CHAPTER IX
STARS IN WATER
As an excuse for not appearing in time at the Agape, Castor had assertedthat he had been engaged on his Master's work elsewhere. That was true. Hehad been at the house of the timber merchant as we have seen, and he hadbeen detained by AEmilius as he left it. This latter had been lying on hisbed resting, whilst his garments were being dried.
He had overheard what had passed in the room of the dying woman.
When the bishop went forth, then AEmilius rose from his bed, cast the ampletoga about him, and walked forth. He caught Castor as he descended to thewater's edge to be paddled away.
After a short salutation, the young lawyer said: "A word with you, sir, ifyour time is as generously to be disposed of to a stranger as it islavished on the poor and sick."
"I am at your service," answered the bishop.
"My name," said the young man, "is AEmilius Lentulus Varo. My profession isthe law. I am not, I believe, unknown in Nemausus, or at Arelate, wherealso I have an office. But you, sir, may not have heard of me--we haveassuredly never met. Your age and gravity of demeanor belong to a socialgroup other than mine. You mix with the wise, the philosophers, and notwith such butterflies as myself, who am a ridiculous pleasureseeker--seeking and never finding. If I am not in error, you are CastorLepidus Villoneos, of an ancient magisterial family in Nemausus and thereputed head of the Christian sect."
"I am he," answered the bishop.
"It may appear to you a piece of idle curiosity," said the young man, "ifI put to you certain questions, and esteem it an impertinence, and so sendme away empty. But I pray you to afford me--if thy courtesy will sufferit--some information concerning a matter on which I am eager to obtainlight. I have been in the apartment adjoining that in which the mother ofthe hostess lay, and I chanced--the partition being but of plank--tooverhear what was said. I confess that I am inquisitive to know somethingmore certain of this philosophy or superstition, than what is commonlyreported among the people. On this account, I venture to detain you, asone qualified to satisfy my greed for knowledge."
"My time is at your disposal."
"You spoke to the dying woman as though she were about to pass into a newlife. Was that a poetic fancy or a philosophic speculation?"
"It was neither, it was a religious conviction. I spoke of what I knew tobe true."
"Knew to be true!" laughed AEmilius. "How so? Have you traveled into theworld of spirits, visited the _manes_, and returned posted up in allparticulars concerning them?"
"No. I receive the testimony from One I can trust."
"One! All men are liars. I knew a fellow who related that he had falleninto an epileptic fit, and that during the fit his spirit had crossed theStyx. But as he had no penny wherewith to pay the fare, I did not believehim. Moreover, he never told the story twice alike, and in other matterswas an arrant liar."
"Whom would you believe?"
"None, nothing save my own experience."
"Not Him who made and who sustains your existence, my good sir?"
"Yes, if I knew Him and were assured He spoke."
"That is the assurance I have."
AEmilius shook his head. "When, how, where, and by whom did He declare tomen that there is a life beyond the tomb?"
"The _when_ was in the principate of Tiberius Caesar, the _how_ was by themouth of His only-begotten Son, the _where_ was in Palestine."
The young lawyer laughed. "There is not a greater rogue and liar on theface of the earth than a Jew. I cannot believe in a revelation madeelsewhere than at the center of the world, in the city of Rome."
"Rome is the center of the world to you--but is it so to the infinite God?"
AEmilius shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "I am a lawyer. I ask forevidence. And I would not trust the word of a Jew against that of a commonGaulish peasant."
"Nor need you. The witness is in yourself."
"I do not understand you."
"Have not all men, at all times and everywhere desired to know what is tobe their condition after death? Does not every barbarous people harbor theconviction that there is a future life? Do not you civilized Romans,though you have no evidence, act as though there were such a life, andtestify thereto on your monumental cenotaphs?"
"I allow all that. But what of it?"
"How comes it that there should be such a conviction based on no groundswhatever, but a vague longing, unless there were such a reality providedfor those who have this desire in them? Would the Creator of man mock him?Would He put this hunger into him unless it were to be satisfied? You haveeyes that crave for the light, and the light exists that satisfies thislonging! You have ears that desire sounds, and the world is full of voicesthat meet this desire. Where there is a craving there is ever a realitythat corresponds with and gives repose to that desire. Look," said thebishop, and pointed to the water in which were reflected the stars thatnow began to glitter in the sky. "Do you see all those twinkling points inthe still water? They correspond to the living luminaries set above in thevault. You in your soul have these reflections--sometimes seen, sometimesobscured, but ever returning. They answer to realities in the celestialworld overhead. The reflections could not be in your nature unless theyexisted in substance above."
"There is a score of other things we long after in vain here."
"What things? I believe I know. Purity, perfection, justice. Well, you donot find them here entire--only in broken glints. But these glints assureyou that in their integrity they do exist."
A boat was propelled through the water. It broke the reflections, thatdisappeared or were resolved into a very dust of sparkles. As the waveletssubsided, however, the reflections reformed.
