He smiled with a cool sneer. The man behind the curtain did not answer him. So, he was embarrassed, was he?
“We no longer believe in Sola Scriptura, except as parables to point a simple tale, and of course we—we—don’t believe in the twin ‘sources of truth,’ Scripture and tradition. Not any longer. It’s not that we denigrate the idea of Divine Authority, no. Rather, we believe that man has now so advanced intellectually that he can discard his mystical crutches and stand alone, as a Rational Creature. I am not denying the Divine Source; that would be absurd. But the Divine Source, as we are now all agreed—except the Roman Catholics—is in man and not external to him in some silly golden streets of heaven presided over by a patriarch. We look, not to some supranatural future, but to the world and the perfectibility of man, for this is all we can know and it is surely the noblest object of man’s striving.”
His voice rolled sonorously back to him from the marble walls and he was pleased at the sound. He hoped that he had made his point though he doubted that the idiot behind those curtains had understood one word. At the very least he ought to feel damned uncomfortable.
Again the minister felt angry and affronted, and outraged that he had even come to this place to confront the unlettered clergyman in this room.
“I’ve heard a great deal about you! Do you know what you are doing? You are misleading the people! You deceive them with lying promises of what does not and cannot exist and never did. You speak to them of ‘miracles,’ and you are alleged to have performed them. Do you know what blasphemy is? If you do, then you must realize you are blasphemous as well as sanctimonious. Life itself is a miracle; we don’t need anything else, and there was never anything else. You have probably absorbed a little psychiatry and understand psychosomatic medicine to some extent. Through these things you have, no doubt, been able to misguide the ignorant and the mindless and the hysterical. That is inexcusable in these days. You must stop this deceit, this superstition, this encouraging of the darkest aspect of the human—mind.”
He heard himself speak with heat, and he reflected on what he had said so eloquently. Then it came to him that somewhere, at some time, men had said this very thing to—someone? He could not remember. But he felt a hard sickness in his chest, a curious sensation that he had betrayed—But whom had he betrayed, and why this strange sense of haunting familiarity, a kind of memory of something that had happened long ago?
Don’t you remember? asked that new voice in him. Surely you remember?
“In less enlightened days,” said Dr. Pfeiffer, vaguely fearful of that voice in himself and repulsed by it, “men like you would have been driven from the religious community. In less enlightened and more barbarous days you’d have been cruci—”
Something struck at his heart like a gigantic fist, and he stepped back involuntarily from the chair. But he was not a man to let fantasy and strange fears possess him. After a moment he went on: “You are irrelevant, in these times. I dislike calling any man a fraud, but I’m afraid you are. I ask you now to leave this place and let it be closed. Send the churchless back to us, where they belong. Let them come to us if they are in need—”
Such as Susan Goodwin? asked the inner voice.
“People should not be encouraged to have atavistic needs,” said the minister. “But you are encouraging them with lying hopes beyond reality. That way lies madness. Men no longer live in a simplistic era; we are very complex in the world now. But when a man is led to believe simply and literally—the things which are only symbolic and meant only to be symbolic—then he encounters confusion when confronted with reality, for he sees reality not clearly any longer but distorted and smeared. He can even, in his attempt to adjust these irreconcilable things, become fanatical, and there is no place any longer for the fanatic, except, of course, the madhouse. Christianity is a truly sane religion—”
And what do you know of it? asked the inner voice, but now it appeared that it was external also and full of powerful sternness.
“The Social Gospel,” said the minister, hurrying his words to drown out his most irrational fear, “has not exactly replaced the Four Gospels. It has only made them more meaningful for Our Times.” He was exasperated both with the nameless thing in himself and with the silent man behind the curtain. “Have you ever heard of Paul Tillich? No? Then I advise you to read him. He speaks of the irrelevances in old interpretations. But you would not agree with him, I’m sure. And there are others like him, whom I admire very much; they divorced ethics from mysticism and placed them firmly in the frame of reference of modern life and modern demands. Secular ethics—the very base of good government and good will and responsibility. It’s not that I am a secularist minister, but I do understand that the secular and spiritual realms are the same and not divided by supernaturalism. We aren’t medievalists any longer, you know. Or, do you know?”
The man had the wit not to answer, for, of course, he did not understand.
“Are you there?” asked Dr. Pfeiffer, the thought coming to him that no one was there at all. Was that a movement of assent behind the curtain or a mere stirring of the air-conditioning? Then he became convinced that he was not alone; there was a sense of a powerful presence in the room, a listening presence. It seemed to have focused itself upon him.
“Well, if you are really there, I beg you not to deceive the simple any longer. It’s really dangerous these days—” He stopped. The ghastly sense of reliving something, or of rehearing something, which he could not remember, came back to him like a long echo over a range of mountains, over a range of time. “Dangerous, these days,” he repeated. “It disturbs the people; it makes them discontented, makes them look for contentment and hope where there are no contentment and hope. Superstition, in short.
“Today I visited a lady whose son will soon die very cruelly, I’m afraid. Her young son. I always thought she was a sensible young woman, totally rational and perceptive, aware of the inexorable when it happened. It’s an awful thing to have to accept, I know, the death of her son, her only son—”
Her only son, said the new voice and again it appeared to be external also.
