"It was the part of the Saviour to purchase our redemption by his death on Calvary."
"Our redemption from what?"
"From sin, to be sure."
"What sin?"
"Why, our sin, of course--the sin of Adam which comes down to us."
"You say this Jesus purchased our redemption from that sin by dying?"
"Yes."
"From whom did he purchase it?"
"Oh, dear--this is like a catechism--from G.o.d, of course."
"The G.o.d that made Adam?"
"Certainly."
"Oh, yes--now I seem to remember him--he was supposed to make people, and then curse them, wasn"t he? And so he had to have his son killed before he could forgive Adam for our sins?"
"No; before he could forgive _us_ for Adam"s sin, which descended to us."
"Came down like an entail, eh? ... Adam couldn"t disinherit us? Well, how did this G.o.d have his son die?"
"Why, Bernal--you _must_ remember, dear--you knew so well--don"t you know he was crucified?"
"To be sure I do--how stupid! And was G.o.d _very_ cheerful after that? No more trouble about Adam or anything?"
"You must hush--I can"t tell you about these things--wait till your grandfather comes."
"No, I want to have it from you, Nance--grandad would think I"d been slighting the cla.s.sics."
"Well, G.o.d takes to heaven with him those who believe."
"Believe what?"
"Who believe that Jesus was his only begotten son."
"What does he do with those who don"t believe it?"
"They--they--Oh, I don"t know--really, Bernal, I must go now."
"Just a minute, Nance!" He clutched more tightly the hand he had been holding. "I see now! I must be remembering something I knew--something that brought me down sick. If a man doesn"t believe G.o.d was capable of becoming so enraged with Adam that only the b.l.o.o.d.y death of his own son would appease his anger toward _us_, he sends that man where--where the worm doeth something or other--what is it? Oh, well!--of course, it"s of no importance--only it came to me it was something I ought to remember if grandad should ask me about it. What a quaint belief it must have been."
"Oh, I must go!--let me, now."
"Don"t you find it interesting, Nance, rummaging among these musty old religions of a dead past--though I admit that this one is less pleasant to study than most of the others. This G.o.d seems to lack the majesty and beauty of the Greek and the integrity of the Norse G.o.ds. In fact, he was too crude to be funny--by the way, what is it I seem to recall, about eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the son?--"unless ye eat the flesh of the son--""
She drew her hand from his now and arose in some dismay. He lay back upon his pillow, smiling.
"Not very agreeable, is it, Nance? Well, come again, and I"ll tell you about some of the pleasanter old faiths next time--I remember now that they interested me a lot before I was sick."
"You"re sure I shouldn"t send Clytie or some one?" She looked down at him anxiously, putting her hand on his forehead. He put one of his own lightly over hers.
"No, no, thank you! It"s not near time yet for the next baked potato. If Clytie doesn"t give up the skin of this one I shall be tempted to forget that she"s a woman. There, I hear grandad coming, so you won"t be leaving me alone."
Grandfather Delcher came in cheerily as Nancy left the room.
"Resting, my boy? That"s good. You look brighter already--Nancy must come often."
He took Nancy"s chair by the couch and began the reading of his morning"s mail. Bernal lay still with eyes closed during the reading of several letters; but when the old man opened out a newspaper with little rustlings and pats, he turned to him.
"Well, my boy?"
"I"ve been thinking of something funny. You know, my memory is still freakish, and things come back in splotches. Just now I was recalling a primitive Brazilian tribe in whose language the word "we" means also "good. "Others," which they express by saying "not we," means also "evil." Isn"t that a funny trait of early man--we--good; not we--bad! I suppose our own tongue is but an elaboration of that simple bit of human nature--a training of polite vines and flowering shrubs over the crude lines of it.
"And this tribe--the Bakari, it is called--is equally crude in its religion. It is true, sir, is it not, that the most degraded of the savages tribes resort to human sacrifice in their religious rites?"
"Generally true. Human sacrifice was practised even by some who were well advanced, like the Aztecs and Peruvians."
"Well, sir, this Bakari tribe believed that its G.o.d demanded a sacrifice yearly, and their priests taught them that a certain one of their number had been sent by their G.o.d for this sacrifice each year; that only by butchering this particular member of the tribe and--incredible as it sounds--eating his body and drinking his blood, could they avert drouth and pestilence and secure favours for the year to come. I remember the historian intimated that it were well not to incur the displeasure of any priest; that one doing this might find it followed by an unpleasant circ.u.mstance when the time came for the priests to designate the next yearly sacrifice."
"Curious, indeed, and most revolting," a.s.sented the old man, laying down his paper. "You _are_ feeling more cheerful, aren"t you--and you look so much brighter. Ah, what a mercy of G.o.d"s you were spared to me!--you know you became my walking-stick when you were a very little boy--I could hardly go far without you now, my son."
"Yes, sir--thank you--I"ve just been recalling some of the older religions--Nancy and I had quite a talk about the old Christian faith."
"I"m glad indeed. I had sometimes been led to suspect that Nancy was the least bit--well, frivolous--but I am an old man, and doubtless the things that seem best to me are those I see afar off, their colour subdued through the years."
"Nancy wasn"t a bit frivolous this morning--on the contrary, she seemed for some reason to consider me the frivolous one. She looked shocked at me more than once. Now, about the old Christian faith, you know--their G.o.d was content with one sacrifice, instead of one each year, though he insisted on having the body eaten and the blood drunk perpetually. Yet I suppose, sir, that the Christian G.o.d, in this limiting of the human sacrifice to one person, may be said to show a distinct advance over the G.o.d of the Bakari, though he seems to have been equally a tribal G.o.d, whose chief function it was to make war upon neighbouring tribes."
"Yes, my boy--quite so," replied the old man most soothingly. He stepped gently to the door. Halfway down the hall Allan was about to turn into his room. He came, beckoned by the old man, who said, in tones too low for Bernal to hear:
"Go quickly for Dr. Merritt. He"s out of his head again."
CHAPTER II
FURTHER DISTRESSING FANTASIES OF A CLOUDED MIND
When young Dr. Merritt came, flushed and important-looking, greatly concerned by the reported relapse, he found his patient with normal pulse and temperature--rational and joyous at his discovery that the secret of reading Roman letters was still his.
"I was almost afraid to test it, Doctor," he confessed, smilingly, when the little thermometer had been taken from between his lips, "but it"s all right--I didn"t find a single strange letter--every last one of them meant something--and I know figures, too--and now I"m as hungry for print as I am for baked potatoes. You know, never in my life again, after I"m my own master, shall I neglect to eat the skin of my baked potato. When I think of those I let go in my careless days of plenty, I grow heart-sick."