The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1874-09-19
Population of Heaven.
A PKRsrox. VISION or H HEREAFTER.

AbOu ben Adhem was annoyed one morning
by an elderly gentleman, who desired to learn
the ideas the Persian sage had Of the hereafter !,
particularly as to the style and quality of people
who would be likely to reach a future bliss.
Abou removed his chibouk from his lips, and
mOistening his throat with a long draught OF
sherbet, spoke 10 him as follows
Ny friend, many hundred years ago, when L
was comparatively a young man, l dreamed one
night that l had shufied of this mortal coil, and
was in the land of the hereafter. Methought l
was decently deceased, had been g~enteelIy buried,
and q tombstone had been erected TO ny memory,
on which was inscribed enough to furnish q dozen.
l blushed q spirit-blush when / read that tomb
stone and discovered what an exemplary man l
had been, and I likewise wept @ s~pirit-weep when
l thought what a loss the world had sustained in
my death.
/ assembled and was knocking at the outer gate
Of Paradise for adnittancc- The season had been
a very healthy one, for n national convention Of
fifty physicians had been drowned while taking \
steamboat excursion on the Persian Gulf, 80 the
doorkeeper had but little to do while my case
two ascertaining the whereabouts of my old ac-
ouaintances, who had deceased during the ten
years previous.
There are a large number Of my friends up
here? / remarked, inquiringly.
"Not very much,'' was the reply.
"Ebn Becar is here, 1 suppose ?"
"Not any Elm Becar, was the answer.
81 am surprised, - l answered Elm Beoar,
the date-seller, not in Paradise Be chesm, no
man in Ispahan was more regular in his atten-
dance at the mosque, and he howled his jealous
best in keeping the faithful in the line of duty"
"True,' says the doorkeeper, true. But
you see. Elm Kept his eagle eye so intently fixed
on his neighbours feet that his own got off the
road, and when he pulled up it wasn't at the
place he had calculated. His prayers were pleas
ing to a true believer, but as they were not
backed up by doing things in proportion, they
failed to pass current here"
"How Jared it with Hafz, the scribe? He was
charitable-no man gave more to the poor than
he."
"Hafz did give many sheckels to the poor each
year, but it was the way he gave it that spoiled
the effect of his charities. He gave not for any
love of his kind, but because it was q part of his
system to give. He was afraid not to give. So
he said, i will answer the demands of the law
of the prophet by giving so much, which will as
sure me a Paradise, and fancied that was charity.
When the widow of Sellm, the mule driver, en-
ployed him to save her inheritance to her children,
from the wicked brother, he required all that the
law permitted him to exact, SO that she said, 10!
1 might as we'll have let my brother have the
land He answered, The law gives it to me
go to- He would Cypress the poor in a business
way, and compromise with his conscience by sub
scribing a tenth of his profits to charity. Com
promising never did work in such matters. The
compromiser gives the devil something of value,
and receives In return that which damns him.
The expressions and g~raspings of Hafz were ex-
actly balanced in numbers by his charities, but
he died worth a million; the oppression side was
the heaviest in quality. We keep books very ae-
~curate, you observe"
"AbdaIlab, the maker of shawls, is
"No, he isn't. He was an ardent teacher of
the rules the prophet gave for the faithful, but he
vas the worst ~practicer 1 ever had any knowledge
of. The strong waters of the Giaour ruined his
prospects. He preached abstinence from wine,
but he constantly partook eff the forbidden drink.
He loved wine, and Immediately proceeded to
deceive himself that he had dyspepsia, and had to
take it. Hearing once that strong liquor was an
antidote for the bite of a serpent, he absolutely
moved into q province where serpents abound.
He talked loudly about g%luttony, but excused
himself for eating five courses by holding that he
needed it to keep himself up. He succeeded in
deceiving himself, but be couldn't deceive us.''
"Kahkani, the poet, whose songs were all in
praise of virtue, is here: The fervent goodness
that produced such morality must be safe?'
"Quite wrong, my dear sir. Kahkani's poems
were beautiful, but, bless you, he never felt the
ointment in them. He had an itching for fame,
and writing spiritual hymns happened to be his
best hold. If he could have written comic songs
better than hymns, he would have written comic
songs"
"Who have you here, pray?"
"Saadi, the camel-shoer, is here"
"Saadi Why, he was constantly violating
the laws of the prophet"
"Trle, he would even curse the camels he was
shoeing. But he was always sorry for it, and he
would mourn over the infrmities Of his temper,
and strove honestly and zealously all the time to
live better and be better. He did not makea
grand success, but he did the best he could. He
gave literally of his substance, and without blat-
ing it all over ~lspahan. When he gave a dirhem,
he didn't pay the newspapers two dirhems to
make the fact public, which is my definition of
genuine charity. Then there's Firdusi, the car
pet-cleaner-"
Gle never gave anything"
81 Carfoir1y not cor he boI YoEb;n- n o;uo
The prophet never asks impossibilities. He
would have given il if he had it, and he tried hard
to get it. Then there's Jelai-ed-din-''
"He couldn't make a prayer
"True, but he said Amen to those who
could, and he meant 1t, which was more than half
those who made the prayers could say"
"And Wassaf, the teacher-where is he? A
more pure and blameless life no man ever led.
Gle is here; but occupies a very low place"
"a low place"
was no credit to him that he did not. A more
egregiously deceived man never lived or died. He
obeyed the laws of the prophet because he could
not do otherwise-then crediting himself with
what he could not avoid. He could not be q
%glutton, for his stomach was weak-he could not
partake of the strong waters of the Frank, be-
cause his brain would not endure it-he WAS vir-
tuous because he was too cold-blooded-too thin
blooded to have any passion. He had not moral
force enough to commit a decent sin, and this in
aDHlty 10 oe "icheu nc IauCleu "aS righteousness.
lie was q moral oyster. He, an iceberg, plumed
upon being cold. Now, Agha, the flute
player, who was at times n glutton and q wine
bibber, and all the rest of it, is several benches
higher than Wassaf; for Agha's blood boiled like
a cauldron-he was robust, he had the appetite of
the rhinoceros of the Nile, and q physical nature
that was constantly pushing him to the commits
of sin but Agha, feeling, knowing that it
wrong, fought against it manfully. He fell
frequently, for the evil one knew his weak mo-
ments. but he rose and fought against himself and
managed to come out victor at least half the time.
There was no more merit in Wassaf's virtue than
in an lceberg's being cold. But for a burning
like Agha, to keep himself down to an
even temperature, that was great.
'sMy friend, ii is not worth while to enumer-