to the chancel region she had idealized, as if it ought to be there.
Surely there must be an altar in nature, or something she could
idealize as such; for so many religions professed to have altars,
from the earliest times down to the present day. She began to fear
lest her imagery as to the Cathedral had failed her in a vital point.
Once before she had thought she could discover some form or shape in
the higher altitudes which might suggest an altar; in every case the
light had been so dazzling, or what she tried to see was so vague,
that her ideal had never been satisfied in its most vital need; and
now with the chancel itself open, the veil rent, she saw nothing to
suggest an altar. Where was it? Had it been there? If so, then what
had become of it--the altar?
XLIII
SACRIFICE
Adele was still sitting at the foot of the tree; some said it was a
bo-tree; others did not have knowledge enough to tell what kind of a
tree it was. She did not think of this at all, as she sat dreaming
upon the magnificent spectacle before her. In her mind she was
seeking for an answer to the Doctor’s inquiry; then her eyes, while
searching for some object which might be idealized in some degree
as an altar, were drawn to the immediate foreground, away from the
chancel, to something in her own vicinity, quite near herself.
Upon the same knoll, a short distance from her, boughs of foliage
were festooned with cords and ropes upon which hung hundreds of
small pieces of bright-colored muslin cut fantastically; also pieces
of white textile, the size of a large napkin, covered with printed
or crudely stamped characters in the native language. Hanging in
garlands from bough to bough, fluttering in the wind among the
leaves, they were about as effective as yacht signals strung out for
decoration. Signals they were, indeed, but of quite another kind;
the fluttering prayer-signals of the poor Lepchas, or Bhootanese,
or Thibetans, arranged in a semi-circle around their sacred place.
Wafted heavenward by the breeze, such signals were presented as
acceptable to the Good Spirits, and were considered to bear upwards
the supplications of poor humanity. They were the symbols of prayer
used by the same worshipers in whose hut Adele and the Doctor had
found a welcome shelter from the storm.
At first sight Adele thought: “How very crude and tawdry!” A second
glance told her the decorations symbolized something, and she felt
more sympathetic. The bright colors and the printed texts on white
were certainly newer, fresher, and cleaner than the garments of the
Lepchas themselves; they must have been selected, and they had cost
something; only a few annas perhaps, or possibly some widow’s mite.
“Yes, the effect is cheerful; a happy one,” thought Adele. “One
doesn’t feel despondent when looking at them.” How could it be
otherwise when each praying-signal fluttered a message of thanks,
or propitiation?--all of them in remembrance of the Good Spirits.
And then she thought she detected among them a familiar arrangement
of colors; what!--could it be possible? Yes, an old faded-out,
partly-torn specimen of “Old Glory,” hardly recognizable, but yet
there, for the sake of its being a new arrangement of colors,
probably its true significance utterly unknown. This moved Adele
intensely, giving her a curious new emotion, blending her patriotic
feeling with the sacred things of others. Finally she concluded
that all the signals were really artistic from the Lepcha point
of view, for she noticed an expression of much satisfaction pass
over the countenances of the natives when they found their sacred
prayer-colors were still so bravely fluttering after the storm; still
in motion where the Spirit of the Air could easily see and hear. The
poor woman with whom Adele had walked up pointed to some as if they
were her own private signals, but as Adele did not manifest much
outward enthusiasm about them, a sad expression came over the face
of the nature-worshiper. She seemed to realize that she ought not
to expect these strangers to understand her feelings. Perhaps the
strangers would scorn such things--old pieces of muslin picked up in
the bazaar; they could afford yards and yards of it if they chose.
So the poor woman turned away disappointed, to seek sympathy among
her own kindred who could better understand how such things were
acceptable to the Good Spirit.
It was profoundly interesting to see those two at this time, so near
in body, and yet so far apart in religious interpretations; yet
each upon what was to her “holy ground.” Such are the mysterious
operations of the Spirit of Religion in Nature.
