Ardath, Marie Corelli [e ink ebook reader txt] 📗

as sane as any man in London!”

 

“Saner, I should say,”—replied Heliobas, smiling,—“Compared with some of the eminently ‘practical’ speculating maniacs that howl and struggle among the fluctuating currents of the Stock Exchange, for instance, you are indeed a marvel of sound and wholesome mental capability! But let us view the matter coolly. You must not expect such an exceptional experience as yours to be believed in by ordinary persons. Because the majority of people, being utterly UNspiritual and worldly, have NO such experiences, and they therefore deem them impossible;—they are the gold-fish born in a bowl, who have no consciousness of the existence of an ocean.

Moreover, you have no proofs of the truth of your narrative, beyond the change in your own life and disposition,—and that can be easily referred to various other causes. You spoke of having gathered one of the miracle-flowers on the Prophet’s field,—may I see it?”

 

Silently Alwyn drew from his breast-pocket the velvet case in which he always kept the cherished blossom, and taking it tenderly out, placed it in his companion’s hand.

 

“An immortelle”—said Heliobas softly, while the flower, uncurling its silvery petals in the warmth of his palm, opened star-like and white as snow. “An immortelle, rare and possibly unique!—that is all the world would say of it! It cannot be matched,—it will not fade,—true! but you will get no one to believe that! Frown not, good Poet!—I want you to consider me for the moment a practical worldling, bent on driving you from the spiritual position yon have taken up,—and you will see how necessary it is for you to keep the secret of your own enlightenment to yourself, or at least only hint at it through the parables of poesy.”

 

He gave back the Ardath blossom to its owner with reverent care,—

and when Alwyn had as reverently put it by, he resumed: “Your friend Villiers has offered you a perfectly logical and common-sense solution of the mystery of Ardath,—one which, if you chose to accept it, would drive you back into skepticism as easily as a strong wind blows a straw. Only see how simple the intricate problem is unravelled by this means! You, a man of ardent and imaginative temperament, made more or less unhappy by the doctrines of materialism, come to me, Heliobas, a Chaldean student of the Higher Philosophies, an individual whose supposed mysterious power and inexplicably studious way of life entitle him to be considered by the world at large an IMPOSTER!—Now don’t look so indignant!”—and he laughed,—“I am merely discussing the question from the point of view that would be sure to be adopted by ‘wise’ modern society! Thus—I, Heliobas, the impostor, take advantage of your state of mind to throw you into a trance, in which, by occult means, you see the vision of an Angel, who bids you meet her at a place called Ardath,—and you, also, in your hypnotized condition, write a poem which you entitle ‘Nourhalma.’

Then I,—always playing my own little underhand game!—read you portions of ‘Esdras,’ and prove to you that ‘Ardath’ exists, while I delicately SUGGEST, if I do not absolutely COMMAND, your going thither. You go,—but I, still by magnetic power, retain my influence over you. You visit Elzear, a hermit, whom we will, for the sake of the present argument, call my accomplice,—he reads between the lines of the letter you deliver to him from me, and he understands its secret import. He continues, no matter how, your delusion. You broke your fast with him,—and surely it was easy for him to place some potent drug in the wine he gave you, which made you DREAM the rest;—nay, viewed from this standpoint, it is open to question whether you ever went to the Field of Ardath at all, but merely DREAMED you did! You see how admirably I can, with little trouble, disprove the whole story, and make myself out to be the veriest charlatan and trickster that ever duped his credulous fellow-man! How do you like my practical dissection of your new-found joys?”

 

Alwyn was gazing at him with puzzled and anxious eyes.

 

“I do not like it at all”—he murmured, in a pained tone—“It is an insidious SEMBLANCE of truth;—but I know it is not the Truth itself!”

 

“Why, how obstinate you are!” said Heliobas, good-humoredly, with a quick, flashing glance at him. “You insist on seeing things in a directly reverse way to that in which the world sees them! How can you be so foolish! To the world your Ardath adventure is the SEMBLANCE of truth,—and only man’s opinion thereon is worth trusting as the Truth itself!”

 

Over the wistful, brooding thoughtfulness of Alwyn’s countenance swept a sudden light of magnificent resolution.

 

“Heliobas, do not jest with me!” he cried passionately—“I know, better perhaps than most men, how divine things can be argued away by the jargon of tongues, till heart and brain grow weary,—I know, God help me!—how the noblest ideals of the soul can be swept down and dispersed into blank ruin, by the specious arguments of cold-blooded casuists,—but I also know, by a supreme INNER knowledge beyond all human proving, that GOD EXISTS, and with His Being exist likewise all splendors, great and small, spiritual and material,—splendors vaster than our intelligence can reach,—ideals loftier than imagination can depict! I want no proof of this save those that burn in my own individual consciousness,—I do not need a miserable taper of human reason to help me to discern the Sun! I, OF MY OWN CHOICE, PRAYER, AND HOPE, voluntarily believe in God, in Christ, in angels, in all things beautiful and pure and grand!—let the world and its ephemeral opinions wither, I will NOT be shaken down from the first step of the ladder whereon one climbs to Heaven!”

