Prevod

The holiest of all the days of our life on earth is the day we die; it is the last day, the holy day of the great transformation. Have you truly, earnestly pondered this mighty, certain, final hour here on earth?

There was a man, a strict believer, as he was called, a champion of the Word, which to him was law, a zealous servant of a jealous God. Death now stood beside his bed, Death with a stern, heavenly countenance.

"The hour has come; you must follow me!" said Death, touching the man's feet with his icy finger, and they grew cold. Death touched his brow, then his heart, which broke at the touch, and the soul followed the angel of death.

But in those few seconds before, between the consecrating touch upon his feet and upon his brow and heart, all that life had brought and awakened swept over the dying man like the great, heavy waves of an ocean. So, with a single glance, we look down into a dizzying abyss and encompass, in a flash of thought, its immeasurable depth; so, with a single glance, we take in the countless host of stars, discerning spheres and worlds in the vastness of space.

At such a moment the terrified sinner shudders and has nothing to lean upon; it is as though he were sinking into an infinite void! But the devout man bows his head to God and surrenders himself like a child: "Thy will be done in me!"

But this dying man did not have the heart of a child; he felt himself a man. He did not shudder like the sinner; he knew himself to be a true believer. He had upheld the forms of religion in all their severity; millions, he knew, must take the broad road to damnation. With sword and fire he could have destroyed their bodies here, just as their souls were already destroyed and would remain so for ever! His own path now led towards heaven, where grace would open the gate to him—the grace that had been promised.

And the soul went with the angel of death, but once more it looked back towards the bed where its image of dust lay in a white shroud, a strange impression of its former self. And they flew, and they walked—it was as though they were in a mighty hall, yet also in a forest. Nature had been pruned, trained, bound up and set in rows, made artificial like the old French gardens; here a masquerade was in progress.

"This is human life!" said the angel of death. All the figures were more or less disguised; not all who walked in velvet and gold were among the noblest or most powerful, nor were all who wore the clothes of the poor among the lowest and humblest. It was a strange masquerade, and strangest of all was to see how carefully they all concealed something beneath their clothes from one another. Yet each tugged at the other's clothing to bring it into view, and then an animal's head could be seen peering out: in one it was a grinning ape, in another a hideous he-goat, a clammy snake or a listless fish.

It was the beast we all carry within us, the beast that has become part of the human being, and it leaped and bounded and struggled to emerge. Each held his clothes tightly about it, but the others tore them aside and cried, "Do you see? Look! That is him! That is her!" And each laid bare the other's wretchedness.

"And what was the beast in me?" asked the wandering soul. The angel of death pointed ahead to a proud figure, around whose head appeared a many-coloured halo of brilliant hues; but at the man's heart the beast's feet lay hidden—the feet of a peacock. The halo was only the bird's colourful tail.

And as they journeyed on, great birds shrieked horribly from the branches of the trees. In loud human voices they cried, "You who walk with death, do you remember me?" They were all the evil thoughts and desires of his days on earth, calling to him, "Do you remember me?" And for a moment the soul shuddered, for it knew the voices, the evil thoughts and desires that now stood forth as witnesses against it.

"In our flesh, in our evil nature, dwells no good thing!" said the soul. "But my thoughts never became deeds; the world has not seen their evil fruit!" And he hurried all the faster to escape those dreadful cries. But the great black birds wheeled about him, shrieking and shrieking as though the whole world must hear them; and he bounded like a hunted doe, striking his feet at every step against sharp flints that cut them and caused him pain. "Where have all these sharp stones come from? They lie over the ground like withered leaves!"

"They are every heedless word you let fall, words that wounded your neighbour's heart far more deeply than these stones now wound your feet!" "I never thought of that!" said the soul.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged!" rang through the air. "We have all sinned!" said the soul, drawing itself up once more. "I have kept the law and the gospel; I have done all I could. I am not like the others!"

And they stood at the gate of heaven, and the angel who guarded the entrance asked, "Who are you? Tell me your faith, and show it to me in your deeds!" "I have strictly fulfilled every commandment! I have humbled myself in the eyes of the world; I have hated and persecuted evil and the wicked, those who take the broad road to eternal damnation, and I would do so still, with fire and sword, if I had the power!"

"Then you are one of Muhammad's followers!" said the angel. "I! Never!" "All who take the sword shall perish by the sword, says the Son! You do not have his faith. Are you perhaps a son of Israel, who says with Moses: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! A son of Israel whose jealous God is the God of your people alone!"

"I am a Christian!" "I cannot see it in your faith or your deeds. Christ's teaching is reconciliation, love and grace!" "Grace!" rang through infinite space, and the gate of heaven opened, and the soul floated towards the glory revealed within.

But the light streaming forth was so dazzling, so penetrating, that the soul recoiled as though before a drawn sword; and the music sounded so tender and so moving that no earthly tongue can express it. The soul trembled and bowed lower and ever lower, but the heavenly radiance pierced it, and then it felt and understood, as it had never felt before, the burden of its pride, its hardness and its sin. All grew so clear within it.

"Whatever good I did in the world, I did because I could not do otherwise; but the evil—that came from myself!" And the soul felt blinded by the pure heavenly light. Powerless, it seemed to sink into the depths, curled in upon itself, weighed down, not yet ready for the kingdom of heaven; and at the thought of the stern, just God, it dared not even stammer, "Grace!"

And then grace was there, the grace it had not expected. God's heaven filled the whole of infinite space; God's love flowed through the soul in inexhaustible abundance.

"Holy, glorious, loving and eternal may you become, O human soul!" rang out in song. And all of us, all of us, on the last day of our earthly lives, shall, like this soul, shrink trembling before the splendour and glory of the kingdom of heaven, bow low and sink in humility, yet be borne by his love, his grace, sustained and carried into new paths, purified, nobler and better, drawing ever nearer to the glory of the light, and, strengthened by him, able to rise into eternal radiance.