Carmen Ariza Part 43

Jose burst out laughing at the tremendous question. Carmen joined in heartily.

"But, Padre," she pursued, "there are rules for solving problems; but there isn't any rule or principle for making mistakes, is there?"

"Surely not, child!" Jose replied.

"And if I always knew the truth about things, I couldn't make mistakes, could I?"

"No."

Jose waited for her further comments. They came after a brief meditation.

"Well, then, G.o.d doesn't know anything about mistakes--does He?"

"No, _chiquita_."

"And He knows everything."

"Yes."

"Then, Padre dear, n.o.body can know anything about mistakes. People just think they can--don't they?"

Jose thought hard for a few moments. "_Chiquita_, can you know that two and two are seven?"

"Why, Padre dear, how funny!"

"Yes--it does seem strange--now. And yet, I used to think I could know things just as absurd."

"Why, what was that, Padre?"

"I thought, _chiquita_, that I could know evil--something that G.o.d does not and can not know."

"But--could you, Padre?"

"No, child. It is absolutely impossible to know--to really _know_--error of any sort."

"If we knew it, Padre, it would have a rule; or as you say, a principle, no?"

"Exactly, child."

"And, since G.o.d is everywhere, He would have to be its principle."

"Just the point. Now take another of the problems, _chiquita_, and work on it while I think about these things," he said, a.s.signing another of the simple tasks to the child.

For an idea was running through the man's thought, and he had traced it back to the explorer in Cartagena. Reason and logic supported the thought of G.o.d as mind; of the creation as the unfolding of this mind's ideas; and of man as the greatest idea of G.o.d. It also seemed to show that the physical senses afforded no testimony at all, and that human beings saw, heard and felt only in thought, in belief. On this basis everything reduced to a mental plane, and man became a mentality. But what sort of mentality was that which Jose saw all about him in sinful, sick and dying humanity? The human man is demonstrably mortal--and he is a sort of mind--ah, yes, that was it!

The explorer had said that up in that great country north there were those who referred to this sort of mentality as "mortal mind." Jose thought it an excellent term. For, if the mortal man is a mind at all, he a.s.suredly is a _mortal_ mind.

And the mortal mind is the opposite of that mind which is the eternal G.o.d. But G.o.d can have no real opposite. Any so-called opposite to Him must be a supposition--or, as Jesus defined it, the lie about Him.

This lie seems to counterfeit the eternal mind that is G.o.d. It seems to pose as a creative principle, and to simulate the powers and attributes of G.o.d himself. It a.s.sumes to create its universe of matter, the direct opposite of the spiritual universe. And, likewise, it a.s.sumes to create its man, its own idea of itself, and hence the direct opposite of the real man, the divine idea of G.o.d, made in His own image and likeness.

Jose rose and went to the doorway. "Surely," he murmured low, "the material personality, called man, which sins, suffers and dies, is not real man, but his counterfeit, a creation of G.o.d's opposite, the so-called mortal mind. It must be a part of the lie about G.o.d, the 'mist' that went up from the ground and watered the whole face of the earth, leaving the veil of supposition which obscures G.o.d from human sight. It is this sort of man and this sort of universe that I have always seen about me, and that the world refers to as human beings, or mortals, and the physical universe. And yet I have been looking only at my false thoughts of man."

At that moment he caught sight of Juan running toward him from the lake. The lad had just returned from Bodega Central.

"Padre," he exclaimed breathlessly, "there is war in the country again! The revolution has broken out, and they are fighting all along the river!"

Jose turned into the house and clasped Carmen in his arms.

CHAPTER 15

Juan's startling announcement linked Jose again with a fading past.

