Where There is Nothing, There is God

The little wicker houses at Tullagh, where the Brothers were
accustomed to pray, or bend over many handicrafts, when twilight had
driven them from the fields, were empty, for the hardness of the
winter had brought the brotherhood together in the little wooden
house under the shadow of the wooden chapel; and Abbot Malathgeneus,
Brother Dove, Brother Bald Fox, Brother Peter, Brother Patrick,
Brother Bittern, Brother Fair-Brows, and many too young to have won
names in the great battle, sat about the fire with ruddy faces, one
mending lines to lay in the river for eels, one fashioning a snare
for birds, one mending the broken handle of a spade, one writing in a
large book, and one shaping a jewelled box to hold the book; and
among the rushes at their feet lay the scholars, who would one day be
Brothers, and whose school-house it was, and for the succour of whose
tender years the great fire was supposed to leap and flicker. One of
these, a child of eight or nine years, called Olioll, lay upon his
back looking up through the hole in the roof, through which the smoke
went, and watching the stars appearing and disappearing in the smoke
with mild eyes, like the eyes of a beast of the field. He turned
presently to the Brother who wrote in the big book, and whose duty
was to teach the children, and said, 'Brother Dove, to what are the
stars fastened?' The Brother, rejoicing to see so much curiosity in
the stupidest of his scholars, laid down the pen and said, 'There are
nine crystalline spheres, and on the first the Moon is fastened, on
the second the planet Mercury, on the third the planet Venus, on the
fourth the Sun, on the fifth the planet Mars, on the sixth the planet
Jupiter, on the seventh the planet Saturn; these are the wandering
stars; and on the eighth are fastened the fixed stars; but the ninth
sphere is a sphere of the substance on which the breath of God moved
in the beginning.'

'What is beyond that?' said the child. 'There is nothing beyond that;
there is God.'

And then the child's eyes strayed to the jewelled box, where one
great ruby was gleaming in the light of the fire, and he said, 'Why
has Brother Peter put a great ruby on the side of the box?'

'The ruby is a symbol of the love of God.'

'Why is the ruby a symbol of the love of God?'

'Because it is red, like fire, and fire burns up everything, and
where there is nothing, there is God.'

The child sank into silence, but presently sat up and said, 'There is
somebody outside.'

'No,' replied the Brother. 'It is only the wolves; I have heard them
moving about in the snow for some time. They are growing very wild,
now that the winter drives them from the mountains. They broke into a
fold last night and