THE PATIENT CHURCH.
Bide thou thy time!
Watch with meek eyes the race of pride and crime,
Sit in the gate, and be the heathen’s jest,
Smiling and self-possest.
O thou, to whom is pledged a victor’s sway,
Bide thou the victor’s day!
Think on the sin
That reap’d the unripe seed, and toil’d to win
Foul history-marks at Bethel and at Dan—
No blessing, but a ban;
Whilst the wise Shepherd hid his heaven-told fate,
Nor reck’d a tyrant’s hate.
Such loss is gain;
Wait the bright Advent that shall loose thy chain!
E’en now the shadows break, and gleams divine
Edge the dim, distant line.
When thrones are trembling, and earth’s fat ones quail,
True seed! thou shalt prevail.
—Newman.
SIR THOMAS MORE.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.
IV.
William du Bellay having remained in France, M. de Vaux had been sent to replace him in England. The latter, having but recently returned from Rome, where he was attached to the embassy of M. de Grammont, French ambassador to that court, was not yet initiated into the state of affairs as they existed at the court of Henry VIII.
Du Bellay was not satisfied with the change; and the old diplomate, finding his new assistant inclined to be somewhat dull, undertook to enlighten him—leading him on step by step into the intricacies of diplomacy, like a mother, or rather a governess, a little brusque, who is impatient at the slow progress the child makes in learning to walk.
“Come!” he exclaimed, “I see you understand nothing of this; so I shall have to be patient and begin it all over again. It is incredible,” he added, by way of digression, addressing himself to the public (who was absent), “what absurd reports are circulated outside with regard to what we say and do in our secret negotiations! It extends even to all these harebrains of the court; but you who have a foot in diplomacy I cannot excuse. Come, let us see—we say:
“When my brother left, he went to demand on the part of Henry VIII., of the universities of France, and above all that of Paris (preponderating over all the others)—remark well: to demand, I say—that they should give decisions favorable to the divorce. Now, this point appeared at first quite insignificant; but it is just here we have shown our ability (I would say I, but I do not wish to vaunt myself over a young man just starting out in the world like yourself). Then our king has replied to the King of England that he would ask nothing better than to use his influence with the universities to induce them to give satisfaction on this subject; but that (notice this especially) the Emperor Charles V. had made precisely the same demand in an opposite direction, in favor of Queen Catherine, his aunt; that if he refused the emperor, he would be extremely displeased, and that he was compelled to reflect a second time, because the princes, his children, were held as hostages in the hands of the emperor, and in spite of all his efforts he had not yet been able to pay the price of their ransom stipulated at the treaty of Cambrai.
“It then remained to say that we could do nothing for him—on the contrary, must oppose him so long as the children were held prisoners, or while there was even a chance that they would be restored to us on condition that we should throw our influence on the side of Queen Catherine. All of which is as clear as day—is it not? Now you are going to see if I have understood how to take advantage of these considerations with Henry VIII.”
Saying this, with a slightly derisive smile, Du Bellay took from a drawer a casket of green sharkskin, which he handed to De Vaux, who opened it eagerly.
“Oh! how beautiful,” he exclaimed, taking from the case and holding up in the sunlight a magnificent fleur de lis composed entirely of diamonds. “Oh! this is most superb.”
“Yes, it is beautiful!” replied Du Bellay with a satisfied air, “and worth one hundred and fifty thousand crowns. Philip, the emperor’s father, pledged it to the King of England for that sum. We are obliged by the treaty to redeem it; but as we have not the money to pay, it has been made a present to us. And here is what is better still,” he added, displaying a quittance—“a receipt in full for five hundred thousand crowns which the emperor owed Henry VIII.; and he now makes a present of it to Francis I., to enable him to pay immediately the two millions required for the ransom of the princes.”
“That is admirable!” cried De Vaux. “It must be admitted, my lord, that we shall be under great obligations to Mlle. Anne.”
“All disorders cost dear, my child,” replied Du Bellay; “and if this continues, they will ruin England. Think of what will have to be paid yet to the University of Paris!…”
“And do you suppose they will consent to this demand?” interrupted De Vaux.
“No, truly, I do not believe it,” replied Du Bellay. “Except Master Gervais, who is always found ready to do anything asked of him, I know not how they will decide; but, between ourselves, I tell you I believe they will be against it. But, observe, we have not promised a favorable decision—we have only left it to be hoped for; which is quite a different thing.”
“That is very adroit,” replied De Vaux, “assuredly; but it seems to me not very honest.”
“How! not honest?” murmured Du Bellay, contracting his little gray eyebrows, and fixing his greenish eyes on the fair face of the youth. “Not honest!” he again exclaimed in a stentorian voice. “Where do you come from, then, young man? Know that among these people honesty is a thing unheard of. Others less candid than myself may tell you the contrary, knowing very well that such is not the truth. They arrange projects with the intention of defeating them; they sign treaties with the studied purpose of violating them; they swear to keep the peace in order to prepare for war; and a state sells her authority and puts her influence in the balance of the world in favor of the highest bidder. Let the price be earth or metal, it is of no consequence; I make no distinction. When Henry devastated our territories and took possession of our provinces, was it just? No! ‘Might makes right’; that is the veritable law of nations—the only one they are willing to acknowledge or adopt. In default of strength, there remains stratagem; and I must use it!”
“Under existing circumstances you are right,” replied De Vaux, replacing in its case the superb fleur de lis, and again waving it in the sunlight. “It is a pity,” he added, “that they may be obliged to return this; it would set off wonderfully well the wedding dress of the future Duchess of Orleans.”
“What! are they speaking already of the marriage of the young Duke of Orleans?” asked Du Bellay in surprise.
“Ah! that is a great secret,” replied De Vaux confidentially. “You know our king has not abandoned the idea of subjugating the Milanese, and, to ensure the pope’s friendship, he offers to marry his second son to his niece, the young Catherine de’ Medici.”
“No!” cried M. du Bellay. “No, it is impossible! How can they forget that but a short time since the Medici family was composed of only the simple merchants of Florence?”
“It has all been arranged, notwithstanding,” replied De Vaux. “In spite of all our precautions, the emperor has been apprised of it. At first he refused to credit it, and would not believe the King of France could really think of allying his noble blood with that of the Medici. In the meantime he has been so much frightened, lest the hope of this alliance would not sufficiently dazzle Clement VIII., that he has made a proposal to break off the marriage of his niece, the Princess of Denmark, with the Duke of Milan, and substitute the young Catherine in her place. We have, as you may well suppose, promptly advised M. de Montmorency of all these things, who returned us, on the spot, full power to sign the articles. M. de Grammont immediately carried them to the pope; and he was greatly delighted, as Austria, it seems, had already got ahead of us, and persuaded him that we had no other intention than to deceive him and gain time. Now everything is harmoniously arranged. They promise for the marriage portion of Catherine Reggio, Pisa, Leghorn, Modena, Ribera, the Duchy of Urbino; and Francis I. cedes to his son his claims to the Duchy of Milan.”
“Sad compensation for a bad marriage!” replied M. du Bellay angrily: “new complications which will only result in bringing about interminable disputes! Princes can never learn to be contented with the territory already belonging to them. Although they may not possess sufficient ability to govern even that well, still they are always trying to extend it. War must waste and ruin a happy and flourishing country, in order to put them in possession of a few feet of desolated earth, all sprinkled with gold and watered with blood.”
“Ah! yes,” interrupted De Vaux earnestly, “we have learned this cruelly and to our cost. And relentless history will record without regret the account of our reverses, and the captivity of a king so valiant and dauntless—a king who has sacrificed everything save his honor.”
“Reflect, my dear, on all this. The honor of a king consists not in sacrificing the happiness of his people. A soldier should be brave—the head of a nation should be wise and prudent,” replied Du Bellay, as he turned over a great file of papers in search of something, “Valor without prudence is worthless. The intrigues of the cabinet are more certain; they are of more value than the best generals. They, at least, are never entirely defeated; the disaster of the evening inspires renewed strength for the morrow. Cold, hunger, and sickness are not able to destroy them.… They can only waste a few words or lose a sum of money. A dozen well-chosen spies spread their toils in every direction; we hold them like bundles of straw in our hands; they glide in the dark, slip through your fingers—an army that cannot be captured, which exists not and yet never dies; which drags to the tribunal of those who pay them, without pity as without discrimination, without violence as without hesitation, the hearts of all mankind.
