Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra by William Ware (latest ebook reader TXT) 📖

same thoughts and desires, and who, having been greatly comforted and supported by them during life, have not at death relied upon them, and looked with some degree of confidence toward a coming forth again from death? Now I think it is far more reasonable to believe in another life, than in the delusiveness of these expectations. For I cannot suppose that this universal expectation will be disappointed, without believing in the wickedness, nay, the infinite malignity, of the Supreme Ruler, which my whole nature utterly refuses to do. For what more cruel, than to create this earnest and universal longing, and not gratify it? Does it not seem so?'

We all admitted it.

'This instinctive desire,' continued Longinus, 'I cannot but regard as being implanted by the Being who created us. It can proceed from no other. It is an instinct, that is, a suggestion or inspiration of God. If it could be shown to be a consequence of education, we might refer it for its origin to ingenious philosophers. But it exists where the light of philosophy has never shone. There have been none, of whom history has preserved even obscurest traditions, who have wanted this instinct. It is then the very inspiration of the Divinity, and will not be disappointed. I trust much to these tendencies of our nature. This is the best ground for our belief of a God. The arguments of the schools have never succeeded in establishing the truth, even to the conviction of a philosophic mind, much less a common one. Yet the truth is universally admitted. God, I think, has provided for so important an article of faith in the structure of our minds. He has not left it to chance or special Revelation. So, too, the determinations of the mind concerning virtue and vice, right and wrong, being for the most part so accordant throughout the whole race--these also I hold to be instinctive.'

'I can think of nothing,' said Fausta, 'to urge against your argument. It adds some strength, I cannot but confess, to what belief I had before. I trust you have yet more that you can impart. Do not fear that we shall be dull listeners.'

'I sit here a willing and patient learner,' said Zenobia, 'of any one who will pour new light into my mind. Go on, Longinus.'

'To such a school,' said he, 'how can I refuse to speak? Let me ask you then, if you have never been perplexed by the evils of life, such as either you have yourselves experienced, or such as you have witnessed?'

'I have, indeed,' said Fausta, 'and have deeply deplored them. But how are they connected with a future existence?'

'Thus,' replied Longinus. 'As in the last case, the benevolence of the Supreme God cannot be sustained without the admission of the reality of a future life. Nor only that, but it seems to me direct proof may be adduced from the existence and universality of these evils to establish the blackest malignity. So that to me, belief in a future existence is in proportion to the difficulty of admitting the idea of divine malignity, and it cannot therefore be much stronger than it is.'

'How can you make that clear to us?' said Fausta; 'I should truly rejoice if out of the evils which so darken the earth, any thing good or beautiful could be drawn.'

'As this dark mould,' rejoined the philosopher, 'sends upwards, and out of its very heart, this rare Persian rose, so does hope grow out of evil, and the darker the evil the brighter the hope, as from a richer and fouler soil comes the more vigorous plant and larger flower. Take a particular evil, and consider it. You remember the sad tale concerning the Christian Probus, which Piso, in recounting the incidents of his journey from Rome to Palmyra, related to us while seated at the tables?'

'Indeed, I did not hear it,' said Zenobia; 'so that Piso must, if he will, repeat it.'

'We shall willingly hear it again,' said Julia and Fausta.

And I then related it again.

'Now do you wonder,' resumed Longinus, when I had finished, 'that Probus, when, one after another, four children were ravished from his arms by death, and then, as if to crown his lot with evil, his wife followed them, and he was left alone in the world, bereaved of every object to which his heart was most fondly attached, do you wonder, I say, that he turned to the heavens and cursed the gods? And can you justify the gods so that they shall not be chargeable with blackest malignity, if there be no future and immortal state? What is it to bind so the heart of a parent to a child, to give that affection a force and a tenderness which belong to no other tie, so that anxieties for its life and welfare, and cares and sacrifices for its good, constitute the very existence of the parent, what is it to foster by so many contrivances this love, and then forever disappoint and blast it, but malignity? Yet this work is done every hour, and in almost every heart; if for children we lament not, yet we do for others as dear.'

Tears to the memory of Odenatus fell fast from the eyes of Zenobia.

'Are we not then,'--continued Longinus, without pausing--'are we not then presented with this alternative, either the Supreme God is a malignant being, whose pleasure it is to torment, or, there is an immortal state, where we shall meet again with those, who, for inscrutable purposes, have been torn from our arms here below? And who can hesitate in which to rest? The belief, therefore, in a future life ought to be in proportion to the difficulty of admitting the idea of divine malignity. And this idea is so repulsive--so impossible to be entertained for one moment--that the other cannot, it seems to me, rest upon a firmer foundation.'

'Every word you speak,' said Zenobia, 'yields pleasure and instruction. It delights me, even when thickest beset by the cares of state, to pause and contemplate for a moment the prospects of futurity. It diffuses a divine calm throughout the soul. You have given me new food for my thoughts.'

