In the town of Surat, in India was a coffee-house where many travellers and foreigners from all parts of the world met and conversed.
One day a learned Persian theologian visited this coffee-house. Hewas a man who had spent his life studying the nature of the Deity,and reading and writing books upon the subject. He had thought,read, and written so much about God, that eventually he lost hiswits, became quite confused, and ceased even to believe in theexistence of a God. The Shah, hearing of this, had banished himfrom Persia.
After having argued all his life about the First Cause, thisunfortunate theologian had ended by quite perplexing himself, andinstead of understanding that he had lost his own reason, he beganto think that there was no higher Reason controlling the universe.
This man had an African slave who followed him everywhere. When thetheologian entered the coffee-house, the slave remained outside, nearthe door, sitting on a stone in the glare of the sun, and drivingaway the flies that buzzed around him. The Persian having settleddown on a divan in the coffee-house, ordered himself a cup of opium.When he had drunk it and the opium had begun to quicken the workingsof his brain, he addressed his slave through the open door:
"Tell me, wretched slave," said he, "do you think there is a God, or not?"
"Of course there is," said the slave, and immediately drew from underhis girdle a small idol of wood.
"There," said he, "that is the God who has guarded me from the dayof my birth. Every one in our country worships the fetish tree,from the wood of which this God was made."
This conversation between the theologian and his slave was listenedto with surprise by the other guests in the coffee-house. Theywere astonished at the master's question, and yet more so at theslave's reply.
One of them, a Brahmin, on hearing the words spoken by the slave,turned to him and said:
"Miserable fool! Is it possible you believe that God can be carriedunder a man's girdle? There is one God--Brahma, and he is greaterthan the whole world, for he created it. Brahma is the One, themighty God, and in His honour are built the temples on the Ganges'banks, where his true priests, the Brahmins, worship him. They knowthe true God, and none but they. A thousand score of years havepassed, and yet through revolution after revolution these priestshave held their sway, because Brahma, the one true God, hasprotected them."
So spoke the Brahmin, thinking to convince every one; but a Jewishbroker who was present replied to him, and said:
"No! the temple of the true God is not in India. Neither does Godprotect the Brahmin caste. The true God is not the God of theBrahmins, but of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. None does He protectbut His chosen people, the Israelites. From the commencement of theworld, our nation has been beloved of Him, and ours alone. If weare now scattered over the whole earth, it is but to try us; for Godhas promised that He will one day gather His people together inJerusalem. Then, with the Temple of Jerusalem--the wonder of the ancient world--restored to its splendor, shall Israel be established a ruler over all nations."
So spoke the Jew, and burst into tears. He wished to say more, butan Italian missionary who was there interrupted him.
"What you are saying is untrue," said he to the Jew. "You attributeinjustice to God. He cannot love your nation above the rest. Nayrather, even if it be true that of old He favored the Israelites, itis now nineteen hundred years since they angered Him, and caused Himto destroy their nation and scatter them over the earth, so thattheir faith makes no converts and has died out except here andthere. God shows preference to no nation, but calls all who wish tobe saved to the bosom of the Catholic Church of Rome, the one outsidewhose borders no salvation can be found."
So spoke the Italian. But a Protestant minister, who happened to bepresent, growing pale, turned to the Catholic missionary and exclaimed:
"How can you say that salvation belongs to your religion? Those onlywill be saved, who serve God according to the Gospel, in spirit andin truth, as bidden by the word of Christ."
Then a Turk, an office-holder in the custom-house at Surat, who wassitting in the coffee-house smoking a pipe, turned with an air ofsuperiority to both the Christians.
"Your belief in your Roman religion is vain," said he. "It wassuperseded twelve hundred years ago by the true faith: that ofMohammed! You cannot but observe how the true Mohammed faithcontinues to spread both in Europe and Asia, and even in theenlightened country of China. You say yourselves that God hasrejected the Jews; and, as a proof, you quote the fact that the Jewsare humiliated and their faith does not spread. Confess then thetruth of Mohammedanism, for it is triumphant and spreads far andwide. None will be saved but the followers of Mohammed, God'slatest prophet; and of them, only the followers of Omar, and not ofAli, for the latter are false to the faith."