“Yes, yes. Her only son. I went to console her, after she had called me. I’m her minister; she is a member of my congregation. What could I tell her? I could tell her only the truth, that she must accept what can’t be changed, and go on with her life. After all, this is the twentieth century. But she became—almost violent. She was bitter, she, a young and intelligent woman! It was incredible. She seemed to be demanding something of me—”
What? asked the voice.
“I don’t know!” he exclaimed. “Or, I should say that it wasn’t possible for me to give it to her, for it would have been cant, and absurd. I couldn’t say to her: ‘It is God’s Will, and He knows what is just and for the best.’ For, how can we be sure of that? Who has ever declared it to be so?”
Who? echoed the voice.
He shook his head with an almost despairing impatience. “She wanted pious platitudes from me, and assurances that her son would not be lost to her but would be restored to her in some pastel heaven. If I had said that, to a normally intelligent young woman, I’d have been ashamed of myself, and later she would have been amused. I’m a compassionate man. But I couldn’t lie to her and tell her things in which I don’t personally believe. I think she even wanted a miracle—prayer, you know, kneeling together—”
Yes? said that questioning and ridiculous thing in himself. He shook his head over and over.
“My God!” he cried. “I wish that I could have lied to her! I honestly wish it! If it would have brought her comfort, any comfort at all, when she thinks of the approaching death of her only child! Some pietistic nonsense, such as my father could pour out at the slightest provocation. Such as—”
He stopped, for the inner voice appeared to become totally external now.
“‘I am the Resurrection and the Life?’”
What was it that Paul of Tarsus had said? If Chris
t indeed had not risen then our faith is in vain. Dr. Pfeiffer started. Why should he have remembered that now? He had forgotten, in his pity for Susan Goodwin, why he had come here at all. He must remember and stop imagining nonsense. Why, damn it, he was like some petitioner himself, in this shameful place! He said firmly, “I’m off the subject, I’m afraid. You really must close up shop, you know, for the sake of all of us.”
“The cock crowed thrice.”
He could not believe it. His ears rang with the appalling words. Yet, surely, no one but himself had spoken. Now the words of betrayal, of most deathly betrayal, had begun to ring on his heart as well as on his ears. Hypnotism, he thought wildly, self-hypnotism, in this confounded silent place. He moved step by step away from the silent blue curtain.
“Who do you say I am?”
He stopped abruptly. No, no one had spoken. He was imagining it all. Then an emotion ran through him like the utmost despair, a sense of deprivation and desolation beyond anything he could have imagined.
He cried, “My God, my God, I wish I knew! I only wish I knew!”
He lost all pride, all dignity, all that he admired in civilized man. He approached the curtain again, forgetting that he was self-hypnotized, forgetting that all this was fantasy. He saw the button near the curtain and the little sign informing him that if he wished to see the man who had listened to him he had only to press that button.
He hesitated. He was all painful and burning confusion, all inner dishevelment, all distraction. Never, in all his life, had he ever experienced this. His hand plunged to the button and struck it and the curtains rolled aside.
He saw the man who had heard him in the glow of the pure bright light. He saw the Reality of the ages, and all that he had denied while believing he had accepted. He flung up his arm at last to conceal that face and those accusing eyes, those most pitying eyes. And from behind the childish sheltering of his arm he spoke.
“No, I never denied you because I never truly believed in you. You were a beautiful Symbol to me. I was never confronted by you before. Was that because I never looked for you? Because I was convinced there was nothing to find but a code of ethics, spoken in majestic language, but only a secular code and not a way of spiritual life?
“I denied you because I denied myself and all that I instinctively knew. I was ashamed of you in my heart—because I was ashamed of myself. I believed that only that which could be explained had verity, that only rational explanations were worthy of a man. I denied your authority because there was no real authority in me, and because of the lack of personal authority, based on your own, my people look at me denyingly—and I have nothing to offer them. Is that why their eyes are often ironical and bored or desperate? Yet, my church is so fashionable!”
He dropped his arm and looked pleadingly at the man.
“So fashionable,” he repeated, and laughed bitterly. “Why did they come at all, then, when I had nothing to offer them? Are they not as guilty as I?”
The man did not answer him. He only waited as he had waited through the centuries.
“No,” said Dr. Pfeiffer, “only I am guilty. Today I was called a false shepherd. It’s quite true. I am also a stupid shepherd. No. I was never a shepherd at all, not once since I was ordained. A woman who is about to lose her only son held out her hands to me today and I had nothing to give her, nothing of consolation to offer, for there was nothing in me and nothing of consolation. It was not my son who was dying, therefore I was not intimately concerned.” He stopped and stared at the man. “It was your mother’s son who was about to die, and there was none of his friends to comfort her; they ran from her, just as I ran from Susan Goodwin, the mother. They had one excuse, cowardice. My only excuse, which is the worst of all, is that I had no answer to a mother’s grief. It is the very worst, for I had no faith. No faith, not even in a Symbol.”
