In the Processions of Life: God Sees Me

I have never once remembered her without remembering how she passed away so quickly, to that place where all shall go; and I have never once remembered her without being struck by this departure of hers without appointment, without her having prepared herself with the preparation it requires — for she had such a store of youth and health that it never so much as crossed her mind.

My companion was an English lady who had studied at the highest universities of her country, and studied until she obtained the highest degrees in philosophy there; and it was as though, from the depth of her delving into research — or as though this philosophy, which she had taken up and which had taken her up — had stripped her of faith in anything but the tangible and the perceptible, so that she came out of it not believing in the existence of God.

Perhaps it is only fair to her to say that she was sad at heart for what she had lost, pained at what she had come to. She said to me once, her eyes staring into the unknown: Is it not strange that my husband, the military man, should believe, while I, the female, do not..? I have lost the refuge to which the weary flee and find rest, the rock to which the drowning cling and are saved.

And perhaps my friend, after that, and for this very reason, was intent that her daughter should not lose what she herself had lost; so she set about raising her with a true religious upbringing, the upbringing of one who believes in a God who created this universe, ordered it, and still directs it. And so the child, on her bed each evening, her eyes closed and lifted upward, her palms pressed together in reverence, would recite her artless prayer: O Lord, keep Papa and Mama, and make me a good little girl — as if in that posture she were the night traveler in the desert, its whirlwinds raging around him, who made of the open space a temple, the sky its roof, the stars its candles, the sands its floor, and then knelt to take shelter in the Creator, the greatest and mightiest of all beings whatsoever.

I thought of this lady who was my neighbor for years — I came to know her as neighbor knows neighbor, and watched her as friend watches friend, and I never saw a character loftier or firmer than hers. I thought of her going through life on her blameless way, hurrying to me sometimes in distress to say that she had erred when she thought such-and-such a thought — she, with all this wakeful conscience, and yet she does not raise her daughter as she herself was raised, but wishes for her a strong religious upbringing... Then I turned about me, watching the procession of life, and I saw that people are of several kinds. One kind — and it is the fewest of the few — walks through the world with the motto: "I will not do evil, because God sees me; His eye watches and His hand avenges. Oh, I will not do evil, because God sees me; His grace upon me calls for love of Him, and His blessing on my house deserves obedience to Him." This kind goes through life contented and devout; God's giving is received with thanks, and His withholding is a visitation and a mercy; he covers the journey content, and then awaits his destiny at peace...

And I saw a second kind — also the fewest of the few — who walks through life upright, and his motto: "I will not do wrong, because in my own character I have a watchman set over me; I must rise above the world, chanting with the poet:

If the soul be a slave to pleasures,
the soul of the great man is too great for them.

He goes through life successful but not at ease, for a troubling thought disquiets him whenever he is alone with himself: Where shall I go at the last? What is there?

And I saw a kind — by far the most numerous — who walks through life with the motto: "There is no lawful and no forbidden, no virtue and no vice; the end justifies the means; I want to obtain the thing — as for the road, let it be what it may." That is a class that has lost God and could not fight the temptations of life, so it killed the conscience and no longer thinks of the hereafter.

And I turned a second time to look back and see yesterday. We had, as people had in East and West, a religion, and religion produced character. Then, when we became educated and rose in the world, we saw religion as an old fashion... The scholars of the West — or some scholars of the West — said to us: Why should we live under the influence of fear of God, or under the influence of gain, so as to obtain good from God..? Why should we not live far from religion and under the influence of character alone, doing what we do with the motto "my honor forbids me" instead of "God sees me"... And people lent their ears to what the scholars said and followed it at once. People thought that, having learned more than their forefathers, and having risen to a degree their forefathers never reached, they could dispense with religion and the influence of religion, and their world would still be well. So what happened after that..?

I will not recount many pictures for you; I will content myself with one. The laban seller passed by our house one morning, and my mother went out to buy what she needed, while we, the children of the house, stood around her watching and listening. She looked at the great vessel in which was the yogurt, coated with cream like yellow ghee, and said admiringly: Fine laban, Najiyya — no cheating has ever entered into it once. And Najiyya flicked her dress with her finger in protest, raised her eyes to heaven, and sought refuge with God, saying: God deliver us from cheating. Do you know Maryam, my lady? Her cow's milk ran short a month ago, so she began mixing it with water to make up what God had denied her — as though a human being could eat his livelihood in spite of his Lord. But the cow died a week later, and all the neighbors gloated over her.