To this the Persian theologian, who was of the sect of Ali, wishedto reply; but by this time a great dispute had arisen among all thestrangers of different faiths and creeds present. There wereAbyssinian Christians, Llamas from Thibet, Ismailians andFireworshippers. They all argued about the nature of God, and howHe should be worshipped. Each of them asserted that in his countryalone was the true God known and rightly worshipped.
Every one argued and shouted, except a Chinaman, a student ofConfucius, who sat quietly in one corner of the coffee-house, notjoining in the dispute. He sat there drinking tea and listening towhat the others said, but did not speak himself.
The Turk noticed him sitting there, and appealed to him, saying:
"You can confirm what I say, my good Chinaman. You hold your peace, butif you spoke I know you would uphold my opinion. Traders from yourcountry, who come to me for assistance, tell me that though many religionshave been introduced into China, you Chinese consider Mohammedanism thebest of all, and adopt it willingly. Confirm, then, my words, and tellus your opinion of the true God and of His prophet."
"Yes, yes," said the rest, turning to the Chinaman, "let us hear whatyou think on the subject."
The Chinaman, the student of Confucius, closed his eyes, and thoughta while. Then he opened them again, and drawing his hands out ofthe wide sleeves of his garment, and folding them on his breast, hespoke as follows, in a calm and quiet voice.
Sirs, it seems to me that it is chiefly pride that prevents menagreeing with one another on matters of faith. If you care tolisten to me, I will tell you a story which will explain this by anexample.
I came here from China on an English steamer which had been round theworld. We stopped for fresh water, and landed on the east coast of theisland of Sumatra. It was midday, and some of us, having landed, satin the shade of some cocoanut palms by the seashore, not far from anative village. We were a party of men of different nationalities.
As we sat there, a blind man approached us. We learned afterwardsthat he had gone blind from gazing too long and too persistently atthe sun, trying to find out what it is, in order to seize its light.
He strove a long time to accomplish this, constantly looking at thesun; but the only result was that his eyes were injured by itsbrightness, and he became blind.
Then he said to himself:
"The light of the sun is not a liquid; for if it were a liquid itwould be possible to pour it from one vessel into another, and itwould be moved, like water, by the wind. Neither is it fire; for ifit were fire, water would extinguish it. Neither is light a spirit,for it is seen by the eye; nor is it matter, for it cannot be moved.Therefore, as the light of the sun is neither liquid, nor fire, norspirit, nor matter, it is--nothing!"
So he argued, and, as a result of always looking at the sun andalways thinking about it, he lost both his sight and his reason.And when he went quite blind, he became fully convinced that the sundid not exist.
With this blind man came a slave, who after placing his master inthe shade of a cocoanut tree, picked up a cocoanut from the ground,and began making it into a night-light. He twisted a wick from thefibre of the cocoanut: squeezed oil from the nut in the shell, andsoaked the wick in it.
As the slave sat doing this, the blind man sighed and said to him:
"Well, slave, was I not right when I told you there is no sun? Doyou not see how dark it is? Yet people say there is a sun. . . . Butif so, what is it?"
"I do not know what the sun is," said the slave. "That is nobusiness of mine. But I know what light is. Here I have made anight-light, by the help of which I can serve you and find anythingI want in the hut."
And the slave picked up the cocoanut shell, saying:
"This is my sun."
A lame man with crutches, who was sitting near by, heard thesewords, and laughed:
"You have evidently been blind all your life," said he to the blindman, "not to know what the sun is. I will tell you what it is. Thesun is a ball of fire, which rises every morning out of the sea andgoes down again among the mountains of our island each evening. Wehave all seen this, and if you had had your eyesight you too wouldhave seen it."
A fisherman, who had been listening to the conversation said:
"It is plain enough that you have never been beyond your own island.If you were not lame, and if you had been out as I have in afishing-boat, you would know that the sun does not set among themountains of our island, but as it rises from the ocean everymorning so it sets again in the sea every night. What I am tellingyou is true, for I see it every day with my own eyes."
