Farewell, Earth's Bliss by D. G. Compton

Author:D. G. Compton [Compton, D. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780575117976
Google: aVA2AgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0575117974
Goodreads: 24206433
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 1966-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

In all the packed church Jacob felt the minister’s eyes to be on him alone. He felt the weight of an unnameable guilt. He felt his secrets—the secrets even he himself had never looked at—to be clear on his forehead like brand marks. Yet he was innocent. Innocent of lust and pride and bearing false witness. Innocent of trying to move from the station into which God had placed him. Innocent of having helped the child-stealer to escape. Within the church the group mind was overpowering. The resinous smell of the incense made him dizzy. His innocence brought a blush under his dark skin. Mr Meredith’s eyes bored into him. They bored into everyone.

“Ignorance is a divine gift from God. We who take it away must do so knowingly, mindful always of the danger into which we place both our own immortal souls and those of our tiny charges.”

Mr Meredith’s offence had been the murder for their money of seven wives in six years. He had experienced his conversion during the flight up to the Settlement. He was proud of it. Proud of the whole-heartedness of both his offence and his subsequent conversion. It proved to the community at large that no man was too low to find redemption.

“We who take the mind of the little children into our care do so at our own risk. We must do so devoutly, praying daily on our knees that we may teach only that which is fit and right to be known. Ours is a great and holy calling.”

Jacob could see the schoolmaster Jones staring virtuously at his knees. Alun Jones too had experienced a dramatic conversion. Years ago, out deep in the red highlands. His offence, however, had been so dull that it was never mentioned. These background facts and a great many more Jacob had learned in the past two months of his stay with Daisy Baker in the room attached to her shop.

“Knowledge, friends, is of two kinds. That which is the pure running water of holy enlightenment, and that which is nothing but the dry motes of an evil and detestable factuality. The sinful sheen that Satan lays on his profanest mysteries entices our mind and clouds our judgement. You know from your own experience, friends, how we who were raised on Earth are tainted with a wickedness that not even the fire of the Lord Jesus will lastingly purify.”

Mr Meredith—“Dog” Meredith—leaned forward on the edge of the pulpit, clasping his hands and staring piteously down at his congregation.

“But the children—the little children … their way is surely not to be our way? Their sin is not to be our sin? Surely somewhere down the allotted path there was to be an end? Somewhere, somehow, humanity was surely to redeem itself with God’s help?”

He stood straight now, and his chest swelled.

“Redeem itself through KNOWLEDGE? I tell you, no. NO. What has all the knowledge of the world brought us but a reckless plummeting to perdition? Redemption through IGNORANCE, my friends.

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