Adele was just beginning to realize the varied conflicting elements
in her surroundings when she and the Doctor heard voices behind
them--a weird chant--a primitive monotonous crooning, but wild--the
natives’ hymn. Around a thicket the people had gathered, singing
this invocation. Adele and the Doctor drew near, and both of them
being musical they involuntarily attempted to catch the higher notes
and to join in; but it proved to be too much for them in every way,
especially to Adele’s cultivated ear. The very simplicity of the
strange sounds, all spirit and no art, made it difficult to detect
any method, only variations of monotonous notes and cries; sometimes
rhythm, but no trace of melody, at least to civilized ears. It was
painfully monotonous; aye, there was pain indeed in that native chant
of invocation. No grand aria of the art divine, nor “wail of the
orchestra” in modern times, had more pain to the spirit in man, than
that primitive wail. All that Adele and the Doctor could do was to
feel for them, yet not be of them.
The thicket was formed by underbrush which had sprung up around some
taller trees. There was an open space inside, with several rocks and
stones which had evidently been brought there by the worshipers. One
rock larger than the rest stood on one side, the others scattered
with apparent lack of method. The entrance was wide, so that all near
at hand could witness what was going on within the circle. And while
the weird song continued outside, the people drew nearer and nearer;
the solemn moment arrived for the Leader and his Helper to enter this
thicket--the Lepcha Holy of Holies--and stand before their altar.
As Abraham of old, in mature manhood, Leader of “the Chosen People”
among races, did enter a thicket and there offer a sacrifice well
pleasing to the Lord: so did this poor native at the end of the
Nineteenth Century, enter his Holy Place, a thicket in the Creator’s
Cathedral of the Himalayas; and there did offer a sacrifice well
pleasing to the Good Spirit to whom a thousand years are as one day,
and one day as a thousand years.
The first offering was the fowl; and as the dying spasms of the bird
scattered blood upon the stones, and upon the primitive priest, and
upon others who stood near enough, the wild chant rose above the
sound of flapping wings, and with the final throes of death mingled
the wails of the worshipers.
To Adele, whose experience in killing of any kind was limited, the
sight of life-blood flowing was most painful, even obnoxious. When a
little girl in the country during her school-day vacations, she had
always avoided seeing the fowls killed; not only because it destroyed
her appetite for them afterwards, but because she felt a most
positive and acute sympathy for the fowls. In later years, if anyone
had called such proceedings “a sacrifice,” she would have been much
surprised. On this occasion, face to face with it, her sympathy was
strong enough to give her a sympathetic pain in the back of her own
neck when the fowl was stabbed, pierced unto death.
When Adele was in the hospital acting as volunteer nurse, her
experience had been to assist in curing, not in the surgical
department; and if such had been the case, she would not have
remained there a day. Now, when she found herself a quasi-participant
in these Lepcha proceedings, eye-witness of a bloody wounded fowl
flapping about, the situation was positively repulsive; and very
difficult to sympathize with, even when she knew the act to be a
feature in religious worship. She looked up at the Doctor.
Doctor Wise was absorbed in studying the movements of the priest.
The Lepcha stood over the kid, with his knife drawn ready to take its
innocent life.
Adele caught sight of him in that attitude, and gave a shudder. She
knew she could not endure to witness the next act. Naught could have
induced her to turn spiritually from the poor nature-worshipers at
such a moment, yet she could not accept their primitive methods as
other than downright cruelty to-day. The sharp glittering knife, the
rough stone, the priest’s stolid expression; and above all else, the
unsuspecting little kid, so docile, as if among friends. Verily, the
trustful eyes of the little animal seemed to speak the very words:
“Ye are my friends, while I am yet with you.”
Adele buried her face upon the Doctor’s shoulder, and only heard
without seeing the sacrifice which followed.
And behold! one of the most natural yet mysterious of all the
phenomena in nature at once followed: Adele, embodying in her own
personality the progress made in appreciation of religious ritual
upon earth since primitive times, while spared the terror of realism,
was more deeply affected than by realism itself; the things done
had greater scope and power, the spiritual impression was far
more profound and lasting than the effect of any spectacle which
had actually been witnessed, and this in the very nature of truth
progressive. The mind is greater than the eye, the Spirit of Truth is
greater than the mind, the real growth is not in the intellect but
in the spirit; aye, “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
Knowledge is power, but the spirit giveth immortality.”
