An Instance of the Fingerpost

by Iain Pears

Thomas grunted at this, for he knew nothing of the law and believed it to have something to do with justice. As I had once done myself, until I studied it.

Now that men of business make beer and are trying to stop women selling the ale they brew, I believe the great days of this country are over.

“How can it be God’s will? How can God will that some men be subject to others? That some live in palaces while others die in the street? That some rule and others obey? How can God will that?”

Right?

“In that case He is no God of mine,” she said, with a sneer of contempt. “I hate Him, as He must hate me and all of His creation.”

What she said.

They live in a world where, if you do not perpetually rise, then you inevitably fall. Fame and fortune are of the most evanescent quality; I have, and can lose, neither.

They like their food like their religion, eh?” He chuckled at his metaphor. “All dressed up and elaborate, so you can’t tell what’s underneath.

“In each generation the Messiah would be reborn, would be betrayed, would die, and be resurrected, until mankind turns away from evil, and sins no more.”

And the more I read the more my reason revolted against what I saw; for how was it possible that Sarah, unlettered as she was, could have quoted, almost word for word, a whole series of prophecies made more than a thousand years ago? There was no doubt about it; time and again the words were the same, almost as though it was the same person talking, this long-dead woman prophesying on a hilltop in Asia Minor and the girl who talked so strangely in Abingdon of her death.

He promised all things to all men and reneged on all his agreements when he was on the throne once more.

My faith is weak, a disgrace to anyone who has in life been favored as I have. I have been spared riches and fame and power and position, just as His goodness has saved me from poverty and great illness.

I could not say those simple words, “Thy will be done,” and mean it. I meant, I know, “Thy will be done if it agrees with what I want,” and that is not prayer, nor is it submission.

“You are my Savior, the living God, born of the spirit, persecuted, insulted and abused, known to the Magi, who died for our sins and is resurrected as happened before and will happen again in every generation of man.”

“The law is nothing when it is wrong, and deserves to be disregarded.

Our Lord did not tell Peter he would have authority over all the world except for those parts of Europe which think differently.

Thus it happened, and has happened in every generation and will happen again in every generation to come, that a beggar, a cripple, a child, a madman, a criminal or a woman is born Lord of us all in entire obscurity, and is spurned and ignored and killed by us to expiate our sins.