Then an Indian who was of our party, interrupted him by saying:
"I am astonished that a reasonable man should talk such nonsense.How can a ball of fire possibly descend into the water and not beextinguished? The sun is not a ball of fire at all, it is the Deitynamed Deva, who rides for ever in a chariot round the goldenmountain, Meru. Sometimes the evil serpents Ragu and Ketu attackDeva and swallow him: and then the earth is dark. But our priestspray that the Deity may be released, and then he is set free. Onlysuch ignorant men as you, who have never been beyond their ownisland, can imagine that the sun shines for their country alone."
Then the master of an Egyptian vessel, who was present, spoke in his turn.
"No," said he, "you also are wrong. The sun is not a Deity, and doesnot move only round India and its golden mountain. I have sailed muchon the Black Sea, and along the coasts of Arabia, and have been toMadagascar and to the Philippines. The sun lights the whole earth,and not India alone. It does not circle round one mountain, but risesfar in the East, beyond the Isles of Japan, and sets far, far away inthe West, beyond the islands of England. That is why the Japanese calltheir country 'Nippon,' that is, 'the birth of the sun.' I know thiswell, for I have myself seen much, and heard more from my grandfather,who sailed to the very ends of the sea."
He would have gone on, but an English sailor from our shipinterrupted him.
"There is no country," he said "where people know so much about thesun's movements as in England. The sun, as every one in Englandknows, rises nowhere and sets nowhere. It is always moving roundthe earth. We can be sure of this for we have just been round theworld ourselves, and nowhere knocked up against the sun. Whereverwe went, the sun showed itself in the morning and hid itself atnight, just as it does here."
And the Englishman took a stick and, drawing circles on the sand,tried to explain how the sun moves in the heavens and goes round theworld. But he was unable to explain it clearly, and pointing to theship's pilot said:
"This man knows more about it than I do. He can explain it properly."
The pilot, who was an intelligent man, had listened in silence tothe talk till he was asked to speak. Now every one turned to him,and he said:
"You are all misleading one another, and are yourselves deceived.The sun does not go round the earth, but the earth goes round thesun, revolving as it goes, and turning towards the sun in the courseof each twenty-four hours, not only Japan, and the Philippines, andSumatra where we now are, but Africa, and Europe, and America, andmany lands besides. The sun does not shine for some one mountain,or for some one island, or for some one sea, nor even for one earthalone, but for other planets as well as our earth. If you wouldonly look up at the heavens, instead of at the ground beneath yourown feet, you might all understand this, and would then no longersuppose that the sun shines for you, or for your country alone."
Thus spoke the wise pilot, who had voyaged much about the world, andhad gazed much upon the heavens above.
"So on matters of faith," continued the Chinaman, the student ofConfucius, "it is pride that causes error and discord among men. Aswith the sun, so it is with God. Each man wants to have a specialGod of his own, or at least a special God for his native land. Eachnation wishes to confine in its own temples Him, whom the worldcannot contain.
"Can any temple compare with that which God Himself has built tounite all men in one faith and one religion?
"All human temples are built on the model of this temple, which isGod's own world. Every temple has its fonts, its vaulted roof, itslamps, its pictures or sculptures, its inscriptions, its books ofthe law, its offerings, its altars and its priests. But in whattemple is there such a font as the ocean; such a vault as that ofthe heavens; such lamps as the sun, moon, and stars; or any figuresto be compared with living, loving, mutually-helpful men? Where arethere any records of God's goodness so easy to understand as theblessings which God has strewn abroad for man's happiness? Where isthere any book of the law so clear to each man as that written inhis heart? What sacrifices equal the self-denials which loving menand women make for one another? And what altar can be compared withthe heart of a good man, on which God Himself accepts the sacrifice?
"The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him.And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him,imitating His goodness, His mercy, and His love of man.
"Therefore, let him who sees the sun's whole light filling the world,refrain from blaming or despising the superstitious man, who in his ownidol sees one ray of that same light. Let him not despise even theunbeliever who is blind and cannot see the sun at all."
So spoke the Chinaman, the student of Confucius; and all who werepresent in the coffee-house were silent, and disputed no more as towhose faith was the best.