Adele heard the cry of pain, the cry of life departing. It was only
that of an animal, an innocent kid, but it and its innocence stood in
lieu of many human beings. She heard the chant of the natives calling
aloud, heavenward! above the cries of the innocent sacrifice; the
people seemed themselves to be suffering. They were, yet they were
not; not physically, yet their cries sounded as if the knife might be
entering their very vitals. No realism apparent to mortal eyes could
have been so powerful to affect them spiritually--the noblest, the
divine in their personality; not unless nature itself had witnessed
by taking part; not unless the veil of the Himalaya Temple had
closed again, or “the sun had been darkened over all the earth,” or
some such occurrence had transpired to direct attention to an event
affecting humanity at large.
Then the strangest part of this primitive ritual followed; enduring
in its action, and lasting in memory. An event implying mystery
took place, a seeming mystery was suggested, a philosophic truth
inculcated. How so by such a primitive uneducated people, yet able
to embody what to this day dominates the profoundest concepts of
philosophic man?
With the passing of the life by sacrifice, the life from the shed
blood as it curdled and sank into the ground, went also the moans
and dirges of those for whom the sacrifice had been made. The Lepcha
voices changed in quality, manifesting great gain in force of
conviction, rose higher and higher, and finally gave vent to cries of
exultation, aspiration, exaltation--they chanted a triumph: a victory
leading them onwards and upwards towards something beyond in the
direction of the Eternal Summits magnificent before their very eyes.
It was as if they saw the truth in their faith no longer militant and
sacrificing, but triumphant in the Celestial Realm.
Strange, yet a natural consequence of the truth as they saw it: as
the life of the kid departed by the blood of sacrifice returning into
the earth among the grass of the field from which it had come and
upon which it had fed, there arose a new life--a resurrection from
the depths of misery and woe; a new song--a triumphal song--a song of
the Saved Ones. The native choristers seemed possessed with renewed
hope and vitality; and acting under these influences they found the
burden of their song changed to suit a new condition which they
certainly discerned.
In the case of these Himalaya nature-worshipers, this ordinary
killing of a beast for food, as practiced by their ancestors from
time immemorial, had been used by the Mind of Nature, the Creator
Father, to teach a philosophic truth through the religious sense;
the full significance of which was not learned by humanity until
millenniums after those primitive ancestors had found it to be a fact
in nature.
Truly, this ancient ritual was profound in significance; it had been
so from the beginning.
Adele next heard the priest speaking aloud in a clear exulting tone;
it sounded as if he were addressing a multitude. She would have
given much to have comprehended fully what he said, but it was lost
to her; his words passed into the distance over the tree-tops, into
space, off towards the Celestial region where the Good Spirit would
both hear and understand. Then ensued an interval of suspense; all
she heard was the sound of broken twigs and a slight tapping. It was
the worshipers attaching some feathers of the fowl and small pieces
of raw flesh of the kid to the trees. The feathers were to flutter
in the wind as more signals to the Spirits of the Air. The hair of
the goat was to be blown by the breeze as more prayers or symbols of
propitiation, ever active before the Good Spirits.
After the ceremony was finished, the primitive procession started
upon its recessional, wended its way down the hillside, to enter
again their huts, and feast upon the burnt offering--cooked.
Adele looked up. The Ancient Service, in vogue from the beginning in
the development of religious consciousness in man, and held to-day
in the Himalaya Cathedral, was finished. The altar had not been in
the chancel, but as of old, in the outer court of the Temple, in
the world at large. The daily sacrifice could be made by any man
in his own daily life--it was a part of the ritual of day-by-day
devotion--the sacrifice of things seen to attain spiritually to
things unseen. The altar might be in any man’s hearth or home, in his
heart or soul-life.
Adele had been present at a primitive realistic ceremony, but she
had not been able to witness it with her bodily eyes, so great was
the progress of truth in life “since the days of sacrifice.” She
understood now why the Creator had led humanity to abjure and abolish
actual burnt sacrifices, substituting the spiritual experience, in
remembrance.
Adele and the Doctor entered the thicket where the service had been
held. They noticed how the life-blood had already sunk into the
ground and been absorbed and become a part of it, “earth to earth.”
If they had visited the Lepcha huts, they would have found “ashes
to ashes.” They noticed also how the recently added signals, the
feathers and the hair of the innocent kid, were fluttering with the
other color-signals; these latter new ones in remembrance of the
day’s service. And as they looked around they heard the Lepchas still
off in the distance, singing. They had plenty of fresh food now, and
a joyful spirit within. They sang as man often sings, when at his
daily work, at home, in his shop, or in the field.
