapped up in blankets–the lean brows already gray with the shadow of approaching death; all thesemade still more terrible by the attempted comforts of the sick-room.
At such times, after his return home, Dr. Caiaphas would look around at his beautiful books, his little gems of art, his engravings, his Eastern rugs, his soft, delectable surroundings, and wonder what was the good of them all except to cover over the chasm of death so that for a time he might not see it. That chasm of death! What was there within it? Was there really another and a better life, or only the blackness of oblivion? In a few days now the poor old man who was dying over at the cathedral yonder would have solved the enigma–a few days and he would either be alive again or else he would know nothing at all. Dr. Caiaphas wondered why he had yesterday bought, at so extravagant a price, the Aldine Virgil in its original pigskin binding. How poor and foolish and petty was the joy of ownership of such a thing when a man must die in the end!
Then, one morning while Dr. Caiaphas was busy writing at his book,The Great Religion of the World, the serving-man brought him a note. He tore it open and hastily read it. “Dear Dr. Caiaphas,” it said, “come as soon as you can to the bishop’s house. The bishop is sinking rapidly.” It was signed by Dr. Willington.
“Where are you going, Theodore?” said Mrs. Caiaphas, as she met the doctor hurrying down the stairs.
“My dear, the poor bishop is dying,” he said, solemnly.
“Oh, Theodore!” she cried. The first thought that flashed through her mind was of the relation of this coming event to herself–that maybe, at last, her husband was upon the eve of becoming the head of the Church. She put the thought away from her as quickly as she could. “Oh, Theodore!” she cried again.
“Yes, my dear,” he said. And then he kissed her and left her.
The bishop was, indeed, dying. There was no mistaking the signs–the broken, irregular, strident breathing; the pale, filmy eyes, the pinched nose, and the cavernous mouth. Dr. Willington and Dr. Clarkson were both present. Dr. Clarkson sat by the bedside, his finger-tips resting lightly upon the lean wrist of the unconscious hand that lay limp upon the coverlet. The trained nurse stood on the other side of the bed, her hands folded and a look as of patient waiting upon her smooth, gentle face. Her cap and her apron added to that look of patient gentleness.
Mr. Bonteen, the rector of the temple, and Mr.Goodman, his assistant, were both present in the room. Mrs. Godkin and her two daughters had been up nearly all night and were not then present. Dr. Willington had just now sent them down to a broken, scrappy breakfast.
Dr. Caiaphas stood looking down into the face of the dying man. He gazed solemnly and silently. In a little while he also would look like that and be as that–then he turned away. Mr. Bonteen arose and shook hands silently with him. There had been a long lull in the quick, harsh breathing; suddenly it began again. The door opened and Mrs. Godkin came into the room. Dr. Caiaphas arose; she gave him her hand. She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and her body was shaken with sobs. He pressed the helpless hand he held. “The Lord,” said he, “will temper the wind to the shorn lamb.” And then it flashed upon him that he was quoting secular and not sacred words. He looked around but no one else seemed to notice the fact.
About noon Mr. Thomas and Mr. Algernon Godkin, the bishop’s two brothers, arrived, and then Dr. Caiaphas went home to lunch. Almost never had he realized the littleness of man’s life as now. He could not enjoy the salmi of capon–hardly could he enjoy the Madeira.
At half-past two o’clock Bishop Godkin passed away.
Dr. Caiaphas was elected his successor. The day that he was chosen was, perhaps, one of the happiest of his life. He went straight to his wife; he seemed to be walking upon air. He found her in her own room, reading a magazine. He took her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. “Mary,” he said, “will you wish me joy?”
“Oh, Theodore,” she cried, rising and letting the magazine fall to the floor, “have you got it?”
He nodded his head.
She flung her arms around his neck and drew him close to her. It was almost exactly as it had been when, twenty-one years ago, he had told her he had been invited to the living of the Church of the Advent. There were tears in her eyes now as there had been then. They were both of them very happy.
It was arranged that no immediate change as to residence was to be made. Mrs. Godkin and her two daughters were to continue to live at the bishop’s house until the coming May, so that, in the mean time, they might have an opportunity of finding another house to suit them. Mrs. Godkin’s brother-in-law wanted her to remove tothe northern metropolis, but she was too closely identified with her present home and too deeply inrooted in its society to be willing to transplant her life into other and newer ground.
The newly elected high-priest suggested Dr. Dayton, of the neighboring city, as a fitting one to succeed himself as rector of the Church of the Advent.
“Since we cannot any longer,” said Mr. Dorman-Webster, “have Dr. Caiaphas, under whom we have grown up into spiritual manhood through all these years, and whom we love so dearly”–and he reached across the table as he spoke and clasped the new bishop’s hand–“I, for one, advise that we shall do the next best thing, and take the man whom he shall nominate.”
Bishop Caiaphas wrung Mr. Dorman-Webster’s hand in silence–he could not trust himself to speak.
So Dr. Dayton was invited to come over and take the rectorship of the Church of the Advent.