Part 13 (1/2)

”I should like to know, Meg.”

”A voice seemed to wake me. It spoke to me of you. I was to help you . . . you were struggling.”

”You can help me,” Mike said. ”You have.”

”It spoke of the oldest of all stories, the battle of light against darkness. It said that Egypt in the early days wors.h.i.+pped light; in the days which followed light was swallowed up in the wors.h.i.+p of false G.o.ds.”

”Osiris and Set--you know the legend--the fundamental ethics of all religions.”

”I know a little about it,” Margaret said. She paused. ”Please go on . . . tell me everything.”

”In dreams we are so vain, so wonderful . . . you know how it always is! The ego in us has unlimited sway. In my dream I dreamed that my friends.h.i.+p was to be 'light'; if I withdrew it, you would have darkness. What glorious vanity!”

”Oh, Meg, it's quite true! Will you give me back your sympathy?

I . . .” he hesitated, ”. . . I am trying to be more worthy of it.”

”We are friends,” she said. ”I was foolish and conceited, my dream made me see how foolish. I had no right to . . .”

He interrupted her. ”Yes, you had . . . you weren't foolish. Your sensibilities told you what was absolutely true. . . . I would explain more if I could.”

”No, don't explain--things are explained. I thought I should find you here; I wanted to begin the new day happily. My dream made me see so very clearly that the world is made up of those who sit in darkness and those who sit in light, that thoughts are things. My thoughts were unjust, unkind, so my world was unkind, unjust. I made it.”

”The light which is Aton,” Michael said.

”If we wish to enjoy happiness, we must sit in the light. We must make our own happiness.”

”In the fullness and glory of Aton.”

”G.o.d, I suppose you mean,” Margaret said.

”The one and only G.o.d Whom every human being has striven to wors.h.i.+p in his or her odd way ever since the world began. There is G.o.d in every man's heart. It doesn't a bit matter what His symbol may be. Some races of mankind have evolved higher forms of wors.h.i.+p, some lower; their symbols are appropriate. But they are all striving for the one and same thing--to render wors.h.i.+p to the Divine Creator, to sit in the Light of Aton.”

”But the sun,” Margaret said--she pointed to the fiery ball on the horizon--”I thought your divine Akhnaton was a sun-wors.h.i.+pper?”

”He wors.h.i.+pped our G.o.d, the Creator of all things of heaven or earth, even of our precious human sympathy, Meg, for nothing that is could be without Him, and to Akhnaton His symbol was the sun. The earlier Egyptians wors.h.i.+pped Ra, the great sun-G.o.d; Akhnaton brought divinity into his wors.h.i.+p. He wors.h.i.+pped Aton as the Lord and Giver of Life, the Bestower of Mercy, the Father of the Fatherless. All His attributes were symbolized in the sun. Its rising and setting signified Darkness and Light; its power as the creative force in nature, Resurrection. It evolved mankind from the lower life and implanted the spirit of divinity in him through the Creator of all things created. The sun was G.o.d created, His symbol, His manifestation.”

”Look,” Margaret said, ”look at it now--it is G.o.d, walking in the desert.”

For a little time they stood together, their material forms side by side.

Michael's house-boy, with a deferential salaam, suddenly informed him that his bath had been waiting for him and was now cold.

Before Michael hurried off Margaret said, ”Thank you for my first lesson in Akhnaton's wors.h.i.+p.” She held out her hands.

”We all wors.h.i.+p as he did, all day long,” he said, ”when we admire the sun and the stars and the flowers, when we admire all that is beautiful, we are seeing G.o.d.”

”I adore beauty,” Margaret said, ”but I forget that beauty is G.o.d.