"And now stand up and tell me," said the priest, in a trembling voice, "tell me honestly, is not that the one and only method?"
"Honestly, no: I love and revere him of whom this is told, perhaps more than many a church-believer, and it is particularly affecting to me, and at this moment wonderfully touching is that passage, where it is said here,--Then Jesus beholding him loved him. I see the handsome rich young man in the presence of the sublime Master; the young man is glowing and filled with a genuine ardor; then the Master dearly loves him as he looks into his countenance. However--"
"That is incidental, that is incidental. Speak to the main subject," the priest interrupted.
"According to my view of the subject," Eric replied, "I must own that I consider this teaching to have been given at a time when all actual might, the power of the State, riches, and all the good things of life, were contemned, and when they were obliged to reject everything which had no reference to their purely ideal view. That could alone maintain the uprightness of noble souls in a time of oppression under foreign rule; and this teaching could have been given at a time only, and by a soul, which sees all that is worth living for vanishing away, which builds up a new creation, and in which pure thought has entire sway. But if each one gives away, and gives away continually, who is there in that case to be the recipient? And why is it that this doctrine, that no one is to possess anything, has not become a command of the Church?"
"I am glad," answered the ecclesiastic, "that you have touched the real point. Our Church has commands which are not universally binding, but are only so for him who wishes to be perfect, as, for instance, the law of chastity and of poverty. Only he who wishes to be perfect comes under it."
"I ask," interposed Eric, "is the teaching of revelation, which is amply sufficient for the purely spiritual, sufficient also for the worldly? In the course of the development of humanity do not new social conditions establish themselves in the world, as out of nature new forces, steam, electricity--"
"Man," replied the priest, "is always the same from eternity to eternity, the citizen only changes. But I see now, you are letting yourself be guided into the right path. I do not desire--the rich man himself did not desire it--that the boy shall be perfect, and therefore the command to sell his possessions is not applicable to him. I only say to you, you will not be able to educate this boy unless you give him positive religion. The brute does all he has power to do; with it there is no word 'ought;' but man does not do all that he has power to do. Simply to do that for which one has the strength, or, yet more properly, the inclination, and to do everything purely from inclination, that is not the human; the human begins there where one tramples his inclination under foot, and does what God's law commands. Were every one to act according to his inclination, then should we be sure, at no time, what would become of humanity. The law of God holds it together, and holds it erect. Here is the significance of the law of God, here begins the fall, which the gentlemen of natural science have never got over. The animal has urgent impulses; man can voluntarily awaken impulse, excite it, goad it, multiply it; where is there a limit here, except in God's law? I am not speaking of any Church. You have, so much I know, busied yourself chiefly with history?"