I agree that the gulf between good and evil is not very wide. In truth, it is only a hairline. You, above all, should know that! The traffic across that hairline is tumultuous, as we have observed. We have also observed that if it is easy to fall into evil the return is almost as easy. Both require an act of the will, and no man’s will is ever paralyzed, no, not even by wicked men. A slave deserves to be a slave, for he did not possess the courage to refuse and the honor to fight for his freedom, which surely should be more important to him than his life! Yet men have rejected slavery before, and it is possible that they will reject it again. Slavery is an evil, but it is the evil of the slave and not the slave-master. The oppressed are guilty of their oppression, the anxious of their anxiety, the despairing of their despair. They needed only to be men, as Our Father made them. Evil governments are not the fault of a few, or even the ambition of a few. Their people acceded to them, and consented to be governed by them, because they were cowards. There was only one true Victim on Terra. The endless multitudes of humanity who have wailed through the centuries that they were helpless “victims,” did not appear to know that they devised their own victimization, through pusillanimity, carelessness, excessive optimism, a belief in the “innate goodness of man,” and through lack of imagination or a sound mistrust of their fellows. A city which surrenders has only itself to blame for its chains. It should have preferred death, for death is nothing, but dishonor is immortal. Yet, how often you have whispered to man that it is better to live on his knees than to die like a man on his feet! You have told man that mere bodily existence is the utmost value, and that he must cuddle and warm and feed and pamper and decorate and shelter his flesh at all costs, even at the cost of his manhood. There is no greater debasement of the human spirit.
To despair of the Mercy of God, as so many endless millions of men do, is, as Our Father has said, Himself, of the greatest offense to Him. Yet men despair always, and therefore do not fight for their liberty, which was God’s gift. They do not understand that when they lose the liberty of the body they lose the greater part: the liberty of the soul. The man who surrenders that surrenders not only his hope in the world but his hope in Heaven. When he consents to the slightest chain, even under the plea of the “welfare of all,” it is as sinful an act as if he had consented to be emasculated and a slave forever. He is responsible, above all, for his own soul, and he cannot abrogate that responsibility without the direst of consequences. Only the strong can protect the weak. Only the noble of heart can inspire other men to nobility, to sacrifice, to self-discipline, to love. Only a Godly man can know God. But this is something that the men of Terra, and other fallen worlds, reject, and in that rejection they truly die on their world and in their souls. They become your slaves by their own consent, by their own will.
So I have told the men of Lympia. I visited them but yesterday in their time, and they greeted me with disturbed and solemn expressions, and some reservations, for you did your seduction well, Lucifer. I said to them, “The Dragon would have you in subjection to him, as he has other worlds in that subjection. He would not give you liberty to expand the possibilities of your spirits. He would make you his slaves, and slaves do not have any possibilities at all. He would not widen your horizons; he would narrow them to the prisonhouse. There would be no exercise of your innate idealism and love of creation. He would have you concentrate only on your own conceits and lusts, and hate all who dispute with you. On a certain day when Our Father decrees it, and you have not fallen in your vanity, and your induced conviction that you have the regal right to rule the lesser worlds has not resulted in aggression against others, you will be given, by God, the opportunity to take your inventions and your aspirations and your virtues to worlds less fortunate than yours. But they will not be fallen worlds; they will be sinless, as you are still sinless. Then truly they will be eager to learn from you, and will love you as you will love them, in the Name of God. There will be mutual rejoicings and the true communion of brothers, and exchange of wonders and wisdom.
“But if you listen to my brother, Lucifer, you will spread sin throughout the worlds you will achieve, and malice, and death, and these things will rule Lympia also, and your children will know what it is to die, to suffer, and to despair. It is your choice.”
“Is he truly an archangel?” one asked.
“He is truly an archangel.”
“Is he one of the sons of God, as he said?”
“He is truly one of the sons of God.”
“Why does God permit him to seduce the souls of men and destroy them, and bring them death?”
“God does not permit it. Only men do. It is their choice.”
“Alas,” said one of the women, “we are only flesh and he is a great spirit, and how can we contend with him?”
“You have the power of God as your armor and your sword, and His Promise to you.”
“But if we remember, how shall we convince our children?”
“If you do not fall, then your children may not fall either.”
“And, if they do, after all our hopes and our prayers?”
“It would be their choice, for God does not deny any of His children free will. This then, is your duty: You must teach your children that nothing is more important than the Law of God, and His love. If you teach them diligently they will not fall away. But you must be sleepless in your teaching, and never careless, or too engrossed with the affairs of your world. That, too, is a sin.”
Some children were already born on Lympia, and slept in their mothers’ arms. I looked upon their pure and shining faces, sinless and blameless, and I said to their mothers, “Keep them so, and safe, and in the fear of God above all things. Put His Sign upon your portals, and keep His Word in your hearts. Raise up temples to Him, and forget Him never. For forgetfulness of God is a most terrible wickedness. After the generation of these, your children, I shall not visit you again except in spirit, and you will not see me. But remember, always, lest your children die, and their children with them.”
I did not speak gently to them, as I did before, but sternly, for a whole world is in the balance. They saw my countenance, and were afraid, and I was glad of the fear.