Castor walked up and down beside AEmilius in silence for a few turns, thensaid:--
"The world is full of inequalities and injustices. One man suffersprivation, another is gorged. One riots in luxury at the expense of theweak. Is there to be no righting of wrongs? no justice to be ever done? Ifthere be a God over all, He must, if just--and who can conceive of God,save as perfectly just?--He must, I say, deal righteous judgment and smoothout all these creases; and how can he do so, unless there be a conditionof existence after death in which the wrongs may be redressed, the evil-doers be punished, and tears be wiped away?"
"There is philosophy in this."
"Have you not in your conscience a sense of right as distinct fromwrong--obscured often, but ever returning--like the reflection of the starsin the water? How comes it there unless there be the verities above?Unless your Maker so made you as to reflect them in your spirit?"
AEmilius said nothing.
"Have you not in you a sense of the sacredness of Truth, and a loathingfor falsehood? How comes that, unless implanted in you by your Creator,who is Truth itself?"
"But we know not--in what is of supreme interest to us--in matters connectedwith the gods, what our duties, what our destiny--what is the Truth."
"Young man," said the bishop, "thou art a seeker after the kingdom ofHeaven. One word further, and I must leave thee. Granted there are thesescintillations within--"
"Yes, I grant this."
"And that they be reflections of verities above."
"Possibly."
"Whence else come they?"
AEmilius did not, could not answer.
"Then," said Castor, "is it not antecedently probable that the God whomade man, and put into his nature this desire after truth, virtue,holiness, justice, aye, and this hunger after immortality, should revealto man that without which man is unable to direct his life aright, attainto the perfection of his being, and look beyond death with confidence?"
"If there were but such a revelation!"
"I say--is it conceivable that the Creator should not make it?"
"Thou givest me much food for thought," said the lawyer.
"Digest it--looking at the reflection of the stars in the water--aye! andrecall what is told
by Aristotle of Xenophanes, how that casting his eyesupward at the immensity of heaven, he declared _The One_ is God. Thatconviction, at which the philosopher arrived at the summit of hisresearch, is the starting point of the Christian child. Farewell. We shallmeet again. I commend thee to Him who set the stars in heaven above, andthe lights in thine own dim soul."
Then the bishop sought a boat, and was rowed in the direction of the town.
AEmilius remained by the lagoon.
Words such as these he had heard were novel. The thoughts given him tomeditate on were so deep and strange that he could not receive them atonce.
The night was now quite dark, and the stars shone with a brilliancy towhich we are unaccustomed in the North, save on frosty winter nights.
The Milky Way formed a sort of crescent to the north, and envelopedCassiopeia's Chair in its nebulous light. To the west blazed Castor andPollux, and the changing iridescent fire of Algol reflected its varyingcolors in the water.
AEmilius looked up. What those points of light were, none could say. Howwas it that they maintained their order of rising and setting? None couldanswer. Who ruled the planets? That they obeyed a law, was obvious, but bywhom was that law imposed?
AEmilius paced quicker, with folded arms and bowed head, looking into thewater. The heavens were an unsolved riddle. The earth also was a riddle,without interpretation. Man himself was an enigma, to which there was nosolution. Was all in heaven, in earth, to remain thus locked up,unexplained?
How was it that planets and constellations fulfilled the law imposed onthem without deviation, and man knew not a law, lived in the midst of acobweb of guesses, entangling himself in the meshes of vain speculations,and was not shown the commandment he must obey? Why had the Creatorimplanted in his soul such noble germs, if they were not to fructify--ifonly to languish for lack of light?
Again he lifted his eyes to the starry vault, and repeated what had beensaid of Xenophanes, "Gazing on the immensity of heaven, he declared thatthe One was God." And then, immediately looking down into the depths ofhis own heart, he added: "And He is reflected here. Would that I knewHim."
Yet how was he to attain the desired knowledge? On all sides werereligious quacks offering their nostrums. What guarantee did Christianityoffer, that it was other than the wild and empty speculations thatswarmed, engaged and disappointed the minds of inquirers?
Unconscious how time passed, AEmilius paced the bank. Then he stood still,looking dreamily over the calm water. A couple of months more and the airwould be alive with fire-flies that would cluster on every reed, thatwould waver in dance above the surface of the lagoon, tens of thousands ofdrifting stars reflecting themselves in the water, and by their effulgencedisturbing the light of the stars also there mirrored.
Thinking of this, AEmilius laughed.
"So is it," said he, "in the world of philosophic thought and religiousaspiration. The air is full of fire-flies. They seem to be brillianttorch-bearers assuring us guidance, but they are only vile grubs, and theyfloat above the festering pool that breeds malarial fevers. Where is thetruth, where?"
From the distant city sounded a hideous din, like the bellow of a giganticbull.
AEmilius laughed bitterly.
"I know what that is, it is the voice of the god--so say the priestesses ofNemausus. It is heard at rare intervals. But the mason who made my bathsat Ad Fines, explained it to me. He had been engaged on the temple and sawhow a brazen instrument like a shell of many convolutions had beencontrived in the walls and concealed, so that one woman's breath couldsound it and produce such a bellow as would shake the city. Bah! onereligion is like another, founded on impostures. What are the stars ofheaven but fire-flies of a higher order, of superior flight? We followthem and stumble into the mire, and are engulfed in the slough."