He went to the chair for he felt exhausted. He sat down and the man and himself regarded each other in a long silence.
He said, “I not only betrayed you. I betrayed my people, and yours. I never once said, as Peter said, that you are the Lord. To me you were a disembodied Idea, a diffusion of good will, and peace, a beautiful Idea—but only an Idea. Why, then, did I become a clergyman?”
He threw out his hands. “I don’t know. Before God, I don’t know. But I’m not the only one. So few of us know, or are even aware that there is something we do not know. We are just Guides, just Leaders, just learned discussers, just erudite—fools. Theological fools who don’t believe in theology, and regard it as only an intellectual exercise. Prophets of Freud, by God! And prophets of fraud. We say we have the water of life, but our vats are dry, and we eulogize the dust. We speak only of the world and never question the stars, for the world is all we know—and all we want to know. Our little bright corner is enough for us, and there we can sit and talk our blasphemous and urbane nonsense, and utter our words of peace in a world where there is no peace, and offer up well-rehearsed prayers which are empty of content, as we are empty of content. Who shall forgive us?”
The man regarded him gently. The minister said, “Who can forgive us?”
There was such anguish in him, such total belief, and such sorrow. “Yes,” he said, “though the cock crowed three times you will forgive me. You have already forgiven me. I will take up the rod and the staff you gave me but which I rejected. I will find the flock you entrusted to me and I will bring them to you. I will say to them, ‘Here is the Way and the Truth and the Life, and there is none other, world without end.’ For now I know.”
He slipped from the chair and knelt humbly before the man and bowed his head.
“There is a mother waiting, whose son is going to die. Walk with me, and let me tell her your truth—that there is no death, and that you are the Everlasting Life and her son will be restored to her. As you were restored to your mother.”
He stood up and smiled at the man. “Indeed, indeed, ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God,’ in which we are safe and in which we are protected. Forever.”
SOUL THREE
The Afflicted
“I know that my Redeemer Liveth.”
Job 19:25
SOUL THREE
“I didn’t come here for counsel,” said Francis Stoddard to the hidden man behind the blue curtain. “I’ve had plenty of that stupidity. When I lost my business fifteen years ago, you should have heard all my self-appointed advisers! I should have listened to them; I shouldn’t have done this, I should have done that, if I’d only watched my step here, or been plenty smart there—it wouldn’t have happened to me. Then when I made my comeback, they were almost offended. I hadn’t asked their advice; I’d done it all myself. When I was down, they could feel superior and pity me—and avoid me, too, afraid I’d ask them for money. My best friend—he’d suddenly cross the street when he saw me coming. You’d have thought I’d taken something from him, personally, when I began my fight up again and paid off all my debts and became richer than he is. They were all the same. Did one of them help to keep me in the clubs I once belonged to, when I was in debt? No. Did they come to the house when I was threatened with foreclosure and advance me the money I wouldn’t have accepted anyway? No. You’d have thought Agnes and I were lepers or something.
“Then, when I came back they were either offended or ashamed. They needn’t have worried. We never saw them again. I made sure of that. Agnes called them ‘Job’s Comforters.’ I don’t know what she meant; I must look it up sometime. If there is any ‘sometime’ ahead for me, which I hope there won’t be.
“Then, we lost our daughter, our only child.” His voice became hoarse and slow. “On the day before she was to be married. Nineteen years old. The prettiest girl in our community. That was soon after I lost my business. We thought we’d have a little joy in Pat. But I suppose Agnes’ God couldn’t stand that, either. She was all we had. Beautiful girl, honors at college. Going to marry a young man who was all I’d ever have chosen for my daughter. I ought to tell you a li
ttle more about Pat, but I suppose Agnes told you, when she was here a couple of weeks ago, and why the hell she came to you I don’t know.
“Pat never caused us a moment’s anxiety or misery in all her nineteen years. That was twelve years ago—when she was killed in a senseless automobile accident, with the boy she was to marry. It didn’t matter to him that I was a bankrupt, trying to get on my feet again. A fine boy. He was almost worthy of Pat. She was like a blaze of light in the house. I never saw anyone more alive than my daughter. My Pat. When she left a room it seemed to be darker. When you heard her voice, well, it was like hearing someone bringing you good news. She enjoyed everything; she loved everybody. She could even make me laugh, in those terrible days when we didn’t know if we could keep the house the next month. There was nothing she couldn’t do. She could paint and sing. She was going to teach for a while, even after she was married. She was full of plans—”
The man broke off. Twelve years ago. It was only yesterday, when all that light and love and joy and hope had been instantaneously blotted out, to leave only a black hole in his life. He remembered her when she had modeled her wedding dress for him—thin white stuff like mist, and the long lace mantilla which Agnes had worn at her own wedding. He remembered the bright fluff of her hair about her shining face and the deep blue of her eyes and the long whiteness of her neck. He had felt—though no one believed him now, except Agnes—a sudden horrible clenching of his heart when he had seen her dressed like that, an awful premonition as if he had seen her in her death clothes. (She had actually been buried in her wedding dress, complete with veil and with a bride’s bouquet in her silent hands.) No, no one believed it, after he had told it later.