who appeared just ready to rise, was stopped by the shrill voice of a
woman in the crowd, which sounded as if some fearful demand was going to
be made upon his virtues. A woman appeared, and advancing to the scales,
alleged that this young man had treacherously deprived her of her
virtue,--a loss which she had never ceased to deplore. The accused could
not deny the charge, and looked mournfully at the scale containing his
merits, expecting it to be grievously lightened by this claim. The
woman's virtue was then placed in the scale, where, to the astonishment
of all, it was found to weigh only one grain, such having been its real
value in the mind of the possessor. The young man being desired to pay
to her one grain of virtue could find no merit in his store, which was
light enough; and the Prophet, therefore, breaking from his filial piety
a fragment weighing a grain, presented it to the injured woman, who,
having trusted entirely for future happiness to the price she expected
in exchange for her virtue, was struck with despair at receiving so
small a chip.
After observing a number of judgments I concluded that the guilt of
every action was decided according to the injury which mankind had
sustained by it. Thus the pleasures of a man, by which he had not
impaired the happiness of others, were not to be found in his sack of
faults: but those enjoyments, which, by example or participation, had
involved others in misfortune, were declared by the scale to be crimes;
and if even without being imparted to others they had corrupted the mind
of the criminal, or occupied his time so as to prevent the good actions
he would otherwise have performed, they were weighed against him.
At the bottom of each sack containing vices were found the opportunities
of virtue, which the criminal had neglected, and which were weighed
against him as actual crimes. Thus there were some, who, by the
advantage of their situation in life, had done but little harm, and yet
their merits were greatly outweighed by these omissions of goodness.
Some produced sacks very well stored with merit, who nevertheless were
overwhelmed by the multitude of neglected opportunities. Others who
found but few good actions in their sack, yet were favourably judged by
the scale, because there were no opportunities against them.
The Prophet perceiving it was generally suspected that the angels who
had prepared the sacks of vice and virtue had performed their tasks
ignorantly, and omitted many acts of goodness, declared, that every
person who was dissatisfied with the stock of merits assigned him, might
require any absent action of his life to be produced and weighed.
A Saracen approached the scales with great confidence, relying upon the
number of men whom he had put to death for not believing in Mahomet;
but, to his dismay, these exploits were all found in the criminal bag,
and the earth swallowed him while he remonstrated against the
ingratitude of the Prophet, who condemned him after such services. A
Christian also, who had converted men to his own faith by torture,
imprisonment, and other arts of persuasion, found all these religious
efforts in the wrong bag. By some other judgments it was soon declared
upon what grounds religious merit was to be decided: those who had
caused the morality of their religion to be received had merit by it;
but there was no credit to those who had only propagated their faith
from party zeal; and if they had done it violently the oppressions were
as heavy in the scale as other injuries.
I observed the trial of a zealot who had been burned for heresy. He had
maintained every article of his creed against the flames, and been
turned into ashes without recanting a single tenet. Having now observed
that good men of all religions were rewarded, he opened his bag of
virtue with confidence, and was astonished that his burning could not be
found in it. However, supposing it to have been omitted by mistake, he
summoned it into the sack through the permission given by the Prophet,
and taking it forth, held it ready to atone for any failing that could
depress the adverse scale. A man stepped forth, and claimed compensation
of him for an injury. The zealot once endeavoured to convert this man,
who was of a different faith from himself, and incensed by his not
believing with the despatch which he thought reasonable, he had seized
him by the hair, and dashed his head against a wall with so much energy,
as to make him fall senseless to the ground, upon which the teacher had
left him thus effectually silenced. This outrage was placed in the
scale, and weighed it down with some force. The zealot, with a
triumphant look, placed his martyrdom in the other scale, but without
stirring it. He lost all patience when he discovered the invalidity of
his burning, and asked what inducement men would now have to become
martyrs. The Prophet condescended to answer, that he forgot the world
was now at an end; and if it were not, perhaps it would be quite as
prosperous without martyrs. He then tried this martyrdom by his
infallible weights, and found it interpreted into "party rage."
