Camel Driver, A

(Punishment by Man and by God: Ferishtah’s Fancies , 7.) A murderer had been executed, the criminal acknowledging the justice of his punishment, but lamenting that the man who prompted him to evil had escaped; the murderer reflected with satisfaction that God had reserved a hell for him. But punishment is only man’s trick to teach; if he could see true repentance in the sinner’s soul, the fault would not be repeated. God’s proce in teaching or punishing nowise resembles man’s. Man lumps his kind in the ma , God deals with each individual soul as though they two were alone in the universe, “Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee,” said Ferishtah, “then stand or fall by them!” Ignorance that sins is safe,—our greatest punishment is knowledge. No other hell will be needed for any man than the reflection that he deliberately spurned the steps which would have raised him to the regard of the Supreme. In the Lyric it is complained that mankind is over-severe with mere imperfections, which it magnifies into crimes; but the greater faults, which should have been crushed in the egg, are either not suspected at all or actually praised as virtues.