Chapter 83

They Land

The song was ended; and as we gained the strand, the crowd embraced
us; and called us brothers; ourselves and our humblest attendants.

"Call ye us brothers, whom ere now ye never saw?"

"Even so," said the old man, "is not Oro the father of all? Then, are
we not brothers? Thus Alma, the master, hath commanded."

"This was not our reception in Maramma," said Media, "the appointed
place of Alma; where his precepts are preserved."

"No, no," said Babbalanja; "old man! your lesson of brotherhood was
learned elsewhere than from Alma; for in Maramma and in all its
tributary isles true brotherhood there is none. Even in the Holy
Island many are oppressed; for heresies, many murdered; and thousands
perish beneath the altars, groaning with offerings that might relieve
them."

"Alas! too true. But I beseech ye, judge not Alma by all those who
profess his faith. Hast thou thyself his records searched?"

"Fully, I have not. So long, even from my infancy, have I witnessed
the wrongs committed in his name; the sins and inconsistencies of his
followers; that thinking all evil must flow from a congenial fountain,
I have scorned to study the whole record of your Master's life. By
parts I only know it."

"Ah! baneful error! But thus is it, brothers!! that the wisest are set
against the Truth, because of those who wrest it from itself."

"Do ye then claim to live what your Master hath spoken? Are your
precepts practices?"

"Nothing do we claim: we but 'earnestly endeavor."

"Tell me not of your endeavors, but of your life. What hope for the
fatherless among ye?"

"Adopted as a son."

"Of one poor, and naked?"

"Clothed, and he wants for naught."

"If ungrateful, he smite you?"

"Still we feed and clothe him."

"If yet an ingrate?"

"Long, he can not be; for Love is a fervent fire."

"But what, if widely he dissent from your belief in Alma;--then,
surely, ye must cast him forth?"

"No, no; we will remember, that if he dissent from us, we then equally
dissent from him; and men's faculties are Oro-given. Nor will we say
that he is wrong, and we are right; for this we know not, absolutely.
But we care not for men's words; we look for creeds in actions; which
are the truthful symbols of the things within. He who hourly prays to
Alma, but lives not up to world-wide love and charity--that man is
more an unbeliever than he who verbally rejects the Master, but does
his bidding. Our lives are our Amens."