One said, “We will say to him, ‘Begone, father of lies and slavery and all corruption and death! We will have none of you, and will listen never to you.’”
“So be it,” I replied. “It is your choice. It must also be the choice of your children, and their children forever, lest you all die. You have observed a little world called Terra, on the outer borders of this, my own Galaxy, and yours. You have seen what it is to fall and to know death. I cannot tell you her future, for only God knows that. Sufficient it is for you to know that through all the millennia of Terra there has ruled only dread and horror, only blood and war, only dark ages of desolation and the falling and rising of continents, and disasters, and cruelty and malice and slavery. These are still only words to you. If you fall, they will be your own reality, also.
“Once the men of Terra lived in a Garden such as you live in now, and all was warmth and peace and love and innocent imaginings and light and immortality, and laughter and joy. Men knew God, as you know Him. He walked in the Garden with them, as He walks in the Garden with you. They heard His Voice, as you hear His Voice. They called Him Father and Lord, as you so call Him. He delighted in them, as He delights in you. His angel visited them, as I visit you now.”
“Yet, they fell?” said one young man, shivering.
“They fell.”
“They listened to the words of Lucifer?”
“They listened. They still listen, above all else.”
“How is it possible?” one exclaimed.
“Did you not listen for a little while? He will return. He always returns. And when he does his suggestions will be far more beguiling, and it may be that you will follow them. He will not speak only when he comes next. He will dazzle you with his invented wonders, and he will puff up your spirits. If you listen to him
, and turn not from him at once.”
I looked upon them even more sternly before departing from them. Can you seduce them? Not even you know, but only God.
Last night Terra had a Visitor, as she often has—She, the Mother of the Lord, Mary. I saw you watching her, as I watched her, and she moved over the lands of Terra and there was all sorrow in her innocent eyes and all grief in her face. But only you and I saw her, for men have blinded themselves through your seductions. She walked in beauty, as always she has walked, and in majesty and gentleness and love. She paused, and she sighed, and she lifted her radiant hands in prayer, for on this little world she was born and it is dear to her. Did not her Son die upon it, and for it? Did not the generations of her people seek to teach it? Her father and her mother knew it as their mother, their womb, and they were of its dust, as she was of its dust, and the Body of her Son, also.
She was crowned with white fire and her garments were as lightning, sown with stars, and she was eternally young. She encountered you and you gazed upon each other in silence. She said no word, but at last you shadowed your face with your hand and retreated from her. There were tears upon her countenance, for she remembered, perhaps, how once you were beloved of God. She sighed, not only for Terra, but for you.
Can you not be moved a little, if only a little, for her dear sake?
Your brother, Michael
Greetings to my brother, Michael, who should not have invoked the name of her who suffered most greatly when man destroyed the flesh of her Son on the infamous tree—for her name is more than I can bear:
You should not have written of Mary to me, that most Blessed of Women, Blessed of Mothers, in these final hours of Terra, for all that she endured as human flesh has been in vain, and all that her Son endured has come to nothing but mockery.
Useless have been her warnings and her tears, and her love for her fellowman, as useless as the Sacrifice of her Son. Her name, and His, are coupled in contempt among men, and for that alone I would destroy Terra. Her Motherhood is derided, her purity impugned. If she weeps, I weep with her, though not for the same reason!
I have seen her often lately, moving over the hideous face of Terra, sighing with maternal sorrow, praying that her children will understand before time has run out for them. But her prayers, too, are in vain. There are times when I would pray that they are not in vain! But that is too much to expect of men.
Farewell, Michael. Our Dialogue has come to an end, for there is no necessity for it any longer. Say my farewell also to Our Father, and kiss my brothers on their cheeks, for it is my final kiss.
Dear Michael, I who am about to fall forever, salute you.
Your brother, Lucifer
Greetings to my brother, Lucifer, whom we all love and would have return to us:
Grant my prayer and meet me on the planet, Pellissa, of the star Tau Ceti, a newborn daughter of that sun. It is most urgent.
Your brother, Michael
Prelude to Apocalypse He had never been here before, for it was a mighty planet newly born, innocent of all but the gentlest life in the form of beast and creature and bird. Its beauty delighted him, for its airs were softly rose and gilt, its sky of pellucid mauve—for Tau Ceti was as a great lavender prism turning rapidly on its axis—its thick soft grass gleaming with a magenta tinge, its peaks white and gilded or brilliant blue, its hills folded as if in azure velvet, its rivers and seas purely silver with lilac crests, its lakes violet. The climate was sweet, fragrant with the scents of fruits, plumed amethystine trees, fields of flowers as yet unnamed, and dewy turf, and tumultuous with the joyous songs of gorgeously colored birds.
He saw a white porticoed and pillared building at the base of a hill, and heard the plashing of fountains, and he paused a moment and smiled, and was refreshed, for he knew he would find no man here to torment and agonize him, to wait eagerly for his seductions. Then he went on toward the building, knowing who would greet him, for now he saw several white-robed and cloaked figures serenely emerging from the portico of the building and looking in his direction. He walked with all the grandeur with which he had been endowed, his robe of flashing gold, his cloak a deep and royal purple. He wore a crown quivering with light, he had always been known to God and his brothers as the Daystar, and his sheathed sword glittered with jewels. His step was calm and august, and the air quivered about him and quickened, for not even the sorrows and anathemas of thousands of centuries could steal from him the power and the glory which had been his from the moment of his creation.