I remarked the trial of an author celebrated for some works on moral
philosophy. A man whom he had defrauded of a legacy came forward to
demand a portion of the philosopher's virtue. The fraud was committed to
the scale, and hastily drew it down, when the author took from his bag
a treatise on justice, which had been much applauded. I believe this
book was not in his bag at first, but summoned there by the permission
which the Prophet had given, that all who believed any of their virtues
omitted might require them to appear. The author, therefore, tearing out
a leaf from his treatise, placed it in the scale as an ample equivalent
for the legacy. He was surprised that this just and eloquent leaf had no
weight against the fraud, upon which he added another torn from a part
of the treatise which evinced the most integrity; but this reinforcement
was equally useless. He then resigned the whole dissertation to the
scale, but it did not move its adversary from the ground, though loaded
only with an oversight about a will, while the treatise contained a
strict equity in every transaction of life, and amongst other acts of
probity a faithful execution of wills. The author again had recourse to
his bag, and produced another work, in which he had equally observed the
severest rules of duty; but this in conjunction with the essay on
justice had no force against the violated will. He continued with the
same result to heap one book upon another, for he had been a man of very
voluminous morals, and neglected no kind of virtue in his writings. At
length he had come to the end of his productions without any atonement,
and the great heap of books hung in the air, outweighed by one little
error. He proceeded to expostulate against the indignity to his works;
and presenting one of the volumes to Mahomet, entreated him to read only
a single page, that he might be convinced what injustice was done, when
one trifling error was not allowed to be expiated by his continued
probity in writing. The Prophet only pointed to the scale resting on the
ground, upon which the author said that unless the scale had read his
works he could not accept of it as a competent judge of their integrity.
The Prophet, without any answer, opened his bag of vices, of which there
was an ample collection, and added them to the scale. The author very
mournfully searched his bag of merits, which were few and trivial, for
he had been so lavish of virtue in his writings as to have none left for
practice. However, he made another appeal on behalf of his works; asked
how he could be a malefactor with so many chapters of virtue, and
represented the injustice of condemning one who had been a good man in
every sentence he had written. He then took up one of his books, and was
beginning to read aloud at a passage of very vigorous probity, when the
earth opened and he descended reading.
A man approached the scales with a criminal bag of a hopeless size, and
a diminutive sack of merits; yet by his confident look he seemed to
imagine the little bag qualified to contend with the large one. When the
great bag came to its confession it was found exempt from hardly any
kind of depravity, and the scale sunk irrevocably under its contents.
The criminal, however, opened his small bag without dismay; and having
stocked the scale with two or three trifling merits, he drew from the
bottom of the bag a death-bed repentance, and placed it in the scale
with a look of success, but to his amazement the accumulated vices on
the other side were unmoved. He appealed to the Prophet against the
decision of the scales, declaring that his repentance had been
authentic, and without premeditation, not like the formal remorse of so
many, who while they commit a crime design to evade punishment by a
fiction at last. He protested that for two days before he died his vices
had harassed him with sufficient terror; and his clergyman had exhorted
him not to afflict himself any longer, for he had repented quite enough
to be forgiven. He said he had done all that a dying man could do, and
he did not believe that a more deserving death would be presented at
judgment. The Prophet deigned to answer that amendment was the only
repentance.
"But," said the man, "I had no time for that."
"You lived fifty-six years," replied Mahomet.
"Yes," said the culprit: "but my repentance did not begin till my last
illness."
"And why not?" inquired the Prophet; but before the condemned wretch
could answer he was swallowed up.
This last sentence appeared to strike a miserable terror into the crowd;
for there were great numbers who had thought that by repenting at last
they had amply provided for the judgment, and they now saw their whole
stock of merit taken from them. I heard a man near me reproaching his
priest for having deceived him about the efficacy of a death-bed sorrow.