“Gold, my child, but never blood! With bread we can move the world; with blood we destroy it. Your heart, young man, leaps within you at the sound of the shrill trumpet, when glittering banners wave and the noise of battle inebriates your soul. But look behind you, child, look behind you: the squadron has passed. Hear the shrieks and groans of the dying. Behold those men dragging themselves over the trampled field; their heads gashed and bleeding, their bones dislocated, their limbs torn; streams of blood flow from their wounds; they die in an ocean furnished from their own lacerated veins. Go there to the field of carnage and death; pause beside that man with pallid face and agonized expression; think of the tender care and painful anxiety of the mother who reared him from his cradle. How often she has pressed her lips upon the golden curls of her boy, the hope of her old age, which must now end in despair! Reflect there, upon the field of carnage and death, on the tender caresses of wives, sisters, and friends. Imagine the brother’s grief, the deep anguish of the father. Alas! all these recollections pass in an instant before the half-open eyes of the dying. Farewell! dream of glory, hateful vision now for ever vanished. Life is almost extinct, yet with the latest breath he thinks but of them! ‘They will see me no more! I must die far away, without being able to bid them a last adieu.’ Such are the bitter thoughts murmured by his dying lips as the last sigh is breathed forth. Tell me, young man, have you never reflected when, on the field glittering in the bright summer sunshine, you have seen the heavy, well-drilled battalions advance; when the prince rode in the midst of them, and they saluted him with shouts of enthusiasm and love; when that prince, a weak man like themselves, elated with pride, said to them: ‘March on to death; it is for me that you go!’ For you! And who are you? Their executioner, who throws their ashes to the wind of your ambition, to satisfy the thirst of your covetousness, the insolent pride of your name, which the century will see buried in oblivion! Ah! my son,” continued the old diplomate, deeply affected, with his hands crossed on the packet of papers, that he had entirely forgotten, “if you knew how much I have seen in my life of these horrible calamities, of these monstrous follies, which devastate the world! If you but knew how my heart has groaned within me, concealed beneath my gloomy visage, my exterior as impassible as my garments, you would understand how I hate them, these mighty conquerors, these vile plagues of the earth, and how I count as nothing the sack of gold which lies at the bottom of the precipice over which they push us, the adroit fraud that turns them aside from their course! But shall I weep like an old woman?” he suddenly exclaimed, vexed at being betrayed into the expression of so much emotion.
Hastily brushing the tear from his cheek, he began examining the package of papers, and, instantly recovering his usual composure, became M. du Bellay, the diplomate.
Young De Vaux, greatly surprised at the excess of feeling into which the ambassador had suddenly been betrayed, so much at variance with his previous manner, as well as his rule of conduct and the rather brusque reception he had given him, still remembered it when all thought of the occurrence had passed from the mind of his superior.
“Here, sir, read that,” he exclaimed, throwing the young man a small scrap of paper.
“I will read it, my lord.”
“Read aloud, sir.”
“‘Cardinal Wolsey, overcome by grief and alarm, has fallen dangerously ill. The king has been informed of it; he has ordered three physicians to Asher, and obliged Lady Anne to send him the golden tablets in token of his reconciliation. Furthermore, it is certainly true that the king has said: “I would not lose Wolsey for twenty thousand pounds.” It is unnecessary to impress upon my lord the importance of this event. My lord will, I hope, approve of the celerity with which I have despatched this information.’”
“It is without signature!” said De Vaux.
“I credit it entirely,” murmured Du Bellay.
“By my faith, I am delighted! These golden tablets afford me extreme pleasure,” said De Vaux. “This will revive the hopes of poor Cardinal Wolsey.”
“And that is all!… And you, content to know that he is happy, will remain quietly seated in your chair, I suppose,” said M. du Bellay, fixing his green eyes, lighted with a brilliant gleam, on young De Vaux. “Monsieur!” he continued, “it is not in this way a man attends to the business of his country. Since the day the cardinal was exiled, I have deliberated whether I should go to see him or not. My heart prompted me to do so, but it was not my heart I had to consult. I was persuaded the king would not be able to dispense with him, and sooner or later he would be recalled to the head of affairs. In that case I felt inclined to give him a proof of my attachment in his disgrace. But, on the other hand, that intriguing family who are constantly buzzing around the king induced me constantly to hesitate. Now I believe we have almost nothing more to fear; we will arrive there, perhaps, before the physicians, and later we shall know how to proceed.”
“Most willingly!” cried De Vaux. “I shall be happy indeed to see this celebrated man, of whom I have heard so many different opinions.”
“Doubtless,” interrupted Du Bellay impatiently, “pronounced by what is styled ‘public opinion’—a tribunal composed of the ignorant, the deluded, and short-sighted, who always clamor louder than others, and who take great care, in order to avoid compromising their stupidity, to prefix the ominous ‘they say’ to all their statements. As for me, I say they invariably display more hatred toward the virtues they envy than the vices they pretend to despise; and they will judge a man more severely and criticise him more harshly for the good he has tried to do than for what he may have left undone.… Gossiping, prying crowd, pronouncing judgment and knowing nothing, who will cast popularity like a vile mantle over the shoulders of any man who will basely stoop low enough before them to receive it! He who endeavors to please all pleases none,” added M. du Bellay, with a singularly scornful expression. “To live for his king, and above all for his country, despising the blame or hatred of the vulgar, should be the motto of every public man; and God grant I may never cease to remember it!”
“You believe, then, the cardinal will be restored to the head of affairs?” asked De Vaux, running his fingers through his blonde curls, and rising to depart.
“I am not sure of it yet,” replied Du Bellay; “we are going to find out. If the crowd surrounds him, as eager to pay him homage to-day as they were yesterday to overwhelm him with scorn and contempt; if, in a word, the courtiers sigh and groan around his bed, and pretend to feel the deepest concern, it will be a most certain indication of his return to favor. And, to speak frankly, I believe the king already begins to discover that no one can replace the cardinal near his person as private secretary; for that poor Gardiner copies a despatch with more difficulty than his predecessor dictated one.”
M. du Bellay arose and started, followed by De Vaux, to the bank of the Thames, where they entered a large boat already filled with passengers awaiting the moment of departure to ascend the river either to Chelsea, Battersea, or as far as Pultney, where the boat stopped. Bales of merchandise were piled up in the centre, on which were seated a number of substantial citizens conversing together with their hands in their pockets, and wearing the self-sufficient air of men the extent of whose purse and credit were well understood.
They fixed, at first, a scrutinizing glance on the new arrivals, and then resumed their conversation.
“Come, come, let us be off now!” exclaimed a young man, balancing himself on one foot. “Here is half an hour lost, and I declare I must be at Chelsea to dinner.”
“Indeed, it is already an hour. Look here! This cockswain doesn’t resemble our parliament at all; that does everything it is told to do!” he added, as he sauntered into the midst of the crowd.
“Hold your tongue, William,” immediately replied one of them; “you don’t recollect any more, I suppose, the assembly at Bridewell, where the king, knowing we condemned his course in the divorce affair, after having seized all the arms in the city, told us himself there was no head so high but he would make it fall if it attempted to resist him.”
“What shameful tyranny!” replied another, rolling a bundle under his foot. “I cannot think of it without my blood boiling. Are these Englishmen he treats in this manner?”
“And that wicked cardinal,” continued his neighbor in a loud, shrill voice—“he was standing by the king, and looking at us with his threatening eyes. He has been the cause of all the troubles we have had with this affair. But we are rid of him, at last.”
“We are rid of him, did you say?” interrupted a man about fifty or sixty years of age, who appeared to be naturally phlegmatic and thoughtful. “You are very well contented, it seems to me; … but it is because you only think of the present, and give yourself no concern whatever about the future. Ah! well, in a few days we will see if you are as well satisfied.”
“And why not then?” they all exclaimed in the same voice.
“Because, I tell you, because …”
“Explain yourself more clearly, Master Wrilliot,” continued young William. “You always know what’s going to happen better than anybody else.”
“Ah! yes, I know it only too well, in fact, my young friend,” he replied, shaking his head ominously; “and we will very soon learn to our sorrow that if the favor of the cardinal costs us dear, his disgrace will cost us still more. Parliament is going to remit all the king’s debts.”
“What! all of his debts? But Parliament has no right to do this!” they all exclaimed.
“No; but it will take the right!” replied Master Wrilliot. “William will lose half of his wife’s marriage portion, which, if I mistake not, his father gave him in royal trust; and I shall lose fifteen thousand crowns for which I was foolish enough to accept the deed of conveyance.”
“Ah! ah! that will be too unjust; it ought not to be,” they all repeated.
“Yes,” continued this far-seeing interlocutor, shaking his head contemptuously, “the king has no money to pay us. War has drained his private treasury, but he nevertheless draws from it abundant means to ransom French princes, who make him believe they will marry him to that lady Boleyn; and if you do not believe me, go ask these Frenchmen who are here present,” he added, raising his voice, and casting on MM. du Bellay and de Vaux a glance of cold, disdainful wrath.