But as the planet, Pellissa, was of grosser material than his own essence, he had had to reduce the vibration of his spirit, though not to the level of other planets. So his wings of light were only a shaking manifestation about his shoulders and hardly visible. His golden-shod feet twinkled with the energy of his being, and barely touched the grass. He was beautiful beyond all imagining, he who once had been the viceroy of God, the greatest and noblest and proudest archangel of them all, and dearly beloved of his Father and his brothers. Once the ambassador to angels—he who had stood at the hand of God—there was none to equal him for splendor and majesty and regal demeanor. His large white hands shone with gems, which blazed to the prismatic light of the great sun, Tau Ceti, and his upper arms were girdled with bands of jeweled gold and were muscular and strong.
But his face, above all, was awe-inspiring, like polished marble, with a fierce high nose and passionate mouth, and with eyes of a cold blue sagacity which had seen countless ages rise and fall and endless universes come and go like mists at dawn, and had looked upon both time and eternity, unmoved. His thick black hair fell to his shoulders, and it glistened. No archangel had ever matched his hauteur and his beauty, and the intensity of his spirit, and his irony had been both the delight and the laughing vexation of Heaven. Next to God, he was the most powerful of life, and the Contending Force.
It was Michael of the gold hair, the manly smiling face and the wise blue eyes who reached him first, and who, in a moved voice, said to him, “Luciel!” and clasped his upper arms in greeting. It was long since they had met and now they stood face to face, and after that greeting, Michael, for a little, could say no more. But his eyes shone with sadness and love.
Lucifer returned the embrace, and they stood facing each other, as brothers, one the victor and one the uncertainly conquered and driven from Heaven. “Greetings, Michael,” said Lucifer at last, and his voice was as Michael so sorrowfully remembered—sonorous and deep, yet with an overtone of music. However, at the sound of that voice the murmur of the breeze became suddenly silent, and the birds also, and it was as if everything held its breath in disturbed fear.
Gabriel of the silvery locks and the gray eyes reached him next, and embraced him with but the one affectionate word, “Luciel.” Then Raphael came, Raphael like a younger brother, with dark hair and dark eyes, a broad and masculine countenance, and a proud glance, and then gentle Ariel, brown of hair and tawny of eye, and full of grace, and younger than them all. These two also called him by name and embraced him, and gazed at him strangely.
“I see all are not here,” said Lucifer.
“No,” said Michael. “Not all.”
“Not Azazel, for one, my brother, Death,” said Lucifer, faintly smiling.
“But you have not been here before,” said Michael. They all walked together to a glade surrounded by enormous plum-colored trees, and they sat down on marble benches before a marble table on which waited alabaster bowls of fruit and white bread and honey, and gemmed ewers of wine. Their robes lay on their massive bodies and limbs like carved white stone, and all, Lucifer observed, wore swords, and this made him smile again, his terrible and beautiful smile.
“Still, you are enough,” he said. “I expected only Michael.” They were silent, gazing at him mysteriously but with a calm though urgent air. He said to Gabriel, “I regret Polosi.”
“That I know,” said Gabriel, in his wonderful voice, for he was the messenger of God.
Lucif
er said to Raphael, “And Acosta.”
“Yes,” said the archangel, with sorrow.
Lucifer said to Ariel, “And Betelginia.”
Ariel inclined his head. His eyes clouded as if with tears.
“None gave me pleasure,” said Lucifer.
“We know this. Have we not always known it?” said Michael.
Lucifer stretched out his hand and took a bunch of grapes of a vessel and observed their opalescent colors with sincere admiration. He ate a few slowly and meditatively. He said, “Why are you here, my brothers, with Michael?”
“For your dear sake,” said Michael.
The grand and awful face darkened. It turned slowly and the eyes surveyed the landscape. “This is a veritable paradise,” he said. “Is it Our Father’s intention to blacken it with man and destroy its loveliness and bring a curse upon it?”
“I cannot tell you,” said Michael, who spoke for his brothers.
“But, He will endow it with free will?”
Michael did not answer. Lucifer laughed. The air was utterly silent. The birds had not resumed their singing, nor had the breezes begun again their gentle melody. Shapes of innocent animals no longer gamboled among the trees or on the grass, but lay, crouched, as if dreadfully threatened. There was a sensation of oppression in the atmosphere, a sensation as if the light had vaguely failed. All things fear me, thought Lucifer, yet, if man is not created here they need not fear. I respect their inability to be corrupt.
The young and graceful Ariel rose and poured wine for his brothers, and they took the shining goblets in their hands and then raised them to their lips. Over the rims of the wreathed goblets their eyes studied Lucifer gravely and imploringly. He was with them, but not of them, and Michael remembered that it was always so, even in Heaven. He loved them, but it was with a condescending love, for he was greater than all and the oldest, and in many ways he possessed more wisdom.