Carmen Ariza Part 57

She waited a moment for him to express the limitation which the conjunctive implied. Then:

"Padre dear, how do you think he did it? How did he cure sick people, and make the dead ones live again?"

"I--I don't know, child--I am not sure. That knowledge has been lost, long since."

"You _do_ know, Padre," she insisted; "you _do_! Did he know that G.o.d was everywhere?"

"Yes."

"And what did he say sickness was?"

"He cla.s.sed it with all evil under the one heading--a lie--a lie about G.o.d."

"But when a person tells a lie, he doesn't speak the truth, does he?"

"No."

"And a lie has no rule, no principle?"

"No."

"And so it isn't anything--doesn't come from anything true--hasn't any real life, has it?"

"No, a lie is utterly unreal, not founded on anything but supposition, either ignorant or malicious."

"Then Jesus said sickness was a supposition, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"And G.o.d, who made everything real, didn't make suppositions. He made only real things."

"True, child."

"Well, Padre dear, if you _know_ all that, why don't you act as if you did?"

Act? Yes, act your knowledge! Acknowledge Him in all your ways! Then He shall bring it to pa.s.s! What? That which is real--life, not death--immortality, not oblivion--love, not hate--good, not evil!

"_Chiquita_--" His voice was thick. "You--you believe all that, don't you?"

"No, Padre dear"--she smiled up at him through the darkness--"I don't believe it, I _know_ it."

"But--how--how do you know it?"

"G.o.d tells me, Padre. I hear Him, always. And I prove it every day.

The trouble is, you believe it, but I don't think you ever try to _prove_ it. If you believed my problems in algebra could be solved, but never tried to prove it--well, you wouldn't do very much in algebra, would you?" She laughed at the apt comparison.

Jose's straining eyes were peering straight ahead. Through the thick gloom he saw the mutilated figure of the Christ hanging on its cross beside the crumbling altar. It reflected the broken image of the Christ-principle in the hearts of men. And was he not again crucifying the gentle Christ? Did not the world daily crucify him and nail him with their false beliefs to the cross of carnal error which they set up in the Golgotha of their own souls? And were they not daily paying the awful penalty therefor? Aye, paying it in agony, in torturing agony of soul and body, in blasted hopes, crumbling ambitions, and inevitable death!

"Padre dear, what did the good man say sickness came from?" Carmen's soft voice brought him back from his reflections.

"Sickness? Why, he always coupled disease with sin."

"And sin?"

"Sin is--is unrighteousness."

"And that is--?" she pursued relentlessly.

"Wrong conduct, based on wrong thinking. And wrong thinking is based on wrong beliefs, false thought."

"But to believe that there is anything but G.o.d, and the things He made, is sin, isn't it, Padre dear?"

"Sin is--yes, to believe in other powers than G.o.d is to break the very first Commandment--and that is the chief of sins!"

"Well, Padre dear, can't you make yourself think right? Do you know what you really think about G.o.d, anyway?"

Jose rose and paced up and down through the dark aisle.

"I try to think," he answered, "that He is mind; that He is infinite, everywhere; that He is all-powerful; that He knows all things; and that He is perfect and good. I try not to think that He made evil, or anything that is or could be bad, or that could become sick, or decay, or die. Whatever He made must be real, and real things last forever, are immortal, eternal. I strive to think He did make man in His image and likeness--and that man has never been anything else--that man never 'fell.'"

"What is that, Padre?"

"Only an old, outworn theological belief. But, to resume: I believe that, since G.o.d is mind, man must be an idea of His. Since G.o.d is infinite, man must exist in Him. I know that any number of lies can be made up about true things. And any number of falsities can be a.s.sumed about G.o.d and what He has made. I am sure that the material universe and man are a part of the lie about G.o.d and the way He manifests and expresses Himself in and through His ideas. Everything is mental. We _must_ hold to that! The mental realm includes all truth, all fact.

But there may be all sorts of supposition about this fact. And yet, while fact is based upon absolute and undeviating principle--and I believe that principle to be G.o.d--supposition is utterly without any rule or principle whatsoever. It is wholly subject to truth, to Principle, to G.o.d. Hence, bad or wrong thought is absolutely subject to good or real thought, and must go down before it. The mortal man is a product of wrong thought. He is a supposition; and so is the universe of matter in which he is supposed to live. We have already learned that the things he thinks he hears, feels, tastes, smells, and sees are only his own thoughts. And these turn out to be suppositions.

Hence, they are nothing real."

"Well, Padre! How fast you talk! And--such big words! I--I don't think I understand all you say. But, anyway, I guess it is right." She laughed again.

"I _know_ it is right!" he exclaimed, forgetting that he was talking to a child. "Evil, which includes sickness and death, is only a false idea of good. It is a misinterpretation, made in the thought-activity which const.i.tutes what we call the human consciousness. And that is the opposite--the suppositional opposite--of the mind that is G.o.d.

Evil, then, becomes a supposition and a lie. Just what Jesus said it was!"

"But, Padre--I don't see why you don't act as if you really believed all that!"

"Fear--only fear! It has not yet been eradicated from my thought," he answered slowly.

"But, Padre, what will drive it out?"

"Love, child--love only, for 'perfect love casteth out fear.'"

"Oh, then, Padre dear, I will just love it all out of you, every bit!"

she exclaimed, clasping her arms about him again and burying her face in his shoulder.

"Ah, little one," he said sadly, "I must love more. I must love my fellow-men and good more than myself and evil. If I didn't love myself so much, I would have no fear. If I loved G.o.d as you do, dearest child, I would never come under fear's heavy shadow."

"You _do_ love everybody--you have got to, for you are G.o.d's child.

And now," she added, getting down and drawing him toward the door, "let us go out of this smelly old church. I want you to come home.

We've got to have our lessons, you know."

"But--child, the people will not let me come near them--nor you either, now," he said, holding back. "They think we may give them the disease."