M. du Bellay had lost nothing of the conversation; it was held too near him, and was too openly hostile for him to feign not to remark it. Finding himself recognized, and neither being able to reply to a positive interrogation nor to keep silence, he measured in his turn, very coolly, and without permitting the least indication of emotion or anger to appear, the face and form of his adversary.
“Sir;” he exclaimed, regarding him steadily, “who are you, and by what right do you call me to account? If it is your curiosity that impels you, it will not be gratified; if, on the contrary, you dare seek to insult me, you should know I will not suffer it. Answer me!”
“The best you can make of it will be worth nothing,” replied, with a loud burst of laughter, a Genoese merchant who did not recognize the ambassador, as he sat by the men who directed the boat. “Forget your quarrel, gentlemen, and, instead of disputing, come look at this beautiful vessel we are just going to pass. See, she is getting ready to sail. A fine ship-load!—a set of adventurers who go to try their fortunes in the new world discovered by one of my countrymen,” he added with an air of intense satisfaction.
“Poor Columbus!” replied one of the citizens, “he experienced throughout his life that glory does not give happiness, and envy and ingratitude united together to crush his genius. Do you not believe, if he could have foreseen the cruelties Hernando Cortez and Pizarro exercised toward the people whom he discovered, he would have preferred leaving the secret of their existence buried for ever in the bosom of the stormy sea that bore him to Europe, rather than to have announced there the success of his voyage?”
“I believe it,” said Wrilliot, “his soul was so beautiful! He loved humanity.”
“Christopher Columbus!” exclaimed young William, full of youthful enthusiasm and admiration for a man whose home was the ocean. “I cannot hear his name pronounced without emotion! I always imagine I see him in that old convent of Salamanca, before those learned professors and erudite monks assembled to listen to a project which in their opinion was as rash as it was foolish.
“‘How do you suppose,’ said they, ‘that your vessel will ever reach the extremity of the Indies, since you pretend that the earth is round? You would never be able to return; for what amount of wind do you imagine it would require to enable your ship to remount the liquid mountain which it had so easily descended? And do you forget that no creature can live under the scorching atmosphere of the torrid zone?’
“Columbus refuted their arguments; but these doctors still insisted, nor hesitated to openly demand of him how he could be so presumptuous as to believe, if the thing had been as he said, it could have remained undiscovered by so many illustrious men, born before him, and who had attained the highest degree of learning, while for him alone should have been reserved the development of this grand idea.”
“And yet,” said Wrilliot, who had listened in silence, “it was permitted, some years later, that he should go down to the grave wearing the chains with which his persecutors had loaded him, in order to keep him away from the world that he alone had been able to discover!”
“What perseverance! What obstacles he succeeded in overcoming!” replied one of those who had first spoken. “I shall always, while I live, recall with pleasure having been of service to his brother Bartholomew when he came to this country.”
“What! he came here?” repeated William.
“Yes, and was in my own house,” continued the citizen. “Christopher, finding the senate of Genoa and the King of Portugal refused equally to listen or furnish him with vessels necessary for the enterprise he had so long meditated, sent his brother to King Henry VII. He was unfortunately captured, in coming over, by some pirates, who kept him in slavery. Many years elapsed before he succeeded in escaping and reaching England, where he found himself reduced to such a state of destitution that he was obliged to design charts for a living, and to enable him to present himself in decent apparel at court. The king gave him a favorable reception, but Christopher, in the meantime, receiving no intelligence from his brother, solicited so earnestly the court of Spain that he obtained two small vessels from Isabella of Castile, and very soon after Europe learned of the existence of another hemisphere. Spain planted her standard there, and we thus lost the advantages which were destined for us.”
“I do not regret it,” replied an old man sitting in the midst of the crowd, who had until that time maintained a profound silence. “Is it not better for a nation to be less rich and powerful than stained with so many crimes? It is now but thirty-eight years since Columbus founded the colony of San Domingo. This island then contained a million of inhabitants; to-day there scarcely remain forty thousand. But,” pursued the old man with a bitter smile, “they will not stop there. No; they will not confine their barbarous exploits to that miserable region. They are renewing in Peru the carnage they carried on in Mexico. It is necessary to have a great many places for a man to die—to pass a few moments, and then go and hide himself in the grave! I have already lived seventy-nine years, and yet it seems to me now that my left hand still rests on my cradle. I can scarcely believe that these white locks are scattered upon my head; for my life has sped like the fleeting dream of a single night that has passed. Yes, William,” continued the old man, “you look at me with astonishment, and your eyes, full of youthful fire, are fixed upon mine, in which the light has long been extinguished. Ah! well, you will very soon see it extinguished in your own, but not before you will have witnessed all their cruelties.”
“That is bad,” replied William. “But these Indians are stupid and indolent beyond all parallel;[232] they will neither work nor pay the taxes imposed on them.”
“And from whom do the Spaniards claim the right of reducing these people to a state of servitude,” exclaimed the old man indignantly, “and to treat them like beasts of burden whom they are privileged to exterminate with impunity, and carry off the gold their avarice covets, the dagger in one hand, the scourge in the other? They ensure them, they say, the happiness of knowing the Christian religion! How dare they presume to instruct these people in that Gospel of peace which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to detach our hearts from the things of the world, and, leaving our offering before the altar, go and be reconciled with our enemy?”
“From that point of view your argument would seem just,” replied William; “but the fact is, if the Spaniards did not force these islanders to work them, the mines would remain unproductive, the fields uncultivated, and the colonies would perish.”
“You are mistaken,” replied the old man. “In acting as she does Spain destroys in her own womb the source from whence she would draw an immense revenue. If she had been satisfied to establish an honest and peaceable commerce with these countries, her industry, excited to the highest degree by the rich commodities of exchange, would have conferred an incalculable benefit on an entire people whom her blind cupidity has induced her to crush and destroy.
“Do you suppose these isolated negroes they buy at such enormous prices will ever be able to replace the native inhabitants who live and die in their own country? This strange and ferocious population will remain among the colonies, enemies always ready to revolt; a yoke of iron and blood will alone be sufficient to keep them in subjection. But let these masters tremble if ever the power falls into the hands of their slaves!”
MM. du Bellay and de Vaux listened to this conversation in silence, and the diversion was at first agreeable; but they were soon convinced that they were suddenly becoming again the objects of general attention.
“I tell you,” exclaimed one, “they are going to look for the cardinal and bring him back to court.”
“Well!” replied another, “I would like to see M. du Bellay in the place of the legate Campeggio.”
“Ah! and what have they done with him, then?” they all eagerly demanded.
“He was arrested at Dover, where he had gone to embark. He was dreadfully alarmed, believing they came to assassinate him. His baggage was searched, in order to find Wolsey’s treasures, with which he was entrusted, they said, for safe keeping.”
“And did they find them?” asked the Genoese merchant, eagerly leaning forward at the sound of the word treasure.
“It seems they did not find them,” was the reply.
“Hear what they say!” whispered young De Vaux in the ear of M. du Bellay.
“I presume they were in search of the legal documents, but they were too late. They have long ago arrived in Italy. Campeggio was careful enough to send them secretly by his son Rudolph.[233] I often saw this young man in Rome, and heard him say his father had entrusted him with all his correspondence and despatches,[234] as he was not certain what fate Henry had in store for him.”
“You say,” replied young William, elevating his voice in order that M. du Bellay might hear him, “that the king has sent the Earl of Wiltshire to Rome to solicit his divorce. He had better make all these strangers leave who come into our country only to sow discord, and then gather the fruits of their villany.”
This speech, although spoken indirectly, was evidently intended for the two Frenchmen; but the Genoese merchant, always inclined to be suspicious, immediately applied it to himself.
“Master William,” he exclaimed, reddening with anger, “have you forgotten that for twenty years I have been a commercial friend of your father. And if he has made his fortune with our velvets and silks, to whom does he owe it, if not to those who, by their honesty and promptness in fulfilling their engagements, were the first cause of his success? Now, because you are able to live without work, you take on this insulting manner—very insulting indeed. However, I give you to understand that, if it suited me to do it, I could make as great a display of luxury and wealth as yourself, and can count on my dresser as many dishes and flagons of silver as you have; and if it suited me to remain at home, there is no necessity for me to travel any more on business.”
The merchant continued to boast of his fortune, and William began to explain that his remarks were by no means intended for him, when the passengers began to cry out: “Land! land! Here is Chelsea; we land at Chelsea.”
The rowers halted immediately, and the little boats sent from the shore came to take off the passengers who wished to land.