What more philosophically true in man’s religious development, from
before Abraham, from primitive man, from the beginning so far as
humanity knows about itself? The Spirit of Truth in ancient man had
ever testified to the shedding of innocent life-blood instead of
the sacrifice of self, or personal surrender, as the visible sign
of propitiation, or of at-one-ment, the atonement. A tangible sign,
symbolic, which could not in the very nature of things be understood
in fuller significance until mankind was ready for the comprehension
of the unseen, the spiritual sacrifice or atonement, until
civilizations had sufficiently developed to comprehend spiritually
what had always transpired naturally. The revelation culminating
in the voluntary sacrifice of Him who said: “I am the Truth, the
Life”--the Saviour of mankind.
Verily the Ancient Ritual was worthy of the Cathedral built by the
Mind of Nature--our Creator-Father.
XLIV
THE EVERYDAY RITUAL
Adele and Paul spent much time together wandering about exploring
the Cathedral. Adele said she heard sermons in stones, and voices in
running brooks, and all that sort of thing. Paul hurled stones down
precipices, and said he didn’t care much for sermons, anyway. Adele
laughed when he stopped her at a spring in the woods and insisted
upon her tasting the water when he himself enjoyed it freely.
“It goes all through me,” said Paul. “Delicious, the best mountain
spring I ever found.”
“Of course it goes all through you; such pure cold water exhilarates
as if giving a new life.”
“Oh, if you put it that way--why, of course. I know what you mean;
but what is life, anyway? No fellow can find out; nobody knows much
about it.”
“Well I do, and I intend to enjoy it,” and she filled her lungs with
the mountain air, which gave her such buoyancy that she took off her
hat, and shook back her hair to be en rapport with her own ideal.
“That’s all right, while you feel like it.” To Paul she looked like
the personification of New Life for him; and he came near kissing her
to assure himself she was not a wood-nymph who might vanish in a tree.
“People are not so stupid as you think,” said Adele.
“Well, what do they really know?” asked Paul, his double-self amused
to hear a girl assume that she knew more of life than he, a man.
Their attention was distracted for a moment.
On the road close by they heard the tramp of feet approaching, and
they were near enough to speak if it proved to be anyone they knew. A
dandy, a variety of palanquin, was passing, and inside was a woman of
the English Colony. The livery of her bearers was rather conspicuous,
being yellow with blue trimmings, yet not in bad taste for that
region. The toilet of the beauty inside the dandy was decidedly
“chic,” and the pose between the curtains drawn aside was certainly
most captivating. Many had said of her: “Thy bright smile haunts me
still.”
Paul recognized the occupant at a glance; to Adele she was a
stranger. Paul had met her accidentally and incidentally; and upon
so slight an acquaintance had received an invitation to join a
card-party at her apartments. The invitation had been sent him before
the soi-disant widow knew that Paul was there a member of a family
party, or she would have known it was useless to waste a thought on
him.
Not being a man who played cards for money, and for some other
reasons, Paul had sent a polite regret; after acknowledging to
himself with a laugh that he had been innocently caught by that sort
of thing once before, and didn’t intend to be again. But the fellows
persisted that he was “a fool not to go and see the fun,” as the fair
creature was only one of many birds of passage stranded in India, and
“devilish amusing” when sitting at the head of her own table.
Paul preferred not to sit at that sort of a table; and when this
dashing woman of the world, a notable representative of her set, thus
appeared on the public road in her dandy state-conveyance, so very
near Adele, he instinctively stepped between them; and became so much
engrossed with Adele’s wraps and her comfort, getting her things
all mixed up when no attention was necessary, that the fair one had
passed without receiving the slightest sign of recognition from
either of them.
Paul flattered himself he had disguised the situation fairly well,
and so he had from a man’s point of view, but not from a woman’s.
Adele at once spoke up:
“Don’t you know that lady, Paul? Why didn’t you speak to her?”
Paul turned aside after his fashion, to avoid meeting Adele’s eyes,
but promptly answered:
“Yes, slightly--very slightly.”
“Then why not speak to her? A gentleman never cuts a lady; never.”
“No, of course,” remarked Paul. “It’s the lady’s prerogative to do
the snubbing; some women seem to think men enjoy being snubbed.”
“A well-bred woman always protects herself,” said Adele briskly. “If
I had been in that dandy, and you had turned your back on me, that
would not have been the end of it.”
