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ABOU BEN ADHEM was annoyed one morning
by an elderly gentleman, who desired to learn
of the ideas the Persian Sage had of the Hereafter,
particularly as to the style and quality of people who
would be likely to reach a future of bliss.

Abou removed his chibouque from his lips, and
moistening his throat with a long draught of sherbet,
spoke to him thus: —

“My friend, many hundreds of years ago, when I
was a comparatively young man, I dreamed one night
that I had shuffled off this mortal coil, and was in
the Land of the Hereafter. Methought I was decently
deceased, had been genteelly buried, and a tombstone
had been erected to my memory, on which were
inscribed enough virtues to furnish a dozen. I blushed
a spirit-blush when I read that tombstone, and discovered
what an exemplary man I had been; and I
likewise wept a spirit-weep when I thought what a
loss the world had sustained in my death.

“I ascended, and was knocking at the outer gate
of Paradise for admittance. The season had been a

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very healthy one, for the National Convention of Physicians
had been drowned while taking a steamboat
excursion on the Persian Gulf, so the door-keeper
had but little to do while my case was being decided.
I whiled away an hour or two ascertaining the whereabouts
of my old acquaintances, who had deceased
during the ten years previous.

“`There is a large number of my friends up
here?' I remarked, inquiringly.

“`Not very many,' was his reply.

“`Ebn Becar is here, I suppose?'

“`Not any Ebn Becar,' was the answer.

“`I am surprised,' I answered. `Ebn Becar, the
date-seller, not in Paradise! Be chesm, no man in
Ispahan was more regular in his attendance at the
mosque, and he howled his prayers like a dervish.
He was exceedingly zealous in keeping the faithful in
the line of duty.'

“`True,' said the door-keeper, `true! But, you
see, Ebn kept his eagle eye so intently fixed on his
neighbor's feet that his own got off the road, and
when he pulled up, it was n't at the place he had calculated.
His prayers were pleasing to a true believer;
but as they were not backed up by doing things in
proportion, they failed to pass current here.'

“`How fared it with Hafiz, the scribe? He was
charitable; no man gave more to the poor than he.'

“`Hafiz did give many shekels to the poor each
year, but it was the way he gave it that spoiled the
effect of his charities. He gave, not for any love of
his kind, but because it was a part of his system to

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give. He was afraid not to give. So he said, “I will
answer the demands of the law of the Prophet by giving
so much, which will ensure me Paradise,” and fancied
that was charity. When the widow of Selim, the
mule-driver, employed him to save her inheritance
to her children from her wicked brother, he required
of her all that the law permitted him to exact, so that
she said, “Lo! I might as well have let my brother
had the land.” He answered, “The law gives it me.
Go to!” He would oppress the poor in a business
way, and compromise with his conscience by subscribing
a tenth of his profits to charity. Compromising
never did work in such matters. The compromiser
gives to the devil something of value, and
receives in return that which damns him. The oppressions
and graspings of Hafiz were exactly balanced,
in number, by his charities; but as he died
worth a million, the oppression side was the heaviest
in quality. We keep books very accurately, you
observe.'

“`Abdallah, the maker of shawls, is —'

“`No, he is n't. He was an ardent teacher of the
rules the Prophet gave for the faithful, but he was
the worst practiser I ever had any knowledge of.
The strong waters of the Giaour ruined his prospects.
He preached abstinence from wine, but he constantly
partook of the forbidden drink. He loved wine, and
immediately proceeded to deceive himself into the
belief that he had dyspepsia and had to take it.
Hearing once that strong liquor was an antidote for
the bite of a serpent, he absolutely moved into a

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province where serpents abounded, and went out
regularly to get bitten. He talked loudly against
gluttony, but excused himself for eating five courses
by holding that he needed it to keep himself up.
He succeeded in deceiving himself, but he could n't
deceive us.'

“`Kahkani, the poet, whose songs were all in
praise of virtue, is here? The fervent goodness
that produced such morality must be safe!'

“`Quite wrong, my dear sir. Kahkani's poems
were beautiful; but bless you! he never felt the sentiments
expressed in them. He had an itching for
fame, and writing spiritual hymns happened to be his
best hold. If he could have written comic songs
better than hymns, he would have written comic
songs.'

“`Whom have you here, pray?'

“`Saadi, the camel-shoer, is here.'

“`Saadi! why, he was constantly violating the law
of the Prophet.'

“True! he would even curse the camels he was
shoeing. But he was always sorry for it, and he
would mourn over the infirmities of his temper, and
strove honestly and zealously all the time to live
better and be better. He did not make a great
success, but he did the best he could. He gave liberally
of his substance, without blatting it all over
Ispahan. When he gave a dirhem, he did n't pay
the newspapers two dirhems to make the fact public,
which is my definition of genuine charity. Then
there 's Firdusi, the carpet-cleaner —'

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“`He never gave anything.'

“`Certainly not, for he had nothing to give. The
Prophet never asked impossibilities. He would have
given if he had had it, and he tried hard to get it.
Then there 's Jelal-ed-din —'

“`He could n't make a prayer.'

“`True! but he said “Amen” to those who could,
and he meant it, which was more than half those who
made the prayers could say.'

“`And Wassaf, the teacher, — where is he? A
more pure and blameless life no man ever led!'

“`He is here, but occupies a very low place.'

“`A low place?'

“`Verily. Wassaf did not sin, it is true; but it
was no credit to him that he did not. A more egregiously
deceived man never lived or died. He obeyed
the laws of the Prophet, because he could not do otherwise,
thus crediting himself with what he could not
avoid. He could not be a glutton, for his stomach
was weak; he could not partake of the strong waters
of the Frank, because his brain would not endure it;
he was virtuous, because he was too cold-blooded,
too thin-blooded, to have any passion. He had not
moral force enough to commit a decent sin, and this
inability to be wicked he fancied was righteousness.
He was a moral oyster. He, an iceberg, plumed
himself upon being cold. Now Agha, the fluteplayer,
who was at times a glutton and a wine-bibber,
and all the rest of it, is several benches higher than
Wassaf. For Agha's blood boiled like a cauldron;
he was robust, he had the appetite of the rhinoceros

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of the Nile, and a physical nature that was constantly
pushing him to the commission of sin; but Agha,
feeling, knowing that it was wrong, fought against it
manfully. He fell frequently, for the Evil One knew
his weak moments; but he rose and fought against
himself, and managed to come out victor, at least
half the time. There was no more merit in Wassaf's
virtue than there is in an iceberg's being cold. But
for a burning volcano like Agha to keep himself
down to an even temperature, that was great.

“`My friend, it is not worth while to enumerate,
but — well, you will know more when you get inside,
if you do get inside. You have seen the sky-rockets
of Jami. They ascend with much fizz, and make a
beautiful show, but alas! before they reach the skies
they explode, and disappear in a sheet of flame. Precisely
so with many men. They soar aloft on their
professions; but they, too (to use a vulgarism), bust
before they attain Paradise, and go down in a sheet
of flame.

“`The true believer, who practises what he believes,
is an arrow. Pointed with belief, feathered with
works, death shoots him off; he pierces the clouds
and lands on the right side of the river.'

“At this point,” continued Abou, “I awoke. My
ideas of the future I got largely from that vision.
My opinion is that in New Jersey, as in Persia, there
are a great many people deceiving themselves. Go
thy way! Be virtuous and be happy. I would rest
me.”

p632-164

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