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He ceased; and then the old man looked on him,
Not with uplifted hands, and brow that told
Of holy horror, but with wistful thought,
Admiring, pitying, loving. And he spake:
“Fear not, my son, to tell me all thy soul;
Thy doubt outspoken may perchance pass on
To purer faith. The fault that saps the life
Is doubt half-crushed, half-veiled; the lip-assent
Which finds no echo in the heart of hearts;
The secret lie, which, conscious of its guilt,
Atones for falsehood by intenser zeal.
These questionings of thine, I know them all,
Know too they come but as the signs of life:
Our Rabbis heed them not: they read and pray,
Debating in their synagogues and schools,
Detecting this man's faults, and grudging that
The honour he has earned. They little care
What happens to the crowd. They look with scorn
Upon that crowd, ‘the people of the earth’;
Filling high places at the feasts of men,
They count on higher at the feast of God,
And that suffices. But from thee, my son,
Far be that poor content: speak out thy thought
As Abraham spake it, when he asked of God,
‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’
As Job, when, smarting in his sore distress,
He claimed acquittal. I condemn thee not:
And yet, my son, I cannot grant thy prayer;
I cannot solve the problems of thy soul.
In those few days I passed beyond the veil
I learnt to know myself, to fear and love
The Lord my Maker; but that lore sufficed;
I could not rise to yon supernal height
Whence all the wonder of the world is seen,
And all the ages in their ordered plan.
That secret dawns not on the new-born life;
The mystery of God remains uncleared;
Into these things the angels seek to look,
Yet see not far. Let others dream their dreams,
Map out the world of Hades, mark the lines,
As though they knew the country, I, for one,
Must own I know it not, and if I speak
As one whose eyes are opened, know, the Light
Shines on me from within. No fearful forms
Of spectral horrors float before mine eyes,
But Christ, my Lord, has led me on to truth;
His Spirit quickens all my power to see.
And yet, my son, it may be that thou ask'st
Not wisely of this matter. I have known,
Ere now, that craving. Many eyes have looked
Across the abyss, and many lips have asked,
With varying accents, ‘Are the saved ones few?’
Some seek that knowledge in their pride of heart,
As finding greater glory in the thought
Of crowds beneath them, failing where they win;
And some in selfish fear lest place should fail
For them in heaven; and some, my son, like thee,
In wistful love and pity. But to none
Is the full answer given: and, evermore,
The veil, uplifted for a moment's space,
Falls once again, and hides the rest from view.
So was it once when Christ our Master taught,
And one came eager, asking as thou ask'st,
And answer found: ‘Strive thou to enter in,
For strait the gate and narrow is the way
That lead to life.’ So was it once again,
When Cephas, asking of Jochanan's fate,
Received his answer, ‘What is that to thee?’
He bids us walk by faith and not by sight;
He bids us trust His all-embracing love,
His Father's righteous purpose.

“Yet He taught
Enough to put to shame our narrowing hearts,
And quicken wider hopes. From out the Book,
Where Scribes and Rabbis find abounding proof
That they alone may call the Lord their God,
He read the tokens of a love that streams
On Jew and Gentile, over bad and good,
As shines the sun in heaven. And thence He told
Of outcasts who had sought the light of God,
Of heathens, whom Jehovah owned as His;
The Syrian leper, cleansed in Jordan's flood,
Sarepta's widow, with her cruse of oil,
The men of Nimrod's city, crouching low
In dust and ashes at the prophet's word,
The queen who, coming from the furthest south,
Communed with David's son of all the thoughts,
Deep, wide, and wondrous, that had stirred her heart:
And thus, through all His life He gave us proof,
While working still by self-imposèd law
Within a narrower limit, that His heart
Went forth to all. He shrank not from the touch
Of harlot's hands, or flood of harlot's tears;
He turned not back when that adulterous wife
At Jacob's well spoke with him,—went and dwelt
For two whole days within Samaria's gates;
And when that outcast of a cursed race
Knelt to Him in her woe, and found at first
Reluctance, silence, sternness, yet the change
Came soon; His eye had read her secret soul,
And all she asked He gave. The soldier rough,
Trained in Rome's legions to a life of war,
Was owned by Him as having nobler faith
Than we of Israel. Yea, the words went forth:
‘From east and west, from north and south, shall come
Thousands, and tens of thousands, sitting down
With Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, at the feast
Of God's great kingdom.’ Bolder, stranger still,
He drew two pictures of that last great day:
On one side stood the greatest of our Scribes,
Honoured and trusted, rigorous in their fasts,
Punctual in prayers, paying tithes of all;
And, on the other, those whose names we loathe,
The dwellers of the Cities of the Vale,
The men of Tyre and Sidon, sunk, as they,
In pride, and lust, and baseness. ‘And for these,’
So ran the words, ‘shall be the lighter doom,
The fewer stripes, the easier pain and loss;
For those, the outer darkness, and the wail
Of sharpest woe.’ And then, my son, He told
What oft has given me comfort when dark thoughts
Like those thou speak'st of, haunt and vex my soul,
Words which lift up one corner of the veil,
And show hope's brighter vision; ‘lighter doom’;
So spake He; ‘for had they too seen my works,
And heard my words, in sackcloth and in dust
Long since they had repented.’ Wondrous words!
Which none might speak but He, the Judge of all,
Who reads the inner depths of each man's heart,
And calls the things that are not into life,
Counting as though they were. He sees the gleams
Of better thoughts across the murkiest gloom,
The seeds of good amid the howling wastes,
And perfects them at last; and, in the depths
Of His divine forbearance, suffereth long,
And passeth by transgression. Those who wait
To meet the bridegroom, they must trim their lamps,
And seek the oil from heaven; and those who own
Him Master, and from Him their gifts receive,
Must bring their talents—ten, or five, or one—
With usury to their Lord. But that vast throng,
The multitude of peoples, nations, tongues,
Shall stand before His throne, and every act
Of human kindness He will own as His,
And crown as service rendered unto Him.
Oh! doubt not, then, my son, but fight thy way
In clearer faith against bewildering fears:
Believe that He who in His pitying love
Embraced the children, not of saintly sires,
Or wise, or mighty, but the low-born babes
Of peasant mothers, whom the cleansing flood
Of baptism never reached, and laid His hands,
Mighty to bless, upon their infant heads;
Doubt not that He looks on, embracing still
All new-born souls that taste the breath of life.
That child of harlot-mother, in His sight
Who judges all, is precious as the babe
Which slumbers peaceful in the enfolding arms
Of saintliest matron. Nor do years alone
Determine childhood. Those who live and die,
Children in knowledge, ignorant, and blind,
Children in spirit, simple, kind, and true,
Children in temper, wayward, changeful, weak,
These too He pities, these He seeks to bless;
Their angels stand as highest near the throne.
So evermore His sentence overturns
Our feebler judgment. Outcasts, whom thou spurn'st,
Shall stand before their God arrayed in white,
And sing for joy, the last become the first;
And Rabbis, saints, and teachers, if they hope
For pardon and for peace, must take their place
Low down with shame, the first become the last.
So in the end the eternal Love will shine;
So at the last the mists and clouds will clear:
Till then from out the cloud there comes the voice
Which speaks in trumpet-tones through every land:
‘O house of Israel! O thou church of God!
O parties, sects, disputers! own ye not
Your ways unequal, Mine all just and true?’”