And Najiyya went on, in the tone of one certain of what she says: The halal — and by "halal" she meant the cattle and the sheep, for so they used to call them — the halal will not bear cheating, and God's eye sees and avenges.

And do not ask — do not ask today, as you eat adulterated laban, and oil and ghee and everything adulterated — do not ask how they, in their ignorance, were so, and how we, in our learning, have become so. Religion and piety used to restrain; and when religion withdrew, the creature tried to lean upon his character — and behold, the temptations of the world overcame character, and it collapsed.

And now come, let us examine our world in every quarter — the world of mire and greed, of lusts and matter. Come, let us examine the nature of these multiplying savage crimes, and how men sing of them; let us examine the tearing down of the family by the easiest possible means, as if these sacred family ties, the home and the children, were a house of wooden blocks to be torn down and built up in a day; let us examine the vagrants, small children and boys in whom the criminal spirit lies hidden; the young unwed mothers by the thousands; the lusts that boil in people's veins and then burst forth, turning the world and all in it into beasts that roar and devour.

Come, let us see what science — and lofty science — has been able to do throughout the West and the East. It is as if the devil were loosed from his bonds the day religion withdrew, and set about ranging and roaming, bending people to his will; as if heaven had stepped aside and left hell to reign.

Come, let us sift — beginning with ourselves, our neighbors, our friends, and those around us. How many a merchant among us sees the merchants around him exploiting and devouring lawful and unlawful alike, growing rich and heaping up gold, while he remains content and above it all, because greed is a shame..? How many a woman among us refuses to sit down at a green table, or to sip wine, for instance, so long as she sees everyone around her doing it..? The word "shame" loses its meaning once all around us have forgotten it, once the spirit of the city — or what we count as civilization — sweeps in and floods everything... But the piety that is planted in a person's depths as a child — that is the armor that guards him from stumbling... And there comes to me this very hour the story of a great man who lived in the bosom of a devout mother until his eighth year; then she died and left him alone with time, and he sank very low and stumbled; and afterward he wrote of himself, saying..

And I awoke suddenly and remembered my mother; I remembered virtue and the clean life I had lived in my childhood; I remembered her pale, smiling, angelic face, and the hut — or the paradise of bliss — that was ours; and behold, I found myself crying out from my depths: I want to return to that life, I want to draw near to heaven.. And I tried, and I returned, and I drew near.

And now, how long will this period last..? It seems to me that people have realized their error, for more than one institute in America has gone back to teaching the worship of God among its subjects. Do you suppose that these and their like have learned that rebellious human nature is bridled by nothing but religion...?

Then what does this creature want with his rebellion? Does he want to touch the Creator with his finger in order to believe in His existence? To this day he has not touched a single one of the Creator's stars — how then their Maker? And cannot this philosophizing creature of today, who has stood upon the threshold of knowledge and imagined he understood everything — can he not at least model himself on England's greatest philosopher, Shakespeare, and repeat with him in Hamlet: There are in heaven and earth secrets which the human mind has not yet discovered.

"God sees me" — two words which, were I given the choice, I would engrave in every institute and office and shop and kitchen, in the darkness of night and the light of day. God sees me as a student cheating and stealing; He sees me as a girl hiding things from her mother and sliding downward; He sees me as a wife rushing after forbidden pleasure; He sees me as a friend trampling the noblest feelings of friendship; He sees me as a merchant exploiting and as a worker shirking; and at the last He sees me in my pains and my hardships, and stands at my side.

God keep you, my departed philosopher friend. You lost the rock to which the drowning cling and are saved; and you understood that the creature must have a God to uphold him. You lost the blessing of piety and could not win it back; so you would have nothing but to hide your misery and to give your little girl a religious upbringing, lest you bequeath to her the wretchedness of unbelief, and she be wretched.