One day a learned Persian theologian visited this coffee-house. Hewas a man who had spent his life studying the nature of the Deity,and reading and writing books upon the subject. He had thought,read, and written so much about God, that eventually he lost hiswits, became quite confused, and ceased even to believe in theexistence of a God. The Shah, hearing of this, had banished himfrom Persia.
After having argued all his life about the First Cause, thisunfortunate theologian had ended by quite perplexing himself, andinstead of understanding that he had lost his own reason, he beganto think that there was no higher Reason controlling the universe.
This man had an African slave who followed him everywhere. When thetheologian entered the coffee-house, the slave remained outside, nearthe door, sitting on a stone in the glare of the sun, and drivingaway the flies that buzzed around him. The Persian having settleddown on a divan in the coffee-house, ordered himself a cup of opium.When he had drunk it and the opium had begun to quicken the workingsof his brain, he addressed his slave through the open door:
"Tell me, wretched slave," said he, "do you think there is a God, or not?"
"Of course there is," said the slave, and immediately drew from underhis girdle a small idol of wood.
"There," said he, "that is the God who has guarded me from the dayof my birth. Every one in our country worships the fetish tree,from the wood of which this God was made."
This conversation between the theologian and his slave was listenedto with surprise by the other guests in the coffee-house. Theywere astonished at the master's question, and yet more so at theslave's reply.
One of them, a Brahmin, on hearing the words spoken by the slave,turned to him and said:
"Miserable fool! Is it possible you believe that God can be carriedunder a man's girdle? There is one God--Brahma, and he is greaterthan the whole world, for he created it. Brahma is the One, themighty God, and in His honour are built the temples on the Ganges'banks, where his true priests, the Brahmins, worship him. They knowthe true God, and none but they. A thousand score of years havepassed, and yet through revolution after revolution these priestshave held their sway, because Brahma, the one true God, hasprotected them."
So spoke the Brahmin, thinking to convince every one; but a Jewishbroker who was present replied to him, and said:
"No! the temple of the true God is not in India. Neither does Godprotect the Brahmin caste. The true God is not the God of theBrahmins, but of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. None does He protectbut His chosen people, the Israelites. From the commencement of theworld, our nation has been beloved of Him, and ours alone. If weare now scattered over the whole earth, it is but to try us; for Godhas promised that He will one day gather His people together inJerusalem. Then, with the Temple of Jerusalem--the wonder of the ancient world--restored to its splendor, shall Israel be established a ruler over all nations."
So spoke the Jew, and burst into tears. He wished to say more, butan Italian missionary who was there interrupted him.
"What you are saying is untrue," said he to the Jew. "You attributeinjustice to God. He cannot love your nation above the rest. Nayrather, even if it be true that of old He favored the Israelites, itis now nineteen hundred years since they angered Him, and caused Himto destroy their nation and scatter them over the earth, so thattheir faith makes no converts and has died out except here andthere. God shows preference to no nation, but calls all who wish tobe saved to the bosom of the Catholic Church of Rome, the one outsidewhose borders no salvation can be found."
So spoke the Italian. But a Protestant minister, who happened to bepresent, growing pale, turned to the Catholic missionary and exclaimed:
"How can you say that salvation belongs to your religion? Those onlywill be saved, who serve God according to the Gospel, in spirit andin truth, as bidden by the word of Christ."
Then a Turk, an office-holder in the custom-house at Surat, who wassitting in the coffee-house smoking a pipe, turned with an air ofsuperiority to both the Christians.
"Your belief in your Roman religion is vain," said he. "It wassuperseded twelve hundred years ago by the true faith: that ofMohammed! You cannot but observe how the true Mohammed faithcontinues to spread both in Europe and Asia, and even in theenlightened country of China. You say yourselves that God hasrejected the Jews; and, as a proof, you quote the fact that the Jewsare humiliated and their faith does not spread. Confess then thetruth of Mohammedanism, for it is triumphant and spreads far andwide. None will be saved but the followers of Mohammed, God'slatest prophet; and of them, only the followers of Omar, and not ofAli, for the latter are false to the faith."
