PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS
We are all of us, in this world, strangers and pilgrims, and to each
human being, in turn, and in varied ways, comes the knowledge, "A
stranger with Thee and a sojourner as all my Fathers were."
Like ships that pass in the night "we exchange signals with one
another," and pass on our different ways through the ocean of life. I
think it is the sea that most clearly brings home to me the transitory
nature of our pilgrimage. Leaning over the side of a ship in mid ocean,
and watching a trail of smoke from another ship on the horizon, I am
always impelled to wonder about its human cargo. Who and what are they,
and for what distant shores are they bound? Again one sweeps the far
horizons only to find them empty of aught but a vast tumbling expanse of
waters. Then, without warning, we are wrapped in a dense blanket of fog.
The sirens sound insistently, and are at once answered by ships on every
side. It is startling to find there are many so near, but utterly
invisible. In a few minutes we have emerged again into distance and
clear skies, and again there is nothing that meets the eye but the empty
watery expanse.
Looking back on my life I can recall many meetings with fellow pilgrims
that apparently were purely accidental, yet they left their mark upon
my life. Meetings such as those, when two souls thrown together by the
force of circumstances, in quiet far-away places; or in the marts of the
world, become in a few short hours like old and tried friends. How often
have I heard it said, even after one short hour, "I feel as if I had
known you all my life." Such I look upon as epochs in my pilgrimage,
milestones and guiding stars on my life's road. Yet the limitations of
such epochs are obvious enough. Time on earth is circumscribed, still
there is subconsciously the instant recognition of two kindred souls who
hear and remember, who instinctively know that once, perchance many
times before, they have landed together on the shores of time, from the
storm-tossed bark of life.
It seems strange that those chance meetings should have no continuity. I
remember one such meeting in the East, and how utterly by chance it
seemed to come about. It lasted for three days, yet after three hours I
knew more of my fellow pilgrim and he of me than we would have known of
each other in three months at home. We were both quite alone, but I
remember his recalling the pre-Buddha words written a thousand years
before the coming of the Christ: "Thou shalt not separate thy Being from
Being, and the rest, but merge the ocean in the drop, the drop within
the ocean. So shalt thou be in full accord with all that lives, bear
love to men as though they were thy brother pupils, disciples of one
teacher, the sons of one sweet mother."
When we bade each other good-by and I boarded my ship we told each other
we would meet again, but instinctively we knew we never should. I have
forgotten his name, but all else I can remember very clearly, and the
wonderful comradeship two souls, drifting together for a second in time,
can give each other. He gave me the sufi mysticism of Omar Khayyam, and
I can still see the English face burnt dark with eastern suns, under the
snowy turban, and the brilliant parrot swinging on a palm bough above
his head. I can still hear the low grave voice reciting the quatrains of
Persia's astronomer poet, written a thousand years ago. They fitted in
with our surroundings:--
"There was a door to which I found no key.
There was a veil past which I could not see!
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed, and then no more of Me and Thee."
I suppose we all have many such recollections in our lives, and it is
impossible (for me) to believe them to be a mere matter of chance, for,
always on parting, I have been conscious that I have received some
lasting good, or it has mercifully chanced that I have been able to help
a stranger and pilgrim on a difficult way.
Again, I remember another interesting meeting. A woman was sitting alone
on a bench in the outskirts of Cairo, and her worn face was turned to
the dying fires of sunset. She was very shabby and poor looking, and
obviously she was a European. In my casual glance I caught something
familiar, and after going on some paces I felt a compelling force
bidding me return. I sat down beside her and at once spoke to her. I
knew who she was when she turned her face to me, and the hideous
contrast of her past and her present appalled me. She does not know
to-day that I am aware of her real identity. She is in England, and all
now is well with her. One can always, as the pre-Buddhist taught us,
"Point out the way however dim and lost amongst the Host, as does the
evening star to those who tread their path in darkness."
Again, it is strange to tell why unknown pilgrims should leave their
mark upon us for all earthly time, pilgrims to whom one has never
spoken, and of whom one knows nothing. When I was quite a child I passed
every day through a very quiet and well-to-do street of dwelling-houses.
At a window behind two flower-pots, sat a woman whom I supposed to be
sewing, though her hands were hidden from view. I can see her as clearly
now as I saw her then, over forty years ago in the northern capital. The
pale, tragic profile, the down-drooped eyelids, the meekly-banded hair.
I used to wonder about her constantly. She possessed me, and interested
me at that time more than anything else in my life. Even to this day she
comes unbidden into my mind at frequent intervals.
