Part 19 (1/2)
”Then,” said Thorwald, ”if I understand your feeling, you have no love, no thanks even, for him who gave his life for you, and no sense of grat.i.tude for the loving Father who sent his Son to die for your sins.”
”I think you are hardly just,” replied the doctor, ”for I am not conscious of living a life of ingrat.i.tude. Your words imply a great deal that I know nothing about. I am not aware that anyone was ever sent from heaven to die for me, and I do not even know there is a heaven and a G.o.d.”
”Did it ever occur to you, Doctor, that your att.i.tude does not alter the facts? In spite of your unbelief, or indifference if you will, there is a G.o.d whose steps are heard throughout the universe, whose hand upholds all worlds, and who looks with loving eyes upon all created beings, even upon those who have the intelligence but not the heart to acknowledge him. Oh! it is amazing to me that there can be one such being in all G.o.d's dominions.”
”Why, are there not any in Mars?”
”In Mars? Not one. Let me tell you, Doctor, that here you will be unique, if that is any consolation to you. When this talk is made public and the facts in your case are spread abroad everybody will want a share in bringing you to your right mind, and we shall see what the result will be with a world full of missionaries to one heathen.”
”Please do not use that word, Thorwald. I was born in Boston--you must know where Boston is--of good old Puritan stock, and I am not a heathen because I don't know about some matters that I cannot, in the nature of things, know anything about. You found a while ago that I wanted imagination, and you now see that I am deficient also in faith, which it seems to me is a product of the imagination.”
”No,” broke in Thorwald, ”faith might rather be called the product of reason and of the conscience, enlightened by every revelation which G.o.d has made. But with us faith is an instinct. We believe in G.o.d as naturally as we trust our parents. Our souls reach after divine things to satisfy their longings, just as our bodies seek the food that shall nourish them. In all this world there is not a heart devoid of love to G.o.d, not one that does not own a personal and joyful allegiance to the divine Saviour.
”But I forget that the earth is still young, and that, very long ago, when Mars was in your condition, representatives of our race actually walked the surface of this planet with no more thought of its Maker than you exhibit. Forgive me if, in this talk, I have seemed too positive of things which you claim cannot be known. But here there is no uncertainty in these matters. There is now no open question in regard to the existence of G.o.d and his loving care of us.”
”But, Thorwald,” asked the doctor, ”how can you be sure? Help me to see these things as you do. In the matter of the habitability of other worlds you brought me over to your opinion by producing evidence which took away all uncertainty and left me no room to doubt. Is it so in this case?”
”No, my friend,” answered Thorwald, ”it is not so. The evidence in this case is of an entirely different character. Your companion has told me how G.o.d has dealt with men, by what means he has made known his will, and how he has revealed his love and mercy to your race. So has it been with us, only here we have had more time to acquaint ourselves with these blessed truths. If you ask for proofs, I can only say they are the same which have no doubt been reiterated many times in your ears. The voices that come to us from the invisible world are not tuned to the coa.r.s.e fiber of our physical nature, but are addressed to our spirits, our very selves, and he who does not heed those voices would not be persuaded even though one should rise from the dead.
”Let me induce you, Doctor, to cultivate the spiritual part of your being, evidently undeveloped as yet, for only then will you begin to realize that the evidence in support of these divine truths is more convincing than any possible proofs that could be presented to our outward senses.”
”Under your instruction,” said the doctor, ”and with the example of a world full of spirits of your faith and practice, I will do my best to follow your advice, and try to catch some faint strain from those heavenly voices. If I cannot believe, it shall no longer be because I will not. But now, Thorwald, you have given too much time to me and have been drawn away from your purpose of enlightening us in regard to your wonderful planet.”
”Yes, Thorwald,” said I, ”we must hear more of your interesting history, and I think an account of what the religion of Jesus has done for Mars will help to win the doctor to right views.”
”I shall take much pleasure in doing the best I can whenever you are good enough to listen,” Thorwald answered. ”But we shall now be still more anxious to hear further about the earth.”
CHAPTER XXI.
A LITTLE ANCIENT HISTORY.
In the foregoing personal conversation, Thorwald had been uncompromising in look and tone, as well as in word, toward the errors of my friend, but for the doctor himself I was sure he had the kindest feelings. The discovery of the dearth of spiritual perception in the doctor was a greater surprise to Thorwald, I really believe, than our first appearance was. And it was a surprise well calculated to awaken in his finer nature a feeling as near akin to indignation as the Martian mind of that era was capable of experiencing. So we had here the opportunity of observing how a member of this highly civilized race, one endowed with such lofty attributes, would act under severe provocation. The exhibition was instructive. Thorwald certainly resented with all the force of his pure and upright nature all that was evil in the doctor's att.i.tude. Such doubt was entirely new to his experience. He had no place for it; and he could do no less than cry out against it as he had done.
But his manner softened as soon as the doctor's mood changed, and it was apparent that he was ready to encourage in every possible way the slightest indication of a change. And from this time Thorwald was particularly tender toward the doctor, evidently desiring to show him that, unbending to everything like disloyalty to G.o.d, he recognized his sincerity when he declared that he would no longer set his will against the reception of the truth.
In this mind Thorwald said:
”I perceive, Doctor, that your st.u.r.dy self-respect and the fear that you might appear in a false position have compelled you to be unfair to yourself. You believe more than you confess, else why did you repel with such feeling my insinuation that you were a heathen? But if you have ever determined to go through life believing in only what your hand can touch and your eye can see, let me induce you to close your eyes and fold your hands for a while, and with expectancy wait for the coming into your heart of that divine influence which, encouraged however feebly, shall presently show to your inner and better vision, in all his beauty, him whom no eye hath seen nor can see.
”I do not exclude you therefore, Doctor, when I say again that we have all been drawn into close sympathy by the knowledge your companion has imparted, and in what I have to say further I am sure you will both see a great deal to cause you to realize that your race and ours have the same dear Father, who is guiding us to a common destiny.
”At your request I am to give you from time to time, as we have opportunity, an account of the successive steps of our development, and I would like to say at the start that there will be one great difference between what I am to tell you and the rambling talk with which we began our happy acquaintance. Then I gave you a few facts to show our present condition, without intimating that there was any higher force at work than a natural desire in us to make the most of ourselves, and treat our neighbors well. Now, since I have discovered that you can enter into my feelings to a greater or less extent, I shall not hesitate to refer to its true source all that has helped us attain to our present condition, and all that is urging us on to a still higher state.”
”We shall he very glad to know what you consider the spring of all the vast improvement in your race,” I remarked.
”I did not use the word 'consider,'” replied Thorwald. ”That would imply doubt where there is none. It is established beyond controversy that both our material and spiritual development have come only through the personal love and care of G.o.d for the creatures whom he has made, exhibited through all our history, but especially through the sending of his Son.”
”Some on the earth recognize the same truth in reference to our race,”