“He exists, but to comprehend Him is hard,” the mason began again, not looking into Pierre’s face, but straight before him, while his old hands, which could not keep still for inward emotion, turned the leaves of the book. “If it had been a man of whose existence thou hadst doubts, I could have brought thee the man, taken him by the hand, and shown him thee. But how am I, an insignificant mortal, to show all the power, all the eternity, all the blessedness of Him to one who is blind, or to one who shuts his eyes that he may not see, may not understand Him, and may not see, and not understand all his own vileness and viciousness.” He paused. “Who art thou？ What art thou？ Thou dreamest that thou art wise because thou couldst utter those scoffing words,” he said, with a gloomy and scornful irony, “while thou art more foolish and artless than a little babe, who, playing with the parts of a cunningly fashioned watch, should rashly say that because he understands not the use of that watch, he does not believe in the maker who fashioned it. To know Him is a hard matter. For ages, from our first father Adam to our day, have we been striving for this knowledge, and are infinitely far from the attainment of our aim; but in our lack of understanding we see only our own weakness and His greatness …”
Pierre gazed with shining eyes into the freemason’s face, listening with a thrill at his heart to his words; he did not interrupt him, nor ask questions, but with all his soul he believed what this strange man was telling him. Whether he believed on the rational grounds put before him by the freemason, or believed, as children do, through the intonations, the conviction, and the earnestness, of the mason’s words, the quiver in his voice that sometimes almost broke his utterance, or the gleaming old eyes that had grown old in that conviction, or the calm, the resolution, and the certainty of his destination, which were conspicuous in the whole personality of the old man, and struck Pierre with particular force, beside his own abjectness and hopelessness,—any way, with his whole soul he longed to believe, and believed and felt a joyful sense of soothing, of renewal, and of return to life.
“It is not attained by the reason, but by life,” said the mason.
“I don’t understand,” said Pierre, feeling with dismay that doubt was stirring within him. He dreaded obscurity and feebleness in the freemason’s arguments, he dreaded being unable to believe in him. “I don’t understand,” he said, “in what way human reason cannot attain that knowledge of which you speak.”
The freemason smiled his mild, fatherly smile.
“The highest wisdom and truth is like the purest dew, which we try to hold within us,” said he. “Can I hold in an impure vessel that pure dew and judge of its purity？ Only by the inner purification of myself can I bring that dew contained within me to some degree of purity.”
“Yes, yes; that’s so,” Pierre said joyfully.
“The highest wisdom is founded not on reason only, not on those worldly sciences, of physics, history, chemistry, etc., into which knowledge of the intellect is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The highest wisdom knows but one science—the science of the whole, the science that explains the whole creation and the place of man in it. To instil this science into one’s soul, it is needful to purify and renew one’s inner man, and so, before one can know, one must believe and be made perfect. And for the attainment of these aims there has been put into our souls the light of God, called the conscience.”
“Yes, yes,” Pierre assented.
“Look with the spiritual eye into thy inner man, and ask of thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained with the guidance of the intellect alone？ What art thou？ You are young, you are wealthy, you are cultured, sir. What have you made of all the blessings vouchsafed you？ Are you satisfied with yourself and your life？”
“No, I hate my life,” said Pierre, frowning.