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(May — June 1892)
Publications:
- The Path, vol. VII, no. 2, May 1892, pp. 40-43
- no. 3, June 1892, pp. 82-86 (concluded)
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CTD entry in Russian: Лонг, Лили А. - Испытание
DATA
Title for references: Long LA - Probation
Short description: An allegorical tale of a mountain youth, Ernest, whose yearning to join the secret "Brothers of the ...
40 In a certain country there once lived a youth whose name was Ernest. The mountains closed about the little village which was his home, and the beauty and mystery that dwell on the mountains had folded him in from his childhood. When the sun rose he knew it first by the pale gleam that grew into light on the highest peaks, and when it set at the day's end it wrapped those peaks again in purple and violet mists through which the level rays pierced like spears of gold. Far below lay the valley, where the herdsmen took their droves in winter-time, and beyond that again lay the great world of cities and ships and palaces. Sometimes travelers, crossing the mountain, would bring some word of how life went in that other world. Now it was a war, and now it was a famine, and now it was a great rejoicing or a wonderful triumph. Ernest listened and wondered, till wild longings came into his heart to be himself a sharer in that keener life, and then the rock-bound steeps of his home seemed like prison walls to him. But chiefly he loved to hear the tales that came with others of how some man had arisen to right the wrongs of the people or to sacrifice himself for the salvation of his country.
"Who was the man? His name?"
The answer was always the same.
"He was one of the Brothers of the Silence. We did not know his name."
"But who are the Brothers of the Silence? Tell me more of them."
And the answer was always:
"Who they are no one knows unless he is one of them. They keep their secret bond. It is said that men about the king, in the very heart of the court, belong to the Brotherhood, but no one knows who they may be. And it is certain that humble artizans are of the brotherhood also, and scholars and travelers and artists and men who toil with their hands. They work together for a common end, but they work in secret and each in his own way. Only this marks them all, that they work not for themselves. They have vast wealth, but it is used for the furtherance of their common aim; and great learning, but no display is made of it; and power greater than a monarch's, yet it is never shown save when 41there is need."
"But why are they unknown, and why do they work in secret?"
"Because they work against the king," was the guarded answer. "The king does not rule righteously. Evil is done and suffered, and wrong is uppermost. Those who serve the king seek to break their power. Therefore they have banded themselves together in secret and do their work so no man knows it. But a time will come, and then the king will learn his weakness and the people will learn their friends. They can wait as well as work."
And Ernest would wander off into the solitary places of the mountains and look out over the level land that stretched away before him, with his heart so full of passionate ardor to share the work of those unknown men that he could not put it into words, — hardly into thoughts.
But the travelers with their tales came more and more seldom, for the mountain pass was dangerous and men mostly chose to take the long way that led past the foot-hills. In the gorge above the village ran a swift stream that had never been bridged, and more than one adventurer, essaying the passage in the rude skiffs of the mountaineers, had been caught in the fierce current and carried down helplessly over the precipice below. Often the villagers talked together of throwing a bridge across the torrent, but they were men of many little cares, and each season was too full of its own work to leave room for a larger task. But one spring, when the melting fields of snow upon the mountains had made the gorge impassable for weeks, they agreed that the work should be no longer delayed. Each man must bring his share of timber, and Ernest, who was skilful and strong, would construct the bridge. Soon tall trees were hewn to solid beams and lay ready piled on either bank. Pins for fastening, and planks and framework, were made ready. One day, as Ernest worked, a stranger stood beside him. It was long since he had seen a man from the outer world, and he questioned him eagerly.
"What of the king? Does evil still have power in his kingdom?"
"It still has power, alas."
"But the Brotherhood? The men who live for the good of their fellows! Do they still work?"
"Yes, and ever will while there is need."
"I dreamed once of joining them," Ernest said wistfully.
The stranger gave him a kindly glance.
"Well, why not?"
"Could I?"
"Why not?"42"But no one knows where to find them."
The stranger smiled oddly.
"They are never far. One of them was even to-day at the foot of this mountain of yours."
He waved his hand in farewell, but long after he had passed out of sight the youth sat pondering over his words. One of the Brothers had been at the foot of the mountain that day! Then he could not yet be far away. Ernest flung his axe to the ground and took the path towards the valley from which the stranger had come.
He wandered far and long. Wherever he went there were rumors of the men he sought, but nothing more. One who might have been of the brotherhood was here a fortnight since. It was said another was even now in the next village. Nay, they had all gone to the war on the borders. Or, their secret places of meeting had been discovered by the king, and they had all been scattered or buried in dungeons. Well, it was not so certain that they had ever existed. There had been much talk, but who could make proof? So the rumors flew, and Ernest's zeal blew hot and cold as he listened. It would have been well worth living, truly, if one might have lived and worked as one of such a brotherhood, but if the Brotherhood were chimerical, — why, it was worth living still in a world which held such wonders as the palaces and pageants and festivals he saw. The months came and went, and ever as he traveled some new wonder put the last out of mind. The first object of his search had almost been forgotten when one day a stranger accosted him in the streets of a city.