Again from my bedroom window in Belgrade I used to watch another woman.
She came out on her balcony twice a day, always at the same hours. She
put her hands on the rails, and turned her dark, southern face up to the
skies, and there she would stand for an hour, gazing fixedly above. I
never once saw her eyes drop to the busy street below, and once a
prisoner, dragging his heavy chains behind him, paused and looked up and
cried out to her for bread. She appeared not to hear him, her rigid
attitude never relaxed.
It is the thoughts of such pilgrims, as one conjectures them to be, that
form the interest, or perhaps it really is something more, a far-off
kinship, stretching invisible threads down through the ages. With both
those women I had a feeling of kinship. I had picked them out of the
world's crowd, because of some silent influence they exerted over me,
the lingering power of some far back, forgotten touch, which had once
drawn us together. I know that in my life I had met those "that I have
loved long since and lost awhile."
For me there was purpose in those "stars" that shine through my life, as
looking back they show me where I had arrived at the moment of their
uprising, and their rays pierce the penumbra shadows wherein the soul
lies hid. Each star showed me the lees in the cup of destiny, brought to
me a new revelation of soul, and elucidated for me something of the
mystery of life.
Again, surely there is Divine purpose in those islets of friendship
which jewel-like stud the gray vesture of ordinary existence. They are
close, warm, and utterly sincere, often for many long years, then they
are suddenly sundered by the inrush of some invading force which cuts
them off in their full bloom. Sometimes the Master Death bids them pass
on, sometimes the break comes by some utterly trivial, yet inexorable
fiat of human destiny.
In the clash of human interests it must needs be that pain must come to
some. Life cannot be all serenity and peace to the pilgrims who toil
upon its stormy way, its _via dolorosa_. Such crises teach us the just
attitude that should prevail in all such trials and circumstances. Amiel
says, "There is one wrong man is not bound to punish, that of which he
himself is the victim. Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged." For
hate there is but one antidote--love. The art of forgetfulness is not
yet a science, but to forget the evil one has but to remember the good.
Love knows neither saint nor sinner, for she seeks in every heart the
hidden gem of good. She thinks no ill, because she knows the trials of
each one are penalty enough for deeds already done. Neither in the case
of Death's intervention, nor in the case of human misunderstanding
should there be sorrow for lost friendships, though there must
inevitably be regret.
Love brings with it suffering, for all who love suffer with those they
love. Unkindness and injustices are hard to bear, and the loss of those
we love is a bitter pain, but those whose hearts are great enough still
find others on whom to lavish love. Are there not many who need it, and
are there not great rewards for those who have love to spare. To be
required, to be appealed to, and turned to as a help and refuge. Such
are the prizes for those whose hearts are always alight with love, who
from one flame can kindle many.
When death looses the silver cord, and souls seem torn asunder for ever
more, there will be sadness of spirit. When a break comes, perhaps
through third-party treachery, there may come the sense of eternal
severance, but is it eternal? I doubt it. More probably there lies
before us an existence of clearer judgment and understanding, of vaster
possibilities, in which we shall know, even as also we are known. Though
now we see each other through a glass darkly, a day will come when we
shall no longer see in part, but face to face. When faith, hope and love
shall be reunited, and we shall realize that the greatest of these three
is love, which suffereth long, and is kind and thinketh no evil.
Again, there are these loves in one's life, some fleeting, some
lasting, that are too sacred to write of, and of which one never speaks.
The joys and sorrows they brought, the prose or poesy of our intercourse
are graven deep on the heart. Whether it be they still walk by our side,
or have gone west to rest after labor, we must learn to say with the
pre-Buddhists of old time: "Do not grieve for the living or the dead.
Never did I not exist for you... nor will any one of us ever hereafter
cease to be."
Such sacramental hours sanctify the variety of our lot, combine the
pathos of love and death, and stretch through the corridors of memory
into the hush and shadow of the haunted past; where all the mystery of
such hours seem gathered for inspiration. There linger the symbols of
our sojourn here. How potent, yet how fragmentary they are! The scent of
a flower, the long embrace, the hand held out in vain, the flash of
recognition, the chime of the clock which altered the course of the
pilgrimage. The meek hands folded on the still breast. Such symbols
abide with us like the image of a Divine form, some echo of immortal
music, some lingering word of angels. Their cadences come ever back to
us from infinite distances, ghostly chords and evanescent. Harmonies
which come and go too fitfully for apprehension.