Paul laughed, incredulous.
“No, Paul, I should not permit any acquaintance to treat me so
cavalierly. I should demand an explanation.”
“My dear Adele, no one would ever treat you that way,” said Paul,
rather surprised at her vehemence. “That sort of thing is not apt to
happen to you.”
“No, I suppose not, but I should resent it if it did. Now tell me,
Paul, frankly, why did you avoid speaking to that lady?”
Paul pulled himself together as best he could and tried to explain.
“Adele, you saw her yourself; you had a good look at her, did you
not?”
“Yes, I glanced at her, slightly--very slightly;” using inadvertently
Paul’s own words, which still rung in her ears.
“I think you must have seen her better than I did, for I did not look
at her at all. I was looking at you.”
“Well, perhaps I did.”
“Then we both know her slightly--very slightly.”
“Paul, don’t be evasive; I don’t like it. You were introduced, I was
not.”
“Well to be frank, Adele, I was introduced; yet I wasn’t.”
“Explain!”
“She introduced herself, and that’s not woman’s prerogative.”
“It might be, under some circumstances,” said Adele with some
asperity. “I know what you mean, however; go on.”
“I thought she held herself very cheap,” said Paul. “I never could
recognize, as a friend, one who undervalued herself.”
“Oh, dear, I never would have thought it! was she that sort of
person?” exclaimed Adele. “She didn’t look at all commonplace, not
with that stylish turn-out and liveried bearers.”
Paul laughed again; he couldn’t help it.
“I don’t see anything funny,” said Adele, as they moved towards an
old stump, took a seat under the trees, and sat looking forward
between the crimson rhododendrons, towards the Celestial scenery
beyond.
“Adele, unfortunately she didn’t pay for the style herself,” remarked
Paul, sub rosa; then correcting himself: “Yes, she did, too!--no! she
didn’t, either!--oh, bosh! you know what I mean.”
This only made Adele more pointedly inquisitive.
“What are you talking about? Who did? her husband, I suppose.”
“No, luckily she has none.”
“Paul, you’re outrageous to say that; who did?”
“I don’t know. I only know what a cruel, unkind world says.”
“I’m sure you do know; tell me.”
“You’re extremely inquisitive, Adele--excruciatingly so; you’re just
as bad as Elsa.”
“Who’s Elsa?”
“In Lohengrin, but never mind her or him; if you must know now, if
you insist about this woman, why, then--some other fellow, or other’s
husband, has paid for it,” said Paul reluctantly.
Adele was confused, and her manner showed it. She felt uneasy, and
her words told on what account. “Oh, Paul, that is terrible--poor
woman--poor soul!” and Adele turned her head away to avoid Paul’s
eyes--her heart sensitive--pained at the thought of the poor soul.
Paul drew Adele to him and placed her head on his shoulder.
“Now, my darling, you do know why I could not recognize that woman.”
“Why you came between us?” whispered Adele.
“Yes. I couldn’t help it.”
“To shield me--you felt that way?”
“H’m--but it isn’t necessary to say so.”
“I understand--only do it,” and she took the hand of him who thus
loved her, in her own, and pressed it to her, her heart going out to
him in tenderness.
A thrill of blissful content passed through Paul’s innermost being.
He knew her in whom he had believed; and she had faith and trust in
her protector for life. They were truly happy.
The dandy had passed--gone forever--a mere episode in their
experience.
Their lives were thus becoming as one.
“I shall never forget our walks in this Cathedral,” said Adele.
“I hope not,” said Paul, laconic, and not nearly so enthusiastic as
Adele had anticipated.
“You hope not? Why, what on earth is to prevent our remembering?”
At this point Paul’s natural tendency to tease a little got the
better of him; but Adele also by this time had had enough experience
to recognize his moods, and to meet him on his own ground.
“I should like to clinch it,” said he, “so that we couldn’t forget.”
“I’ll remind you if I see your memory weakening,” said Adele.
Paul’s countenance exhibited that sort of smile usually described as
capacious. “I should like something to happen before we left,” and he
looked doubtfully at her. Being a man of normal growth, the masculine
desire for actual possession of his future wife had grown upon Paul
recently in a marked degree; and the incidents of that particular day
led him to speak out. He felt sure Adele would be sincere with him in
response.