"You have traveled far."
"I do not recollect you," Ernest said.
"A year ago you were building a bridge over a dangerous gorge in the mountains. You asked about the Silent Brothers then."
"True. And I left the mountains to seek them."
"Have you found them?"
"No. Tales fly about, but many are idle and some are false and all are fugitive. It is impossible to find the Brothers."
"It is not impossible," said the stranger, with a searching glance, "but vague desires bear no fruit unless they grow into will and blossom into action." He lingered a moment as though he would have added more, then turned and was lost in the crowd.
But his words had vividly recalled to Ernest the hopes and purposes with which he had left his home, and in a rush of pas43sionate self-reproach he blamed himself for losing sight of that aim in the allurements of novelty. Faithless and vacillating, how could he hope to be trusted with the work of those who first of all were faithful and steadfast?
Someone touched him on the shoulder.
"Well, will you join us?"
"Who are you?" Ernest asked, drawing back in astonishment.
"Do you not know. We know you. We are men who work to overthrow the power of the king. Will you join us?"
"Are you then the Brothers of Silence?" Ernest demanded eagerly.
"Who knows anything of them? Have you found them?"
"No."
"Yet you have been seeking a whole year! You are a fool if you trust such shadows. There must be a revolution. It will be a thousand years before the Brothers bring it about with their cautious measures. We know a shorter way. We shall bring it to pass ourselves, and then we shall govern instead. Come, are you with us?"
"Yes," cried Ernest. "Why should I wait?"
He plunged at once into a labyrinth of plots and conspiracies which grew day by day more inextricable. There were secret meetings and goings to and fro and mysterious ambassadors on mysterious errands, all of which at first seemed the signs of a most ardent activity in the cause he had at heart. But gradually, as he became more familiar with the details, an uncomfortable doubt came into his mind and lodged there. It was a revolution they contemplated, — true; and the government was evil. But was the object of the conspirators to establish a better rule? Little by little he came to see with fatal clearness that they only sought to overthrow the established order to place themselves in power. Not for the sake of their country, not for the sake of better laws or for the good of the oppressed people were they banded together, but only that they might drain their country of wealth for themselves and make laws that would protect them in their rapine and oppress the people still more bitterly. It grew upon him like a horror, and as he came to feel himself bound with them, entangled in their plots and smirched with their baseness, he loathed himself and hated all who had had part in leading him into these underground ways. A year had gone by when one day the stranger whom he had met twice before sought him out.
82 "You have allowed yourself to be deluded", the stranger said with grave directness. "You must free yourself once and forever from these entanglements if you hope to ever share in the work pursued by the Brothers of the Silence."
"The Brothers of the Silence!" Ernest exclaimed bitterly. "It is because I sought them that I am where I am now."
"No, it is because you sought them in the wrong way."
"Tell me, then, do they exist?"
"Yes. I am one of them."
"Then why did you not set me right?"
"Because each member must earn his own entrance."83
"I may be misled again."
"Why? The test is a very simple one. The Brothers do not work for self-interest, but for the good of humanity. That is the beginning and the end of their mission. Yet each one has a task of his own to perform, and each must find it by searching his own heart. Use your clearest judgment, your highest ideals, and the best of your faculties, for the work deserves all. In a year I will seek you again."
The year went by. Ernest had cut himself free from his old associations and joined the army that was fighting on the frontier. He had fought bravely, for the words of his unknown guide remained with him, and the thought that in serving his country he was surely doing the work of the Brothers gave him courage. He had a hope too that his probation might at last be done, for had he not won distinction as a soldier and more than once saved the field from disaster? All the land was ringing with his praise. He waited impatiently for the day when his friend had promised to return. It came.
"Have I won entrance yet?" Ernest demanded confidently. He could hardly credit the gravely spoken answer.
"No."
"How then? Is not the work I have done good work."
"It is good work and deserves a reward. You will have it. But you have not won entrance to the Brotherhood. That does not come to those who seek it for themselves, even though they seek it by the path of service. There may be selfish ambition even in self-sacrifice, and the Brothers, remember always, are not concerned with the advancement of themselves, but with the good of the whole. Yet, — courage for another trial!"
The reward came, for the king was graciously pleased to recognize Ernest's heroism on the battlefield by making him governor over a small province. He entered upon his duties with high hopes. Here at last was a fitting opportunity! He would govern his people so well that poverty and ignorance and wrong-doing should be banished from his province, and the Brothers should know that in one corner of the country at least there was no need for their oversight. But he found that the task was harder than he had thought. There had been bad governors before him, and the abuses could not all be corrected at once. The people were ignorant and cunning, and thwarted his efforts for their own welfare. He was inexperienced, and measures which he designed for good sometimes proved so ill-advised that their effect was worse 84than the old. When the end of the year came and he looked back at the great things he had planned and the small things he had accomplished, it seemed to him that his work had been all a failure. He stood with downcast eyes when the stranger who had grown his watchful friend found him again.
