ws where
that Jordan and those fields are, and what the flower of the tree of
life looks like? Let us ask a question again. Why is it that the one
being in all the world who could tell us anything about it, the one
being who had ever seen Jordan or Eden or that tree of life-in fact,
the one of all creation who could describe heaven, never told? Isn't it
queer? Here he was--that one man-standing just as I am among you, and
round him were the men who followed him, all ordinary men, with ordinary
curiosity. And he said he had come down from heaven, and for years they
were with him, and yet they never asked him what that heaven was like:
what it looked like, what it felt like, what sort of life they lived
there, what manner of folk were the angels, what was the appearance of
God. Why didn't they ask, and why didn't he answer? People must have
kept asking that question afterwards, for a man called John answered
it. He described, as only an oriental Jew would or could, a place all
precious stones and gold and jewels and candles, in oriental language
very splendid and auriferous. But why didn't those twelve men ask the
One Man who knew, and why didn't the One answer? And why didn't the One
tell without being asked?"

He paused again, and now there came a shuffling and a murmuring, a
curious rumble, a hard breathing, for Charley had touched with steely
finger the tender places in the natures of these Catholics, who,
whatever their lives, held fast to the immemorial form, the sacredness
of Mother Church. They were ever ready to step into the galley which
should bear them all home, with the invisible rowers of God at the oars,
down the wild rapids, to the haven of St. Peter. There was savagery in
their faces now.

He saw, and he could not refrain from smiling as he stretched out
his hand to them again with a little quieting gesture, and continued
soothingly:

"But why should we ask? There's a thing called electricity. Well, you
know that if you take a slice out of anything, less remains behind. We
can take the air out of this room, and scarcely leave any in it.

"We take a drink out of a bottle, and certainly there isn't as much left
in it! But the queer thing is that with this electricity you take it
away and just as much remains. It goes out from your toe, rushes away
to Timbuctoo, and is back in your toe before you can wink. Why? No one
knows. What's the good of asking? You can't see it: you can only see
what it does. Wha