Standing with his arm about Carmen, while the child looked up wonderingly at her grimly silent protector, the priest seemed to have fallen with dizzy precipitation from some spiritual height into a familiar material world of men and events. Into his chastened mentality there now rushed a rabble rout of suggestions, throwing into wild confusion the orderly forces of mind which he was striving to marshal to meet the situation. He recalled, for the first time in his new environment, the significant conversation of Don Jorge and the priest Diego, in Banco. He saw again the dark clouds that were lowering above the unhappy country when he left Cartagena. Had they at last broken? And would carnal l.u.s.t and rapine again drench fair Colombia with the blood of her misguided sons? Were the disturbance only a local uprising, headed by a coterie of selfish politicians, it would produce but a pa.s.sing ripple. Colombia had witnessed many such, and had, by a judicious redistribution of public offices, generally met the crises with little difficulty. On the other hand, if the disorder drew its stimulus from the deep-seated, swelling sentiment of protest against the continued affiliation of Church and State, then what might not ensue before reason would again lay her restraining hand upon the rent nation! For--strange anomaly--no strife is so venomous, no wars so b.l.o.o.d.y, no issues so steeped in deadliest hatred, as those which break forth in the name of the humble Christ.

A buzzing concourse was gathering in the _plaza_ before the church.

Leaving Carmen in charge of Dona Maria, Jose mingled with the excited people. Juan had brought no definite information, other than that already imparted to Jose, but his elastic Latin imagination had supplied all lacking essentials, and now, with much gesticulation and rolling of eyes, with frequent alternations of shrill chatter and dignified pomp of phrase, he was portraying in a _melange_ of picturesque and poetic Spanish the supposed happenings along the great river.

Jose forced the lad gently aside and addressed the thoroughly excited people himself, a.s.suring them that no reliable news was as yet at hand, and bidding them a.s.semble in the church after the evening meal, where he would advise with them regarding their future course. He then sought the Alcalde, and drew him into his store, first closing the door against the excited mult.i.tude.

"_Bien, Senor Padre_, what are you going to do?" The Alcalde was atremble with insuppressible excitement.

"Don Mario, we must protect Simiti," replied the priest, with a show of calm which he did not possess.

"_Caramba_, but not a man will stay! They will run to the hills! The _guerrillas_ will come, and Simiti will be burned to the ground!"

"Will you stay--with me?"

"_Na_, and be hacked by the _machetes_ of the _guerrillas_, or la.s.soed by government soldiers and dragged off to the war?" The official mopped the damp from his purple brow.

"_Caramba!_" he went on. "But the Antioquanians will come down the Simiti trail from Remedios and butcher every one they meet! They hate us Simitanians, since we whipped them in the revolution of seventy-six! And--_Diablo_! if we stay here and beat them back, then the federal troops will come with their ropes and chains and force us away to fight on their side! _Nombre de Dios!_ I am for the mountains--_p.r.o.nto_!"

Jose's own fear mounted by leaps. And yet, in the welter of conflicting thought two objects stood out above the rest--Carmen and Rosendo. The latter was on the trail, somewhere. Would he fall afoul of the bandits who find in these revolutions their opportunities for plunder and bloodshed? As for Carmen--the priest's apprehensions were piling mountain-high. He had quickly forgotten his recent theories regarding the nature of G.o.d and man. He had been swept by the force of ill tidings clean off the lofty spiritual plane up to which he had struggled during the past weeks. Again he was befouled in the mire of material fears and corroding speculations as to the probable manifestations of evil, real and immanent. Don Mario was right. He must take the child and fly at once. He would go to Dona Maria immediately and bid her prepare for the journey.

"You had best go to Don Nicolas," replied Dona Maria, when the priest had voiced his fears to her. "He lives in Boque, and has a _hacienda_ somewhere up that river. He will send you there in his canoe."

"And Boque is--?"

"Three hours from Simiti, across the shales. You must start with the dawn, or the heat will overtake you before you arrive."

"Then make yourself ready, Dona Maria," said Jose in relief, "and we will set out in the morning."

"Padre, I will stay here," the woman quietly replied.

"Stay here!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the priest. "Impossible! But why?"

"There will be many women too old to leave the town, Padre. I will stay to help them if trouble comes. And I would not go without Rosendo."