"What of the year past?" the Brother asked, and his voice was kinder than before.
"You know," said Ernest moodily. "At least you know what I have done. You cannot know what I meant to do."
"Why have you failed?"
Ernest paused.
"Because of my own ignorance, largely," he said at last. "I did not know how to deal with the conditions I had to meet. I see it now."
"Then do you see, too, why you have not yet gained entrance to the Brotherhood?" he asked gently. "In their work a mistake may be fatal. Well-intentioned effort is not enough. It must be wisely directed."
"Yes, I see," Ernest said patiently. "Well, I will study and wait."
His friend smiled as though well-content.
Ernest gave up the governorship of his province to plunge into study. With a mind disciplined and strengthened by the work of the last ardent years, he applied himself to assimilating the knowledge that is stored in the wise books of the world. He studied with humility, for his errors had revealed to him his own lack of wisdom, and he worked with ardor, for he felt that a greater undertaking awaited him when he should be fit. In the outside world the old throbbing life beat on, and ever and anon calls came to him to join in it as before. Some upbraided him with indifference in thus shutting himself apart, but he knew the scope of the task before him and followed it without pause or faltering. Then one morning, when the first rays of the sun put out the light of his lamp, he lifted his eyes from his books and remembered that the year of study he had set for himself had gone by. What had he gained? New ideas of life in many ways; new ideals and firmer judgment and deeper reverence for the men who in the past had thought their way into the deep places of nature. Strange that so few should come to share it! Strange that the world should go on and men live and die as though this legacy of wisdom from the greatest of earth's sons had been forgotten of all!
85 "Knowledge stored away and unused is like grain sealed in a granary," said his friend, who, unseen, had come to stand beside him. "The millions on the plain outside may starve for lack of it, and the grain itself will mildew — if it be not unsealed."
"I understand," said Ernest with a smile. "That, then, shall be my further task."
He shut up his books, left his room and returned to the world, this time as a teacher. Here a disappointment awaited him at the outset, for the people, busy with their own interests and quite content with their own ideas, were not as eager to listen as he to teach. Some laughed and some doubted, and of all that heard few heeded, but the burden of speech was laid upon him and he dared not keep silence. Sometimes the children listened, and in their earnest eyes he read a reassurance that the coming years might see the fruit from the seed he planted. And sometimes a youth who reminded him of what he had been in earlier years came and listened and went away with a new purpose. And sometimes old eyes, ready to close wearily upon a world that had yielded many cares and little content, brightened with a gleam of comprehension as he spoke. "Ah, that then was the meaning of the riddle!" Yet when the year had gone by the results seemed meager.
"I had hoped to bring to all men the truths I had found," he said to the friend who came as before, "but they do not heed them."
"They will in time, and your efforts will bring the time nearer," was the serene answer. "One who works for humanity must never lose faith in the ultimate triumph of good. Yet he may not cease to work as though the salvation of all rested with him alone."
"Am I fitted yet to do the work of the Brothers?" Ernest asked after a pause.
The other gave him a kindly look.
"One task remains. I leave you to find it."
Six years had gone by since, an eager boy, he left his home in the mountains, and a yearning came into his man's heart to rest again in the high, pure solitudes where he had dreamed as a child.86All places are alike to him who holds himself ready for service, so he turned toward the mountains. Steadfast and tranquil as of old, the white peaks lifted themselves above the purple mists as he had always seen them in memory. The dawn softened but could not melt them; the sunset illumined but could not stain them. Down the gorge as of old the mountain torrent tumbled in foamy wrath, and the little village beside it was no older than on the day he had turned his back upon it to seek the world. He went to the pass above where the bridge was to have been. The hewn timbers lay heaped on either bank as he had left them, only that a creeping vine with gay blossoms had twined about the beams which were gray with the weather and green with moss. His unfinished work reproached him, and with a blush for the impatient boy he had been he set himself to complete it. The villagers were busy as of old, therefore he worked alone. Through fair weather and foul he kept to the task, planting the foundations deep and making each part strong and true. The summer went by while the work was yet unfinished. The winter fettered the wild stream and on the ice he crossed from shore to shore, still carrying the work forward. The spring came and it was done, and when the freshets came down from the ice-fields above, the bridge stood firm and unshaken above the whirlpool. In the absorption of his work he had forgotten what day it was till all at once he saw the stranger of that old spring morning, the guide and friend of all the years between, standing on the bank.
"You found the task."
"This?"
"It was yours. No other could do it."
They stood in silence a moment gazing at it, and then the Brother spoke again.
"Do you see now how the way has led through all the years? First steadfastness, for without that no effort can avail. Then clearness of vision, to prove all things and hold to the good. Then the conquering of passion, and the devotion of all faculties to the service of man and the training of self to the end that others may be enlightened. Lastly, to crown all, the simple duty that lay at your hand at the beginning."
"Is it done?" asked Ernest doubtingly. "Am I worthy to become one of you?"
The smile of the other was an illumination.
"You are one of us."
Lily A. Long.
Footnotes