EXTRA-MUNDANE COMMUNICATIONS 270 



heard a voice that they had thought was for ever 

 silent. But the school of Saint Thomas Didymus is a 

 large one ; its pupils arc trained to face life and death 

 without either faith or hope for themselves, and with 

 very little charity for others. Stoically they accept 

 for tliemselves the gospel of denial ; they cloak their 

 wounds, and, hobbling on, maimed and broken, retain 

 no hope save that of kicking away the crutches that 

 others have been given, and have received with so 

 many grateful tears, with so ecstatic a gesture of 

 relief. 



But these are the people on the nearer side of the 

 darkness. It may be asked what of those beyond it? 

 As I write these words come back — 



" And if I die the first shall death then be 

 A lampless watch-tower whence I see you weep? " 



Is it possible that in the sufficiency of their happiness 

 they have no thought left for those they left behind ? 

 It would seem that there are but two alternatives : 

 either the creature who has left us is so changed in 

 that supreme moment of transit that all he once loved 

 has become nothing to him (in which case it is idle 

 to talk of the Resurrection of the Dead, since the 

 individuality, which is the most precious thing, has 

 perished) ; or, if we believe that the human soul 

 we knew is still existing, can we for an instant imagine 

 that he is not — as we are — ^longing to call through the 

 darkness, to say to those who are left behind : " Peace, 

 it is I ! " 



The writer has nothing to gain in urging this point 

 of view — ^lias, perliaps, something to lose, in asserting 

 convictions that are still by very many able minds 

 regarded with either pity or contempt ; by others with 



