第44章 THE SEVENTH - THE SECOND VISION(4)

It was a Chinaman sitting with two others in a little low room separated by translucent paper windows from a noisy street of shrill-voiced people.The three had been talking of the ultimatum that Japan had sent that day to China, claiming a priority in many matters over European influences they were by no means sure whether it was a wrong or a benefit that had been done to their country.From that topic they had passed to the discussion of the war, and then of wars and national aggressions and the perpetual thrusting and quarrelling of mankind.The older man had said that so life would allways be; it was the will of Heaven.The little, very yellow-faced, emaciated man had agreed with him.But now this younger man, to whose thoughts the Angel had so particularly directed the bishop's attention, was speaking.He did not agree with his companion.

"War is not the will of Heaven," he said; "it is the blindness of men.""Man changes," he said, "from day to day and from age to age.

The science of the West has taught us that.Man changes and war changes and all things change.China has been the land of flowery peace, and she may yet give peace to all the world.She has put aside that puppet Emperor at Peking, she turns her face to the new learning of the West as a man lays aside his heavy robes, in order that her task may be achieved."The older man spoke, his manner was more than a little incredulous, and yet not altogether contemptuous."You believe that someday there will be no more war in the world, that a time will come when men will no longer plot and plan against the welfare of men?""Even that last," said the younger man."Did any of us dream twenty-five years ago that here in China we should live to see a republic? The age of the republics draws near, when men in every country of the world will look straight up to the rule of Right and the empire of Heaven."(" And God will be King of the World," said the Angel."Is not that faith exactly the faith that is coming to you? ")The two other Chinamen questioned their companion, but without hostility.

"This war," said the Chinaman, "will end in a great harvesting of kings.""But Japan--" the older man began.

The bishop would have liked to hear more of that conversation, but the dark hand of the Angel motioned him to another part of the world."Listen to this," said the Angel.

He pointed the bishop to where the armies of Britain and Turkey lay in the heat of Mesopotamia.Along the sandy bank of a wide, slow-flowing river rode two horsemen, an Englishman and a Turk.

They were returning from the Turkish lines, whither the Englishman had been with a flag of truce.When Englishmen and Turks are thrown together they soon become friends, and in this case matters had been facilitated by the Englishman's command of the Turkish language.He was quite an exceptional Englishman.The Turk had just been remarking cheerfully that it wouldn't please the Germans if they were to discover how amiably he and his charge had got on."It's a pity we ever ceased to be friends," he said.

"You Englishmen aren't like our Christians," he went on.

The Engiishmen wanted to know why.

"You haven't priests in robes.You don't chant and worship crosses and pictures, and quarrel among yourselves.""We worship the same God as you do," said the Englishman.

"Then why do we fight?"

"That's what we want to know."

"Why do you call yourselves Christians? And take part against us? All who worship the One God are brothers.""They ought to be," said the Englishman, and thought.He was struck by what seemed to him an amazingly novel idea.

"If it weren't for religions all men would serve God together,"he said."And then there would be no wars--only now and then perhaps just a little honest fighting....""And see here," said the Angel."Here close behind this frightful battle, where the German phalanx of guns pounds its way through the Russian hosts.Here is a young German talking to two wounded Russian prisoners, who have stopped to rest by the roadside.He is a German of East Prussia; he knows and thinks a little Russian.And they too are saying, all three of them, that the war is not God's will, but the confusion of mankind.

"Here," he said, and the shadow of his hand hovered over the burning-ghats of Benares, where a Brahmin of the new persuasion watched the straight spires of funereal smoke ascend into the glow of the late afternoon, while he talked to an English painter, his friend, of the blind intolerance of race and caste and custom in India.

"Or here."

The Angel pointed to a group of people who had gathered upon a little beach at the head of a Norwegian fiord.There were three lads, an old man and two women, and they stood about the body of a drowned German sailor which had been washed up that day.For a time they had talked in whispers, but now suddenly the old man spoke aloud.

"This is the fourth that has come ashore," he said."Poor drowned souls! Because men will not serve God.""But folks go to church and pray enough," said one of the women.

"They do not serve God," said the old man."They just pray to him as one nods to a beggar.They do not serve God who is their King.They set up their false kings and emperors, and so all Europe is covered with dead, and the seas wash up these dead to us.Why does the world suffer these things? Why did we Norwegians, who are a free-spirited people, permit the Germans and the Swedes and the English to set up a king over us? Because we lack faith.Kings mean secret counsels, and secret counsels bring war.Sooner or later war will come to us also if we give the soul of our nation in trust to a king....But things will not always be thus with men.God will not suffer them for ever.A day comes, and it is no distant day, when God himself will rule the earth, and when men will do, not what the king wishes nor what is expedient nor what is customary, but what is manifestly right."....