'I will add,' said Longinus, 'only one thing to what I have said, and that is, concerning the incompleteness of man, as a divine work, and which has been mentioned by Fausta. Is not this an argument for a future life? Other things and beings are finished and complete--man only is left, as it were, half made up. A tree grows and bears fruit, and the end of its creation is answered. A complete circle is run. It is the same with the animals. No one expects more from a lion or a horse than is found in both. But with man it is not so. In no period of history, and among no people, has it been satisfactorily determined what man is, or what are the limits of his capacity and being. He is full of contradictions, and of incomprehensible organization, if he is considered only in relation to this world. For while every other affection finds and rests in its appropriate object, which fully satisfies and fills it, the desire of unlimited improvement and of endless life--the strongest and best defined of any of the desires--this alone is answered by no corresponding object: which is not different from what it would be, if the gods should create a race like ours, having the same craving and necessity for food and drink, yet never provide for them the one nor the other, but leave them all to die of hunger. Unless there is a future life, we all die of a worse hunger. Unless there is a future life, man is a monster in creation--compared with other things, an abortion--and in himself, and compared with himself, an enigma--a riddle--which no human wit has ever solved, nor can ever hope to solve.'

'This seems unanswerable,' said Fausta; 'yet is it no objection to all such arguments, which we ourselves construct, that the thing they establish is too great and good almost to be believed, without some divine warrant? It does to me appear almost or quite presumptuous to think, that for me there is by the gods prepared a world of never-fading light, and a never-ending joy.'

'When,' replied the Greek, 'we look at the lower forms of man which fall under our observation, I confess that the objection which you urge strikes me with some force. But when I think that it is for beings like you to whom I speak, for whom another and fairer world is to be prepared, it loses again much of its force. And when I think of the great and good of other times, of Homer and Hesiod, of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Socrates and Plato, and of what the mind of man has in them, and in others as great and good, accomplished, the objection which you urge loses all its force. I see and feel that man has been made not altogether unworthy of a longer life and a happier lot than earth affords. And in regard to the ignorant, the low, and the almost or quite savage, we are to consider that the same powers and affections are in them as in us, and that their inferiority to us is not intrinsic and essential, but as it were accidental. The difference between the soul of Plato and yonder Ethiopian slave is not in any original faculty or power; the slave here equals the philosopher; but in this, that the faculties and powers of Plato were strengthened, and nurtured, and polished, by the hand of education, and the happy influences of a more civilized community, all which to the slave has been wanting. He is a diamond just as it comes from the mine; Plato like that one set in gold, which sparkles with the radiance of a star, Fausta, upon your finger. But, surely, the glory of the diamond is, that it is a diamond; not that Demetrius has polished and set it. Man has within him so much of the god, that I do not wonder he has been so often deified. The great and excellent among men, therefore, I think not unworthy of immortality, for what they are; the humble and the bad, for what they may so easily become, and might have been, under circumstances but slightly altered.'

'I cannot,' said Julia, as Longinus closed, 'deny strength and plausibility to your arguments, but I cannot admit that they satisfy me. After the most elaborate reasoning, I am still left in darkness. No power nor wit of man has ever wholly scattered the mists which rest upon life and death. I confess, with Socrates, that I want a promise or a revelation to enable me to take the voyage of life in a spirit of cheerfulness, and without the fear of fatal shipwreck. If your reasonings, Longinus, were only accompanied with authority more than that of man, if I could only believe that the Divinity inspired you, I could then rest contented and happy. One word authoritatively declaring man's immortality, a word which by infallible token I could know to be a word from the Supreme, would to me be worth infinitely more than all the conjectures, hopes, and reasonings of all the philosophers. I fully agree with you, that the instincts of our nature all point both to a God and to immortality. But the heart longs for something more sure and clear, at least my woman's heart does. It may be that it is the woman within me which prompts the feeling--but I wish to lean upon authority in this great matter. I wish to repose calmly in a divine assurance.'

'In that, Princess,' I could not help saying, 'I am a woman too. I have long since lost all that regard for the gods in which I was so carefully nourished. I despise the popular superstitions. Yet is there nothing which I have found as yet to supply their place. I have searched the writings of Plato, of Cicero, of Seneca, in vain. I find there, indeed, wisdom, and learning, and sagacity, almost more than human. But I find nothing which can be dignified by the name of religion. Their systems of morals are admirable, and sufficient perhaps to enable one to live a happy or fortunate life. But concerning the soul of man, and its destiny, they are dumb, or their words, if they utter any, are but the dark speeches of an oracle.'

'I am happy that I am not alone,' said Julia; 'and I cannot but think that many, very many, are with me. I am sure that what most persons, perhaps, who think and feel upon those subjects, want, is some divine promise or revelation. Common minds, Longinus, cannot appreciate the subtlety of your