Best Fantasy Stories

Chapter 27 OXENDEN PREACHES A SERMON

Chapter 27

OXENDEN PREACHES A SERMON"Magones," said the doctor, "is clearly a volcanic island, and,

taken in connection with the other volcanoes around, shows how

active must be the subterranean fires at the South Pole. It seems

probable to me that the numerous caves of the Kosekin were

originally fissures in the mountains, formed by convulsions of

nature; and also that the places excavated by man must consist of

soft volcanic rock, such as pumice-stone, or rather tufa, easily

worked, and remaining permanently in any shape into which it may be

fashioned. As to Magones, it seems another Iceland; for there are

the same wild and hideous desolation, the same impassable

wildernesses, and the same universal scenes of ruin, lighted up by

the baleful and tremendous volcanic fires."

"But what of that little island on which they landed?" asked

Featherstone. "That, surely, was not volcanic."

"No," said the doctor; "that must have been a coral island."

"By-the-bye, is it really true," asked Featherstone, "that these

coral islands are the work of little insects?"

"Well, they may be called insects," replied the doctor; "they

are living zoophytes of most minute dimensions, which, however,

compensate for their smallness of size by their inconceivable

numbers. Small as these are they have accomplished infinitely more

than all that ever was done by the ichthyosaurus, the plesiosaurus,

the pterodactyl, and the whole tribe of monsters that once filled

the earth. Immense districts and whole mountains have been built up

by these minute creatures. They have been at work for ages, and are

still at work. It is principally in the South Seas that their

labors are carried on. Near the Maldive Islands they have formed a

mass whose volume is equal to the Alps. Around New Caledonia they

have built a barrier of reefs four hundred miles in length, and

another along the northeast coast of Australia a thousand miles in

length. In the Pacific Ocean, islands, reefs, and islets

innumerable have been constructed by them, which extend for an

immense distance.

"The coral islands are called 'atolls.' They are nearly always

circular, with a depression in the centre. They are originally made

ring-shaped, but the action of the ocean serves to throw fragments

of rock into the inner depression, which thus fills up; firm land

appears; the rock crumbles into soil; the winds and birds and

currents bring seeds here, and soon the new island is covered with

verdure. These little creatures have played a part in the past

quite as important as in the present. All Germany rests upon a bank

of coral; and they seem to have been most active during the Oolitic

Period."

"How do the creatures act?" asked Featherstone.

"Nobody knows," replied the doctor.

A silence now followed, which was at last broken by Oxenden.

"After all," said he, "these monsters and marvels of nature form

the least interesting feature in the land of the Kosekin. To me the

people themselves are the chief subject of interest. Where did they

get that strange, all-pervading love of death, which is as strong

in them as love of life is in us?"

"Why, they got it from the imagination of the writer of the

manuscript," interrupted Melick.

"Yes, it's easy to answer it from your point of view; yet from

my point of view it is more difficult. I sometimes think that it

may be the strong spirituality of the Semitic race, carried out

under exceptionally favorable circumstances to the ultimate

results; for the Semitic race more than all others thought little

of this life, and turned their affections to the life that lives

beyond this. The Kosekin may thus have had a spiritual development

of their own, which ended in this.

"Yet there may be another reason for it, and I sometimes think

that the Kosekin may be nearer to the truth than we are. We have by

nature a strong love of life—it is our dominant feeling—but yet

there is in the minds of all men a deep underlying conviction of

the vanity of life, and the worthlessness. In all ages and among

all races the best, the purest, and the wisest have taught this

truth—that human life is not a blessing; that the evil predominates

over the good; and that our best hope is to gain a spirit of

acquiescence with its inevitable ills. All philosophy and all

religions teach us this one solemn truth, that in this life the

evil surpasses the good. It has always been so. Suffering has been

the lot of all living things, from the giant of the primeval swamps

down to the smallest zoophyte. It is far more so with man. Some

favored classes in every age may furnish forth a few individuals

who may perhaps lead lives of self-indulgence and luxury; but to

the mass of mankind life has ever been, and must ever be, a

prolonged scene of labor intermingled with suffering. The great

Indian religions, whether Brahmanic or Buddhistic, teach as their

cardinal doctrine that life is an evil. Buddhism is more pronounced

in this, for it teaches more emphatically than even the Kosekin

that the chief end of man is to get rid of the curse of life and

gain the bliss of Nirvana, or annihilation. True, it does not take

so practical a form as among the Kosekin, yet it is believed by

one-third of the human race as the foundation of the religion in

which they live and die. We need not go to the Kosekin, however,

for such maxims as these. The intelligent Hindoos, the Chinese, the

Japanese, with many other nations, all cling firmly to this belief.

Sakyamoum Gautama Buddha, the son and heir of a mighty monarch,

penetrated with the conviction of the misery of life, left his

throne, embraced a life of voluntary poverty, want, and misery, so

that he might find his way to a better state—the end before him

being this, that he might ultimately escape from the curse of

existence. He lived till old age, gained innumerable followers, and

left to them as a solemn legacy the maxim that not to exist is

better than to exist; that death is better than life. Since his day

millions of his followers have upheld his principles and lived his

life. Even among the joyous Greeks we find this feeling at times

bursting forth it comes when we least expect it, and not even a

Kosekin poet could express this view more forcibly than Sophocles

in the OEdipus at Colonus:

"'Not to be born surpasses every lot; And the next best lot by

far, when one is born Is to go back whence he came as soon as

possible; For while youth is present bringing vain follies, What

woes does it not have, what ills does it not bear— Murders,

factions, strife, war, envy, But the extreme of misery is attained

by loathsome old age— Old age, strengthless, unsociable,

friendless, Where all evils upon evils dwell together.'"

"I'll give you the words of a later poet," said Melick, "who

takes a different view of the case. I think I'll sing them, with

your permission."

Melick swallowed a glass of wine and then sang the

following:

"'They may rail at this life: from the hour I began it I found

it a life full of kindness and bliss, And until they can show me

some happier planet, More social and bright, I'll content me with

this. As long as the world has such lips and such eyes As before me

this moment enraptured I see, They may say what they will of their

orbs in the skies, But this earth is the planet for you, love, and

me.'

"What a pity it is," continued Melick, "that the writer of this

manuscript had not the philological, theological, sociological,

geological, palaeological, ontological, ornithological, and all the

other logical attainments of yourself and the doctor! He could then

have given us a complete view of the nature of the Kosekin, morally

and physically; he could have treated of the geology of the soil,

the ethnology of the people, and could have unfolded before us a

full and comprehensive view of their philosophy and religion, and

could have crammed his manuscript with statistics. I wonder why he

didn't do it even as it was. It must have been a strong

temptation."

"More," said Oxenden, with deep impressiveness, "was a

simple-minded though somewhat emotional sailor, and merely wrote in

the hope that his story might one day meet the eyes of his father.

I certainly should like to find some more accurate statements about

the science, philosophy, and religion of the Kosekin; yet, after

all, such things could not be expected."

"Why not?" said Melick; "it was easy enough for him."

"How?" asked Oxenden.

"Why, he had only to step into the British Museum, and in a

couple of hours he could have crammed up on all those points in

science, philosophy, ethnology, and theology, about which you are

so anxious to know."

"Well," said Featherstone, "suppose we continue our reading? I

believe it is my turn now. I sha'n't be able to hold out so long as

you did, Oxenden, but I'll do what I can."

Saying this, Featherstone took the manuscript and went on to

read.