The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 121 -
LAMECH AND METHUSELAH DISCUSS THE STRANGER ASMAHAEL (22ndIuly 1841)
Also Lamech, who was very fond of talking, asked his father Methuselah, saying: "Listen, father, if our fathers are still secretly exchanging words with each other although arch father Adam as it were forbade it, what do you think, should we alone steadfastly adhere to this command or the fathers as well?
2
"If I have understood it correctly it seems to me that Adam did not make a distinction in this matter. If the fathers still talk with each other and since they understand every command better than we do, I am of the opinion that we, too, can exchange a few words without detriment, and that, concerning Asmahael.
3
"Look, I have a great urge in my heart to discuss Asmahael; I have actually the feeling as if I had to speak about him continuously.
4
"I tell you, dear father, that this young man is beginning to oppress my heart quite extraordinarily. Yes, he seems to me more and more inscrutable. Looking at his face, he does not appear extraordinary, but when he begins to speak and his word becomes effective with more than lightning speed, this must surely give a peculiar feeling to everyone.
5
"I must tell you that he has already become so dear to me that it seems to me as if my heart were attached to his.
6
"Look, that is why I want to keep talking about this dear, young Asmahael,
7
"Look, how unassuming, extremely humble and modest he is, walking behind us with the old, yet quite vigorous-seeming Abedam. And look how marvelously lightly he is walking. Sometimes it really appears to me as if his feet were not touching the ground at all.
8
"O Asmahael, you lovely, dear stranger, how unspeakably dear you have become to me!
9
"How inexpressibly happy I would feel if you walked also by my side as you are now walking by Abedam's side!
10
"O father, forgive me if I have already become a nuisance to you with my tongue. But what can I do? You always said yourself: 'Where it is burning in the heart it is boiling in the vessel of love, and in the mouth it then begins to run over!' Look, this is how it is now with me.
11
"If you want to say something, do it by all means and I will be happy to lend you my ear. However, you must speak only about Asmahael! Amen."
12
And Methuselah spoke to his son as follows: "My beloved son, Lamech, listen. Although it is quite in order for a father to give advice to his son, either when he sees that the inexperienced son acts foolishly or immodestly, or if the son comes to his father asking for good advice from his store of experience,
13
"but say, and comprehend it well, what can be done when the son comes to the father and asks him for something from his experience-store, but the father has to say to the son: 'Look, dear son, in this point our stores are of the same age and neither of them has the least advantage over the other since today our eyes have simultaneously seen one and the same Asmahael for the first time.
14
"'Look, whatever you are able to say about this most remarkable young man I can say, too, except that my tongue is not as flexible as yours to be able to clothe my inner feelings about Asmahael into well-comprehensible words and then let them flow over my lips.'
15
"But so that you may not in vain have invited your father to speak about Asmahael, I have just had an idea, which is as follows:
16
"Although God has given man two eyes to see the external things, nevertheless he does not see any more with two eyes than with one; yet the two eyes render the service of seeing easier to each other. Thus God has made for man two ears for hearing the voice of the external world, but no one can hear with these two ears more than with one, except that also here one supports the other. The same applies to the sense of smell. One helps the other. However, God has given man only one sense of taste and only one sense of touch so that he may taste and feel and clearly distinguish every single thing. Look, of these two senses each one is quite independent of the other. Thus it is with man. We share the seeing and hearing and also the finer perception or the impression of the nature of things. But as concerns our judgment of a thing and our feeling about it, everyone has his own field according to which a judgment is formed followed by a certain feeling.
17
"This is how it is with the two of us. We have both seen the same, heard the same and surely both noticed the same things on Asmahael. In his point we are like the plants and the grass, the bushes and trees. They all absorb the same light, the same warmth and the same rain. But how do we digest it inwardly and with what result?
18
"Look, dear son, there is a mighty difference. Thus it is also with our inner perception, judgment and feeling; it can be fair, but also unfair, timely or more often untimely. Why should we ruin ourselves before the time when we stuff ourselves with untimely judgments and wrong feelings resulting from them?
19
'Therefore, it is for the time being better if we allow these new plantings within us first to fully mature and only then, if we feel within us a full maturity, see whether the fruits of the others have also become tasty and salutary.
20
"He who speaks about something that has not yet matured within him is a fool, for every remark is a lesson about one or the other thing. What benefit will be gained through an immature teacher or speaker, or whom will he satisfy with his unripe fruit? What blessing will he spread with his untimely plants of which he himself does not know as yet, and cannot know, whether they are healthy or unhealthy ones, maybe even full of deadly poison?
21
"Look, this is again how it is with us. The seed 'Asmahael' has only just struck a few weak little roots within us. So far we do not know the leaf, the bloom and least of all the fruit, yet we want already to teach each other.
22
O son, bear in mind what kind of teaching may result from it. Therefore, let everyone teach of what he sees and hears and somehow perceives that there is something here or there, and he has done enough. Everything else he should leave alone until the time of ripening. And when a noble fruit has ripened in his heart God will call him that he may distribute it to the brothers. If the fruit is poor, God will know best what it can be used for, because to God all things are good. And so let us first wait for the ripening and only then speak Amen."