restored. That is something different.
"But he who rejoices over every evil deed which he himself has been under no necessity of committing; he who rejoices when the criminal escapes his punishment; he who gloats over the misfortune of a good man; he who suffers when goodness and merit are rewarded—that is the evil man. Such were those who clamoured for the murderer Barabbas's release and perhaps gave a feast in his honour."
Modesty and the Sense of Justice.—The teacher continued: "Properly speaking, the question you should have asked just now is, 'What men are good?' Socrates, according to Plato, said, 'Those who possess modesty and a sense of justice. Those are the religious men.'
"He, on the other hand, who has neither faith nor hope, can assume the outward aspect of an honourable man. But when his worldly interests or advantages are concerned, he lets honour drop. Similarly, when it is a question of saving one of his associates from punishment. Then he can bear false witness, and believe it is a good act. He does not stick at helping forward an unworthy friend or relative. He will swear falsely in order to attack a believer. He thinks everything lawful, i.e. on his side against others, and he never repents anything, saying to himself, 'He who lets himself be misled must pay for it.'
"When a religious man makes a slip, he is wont to feel ashamed, and to reproach himself. Often he is naïve enough to confess his fault or his mis-doing. Then the Lice-King shouts 'Hurrah!' For he would never be so simple. Still, though a believer fall seventy times and seven, he rises again and confesses his fault. That is the difference."
Derelicts.—The pupil asked: "How is one to judge of the men who are overthrown in the battle of life without being armed for the conflict? You remember such characters at school; they could not learn, could not attend; they were not ashamed, however, but regarded themselves as a kind of victims. They left school, went out into life, and collapsed. It was not the fault of their domestic surroundings, for they came of good families, who supported them. They were not bad, possessed talents, were clever, but had no knowledge and no interests in life. 'What is the object of it?' they were in the habit of saying. They could not bring themselves to work, but dozed at their desks. They seemed to be born to do nothing, which is a punishment for the active. Explain to me their destiny!"
"That I cannot."
"Some have died young in poverty; others begged their way through to their sixtieth year, while they saw former school-fellows who had been worse than they, prosper and flourish."
"I have seen and lamented them, but I cannot explain their destiny."
"Then they are not to blame, and yet live such lives of shame and poverty; that is cruel."
"Hush! Criticise not Providence! What is now inexplicable may some day be explained! And remember that life is not paradise. Two shall be grinding at one mill; one shall be taken, and the other left!"
Human Fate.—The teacher said: "The destinies of men are obscure; therefore one should be extremely careful in judging. The Tower of Siloam was ready to fall, and fell on good and evil alike. The disciples asked Christ what sin the man born blind had committed. Christ answered that neither he nor his parents had committed any special sin. When we see how some are born crippled, blind, deaf, and dumb, we had best be silent. To lament their lot may annoy them, for they seem to be protected in a mysterious way. They are objects of pity, and seldom fall into abject poverty. They are good-humoured through life, and hardly seem to suffer under their ailments. But woe to the man who ridicules anyone marked out by such a fate! If he is persistently pursued by calamity, or struck himself by a greater misfortune, one can hardly ignore it by using the formula 'chance.' A person who had scoffed at a blind man was struck in the eye by a stone which was thrown into a tramcar. At first he was alarmed, and thought of Nemesis. But when he heard that the stone had been so hurled as the result of some blasting operations he became cheerful, i.e. more ignorant, and said it was a chance. He saw the phenomenon, but nothing behind it; the effect, but not the cause.
"The 'Beans' cannot see beyond their noses. Sometimes, when they have long noses, they see somewhat further. The supernatural in nature is incomprehensible to their intelligence. Indeed, all which passes their limited understanding is for them supernatural. That is logical, but these rustics regard it as illogical."
Dark Rays.—As the teacher wandered through his Inferno, he came to a temple of black granite, which was quite dark inside. Within it something was going on, but he could not distinguish what.
"What is it?" he asked a white-robed figure, which wore a laurel-wreath, but had a green face spotted blue like a corpse. "That is a temple of light," it answered; "but the initiated cannot see our black rays until he receives the white arsenic-kiss from the ultra-violet priestess."
"Give me the kiss," answered the teacher, but he turned his back to her at the same time. However, she did not notice this, as she could not distinguish back from front. Now his eyes were opened, and he saw how within the temple they were offering incense to their "gods of light," as they called them. There stood the murderer Barabbas, a halo round his head, and a plate on his breast with the inscription: "Acquitted because of insufficient evidence." There sat Judas Iscariot under his fig-tree, with the thirty pieces of silver, in the bosom of his family, promoted to be general-director of customs. There were the Emperor Nero, fresh from the bath, with a white dove on his hand, and Julian the Apostate near an altar, with geese sacrificed upon it.
The priests and priestesses sang a chant of New Birth and Resurrection, burned incense compounded of rose-leaves and arsenic-acid, and danced a snake-dance, which they called "the joy of life." Then they began to quarrel about a laurel-wreath, and fought one another. As the teacher went, they all sat there in the darkness and wept. But when a fresh north wind blew through the temple, they trembled like dry leaves.
Blind and Deaf.—The teacher said: "There are, as you know, people with whom one cannot be angry. Perhaps it is because of their natural good-nature, which shines even through a cutting jest. And there are people whose malice comes to light long after one has met them. Such an after-effect I have experienced myself.
"Five-and-twenty years after a conversation with a man, I felt angry with him. Naturally, during a sleepless night, when memory threw a new light on the scene which had taken place between us. Not till then did the insulting word he spoke receive its proper signification, which I now understood. There are words which can murder. Such a word this one was. What a good thing that I did not understand it at the time! It would have resulted in calamity to four people.
"By developing a peculiar instinct I have succeeded in fabricating a kind of diving-costume, with which I protect myself in society. When the insulting word or the biting allusion is uttered, the sound certainly reaches my ear, but the receptive apparatus refuses to let it go further. In the same way I can make myself literally blind. I obliterate the face of the person I dislike. How it is done, I do not know, but it seems to be a psychological process. The face becomes a dirty whitish-grey spot and disappears. It is necessary to make oneself deaf and blind, or it is impossible to live.
"One must cancel and go on! That is generally called 'forgiving,' but it may be a device of the revengeful for sparing himself trouble, or a scheme of the sensitive for not letting insults reach him. One cannot undertake more than one can bear!"
The Disrobing Chamber.—The teacher continued: "Swedenborg says in his Inferno. … "
"Say 'Hell,'" the pupil interrupted him. "I know that there is a hell, for I have been in it."
"Well, Swedenborg has in his Hell a disrobing chamber into which the deceased are conducted immediately