Almost all of them went; none remaining on the boat except the ambassador, the Genoese merchant, and two citizens whose retiring and prudent character could be read in the quiet, thoughtful expression of their faces. They gazed for a long time on the surrounding country; at last one of them hazarded the question:
“Do you know who owns that white house with the terraced garden extending down to the bank of the Thames?”
“That is the residence of Sir Thomas More, the new chancellor,” replied his companion methodically.
“Ah! it does not make much show. Do you know this new chancellor?”
“By my faith, no! However, I saw him the other day on the square at Westminster, as I was passing; the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were conducting him with great ceremony to the Star Chamber (at least that is what they told me). I stopped to look at him. There was an immense crowd filling all the square. In crossing it the Duke of Norfolk stopped, and, turning to the crowd before him, said the king had instructed him to publicly proclaim what great and important services Sir Thomas had rendered him in every position he had confided to his care, and it was on that account he esteemed him so highly, and had appointed him now to the highest position in the kingdom because of his virtues and the rare talents he possessed. Everybody listened and said nothing (because you know the last is always the best).” The citizen said this in a very low tone.
“More replied very well,” he continued. “He said that, while deeply grateful for his majesty’s goodness and favors, he felt no less deeply convinced that the king had rewarded him far beyond his merits; in all he had accomplished he had but done his duty, and he greatly feared now that he might not possess the ability necessary for acquitting himself of the duties of so high and important an office. And—a very singular thing (for they do not usually speak of their predecessors)—he declared that he could not rejoice in the honor conferred on him, as it recalled the name of the wise and honorable prelate whom he had superseded. On hearing that I supposed they would hiss; but not at all. He said everything so well, with so much sincerity, dignity, and firmness, that they applauded him with an indescribable enthusiasm. It seemed those who knew him were never satisfied with praising him. Nobody, they said, rendered justice so scrupulously as he; none were so wise, so disinterested; in fact, they never ended the recital of his perfections.”
“Ah!” said the other, in a voice scarcely audible, while he looked round to discover if any one could hear him, “we will see later if he performs all these wonderful things, and if any one will be able to get near him without paying even his doorkeeper, as was the case with the other.”
“Yes, we will see,” replied his companion. “None of these great lords are worth much—any amount of promises; but of deeds—nothing!”
“But this is not a great lord,” answered the citizen.
“Ah! well, it is all the same; as soon as they rise, they grow proud, and despise and scorn the people. You may believe if ever I obtain a patent of nobility, and become still richer than I am now, I will crush them beautifully; there will not be one who will dare contradict me. By my faith! it is a great pity I had not been born a count or a baron; I should have been so well up to all their impertinences and want of feeling.”
“It is not very difficult,” replied his companion; “you are, I think, sufficiently so now for the good of that poor youth who wants to marry your daughter. He will lose his senses, I am afraid, poor fellow.”
“What did you say, neighbor?” replied the citizen, feeling the blood mount to his face. “Do you think I will give my daughter to a wretch who has not a cent in the world—I who have held in my family the right of citizenship from time immemorial? My grandmother also told me we have had two aldermen of our name. All that counts, you see, Master Allicot; and if you wish to remain my friend, I advise you not to meddle yourself with the tattle of my wife and daughter on the subject of that little wretch they are putting it into her head to marry; because, in truth, the mother is as bad as the daughter. Ah! neighbor, these women, these women are the plagues of our lives! Don’t say any more to me about it. They will run me distracted; but they will make nothing by it, I swear it, neighbor. The silly jades! to dare speak to me of such a match! Hush! don’t say any more to me about it, neighbor; for it will drive me mad!”
The neighbor did reply, however, because he had been commissioned to use his influence in softening the husband and father in favor of a young mechanic full of life and health, who had no other fault than that of belonging to a class less elevated than that of the proud citizen who rejected his humble supplications with scorn.
But the dénouement of this embassy, and the termination of this romance of the warehouse, have been for ever lost to history; for M. du Bellay, seeing they were almost in sight of Asher, made them land him, and the two honorable citizens doubtless continued their journey and their conversation.
At Asher M. du Bellay found everything just as he expected. The physicians surrounded Wolsey’s bed, watching his slightest movement. The golden tablets of young Anne Boleyn were thrown open upon the coarse woollen bedspread that covered the sick man. Cromwell walked the floor with folded arms. He approached the bed from time to time, looked at Wolsey, whose closed eyes and labored breathing betokened nothing favorable, then at the golden tablets, then at the physicians around him. He seemed to say, “Is he going to die, and just when he might be so useful to me?”
On seeing M. du Bellay enter, his countenance lighted up; he ran on before him, and endeavored to arouse Wolsey from his stupor.
“My lord, the ambassador of France!” he cried in the ear of the dying man.
But he received no reply.
“It is singular,” said the doctors, “nothing can arouse him.” And they looked gravely at each other.
“He will not die! I tell you he will not die!” replied Cromwell, evincing the most impatient anxiety.
He approached the cardinal and shook his head.
“Crom—well,” murmured the sick man.
“Monsieur du Bellay!” shouted Cromwell a second time.
Wolsey’s eyes remained closed.
“Let him alone,” cried the physicians; “he must not be excited.”
“So I think,” said M. du Bellay. “You can tell him I have been here,” continued the ambassador, turning towards Cromwell, “but did not wish to disturb him.”
M. du Bellay then took his leave, and returned by the land route to London. He encountered, not far from Asher, a party of the cardinal’s old domestics, whom the king had sent to carry him several wagon-loads of furniture and other effects. At the head of this convoy rode Cavendish, one of the cardinal’s most faithful servants.
Seeing M. du Bellay, they collected around him, and hastily inquired about their master.
Du Bellay advised them to quicken their speed, and, taking leave, went on his way, thinking that the cardinal would not be restored to favor, and already arranging in his mind another course in which to direct his diplomatic steps for the future.
He was not mistaken: Wolsey escaped death, but only to find himself surrounded by misery and abandoned to despair.
TO BE CONTINUED.
PRIMITIVE CIVILIZATION.[235]
If our modern men of science would not travel out of their sphere, there would be no war between them and the church. In the name of the Catholic religion we invite them to push onward in the path of scientific discovery with the utmost energy and ardor of which they are capable. But if their discoveries are to have any bearing on the truths of the Christian revelation, we can accept nothing less than demonstration, and they must not credit science, as does Mr. Tyndall, with mere theories of speculative philosophy. With this reservation, we wish their labors all possible success. But if poor fallible reason—whose discoveries, after whole millenniums of toil, are little better than a record of the blunders of one generation corrected by the blunders of another; and, even on the supposition that they are all correct, are, by comparison with what is unknown, as a drop of water compared with the limitless ocean—ventures to deny the existence of the soul because it has no lens powerful enough to bring it within the cognizance of the senses, its conclusion is no longer scientific. The doctor has become a quack, the philosopher a fool. If the torch which the Creator has placed at the service of his creature, to help him to grope his way amidst the objects of sense, and to illuminate his faith, is to be flung in his face because it does not reveal the whole infinitude of the majesty of his beauty, we can only compassionate so childish a misuse of a noble gift. If natural philosophy is to rob the sensible creation of a motive and end, and to proclaim it to be merely the result of an unintelligent atomic attraction and evolution of forces, a more intelligent and a more logical philosophy, in harmony with the unquenchable instinct of immortality within the human soul, casts from it such pitiful trifling with indignation and a holy disdain. If, in short, the science of nature would dethrone nature’s Creator and God, we address to it the word which He to whom all true science leads addressed to the ocean he placed in the deep hollows of the earth: “Hitherto thou shalt come, and thou shalt go no farther: and here thou shalt break thy swelling waves.”
Physical science cannot contradict the divine revelation. No discovery hitherto made has done so; and until one such presents itself we are entitled to assume its impossibility as a philosophical axiom. For this reason we are of those who would give full rein to even the speculations of experimental philosophy, so long as they are confined strictly within the domain of secondary causes or natural law, and do not venture into a sphere of thought beyond the reach of experimental science, where they are immediately confronted with the dogmas of the faith.
We have never thought that the theory of the evolution of species must of necessity transgress that limit. It has been made to do so by philosophuli, if we may invent a name for them—speculative bigots, who are bent on extorting from natural phenomena any plausible support of the infidel prejudices of which they were previously possessed. A more intelligent observation of scientific facts would have saved them from a ridiculous extravagance which makes them resemble those afflicted creatures, whom we so often meet with in asylums for the insane, who suppose themselves to be God.
