a shred of Truth can still be looked at undissected. Or drag the whole lot in here and sentence them to live chained within each other's hearing! There, for once, is punishment exactly fitting the crime!
I blame not the Beggar boy for this. Tis us, with our damnable laws of blasphemy and other religious crockery. What does Justice care of the absurd? We may as well try the wind for blowing the wrong way! Times and laws like these, my friend, I would regret my prosecution of profession. That I must persuade men that a road only goes north and never proceeds south.
The law of blasphemy is the law of No Doubt and thereby demands 'Who are you to think?' And this we try in a Court of Reason! Shame on us!
Truly, my friend, I could now careless of winning the verdict. We are all guilty by submission and worse yet have not yet have not set eyes on the accusing bully. If I must make a professional guess, the Beggar will be of a little guilty, much innocent. The Judge must do this, and I mean no disrespect as she is very well thought of. She must, however, since Truth has been now polluted with Ethics. And ethics, esp. theological, will decrees no one truly anything. Only an assembly of bits and pieces.
At this point, the Judge re-entered the court. All rose till she was seated.
Judge: This case has been a complication and has pulled to the stand wide variations in almost all facets of man's existence. We have seen beliefs in battle, the deep exploration of one vs the wide shallow of many. Each with their own measure of significance, perhaps equal, perhaps not. That we cannot judge.
We are called upon to judge, however, when beliefs clash and spill blood or coin before the law. The law will allow no man and his god slit the throat or purse of another. We would call these fanatics and are grateful they hunt less and less.
The Beggar is no fanatic; the small crowd no religious frenzy. But the law is delicate as well as enormous. It can encircle screaming naked hordes and can easily scoop erring teachers; or thoughtless students.
To the verdict I give this: Whether man is made in the likeness of God or God is made in the likeness of man is not of question here. What is of question is did the young Beggar sell a likeness of God? He deems by argument that a man's likeness of himself should be his individual God. He follows too that this likeness is omni powerful, eternal and capable of changing human history.
We grant his defence truth. With caution. It is truth built as a very logical metaphor. Truth as a very systematic dream. Like a huge assembly built with glass rods, one must be very exact where to stand in order to discern the structure. In other words the truth he built exists only if we wish it to exist. It is unexistant if we wish it so. Hence the trial became of a trial of his ability to teach, his ability to make us want to see his teachings.
Make no mistake this is not trickery, or sorcery, the truth is there. His teachings come only with the stamp of succeed or fail. With the crowd he failed.
The mob prefers an outer evaluation of God to a piercing inner probe. This deduction is obvious from one fact: Had the mirrors been seen afore hand they would not have been bought.
So my verdict is thus:
I absolve the young beggar of all charges except that of fraud. Not erring in teachings but erring in overestimating those to be taught. Let the young man return to the Market Place with his earned money. Let him sit and wait. Let all who cannot tolerate this likeness of God in their homes come forth. Let all who find only fear, loathing, avarice, lust, impotence, despair, cruelty in their images bought from the young man come forth; let them all demand and receive refund that they may buy some image less offensive to themselves than their own likeness.
The Seven Days of Wander Page 26
