The Coffee-House of Surat
(After Bernardin de Saint-Pierre)
In the town of Surat, in India, was a coffee-house where many travellers and foreigners
from all parts of the world met and conversed.
One day a learned Persian theologian visited this coffee-house. He was a man who had
spent his life studying the nature of the Deity, and reading and writing books upon the
subject. He had thought, read, and written so much about God, that eventually he lost his
wits, became quite confused, and ceased even to believe in the existence of a God. The
Shah, hearing of this, had banished him from Persia.
After having argued all his life about the First Cause, this unfortunate theologian had
ended by quite perplexing himself, and instead of understanding that he had lost his own
reason, he began to think that there was no higher Reason controlling the universe.
This man had an African slave who followed him everywhere. When the theologian
entered the coffee-house, the slave remained outside, near the door, sitting on a stone in
the glare of the sun, and driving away the flies that buzzed around him. The Persian
having settled down on a divan in the coffee-house, ordered himself a cup of opium.
When he had drunk it and the opium had begun to quicken the workings of his brain, he
addressed his slave through the open door:
"Tell me, wretched slave," said he, "do you think there is a God, or not?"
"Of course there is," said the slave, and immediately drew from under his girdle a small
idol of wood.
"There," said he, "that is the God who has guarded me from the day of my birth. Every
one in our country worships the fetish tree, from the wood of which this God was made."
This conversation between the theologian and his slave was listened to with surprise by
the other guests in the coffee-house. They were astonished at the master's question, and
yet more so at the slave's reply.
One of them, a Brahmin, on hearing the words spoken by the slave, turned to him and
said:
"Miserable fool! Is it possible you believe that God can be carried under a man's girdle?
There is one God--Brahma, and he is greater than the whole world, for he created it.
Brahma is the One, the mighty God, and in His honour are built the temples on the
Ganges' banks, where his true priests, the Brahmins, worship him. They know the true
God, and none but they. A thousand score of years have passed, and yet through