We must never lose sight of the fact that God can only communicate with his creature in such a way as he can understand. If he were to reveal himself to any of us as he is, we should die, unless he supplied us with a miraculous capacity for supporting the vision. If he had inspired the historian of those primitive ages to describe the astronomical phenomenon which happened in the time of Joshua in the exact language of physical science, what meaning would it have conveyed to people who did not know that the earth revolves around its own axis and around the sun? If it be objected, Why did not the Holy Spirit use language consistent with scientific truth, and leave it to be understood afterwards in the progress of science? we reply, Because it would have thwarted his own designs to have done so. The Bible is a book of instruction in truth out of the reach of human intelligence, not a book of natural science; and it appeals to the obedience of faith rather than to reason. The mental toil of scientific discovery was a part of the punishment inflicted on the original transgression. To anticipate the result of that toil by thousands of years would have been to contradict His own dispensation.
In the same manner the sublime record of the genesis of the illimitable universe which weaves its dance of light in space is told in a few sentences: The fiat of Him with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, and the successive order of the creation—that is all. Time was not then, for it was the creation of time. Man can conceive no ideas independent of time, and so days are named; but it is evident that the word may stand for indeterminate periods of time. The creation of light was, it cannot be doubted, instantaneous. But that creation was a law—limitation, relation, succession—whose working was an evolution in successive orders or stages, over which presided the Creator, and still presides. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” Each of these was a distinct creation, perfect in itself, not an evolution of species. The creation was progressive, but not in the sense of the creation of every one of its six cycles evolving out of the preceding one; for in that case either the lower would have disappeared or the evolution would be still in operation. The firmament did not develop out of light, nor the ocean and the dry land out of the firmament; nor were the fishes an evolution from the sea-weed, nor the birds from the trees and shrubs, nor the wild beasts from the reeds of the jungle, nor man from the lower animals. But they were all to be made before his creation who was the sum and end of all; and the atmosphere must be created before the birds, the ocean before the fishes, the dry land before vegetable life.
And not only was there never any evolution of species into other species, but the creation of every separate species was complete, so that there has never been an evolution of any species into a higher state or condition. There has never been any progress in that sense. Every species, including the human being, remains precisely as it issued from the hand of God, when it has not degenerated or disappeared. Indeed, the tendency of all living things around us is to degeneracy and decay. Whatever progress can be predicated of man is of his moral nature only, and of his knowledge, through the divine revelation. But even that is not a race progress, an evolution of species, but an individual one. If this be conceded—and we think it scarcely admits of dispute—we see no danger to the dogmas of the faith in allowing to the natural philosophers any length of ages they may claim for the creation of the home of man before he was called into being for whom it was destined.
Whatever period of time was covered by those cycles of creation, throughout them it may be said that he was being made. If all was for him and to end in him, it was in effect he who all along was being made. Yet the whole was only a preparatory creation. It was only his body in which all resulted. “A body thou hast prepared for me.” It was when “God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” that man was created. It was then he became “a living soul.”
The error of the physicists who reject revelation is threefold. They make the body the man; they thus assign to his body and the inner principle which animates it a simultaneous beginning and joint development, some of them going so far as to make the spirit itself, or soul, or whatever they call the animating principle, the spontaneous product of material forces. And, throwing back the beginning of the evolution process into untold ages, by comparison with which the life of an individual is a scarcely appreciable moment, they suppose the process to be still going on as it begun. All this obviously contradicts the direct statements of revelation. It is, indeed, shocking to mere human reason. The work of the natural creation ended with the sixth day. Up to that time, whether the periods were long or short, the work was going on. But it was complete when the body which had been prepared for him was animated with the spirit of life. After that there was no farther development. It is contrary to reason to suppose it. It is contrary to the whole analogy of nature. Not an instance can be adduced, throughout the entire creation, of one species developing into another—not an instance even of any species developing within itself into a higher order of being. But up to that period, of which it is thus written, Igitur PERFECTI SUNT cœli et terra, et omnis ornatus eorum: COMPLEVITQUE Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat; et requievit die septimo ab uni verso opere quod patrarat, we may admit, without risk of heterodoxy, any doctrine of evolution of which the physicists may give us a satisfactory evidence.
The physicists, in support of their irrational theory of evolution, maintain that the earliest developments of human consciousness were of the lowest order, and that man has ever since been gradually progressing towards a higher morality and loftier spheres of thought. In this able and interesting work Father Thébaud demonstrates, by an exhaustive induction from the history and literature of all the nations, that the history of mankind up to the coming of Christ, instead of a progress, was a continual retrogression.
In his introductory chapter he establishes, by proofs which should be conclusive to all minds unprepossessed by an arrogant perversity, that primitive man was in possession of a primitive revelation. In the morning twilight of the ages, as far back as we can see across the Flood, up to the very cherubim-guarded entrance to the seats of innocence from which the erring creature had been driven, he traces everywhere those rites and dogmas, in their elemental form, which, in their complete development and full significance, made known to us by the revelation of the fulness of time, are still of faith and observance amongst the sons of God from end to end of the habitable globe. This revelation did not go beyond monotheism, because the fallen immortal had to be prepared, through long ages of discipline, for the revelation of the triune nature of the Godhead, and of his restoration to the forfeited favor of his Father by the incarnation and atoning sacrifice of the Eternal Son. We do not remember to have met before with the ingenious hypothesis[236] that the configuration of the earth, consisting of an all-embracing ocean, in the midst of which vast continents are islands, evidences the design of the Creator to have been that “men should have intercourse of some kind with one another,” and that on the land.
“The oceans and rivers, instead of being primarily dividing lines, intended to separate men from one another, had precisely for their first object to become highways and common channels of intercourse between the various nations of mankind.”
But our author considers that the social intercommunion to which the configuration of the earth was to administer was not to develop in the form of “an universal republic,” but that “men were to consent to exist in larger or smaller groups, each of them surrounded with well-defined limits determining numerous nationalities,” united in the bond of religious uniformity which he terms patriarchal Catholicity.
The design of the Creator of universal brotherhood amongst his creatures was not to be fulfilled before the lapse of ages, and throughout that dismal period it has the appearance of being perpetually thwarted by their perverseness. The memories of Paradise rapidly faded away amongst them. After what period of time we are not told, the sons of God committed a second infidelity by intermarrying with the daughters of men. The result was a race of giants—giants in capacity and crime as well as in bodily form—whose existence universal tradition attests. In almost open alliance with the powers of darkness, they sank with such fearful rapidity down the abyss of depravation, dragging with them the better portion of the race, that, to avert the triumph of hell and the utter reprobation of his creature, the offended Creator buried the guilty memories of colossal crime beneath an universal deluge, at whose subsidence the first civilization reappeared on the mountains of Asia in all its earliest purity, brought across the forty days’ extinction of life upon the earth by the eight souls who alone had turned a deaf ear to the universal seduction. “This idea of a gradual and deeper degradation of human kind,” says Frederick Schlegel, “in each succeeding age, appears at first sight not to accord very well with the testimony which sacred tradition furnishes on man’s primitive state, for it represents the two races of the primitive world as contemporary; and, indeed, Seth, the progenitor of the better and nobler race of virtuous patriarchs, was much younger than Cain. However, this contradiction is only apparent, if we reflect that it was the wicked and violent race which drew the other into its disorders, and that it was from this contamination a giant corruption sprang, which continually increased, till, with a trifling exception, it pervaded the whole mass of mankind, and till the justice of God required the extirpation of degenerate humanity by one universal flood.”
It does not admit of a moment’s doubt, as our author argues, that with this terrible judgment began the dissolution of that fraternal unity which God had intended should be the happy lot of the human family, and for which the configuration of the earth was adapted. The gigantic unity of crime was smitten to pieces in the helplessness of division. They who had been brothers looked in one another’s faces and found them strange. They opened their lips, and, lo! their speech was to others a jargon of unintelligible sounds. The one could no more understand the other than they could the wolf or the jackal with whom they both began to be mutually classed. The intercommunion of families of men with one another was rudely snapped asunder. There were no means of common action, there was no medium of common thought. The fragments into which the human family were smitten went off in different directions, to post themselves, in attitudes of mutual distrust and defiance, behind mountains or morasses, on the skirts of forests, the borders of torrents, or in the security of measureless deserts, where their practised eyes swept the horizon. Intercommunion was rendered still more impossible by the mutual antagonism, fear, and hatred that prevailed. And the very ocean, instead of being a pathway for the interchange of social life, became a formidable barrier between man and man. The dangers to be encountered on the lands to which the winds might bear them were more to be dreaded than the terrible phantoms which, issuing ever and anon from the home of the storms, raged across the ocean, and lashed into merciless fury its roaring waves. Memory had lost, in the primeval language, the key of its treasure-house. As years went on, amidst the exacting preoccupations of new ways of life, new surroundings, new ways of expressing their thoughts, and their increasing tribal or race isolation, the ideas upon which their primeval civilization had been based grew dimmer and dimmer, until they finally disappeared.