Yet once again, half-shamed to speak again,
Pausing as one who, having asked for help,
And gained it, fears, though wanting more, to ask,
The seeker uttered all his deep desire.

“Thy words give comfort, Father: I can look
With less despair on those poor heathen souls
That throng around me. I can now believe,
As my dear master taught me, that the death
Of Christ our Lord availed for all the world
To purchase peace and pardon. I can feel
One common bond of brotherhood with all:
They too are ransomed, and the Light that shines
On us illumines them. And yet there floats
(Bear with me, Father, if I speak it out)
A vague, dim doubt around me. Deem not, then,
My thoughts too bold or subtle; but there comes
This question, and I cannot find reply:—
‘If this be so, if all alike shall stand
On equal ground before the great white throne,
If heathen outcasts gain eternal life,
By law unwritten, or by deeds of love,
What needs this message of the Cross of Christ?
Why leave we not the heathen as they are,
Sure that they too will reach the goal at last?
Why go our teachers forth from land to land,
Braving all terrors of the shore, or deep,
To call those wandering, shipwrecked souls to God;
When, as it seems, they spend their strength in vain,
And add no jot to all their chance of bliss?’
And yet once more: the souls that stand condemned,
Or by the Word revealed, or Law unwrit,
Yet graven in their hearts, what fate is theirs?
Are they for ever doomed to penal fires?
Does God delight to torture? Can it be
His love abates when sudden stroke of death
Cuts off the soul whom that forbearing Love
Was leading to repentance? Here on earth
The will is plastic: stained with many a crime
It yet can struggle upward, and renew
Its vigour like the eagle's. Dare we say
That freedom ends with death? Has God's decree
For ever fixed the casual mood of soul
Of that last moment? Does His will condemn
To endless sin? Or welcomes He, at last,
When sin no longer reigns, the wandering soul
That wakes through death to life? Oh, glorious thought,
That wraps the future with a golden dawn,
Where old familiar words and new-born hopes
Seem melting into one! ‘The Son of God,
Destroys the works of Sin, the power of Death;’
‘Great was the trespass, greater still the love.’
‘A time shall come when all shall pass away,
All foes o'ercome, and guilt and darkness gone,
And God be all in all, the eternal Love
Prevailing, conquering, binding men to God.
Ah me! my Father; now I dream my dream
Of one broad, mighty, everlasting peace,
The concord of a universe at rest;
And now once more the mists and shadows come
Between my soul and God, and fear shuts out
That full assurèd hope, and sterner words
Come back unbidden, shattering all my joy.
Broad were the lines He traced, the Lord of Love,
The sheep and goats, the lost ones and the saved;
And evermore, when speaking of the doom
Of that great day, He spake of endless woe,
The quenchless fire, the worm that cannot die,
The punishment which with the life must be
Co-equal, co-eternal. And yet,—and yet;
(Oh! pardon thou these wandering thoughts of mine)
New words recur of hope. One only sin,
So spake He, neither in the world that is,
Nor in the world that comes, can ever gain
Forgiveness. Only of the traitor's soul
Were the words spoken, ‘It were good for him
That he had ne'er been born.’ I ask myself,
Might not that doom, if former fears were true,
Be written on the universe of God,
On all the countless myriads that have passed
In darkness to the grave? If thou canst solve
These riddles, O my Father! if thy soul
Has gone beyond the doubts that come and go,
Unfold the secret. One has told, I know,
Of torments lasting their appointed time,
Of fires that, burning, cleanse the sin-stained soul,
Of cycles strange through which our spirits pass,
Tasting new forms of life, or man or brute,
Tested and tried till they too rise to God,
And in the fields Elysian find their rest,
Or lose their separate being, to the All
Returning once again. But these, perchance,
Are but a poet's fancies. Thou canst guide
My tottering feet through these bewildering mists
In which I wander, wavering and perplexed,
Staggering like drunken man in fevered dreams.”