He said he had never committed a sin of any importance without resolving
to cancel it by remorse at last: at his death he had not had time to
bestow a separate repentance upon each fault, but he had included his
whole life in one comprehensive remorse, and lamented all his errors at
once. Accordingly his priest had assured him that with allowance for the
hurry of his case he had made a very handsome repentance, and might die
securely. He now bitterly upbraided his teacher for not having obtained
better information; since he had always understood from him that it was
the privilege of a dying man to retract any part of his life that he
disapproved of, and that he had only to be sorry for a bad action in
order not to have committed it. It seemed that this minister of religion
had obtained preferment from the man who now complained, and therefore
at that man's death had forgiven all his sins out of gratitude. He now
gave little attention to the reproaches of one whom he seemed to think
disabled as a patron.
A man who had been a celebrated hermit was next tried. His bag of merits
contained little besides the relief of two or three distressed
travellers. This scarcity seemed to astonish him; however, it might be
imagined that his hermitage would be found equally exempt from faults.
But his solitude had secured no such immunity; for the Prophet took from
his other sack a number of faults, which instantly dragged the scale to
the earth, outweighing the sheltered travellers. The hermit declared
that his bag must have acknowledged the faults of some other man by
mistake, for he had done nothing in his cell that could possibly weigh
so much. By examination, however, he found that these weights were
neglected opportunities, good actions which he might have performed, and
had omitted. Still he protested against the validity of these
accusations, and declared his hermitage had furnished no such occasions
of doing good as were here imputed to him.
"Here," said he, "I am accused of not having aided my brother, who was a
bankrupt: I never heard of his ruin, besides which I possessed nothing
except a walking staff, which would not have retrieved his affairs had I
bestowed it upon him. If I had known of his approaching misfortune, I
would have prayed against it. I wish you would call as witnesses some
of the angels, who, I suppose, watched over me: they will tell you that
I never went farther from my cell than to the neighbouring wood, and
that I cannot with any appearance of justice be accused of my brother's
being a bankrupt; yet his bankruptcy seems to weigh very heavily against
me, as if in my meditations I had undermined his fortune. The bag also
imputes to me the neglect of many other good actions, for which I was
equally disqualified. It seems as if I ought to have relieved every want
and affliction in the world, and all from my hermitage."
"And why were you in a hermitage?" said the Prophet.
"I was there to pray, to fast, to meditate," answered he, "and now I
find a bad reward of my exertions."
"Therefore," said the Prophet, "your bag of faults contains the good
actions, for which you would have had opportunity had you lived with
other men, and practised their duties. However, if you think that your
prayers, fasts, and meditations have so much merit, you may put them in
the scale, and try their efficacy against these deserted opportunities."
The hermit availed himself of this privilege, and first loaded his scale
with a meditation of six hours, which effecting no descent, he seconded
it with a prayer of equal patience, and then proceeded to heap up one
handful of severities after another, till he had used his whole supply
of rigour without the least tendency downwards. He was beginning another
remonstrance, when he disappeared.
I stood a long and wearisome time watching these judgments; at last my
own name was called, and I approached the Prophet with a miserable
reluctance. My faults being placed in the scale descended with such
violence that I quite despaired of changing the verdict. I drew forth my
little supply of merits, and tried their force in vain: the earth opened
under me, I fell, and lay on my back in the midst of flames. With a
great effort I started up, and found myself in bed with my curtains on
fire, and Sale's Koran by my side, the Preliminary Discourse of which I
had been reading by candlelight, and falling asleep had derived from it
the dream which I have related.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE,
New-Street-Square.
* * * * *
Transcriber's notes
'orefuse' changed to 'to refuse' ('never to refuse him') p. 12
'the remaing' changed to 'they remain' ('they remain a part of every
year') p. 93
Duplicate word 'may' deleted ('which may make him silent') p. 108
Duplicate word 'I' deleted ('I have a curiosity') p. 394
Obvious spelling errors corrected, unusual but consistent or unique
spelling left as is.
Punctuation on the contents page is as per the original.