To this the Persian theologian, who was of the sect of Ali, wishedto reply; but by this time a great dispute had arisen among all thestrangers of different faiths and creeds present. There wereAbyssinian Christians, Llamas from Thibet, Ismailians andFireworshippers. They all argued about the nature of God, and howHe should be worshipped. Each of them asserted that in his countryalone was the true God known and rightly worshipped.
Every one argued and shouted, except a Chinaman, a student ofConfucius, who sat quietly in one corner of the coffee-house, notjoining in the dispute. He sat there drinking tea and listening towhat the others said, but did not speak himself.
The Turk noticed him sitting there, and appealed to him, saying:
"You can confirm what I say, my good Chinaman. You hold your peace, butif you spoke I know you would uphold my opinion. Traders from yourcountry, who come to me for assistance, tell me that though many religionshave been introduced into China, you Chinese consider Mohammedanism thebest of all, and adopt it willingly. Confirm, then, my words, and tellus your opinion of the true God and of His prophet."
"Yes, yes," said the rest, turning to the Chinaman, "let us hear whatyou think on the subject."
The Chinaman, the student of Confucius, closed his eyes, and thoughta while. Then he opened them again, and drawing his hands out ofthe wide sleeves of his garment, and folding them on his breast, hespoke as follows, in a calm and quiet voice.
Sirs, it seems to me that it is chiefly pride that prevents menagreeing with one another on matters of faith. If you care tolisten to me, I will tell you a story which will explain this by anexample.
I came here from China on an English steamer which had been round theworld. We stopped for fresh water, and landed on the east coast of theisland of Sumatra. It was midday, and some of us, having landed, satin the shade of some cocoanut palms by the seashore, not far from anative village. We were a party of men of different nationalities.
As we sat there, a blind man approached us. We learned afterwardsthat he had gone blind from gazing too long and too persistently atthe sun, trying to find out what it is, in order to seize its light.
He strove a long time to accomplish this, constantly looking at thesun; but the only result was that his eyes were injured by itsbrightness, and he became blind.
Then he said to himself:
"The light of the sun is not a liquid; for if it were a liquid itwould be possible to pour it from one vessel into another, and itwould be moved, like water, by the wind. Neither is it fire; for ifit were fire, water would extinguish it. Neither is light a spirit,for it is seen by the eye; nor is it matter, for it cannot be moved.Therefore, as the light of the sun is neither liquid, nor fire, norspirit, nor matter, it is--nothing!"
So he argued, and, as a result of always looking at the sun andalways thinking about it, he lost both his sight and his reason.And when he went quite blind, he became fully convinced that the sundid not exist.
With this blind man came a slave, who after placing his master inthe shade of a cocoanut tree, picked up a cocoanut from the ground,and began making it into a night-light. He twisted a wick from thefibre of the cocoanut: squeezed oil from the nut in the shell, andsoaked the wick in it.
As the slave sat doing this, the blind man sighed and said to him:
"Well, slave, was I not right when I told you there is no sun? Doyou not see how dark it is? Yet people say there is a sun. . . . Butif so, what is it?"
"I do not know what the sun is," said the slave. "That is nobusiness of mine. But I know what light is. Here I have made anight-light, by the help of which I can serve you and find anythingI want in the hut."
And the slave picked up the cocoanut shell, saying:
"This is my sun."
A lame man with crutches, who was sitting near by, heard thesewords, and laughed:
"You have evidently been blind all your life," said he to the blindman, "not to know what the sun is. I will tell you what it is. Thesun is a ball of fire, which rises every morning out of the sea andgoes down again among the mountains of our island each evening. Wehave all seen this, and if you had had your eyesight you too wouldhave seen it."
A fisherman, who had been listening to the conversation said:
"It is plain enough that you have never been beyond your own island.If you were not lame, and if you had been out as I have in afishing-boat, you would know that the sun does not set among themountains of our island, but as it rises from the ocean everymorning so it sets again in the sea every night. What I am tellingyou is true, for I see it every day with my own eyes."
