No More Learning

is death.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
And yet who is there that has never doubted?
And doubting and believing, has not said,
"Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief"?

ENDICOTT.
In the same way we trifle with our doubts,
Whose shining shapes are like the stars descending;
Until at last, bewildered and dismayed,
Blinded by that which seemed to give us light,
We sink to sleep, and find that it is death,

Rising.

Death to the soul through all eternity!
Alas that I should see you growing up
To man's estate, and in the admonition
And nurture of the law, to find you now
Pleading for Heretics!

JOHN ENDICOTT (rising).
In the sight of God,
Perhaps all men are Heretics. Who dares
To say that he alone has found the truth?
We cannot always feel and think and act
As those who go before us. Had you done so,
You would not now be here.

ENDICOTT.
Have you forgotten
The doom of Heretics, and the fate of those
Who aid and comfort them?
Have you forgotten
That in the market-place this very day
You trampled on the laws? What right have you,
An inexperienced and untravelled youth,
To sit in judgment here upon the acts
Of older men and wiser than yourself,
Thus stirring up sedition in the streets,
And making me a byword and a jest?

JOHN ENDICOTT.
Words of an inexperienced youth like me
Were powerless if the acts of older men
Were not before them. 'T is these laws themselves
Stir up sedition, not my judgment of them.

ENDICOTT.
Take heed, lest I be called, as Brutus was,
To be the judge of my own son. Begone!
When you are tired of feeding upon husks,
Return again to duty and submission,
But not till then.

JOHN ENDICOTT.
I hear and I obey!
[Exit.
ENDICOTT.
Oh happy, happy they who have no children!
He's gone! I hear the hall door shut behind him.