“To establish this in detail,” says the author of Gentilism, “is the purpose of this work.” And this purpose appears to us to have been accomplished in the most convincing manner.
The scientists maintain, and it is necessary to their evolution theory, that man began with barbarism, and moved slowly onwards in the gradual stages of their tedious evolution process towards what they call civilization, which is to lead, we believe, in the future developments of the ever-continuing evolution, to some loftier state and condition, of the nature of which they supply us with not the faintest idea.
This notion of the original barbarism of man is one of those fallacies which get imbedded in the general belief of mankind one knows not how. Strange to say, it has been very generally acquiesced in for no manner of reason; and it is only of late years that thoughtful men, outside of the faith, have come to suspect that it is not quite the truism they had imagined.
There is a reason for this: The attenuation of the claims of another world on the every-day life and on the conduct of men effected by the great revolt of the XVIth century, and the keener relish for the things of this life which consequently ensued, have infected the sentiments of mankind with an exaggerated sense of the importance of material objects and pursuits. Thus the idea of civilization, instead of being that of the highest development of the moral and whole inner being of social man, is limited to the discovery of all the unnumbered ways and means of administering to the embellishment and luxury of his actual life. His very mental progress, as they term it with extraordinary incorrectness, is only regarded in this light.
“The speculators on the stone, bronze, and iron ages,” writes our author, “place civilization almost exclusively in the enjoyment by man of a multitude of little inventions of his own, many of which certainly are derived from the knowledge and use of metals. Any nation deprived of them cannot be called civilized in their opinion, because reduced to a very simple state of life, which, they say unhesitatingly, is barbarism.… Barbarism, in fact, depends much more on moral degradation than on physical want of comfort. And when we come to describe patriarchal society, our readers will understand how a tribe or nation may deserve to be placed on an exalted round of the social ladder, although living exclusively on the fruits of the earth, and cultivating it with a simple wooden plough.”[237]
Father Thébaud next proceeds, with convincing force, to demolish the argument in behalf of the gradual evolution of the entire race from a state of barbarism, which the evolutionists allege to have been inevitably its first stage of intellectual consciousness drawn from the discovery of human skeletons in caves, and in the drift of long past ages, in juxtaposition with instruments of rude construction belonging to the palæolithic age and fossil remains of extinct animals. This argument has always appeared to us so feeble as to seem a mystery how it could be employed by learned men, unless in support of some preconceived opinion which they would maintain at all hazards. The occasional outbreaks of the Mississippi, the terrible devastation effected by the mere overflow of the Garonne in the South of France, give but a faint idea of what changes must have been effected upon the crust of the earth by the subsidence of the huge mass of water, which must have been at least eight or nine times as ponderous as all the oceans which have since lain at peace in its hollows. As the prodigious volumes of water, sucked and drawn hither and thither, as they hurried to their mountain-bed, rushed in furious tides and vast whirlpools of terrific force, they must have torn up the earth’s crust like a rotten rag. Whole valleys must have been scooped out down to the very root of the mountains, and débris of all kinds deposited everywhere in all kinds of confusion, so as to afford no secure data whatever for chronological, or zoölogical, or geological deductions.
Still more conclusive is Father Thébaud’s refutation of the argument in behalf of the evolution theory drawn from the discovery of stone implements of rude construction in what is asserted to be the earliest drift deposit of iron in the later strata, and bronze in the latest. To make this argument of any force it must be proved that these periods evolved regularly and invariably from one another throughout the whole race of mankind. Their periodicity, as Father Thébaud has it, must be indisputably proved. But this is just what it cannot be. On the contrary,
“In this last age in which we live; in the previous ages, which we can know by clear and unobjectionable history; finally, in the dimmest ages of antiquity of which we possess any sufficiently reliable records, the three ‘periods’ of stone, bronze, and iron have always subsisted simultaneously, and consequently are no more ‘periods’ when we speak of the aggregate of mankind, but they are only three co-existing aspects of the same specific individual.”[238]
To the same effect is the argument that
“The artistic distance between the rough palæolithic flints and the polished stones of the neolithic period exhibits a gap which tells but indifferently in favor of the believers in continuous progress. Either there has been a strange severment of continuity, or the men of the first period were better artists, and not such rough barbarians as the remains we possess of them seem to attest.”
The scientific arguments, however, of Father Thébaud, in disproof of the alleged original barbarism of the human race, satisfactory as they are, as far as they go, are little more than introductory to the more conclusive historical argument which constitutes the body of his valuable and very opportune work. “The best efforts to ascertain the origin of man,” he justly remarks, “or primeval religion, by the facts of geology or zoölogy, can at best only result in more or less probable conjectures.”
In an argument of this nature our author begins, as was to have been expected, from that philosophical, impassive, and ancient people who inhabit the triangular peninsula which stretches out from no vast distance from the original seat of the renewed race of man into the Southeastern Atlantic. There they have dwelt from times beyond which history does not reach. Inheriting a civilization which dates from the subsiding Deluge, whose gradual decadence can be distinctly traced, they are in possession of the earliest writings that exist, unless the books of Moses or the book of Job are older, which, we do not think it is rash to say, is, at least, doubtful. We find ourselves in the presence of the noblest truths of even supernatural religion, mingled, it is true, with the gross pantheistical absurdities which had already begun to deface the primitive revelation and to deteriorate the primitive civilization.
The general process throughout the world was, no doubt, as Father Thébaud describes—
“After a period of universal monotheism, the nations began to worship ‘the works of God,’ and fell generally into a broad pantheism. They took subsequently a second step, perfectly well marked, later on, in Hindostan, Central Asia, Egypt, Greece, etc.—a step originating everywhere in the imagination of poets, materializing God, bringing him down to human nature and weakness, and finally idealizing and deifying his supposed representations in statuary and painting.”[239]
But we must venture to differ from Father Thébaud as to the religion of the Hindoos having ever taken the latter step. The form its pantheism took, in consequence of its tenets of the incarnations of Vishnu—the second god of the triad—and of metempsychosis, was a worship of animals, and especially of the cow—a worship which prevails to this day. But this was not the gross idolatry of the Greeks and Romans, but rather a respect, a cultus, in consequence of the supposed possible presence in the former of departed friends, and of the incarnation of the divinity in the latter. Their idols are huge material representations of the might and repose which are the chief attributes of the Hindoo deity, or of animals with which the above-named ideas were especially associated; but we do not think they ever were worshipped as was, for example Diana by the Ephesians.
Be this as it may, it in no way affects the incontrovertible testimony which Father Thébaud adduces to the high state of civilization of this remarkable people fifteen hundred years, at all events, before Christ. He proves it from their social institutions, which issued from a kind of tribal municipality closely resembling the Celtic clans, but without the principle of superseding the rightful heir to a deceased canfinny by another son in consequence of certain disqualifications, and that of the ever-recurring redistribution of land, which were the bane of Celtic institutions. The caste restrictions, our author shows from the laws of Menu, were not nearly so rigorous in those primitive ages; and from the same source he exhibits undeniable proof of that purity of morals which evidences the highest stage of civilization, and which has sunk gradually down to the vicious barbarism of the present day. We suspect, however, that this latter has been somewhat exaggerated. It is certainly our impression, taken from works written by those who have lived for years in familiar intercourse with the people, that amongst the Hindoo women there still lingers conspicuous evidence of the purity of morals which was universal amongst them in the beginning of their history.
It might have been added, moreover, that the laws of Menu, in addition to their high morality, display a knowledge of finance and political economy, of the science of government, and of the art of developing the resources of a people which indicate a very high state of civilization indeed.
It is impossible for us, within the limits assigned us, to follow Father Thébaud through an argument consisting exclusively of learned detail. Our readers, if they would have any proper appreciation of it, must consult the work itself. We remark merely that, starting from the admitted fact that the Vedas contain the doctrine of plain and pure monotheism, and that in those distant ages “doctrines were promulgated and believed in” “which far transcend all the most solemn teaching of the greatest philosophers who flourished in the following ages, and which yield only to the sublime and exquisitely refined teachings of Incarnate Wisdom,”[240] our author traces the inroads of pantheism from the time when the doctrine, recently revived by men once Christians, of an “universal soul” was openly proclaimed, and “when it was asserted that our own is a ‘spark’ from the ‘blazing fire,’ that God is ‘all beings,’ and ‘all beings are God.’”[241] And he traces elaborately the change through the several mystical works of the philosophical Brahmins subsequent to the Vedas. Buddhism is a comparatively modern development. We doubt its being any form of Hindooism whatever. It appears to us to be rather the earliest development of that spirit of hostility to the life-giving truths of the Christian revelation which began its work almost at their very cradle—that abject principle of materialism which, after having dragged down the vast populations of China and of North and Western India to the lowest depths of mental and moral degradation of which human nature is susceptible, is now sweeping over Christendom, and threatening to “deceive,” if it were possible, “even the very elect.”