 

His features were radiant with fervor and feeling,—his eyes brilliant with the kindling inward light of noblest aspiration,—

and Heliobas, who had watched him intently, now bent toward him with a grave gesture of the gentlest homage.

 

“How strong is he whom an Angel’s love makes glorious!” he said—

“We are partners in the same destiny, my friend,—and I have but spoken to you as the world might speak, to prepare you for opposition. The specious arguments of men confront us at every turn, in every book, in every society,—and it is not always that we are ready to meet them. As a rule, silence on all matters of personal faith is best,—let your life bear witness for you;—it shall thunder loud oracles when your mortal limbs are dumb.”

 

He paused a moment—then went on: “You have desired to know the secret of the active and often miraculous power of the special form of religion I and my brethren follow; well, it is all contained in Christ, and Christ only. His is the only true Spiritualism in the world—there was never any before He came. We obey Christ in the simple rules he preached,—Christ according to His own enunciated wish and will. Moreover, we,—that is, our Fraternity,—received our commission from Christ Himself in person.”

 

Alwyn started,—his eyes dilated with amazement and awe.

 

“From Christ Himself in person?”—he echoed incredulously.

 

“Even so”—returned Heliobas calmly. “What do you suppose our Divine Master was about during the years between His appearance among the Rabbis of the Temple and the commencement of His public preaching? Do you, can you, imagine with the rest of the purblind world, that he would have left His marvellous Gospel in the charge of a few fishermen and common folk ONLY”

 

“I never thought,—I never inquired—” began Alwyn hurriedly.

 

“No!”—and Heliobas smiled rather sadly, “Few men do think or inquire very far on sacred subjects! Listen,—for what I have to say to you will but strengthen you in your faith,—and you will need more than all the strength of the Four Evangelists to bear you stiffly up against the suicidal Negation of this present disastrous epoch. Ages ago,—ay, more than six or seven thousand years ago, there were certain communities of men in the East,—

scholars, sages, poets, astronomers, and scientists, who, desiring to give themselves up entirely to study and research, withdrew from the world, and formed themselves into Fraternities, dividing whatever goods they had in common, and living together under one roof as the brotherhoods of the Catholic Church do to this day.

The primal object of these men’s investigations was a search after the Divine Cause of Creation; and as it was undertaken with prayer, penance, humility, and reverence, much enlightenment was vouchsafed to them, and secrets of science, both spiritual and material, were discovered by them,—secrets which the wisest of modern sages know nothing of as yet. Out of these Fraternities came many of the prophets and preachers of the Old Testament,—

Esdras for one,—Isaiah for another. They were the chroniclers of many now forgotten events,—they kept the history of the times, as far is it was possible,—and in their ancient records your city of Al-Kyris is mentioned as a great and populous place, which was suddenly destroyed by the bursting out of a volcano beneath its foundations—Yes!”—this as Alwyn uttered an eager exclamation,—

“Your vision was a perfectly faithful reflection of the manner in which it perished. I must tell you, however, that nothing concerning its kings or great men has been preserved,—only a few allusions to one Hyspiros, a writer of tragedies, whose genius seems to have corresponded to that of our Shakespeare of to-day.

The name of Sahluma is nowhere extant.”

 

A burning wave of color flushed Alwyn’s face, but he was silent.

Heliobas went on gently:

 

“At a very early period of their formation, these Fraternities I tell you of were in possession of most of the MATERIAL scientific facts of the present day,—such things as the electric wire and battery, the phonograph, the telephone, and other ‘new’

discoveries, being perfectly familiar to them. The SPIRITUAL

manifestations of Nature were more intricate and difficult to penetrate,—and though they knew that material effects could only be produced by spiritual causes, they worked in the dark, as it were, only groping toward the light. However, the wisdom and purity of the lives they led was not without its effect,—emperors and kings sought their advice, and gave them great stores of wealth, which they divided, according to rule, into equal portions, and used for the benefit of those in need, willing the remainder to their successors; so that, at the present time, the few brotherhoods that are left hold immense treasures accumulated through many centuries,—treasures which are theirs to share with one another in prosecution of discoveries and the carrying on of good works in secret. Ages before the coming of Christ, one Aselzion, a man of austere and strict life, belonging to a Fraternity stationed in Syria, was engaged in working out a calculation of the average quantity of heat and light provided per minute by the sun’s rays, when, glancing upward at the sky, the hour being clear noonday, he beheld a Cross of crimson hue suspended in the sky, whereon hung the cloudy semblance of a human figure. Believing himself to be the victim of some optical delusion, he hastened to fetch some of his brethren, who at a glance perceived the self-same marvel,—which presently was viewed with reverent wonder by the whole assembled community. For one entire hour the Symbol stayed—then vanished suddenly, a noise like thunder accompanying its departure. Within a few months of its appearance, messages came from all the other Fraternities stationed in Egypt, in Spain, in Greece, in Etruria, stating that they also had seen this singular sight, and suggesting that from henceforth the Cross should be adopted by the united Brotherhoods as a holy sign of some Deity unrevealed,—a proposition that was at once agreed to. This happened some five thousand years before Christ,—and hence