Then an Indian who was of our party, interrupted him by saying:
"I am astonished that a reasonable man should talk such nonsense.How can a ball of fire possibly descend into the water and not beextinguished? The sun is not a ball of fire at all, it is the Deitynamed Deva, who rides for ever in a chariot round the goldenmountain, Meru. Sometimes the evil serpents Ragu and Ketu attackDeva and swallow him: and then the earth is dark. But our priestspray that the Deity may be released, and then he is set free. Onlysuch ignorant men as you, who have never been beyond their ownisland, can imagine that the sun shines for their country alone."
Then the master of an Egyptian vessel, who was present, spoke in his turn.
"No," said he, "you also are wrong. The sun is not a Deity, and doesnot move only round India and its golden mountain. I have sailed muchon the Black Sea, and along the coasts of Arabia, and have been toMadagascar and to the Philippines. The sun lights the whole earth,and not India alone. It does not circle round one mountain, but risesfar in the East, beyond the Isles of Japan, and sets far, far away inthe West, beyond the islands of England. That is why the Japanese calltheir country 'Nippon,' that is, 'the birth of the sun.' I know thiswell, for I have myself seen much, and heard more from my grandfather,who sailed to the very ends of the sea."
He would have gone on, but an English sailor from our shipinterrupted him.
"There is no country," he said "where people know so much about thesun's movements as in England. The sun, as every one in Englandknows, rises nowhere and sets nowhere. It is always moving roundthe earth. We can be sure of this for we have just been round theworld ourselves, and nowhere knocked up against the sun. Whereverwe went, the sun showed itself in the morning and hid itself atnight, just as it does here."
And the Englishman took a stick and, drawing circles on the sand,tried to explain how the sun moves in the heavens and goes round theworld. But he was unable to explain it clearly, and pointing to theship's pilot said:
"This man knows more about it than I do. He can explain it properly."
The pilot, who was an intelligent man, had listened in silence tothe talk till he was asked to speak. Now every one turned to him,and he said:
"You are all misleading one another, and are yourselves deceived.The sun does not go round the earth, but the earth goes round thesun, revolving as it goes, and turning towards the sun in the courseof each twenty-four hours, not only Japan, and the Philippines, andSumatra where we now are, but Africa, and Europe, and America, andmany lands besides. The sun does not shine for some one mountain,or for some one island, or for some one sea, nor even for one earthalone, but for other planets as well as our earth. If you wouldonly look up at the heavens, instead of at the ground beneath yourown feet, you might all understand this, and would then no longersuppose that the sun shines for you, or for your country alone."
Thus spoke the wise pilot, who had voyaged much about the world, andhad gazed much upon the heavens above.
"So on matters of faith," continued the Chinaman, the student ofConfucius, "it is pride that causes error and discord among men. Aswith the sun, so it is with God. Each man wants to have a specialGod of his own, or at least a special God for his native land. Eachnation wishes to confine in its own temples Him, whom the worldcannot contain.
"Can any temple compare with that which God Himself has built tounite all men in one faith and one religion?
"All human temples are built on the model of this temple, which isGod's own world. Every temple has its fonts, its vaulted roof, itslamps, its pictures or sculptures, its inscriptions, its books ofthe law, its offerings, its altars and its priests. But in whattemple is there such a font as the ocean; such a vault as that ofthe heavens; such lamps as the sun, moon, and stars; or any figuresto be compared with living, loving, mutually-helpful men? Where arethere any records of God's goodness so easy to understand as theblessings which God has strewn abroad for man's happiness? Where isthere any book of the law so clear to each man as that written inhis heart? What sacrifices equal the self-denials which loving menand women make for one another? And what altar can be compared withthe heart of a good man, on which God Himself accepts the sacrifice?
"The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him.And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him,imitating His goodness, His mercy, and His love of man.
"Therefore, let him who sees the sun's whole light filling the world,refrain from blaming or despising the superstitious man, who in his ownidol sees one ray of that same light. Let him not despise even theunbeliever who is blind and cannot see the sun at all."
So spoke the Chinaman, the student of Confucius; and all who werepresent in the coffee-house were silent, and disputed no more as towhose faith was the best.
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