Father Thébaud’s next chapter is devoted to a historical review of the primeval religion and its decline in Central Asia and Africa. And here the proof is more overwhelming, if possible, than in the case of India. As to the monotheism of the great Doctor—if we may give him such a title—of the ancient East, and of the Zends, there can be no manner of doubt. Nay, “even the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is clearly contained in the most authentic part of the Zend-Avesta.” There is also that august personage, apart from all superior beings under God, “who stands between God and man; shows the way to heaven, and pronounces judgment upon human actions after death; guards with his drawn sword the whole world against the demons; has his own light from inside, and from outside is decorated with stars.” Our author makes Zoroaster, at the latest, a contemporary of Moses, and justly observes that the Zend-Avesta “represents the thoughts of men very near the origin of our species.” Now, the magnificent eloquence and profound truth of the thoughts we meet, rivalling at times the Book of Job, the beauty of the prayers, and the elaborate splendor of the ritual, testify to a very different state of things in those earliest days from that alleged by the evolutionists. Father Thébaud decides the Zends to be Vedic, and not Persian. And no doubt in the remarkable form and construction of the poems—dramatic, and mostly in the form of dialogue—in the tone of thought and leading religious ideas, they closely resemble the Hindoo Vedas. But it is our impression that we do not find in the writings of Zoroaster that perpetual insistence on the necessity of absorption into the deity which characterizes the Hindoo poems—the Bhagavât-Gita, for example. It would appear that the Persians occupied a special place in the dispensation of God in the ancient world. The Holy Spirit, in the prophecies, speaks of “my servant Cyrus whom I have chosen,” and it is certain that the pure monotheistic worship was preserved longer in Persia than in any nation of antiquity, except the Jewish. Its corruption was into dualism, by which the spirit of evil, as in the Indian Trimourti, was invested with almost co-ordinate power with the spirit of good. But for full information on this important and interesting subject we must refer the reader to Father Thébaud himself.
Our limits do not admit of our giving scarcely the faintest outline of our author’s argument in proof of the monotheism of Pelasgic Greece, and its gradual degradation to a sensual and idolatrous anthropomorphism in Hellenic and Heroic Greece. The substantial genuineness of the Orphic literature he successfully establishes, as well as the similarity of its doctrines to those of the Vedas; from which he draws the obvious inference that the two came from the same source, and that that branch of the Aryan family carried with them to their more distant settlements traditions of the primitive revelation so conspicuous in the Persian and Hindoo mystic epics, but much defaced and distorted in the course of their long and toilsome migrations. If pure monotheism ever prevailed in Pelasgic Greece, its reign was short. Indeed, to Orpheus himself are ascribed pantheistic doctrines. It was the poets who ushered in that special form of idolatry which took possession of Greece, the worship of the human being deified with all his infirmities—the anthropomorphism of the gods, as Father Thébaud calls it. And the chief sinner, on this score, was Homer, the first and greatest of them all. Yet did that densely-populated, unseen world of the Greeks—that sensuous, nay vicious, idolatry—which peopled the ocean and the mountains and the forests with gods, and imagined a divinity for every fountain, and every grove, and every valley, and every rill, with its superior deities, up to the supreme father of Olympus, himself subject to that forlorn solution of the riddle of “evil”—fate—bear witness from Olympus, and from Hades, and from the realms of the sea, to the primitive revelation. It bore witness to a civilization from which that degradation of the ideas of God to the level of humanity, in spite of its artistic grace and poetic feeling, deformed, however, by a filthy lasciviousness, with its short period of literary splendor and of exalted philosophy, ending with the sophistical negations of scepticism, was a fall, and not a progress.
For all this, “the precious fragments of a primitive revelation are found,” as Father Thébaud truly observes, “scattered through the writings of nearly all ancient Greek and Latin philosophers and poets.” His two chapters on this subject—chapter vii. on “Hellenic Philosophy as a Channel of Tradition,” and chapter viii. on “The Greek and Latin Poets as Guardians of Truth”—are perhaps the most interesting part of his most interesting and instructive work. They embrace a subject which has always appeared to us as more worthy of learned labor than any other which could be named. That life would be well spent which should devote itself to collecting all these fragments of traditionary truth from all ante-Christian literatures. Such a work would not turn back the flood of rationalism, whose first risings we owe to Greece—for it is rather moral than intellectual—but it would materially obstruct it, and would rescue from it many souls which might otherwise be lured to their destruction by the feeble echoes of the sophists and Aristophanes, which, beginning with Voltaire, are now multiplying through all the rationalistic press of the world.
Meanwhile, we cordially commend Father Thébaud’s work on Gentilism to the attentive study of all who wish for solid information and sagacious criticism on a subject which appears to us, without wishing in the least to underrate scientific investigation, to be more interesting and more important than all or any of the discoveries of physical science. These, as has been proved of late years, may be turned against the truth, and become thus a means of darkening instead of enlightening the soul. At the best, be they correct or erroneous, great or small, many or few, they cannot add an inch to our stature or a day to our lives. They do not even add to our happiness.
But a false science—one which would assign to each of us an insignificant phenomenal existence, whose individuality will disappear, at the end of its few days of living consciousness, in an universal whole in an eternal state of progress—is as fatal to human happiness as anything can be short of the abyss of reprobation. More consoling, as it is more in accordance with right reason, is the testimony which comes to us trumpet-tongued, in one vast unison, from all the ages, that the history of the race is one of decadence, not of progress. The sentence passed was death. The road to death is decadence. The way is rounded; there is a movement onward and a growth of life until the descent begins which lands us in dissolution. But every moment from the first cry of infancy is a step nearer to death; we are every one of us dying every day; and a movement towards death is not progress. Individual experience joins its voice to that of universal history in testimony of this. The revelation of Christ has put us in possession of the highest and certain truth; it has given us a more exalted moral, and has recast our nature in a higher, nay, in a divine, mould. We are still dying every day; but the certain hope of a joyful resurrection has deprived death of its agonizing sting, and made it, like sleep, a source of happiness instead of despair. But this is nothing like the progress of which the sceptics prate. It is a supernatural stage in the dispensation of God for the renewal of his fallen creature, predetermined before all time. His own part in it—the natural order—is one long history of decadence. There has been the ebb and flow, the rising to fall, of all movement. But decadence has all along triumphed over progress. Amidst what a decadence are we now living from the promising progress of the middle ages! And we are bid to expect so terrific a retrogression before the consummation of all things, that “even the elect shall scarcely be saved.”
It is the witness of all the ages—human progress ebbing and flowing—but, on the whole, the flow does not overtake the ebb. The ocean of life has been ever ebbing into its eternal abysses, and will ebb, leaving behind it a dry and barren waste, until the morning of eternity shall break over the withdrawing night of time, chaos shall be for ever sealed in the confusion and sadness of its darkness, and the final word shall go forth, of which the sublime physical law was only a type and a shadow: “Let there be light!”
MADAME’S EXPERIMENT.
A SAINT AGNES’ EVE STORY.
“MY THOUGHTS ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS, NOR YOUR WAYS MY WAYS, SAITH THE LORD.”
Madame the Countess of Hohenstein stood at the window of the great hall of her palace, waiting for the coach which was to take her to a château some leagues distant, where she was to grace a grand entertainment, and to be kept for a whole night by her hosts as an especial treasure. For Madame the Countess of Hohenstein, spite of her sixty years and her three grown sons, was a famous beauty still and a brilliant conversationist, and few were her rivals, young or old, throughout the kingdom. But her face was clouded as she waited in her stately hall that January afternoon, and she listened with a pained expression to the sound of a footstep overhead pacing steadily up and down. She touched a bell presently.
“Tell your master,” she said to the servant who answered it, “that I wish to see him again before I leave.” And soon down the winding stairway she watched a young man come with the same steady pace which might have been heard overhead for a half-hour past.
No need to ask the relationship between the two. Black, waving hair, broad brow, set lips, firm chin, the perfect contour of the handsome face—all these were the son’s heritage of remarkable beauty from his queenly mother; but the headstrong pride and excessive love which shone from her eyes as he came in sight met eyes very different from them. Large and black indeed they were, but their intense look, however deep the passion it bespoke, told of an unearthly passion and a fire that is divine.
