Cry of Blood

Messenger of Truth Printed in 1966 Issue 19 and again in 1968 lssue 14

CRY OF THE BLOOD
The tom-toms thumped on all night, and the darkness shuddered round me
like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake
and looked; and I saw, and it seemed like this:
That I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer
down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud
shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows,
and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.
Then I saw forms of people moving single-file along the grass. They
were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms
and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very
verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next
step . . . it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her.
Oh, the cry as they went over!
Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were
blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There
were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing
up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went
over quietly and fell without a sound.
Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simply agony, why no one
stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and
I could not call. Though I strained and tried, only a whisper would
come.
Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals.
But the intervals were far too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps
between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite
unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the gulf
yawned like the mouth of Hell.
Then I saw, like the picture of peace, a group of people under some
trees, with their backs turned toward the gulf. They were making daisy
chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached
them, it disturbed them and they thought it rather a vulgar noise. And
if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to
help, then all the others would pull that one down. "Why should you
get so excited about it? You must wait for a `definite call' to go.
You haven't finished your daisy chains. It would be really selfish,"
they said, "to leave us to finish the work alone."
There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire
was to get some sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to
go, and sometimes there were no sentries for miles and miles at the
edge.
Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her
mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough
was due; she must not break the "rules." And, being tired and needing
a change, she had to go and rest awhile; but no one was sent to guard
her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.
Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of
the gulf; the child clung convulsively, and it called but nobody
seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry
the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the
torn-off bunch of grass.
And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the
little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which her
relatives reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary
anywhere--the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And they
sang a hymn.
Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million
broken hearts, wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of
great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was--the cry of the
blood.
"Then thundered a Voice, the voice of the Lord; and He said, Whom
shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
And He said, Go and tell this people. . . . Jesus said, Go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel to every creature . . . and lo, I am
with you alway" (Isaiah 6:8; Mark 16:15; Matthew 28:20).
From "Things as they are"