Free The Book of Khalid by Ameen Rihani

finally hinges on this: namely, that these atheists are not honest investigators, that in their sweeping generalisations, as in their speciosity and hypocrisy, they are commercially perverse. And Khalid is not long in deciding about the matter. He meets with an accident—and accidents have always been his touchstones of success—which saves his soul and seals the fate of atheism.
    One evening, returning from a ramble in the Park, he passes by the Hall where his favourite Mountebank was to lecture on the Gospel of Soap. But not having the price of admittance that evening, and being anxious to hear the orator whom he had idolised, Khalid bravely appeals to his generosity in this quaint and touching note: “My pocket,” he wrote, “is empty and my mind is hungry. Might I come to your Table to-night as a beggar?” And the man at the stage door, who carries the note to the orator, returns in a trice, and tells Khalid to lift himself off. Khalid hesitates, misunderstands; and a heavy hand is of a sudden upon him, to say nothing of the heavy boot.
    Ay, and that boot decided him. Atheism, bald, bold, niggardly, brutal, pretending withal, Khalid turns from its door never to look again in that direction, Shakib is right. “These people,” he growled, “are not free thinkers, but free stinkards. They do need soap to wash their hearts and souls.”
    An idea did not come to Khalid, as it were, by instalments. In his puerperal pains of mind he was subject to such crises, shaken by such downrushes of light, as only the few among mortals experience. (We are quoting our Scribe, remember.) And in certain moments he had more faith in his instinctsthan in his reason. “Our instincts,” says he, “never lie. They are honest, and though they be sometimes blind.” And here, he seems to have struck the truth. He can be practical too. Honesty in thought, in word, in deed—this he would have as the cornerstone of his truth. Moral rectitude he places above all the cardinal virtues, natural and theological. “Better keep away from the truth, O Khalid,” he writes, “better remain a stranger to it all thy life, if thou must sully it with the slimy fingers of a mercenary juggler.” Now, these brave words, we can not in conscience criticise. But we venture to observe that Khalid must have had in mind that Gospel of Soap and the incident at the stage door.
    And in this, we, too, rejoice. We, too, forgetting the dignity of our position, participate of the revelry in the cellar on this occasion. For our editorialship, dear Reader, is neither American nor English. We are not bound, therefore, to maintain in any degree the algidity and indifference of our confrères’ sublime attitude. We rejoice in the spiritual safety of Khalid. We rejoice that he and Shakib are now reconciled. For the reclaimed runagate is now even permitted to draw on the poet’s balance at the banker. Ay, even Khalid can dissimulate when he needs the cash. For with the assistance of second-hand Jerry and the box-office of the atheistical jugglers, he had exhausted his little saving. He would not even go out peddling any more. And when Shakib asks him one morning to shoulder the box and come out, he replies: “I have a little business with it here.” For after having impeached the High Priests of Atheism he seems to have turned upon himself. We translate from the K. L. MS.
    “When I was disenchanted with atheism, when I saw somewhat of the meanness and selfishness of its protagonists, I began to doubt in the honesty of men. If these, oursupposed teachers, are so vile, so mercenary, so false,—why, welcome Juhannam! But the more I doubted in the honesty of men, the more did I believe that honesty should be the cardinal virtue of the soul. I go so far in this, that an honest thief in my eyes is more worthy of esteem than a canting materialist or a hypocritical free thinker. Still, the voice within me asked if Shakib were honest in his dealings, if I were honest in my