雙語美文《自由人的信仰》

　　A Freeman's Worship

　　The life of Man, viewed outwardly, is but a small thing in comparison with the forces of Nature. The slave is doomed to worship Time and Fate and Death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour. But, great as they are, to think of them greatly, to feel their passionless splendour, is greater still. And such thought makes us free men; we no longer bow before the inevitable in Oriental subjection, but we absorb it, and make it a part of ourselves. To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things--this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship. And this liberation is effected by a contemplation of Fate; for Fate itself is subdued by the mind which leaves nothing to be purged by the purifying fire of Time.

　　United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love. The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy as ourselves. And so, when their day is over, when their good and their evil have become eternal by the immortality of the past, be it ours to feel that, where they suffered, where they failed, no deed of ours was the cause; but wherever a spark of the divine fire kindled in their hearts, we were ready with encouragement, with sympathy, with brave words in which high courage glowed.

　　Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.

　　自由人的信仰

　　從外表看來，人的生命與自然的力量相比是微不足道的。奴隸注定要崇拜時間、命運和死亡。因為他內心沒有比這些更偉大的思想，因為他所思所想的一切都無它們所吞噬。但是它們雖然偉大，我們若能尊敬它們，體認它們無情的壯麗，就比它們更偉大。這些思想使我們成為自由人。我們不再東方式地聽天由命，屈服在無法逃避的威力前。我們承受它們，使它們成為我們生活的一部分，放棄為私人利益的奮斗，不對片刻的欲望孜孜以求。充滿激情地追求永恒的事物--這就是解放;這就是自由人的信仰。這種解放是對命運深思熟慮后產生的，而被時間精煉之火凈化得毫無雜質的意識決定著命運本身。

　　自由人以一切聯系中最強的一種聯系與他的同類團結起來，這種聯系就是共同的命運，他保持著一種新的視野，讓愛之光灑滿一切日常事務，人的生命是黑暗中的長途跋涉，被隱形的敵人所包圍。為困倦和痛苦所折磨，朝向一個難以到達而且不能久留的目標前進，在前進途中，我們的同伴一個一個地從我們眼前消失，被全能的死亡悄悄下令攜走了。我們幫助他們的時間非常短暫，而正是這短暫的時間決定了他們悲喜禍福，愿我們能把陽光灑向他們的旅途，以同情的撫慰減輕他們的哀傷，以源源不斷的愛心使他們感受純潔的歡樂，在他們勇氣消退時使他們振作，在他們絕望時給他們信心。我們不要用分分計較的天平去衡量他們的優點和缺點，而應考慮他們的需要，考慮那些使他們受苦的憂傷、痛苦或盲目無知。我們應該記住，他們和我們一樣在黑暗中受苦受難，在同一個悲劇里扮演角色，因此，當他們的年壽已盡，當時間把他們的善與惡化為不朽的過去而成為永恒時，愿我們能感到，我們從來不是使他們受苦受挫折的原因;愿我們能感到，當他們的心中閃爍著圣火時，我們曾同情他們，安慰他們，并曾用豪言壯語鼓舞他們。

　　人的生命是短暫而脆弱的，不可避免的死亡雖然緩慢，但一定會降臨在每一個人身上，陰森而無情，這個全能的物質世界毫不容情地滾滾前行無視善惡，任意摧毀，對與人來說，注定今天要失去最親愛的親人朋友，明天自己也要通過黑暗的死亡之門，人的生命存在就在于死亡來襲之前，珍惜那些使他短暫的生命變得高貴的思想，鄙棄對命運的恐懼，對自建的圣壇頂禮膜拜，不受機緣的擺布，擺脫主宰他外部生活的粗暴統治而取得心靈的自由，敢于驕傲地向那些不可抗拒的壓力挑戰----這些壓力對其認識和判斷力不過是暫時的----他就像疲憊而不屈的擎天巨神，獨自支撐著他自己的理想世界，對這種無意識力量的肆意踐踏毫不理會。

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