“Ah! Heinrich love,” his mother said, “once more, come with me.”
“Nay, little mother,” he answered—the caressing diminutive sounding strangely as addressed to her in her pomp of attire and stately presence—“you said I need not go; that you did not care for me at the baron’s.”
“Not so, Heinrich. I care for you everywhere, everywhere. I am lost without you, love of my soul. But I know you hate it, and, if you must stay from any place, better that than some others. There are no maidens there I care for, my son.”
She watched the calm forehead contract as she spoke. “There! as ever,” she exclaimed. “Wilt never hear woman mentioned without a frown? You are no monk yet, child, at your twentieth year; nor ever shall be, if I can help it. It is enough for me, surely, to have given two sons to the priesthood, without yielding up my last one, my hope and my pride.”
Heinrich made no answer, for the sound of the carriage-wheels was heard, and he offered his mother his hand, led her down the steps, and placed her in the coach. She drew him towards her, and kissed him passionately. “Farewell, my dearest,” she said. “I count the minutes till we meet again.” And she never ceased to watch him as long as the mansion was visible.
He was a sight of which many a mother might have been proud, as he stood there bare headed, the winter sun lighting his face, the winter wind lifting his dark locks, the fresh bloom of youth enhancing his peculiar beauty. His mother sighed deeply as the coach turned a corner which hid him from her view—a sigh often repeated during the course of her journey.
It was a full hour before she was out of her own domains, though the horses sped swiftly over the frozen ground. All those broad acres, all that noble woodland, all those peasant homes, were hers; and for miles behind her the land stretching north and west belonged with it, for she had married the owner of the next estate, and, widowed, held it for her son. But at her death all these possessions must be divided among distant unknown kinsmen, if Heinrich persisted in the desire, which had been his from early boyhood, to become a monk. His mother’s whole heart was set against it. Her aim in life was to find for him a wife whom he would love, and whom he would bring to their home; she longed to hold before her death her son’s son on her knee.
The coach stopped as the sun was setting; and at the palace door, too eager for a sight of her to wait in courtly etiquette within, host and hostess stood ready to greet this friend of a lifetime.
“No Heinrich?” they cried, laughing. “A truant always. And we have that with us to-day which will make you wish him here. No matter what! You will see in time.”
And in time she saw indeed. Going slowly up the marble stairs a half-hour later, a vision of magnificent beauty, with her ermine mantle wrapped about her, the hood fallen back from her regal head, the eyes with the pained look of disappointment and longing still lingering in them in spite of the loving welcomes lavished upon her, she came, in a turn of the stairs, upon another vision of beauty radiant as her own, and extremely opposite.
Coming slowly down towards her was a young girl, tall and slight, with a skin of dazzling fairness, where the blue veins in temple and neck were plain to see; a delicate tint like blush-roses upon the cheek; great waves of fair hair sending back a glint of gold to the torches just lighted in the hall; eyes very large, and so deeply set that at first their violet blue seemed black—eyes meek and downcast, and tender as a dove’s, but in them, too, a look of pain and yearning. The face at first view was like that of an innocent child, but beneath its youthfulness lay an expression which bespoke a wealth of love and strength and patience, unawakened as yet, but of unusual force. Skilled to read character by years of experience in kings’ palaces, madame the countess read her well—so far as she could read at all.
Evidently the maiden saw nothing that was before her; but madame held her breath in surprise and delight, and stood still, waiting her approach. Not till she came close to her did the girl look up, then she too stopped with a startled “Pardon madame”; and at sight of the timid, lovely eyes, at the sound of the voice—like a flute, like water rippling softly, like a south wind sighing in the seaside pines—madame opened her arms, and caught the stranger to her heart. “My child, my child,” she cried, “how beautiful you are!”
“Madame, madame,” the girl panted in amazement, carried away in her turn at the sudden sight of this lovely lady, who, she thought, could be, in her regal beauty and attire, no less than a princess—“Madame sees herself surely!”
The countess laughed outright at the artless, undesigned compliment. “And as charming as beautiful,” she said. “I must see more of you, my love.”
Then, kissing the cheek, red now as damask roses, she passed on. In the hall above her hostess stood with an arch smile on her lips. “Ah! Gertrude, we planned it well,” she said. “Fritz and I have been watching for that meeting. It was a brilliant tableau.”
“But who is she, Wilhelmina? Tell me quickly. She is loveliness itself.”
“’Tis but a short story, dear. We found her in Halle. Her name is Elizabeth Wessenberg. She is well-born, but her family are strict Lutherans. She—timid, precious little dove!—became a Catholic by some good grace of the good God. But it was a lonely life, and I begged her off from it for a while. Oh! but her parents winced to see her go. They hate the name even of Catholic. That is all—only she sings like a lark, and she hardly knows what to make of her new life and faith, it is so strange to her.”
“That is all! Thanks, Wilhelmina. I will be with you soon. I long to see her once again.”
All that evening the countess kept Elizabeth near her, and every hour her admiration increased. A maiden so beautiful, yet so ignorant of her own charms, so unworldly, so innocent, she had never seen. Alone in her room that night she fell trembling upon her knees—poor, passionate, self-willed mother!—before the statue of the Holy Mother bearing the divine Son in her arms, and she held up her hands and prayed aloud.
“I have found her at last,” she cried—“a child who has won her way into my heart at once with no effort of her own; a pearl among all pearls; one whom my boy must love. Lord Jesus, have I not given thee two sons? Give me now one son to keep for my own, and not for thee. Grant that he may love this precious creature, fit for him as though thou thyself hadst made her for him, even as Eve was made for Adam.” And then she covered her face, and sobbed and pleaded with long, wordless prayers.
The next day saw her on her homeward way, but not alone. She had coaxed in her irresistible fashion till she had obtained for herself from her friend a part of Elizabeth’s visit; and Elizabeth felt as if she were living in a dream, there in the costly coach, wrapped in furs and watched by those beautiful eyes. Constantly the countess talked with her, leading the conversation delicately in such a manner that she found out much in regard to Elizabeth’s home, and penetrated into her hidden sorrows in regard to the coldness and lack of sympathy there. And it needed no words to tell that this was a heart which craved sympathy and love most keenly; which longed for something higher and stronger than itself to lean upon. Every time she looked at the sensitive face, endowed with such exquisite refinement of beauty; every time the childlike yet longing, unsatisfied eyes met hers; every time the musical voice fell upon her ears, fearing ever an echo of that same craving for something more and better than the girl had yet known, madame’s mother-heart throbbed towards her, and it seemed to her that she could hardly wait for the blessing which, she had persuaded herself, was surely coming to her at last.
Now and then she spoke of the country through which they passed: and to Elizabeth it was almost incredible that such wealth could belong to one person only. Now and then she spoke of “my son” in a tone of exultant love, and then Elizabeth trembled a little; for she dreaded to meet this stranger. Very grand and proud she fancied him; one who would hardly notice at all a person so insignificant as herself.
“Here is the village chapel, Elizabeth,” madame said, as the coach stopped suddenly. “Will you scold, my little one, if I go in for a minute to the priest’s house? Or perhaps you would like to visit the Blessed Sacrament while I am gone?”
Yes, that was what Elizabeth would like indeed; and there she knelt and prayed, never dreaming how much was being said about her only next door.
“Father!” madame exclaimed impetuously to the gray-haired priest who rose to greet her, “I must have Mass said for my intention every morning for a week. See, here is a part only of my offering.” And she laid a heavy purse upon the table. “If God grant my prayer, it shall be doubled, tripled.”
“God’s answers cannot be bought, madame,” the priest said sadly, “nor can they be forced.”
“They must be this time, then, father. You must make my intention your own. Will you not? Will you not for this once, father?”
“What is it, then, my daughter?”
“Father, do not be angry. It is the old hunger wrought up to desperation. I cannot give my boy to be a monk!”
The priest’s face darkened.
“No! no!” madame hurried on. “It is too much to ask of me. And now I have found a bride for him at last. She waits for me in the chapel, fair and pure as the lilies. I am taking her home in triumph.”
“Does Heinrich know of this?”
“Not one word. He cannot fail to love her when he sees her. It is for this I ask your prayers.”
The priest pushed away the purse. “I will have none of this,” he said. “It is far better to see my poor suffer than that this unrighteous deed should be done. You call yourself a Catholic, and pride yourself because your house was always Catholic; and yet you dare say that anything is too much for God to ask of you! I am an old man, madame, and have had many souls to deal with, but I never yet saw one whose vocation was more plain than Heinrich’s to the entire service of God’s church. Will you dare run counter to God’s will?”
“Nay, father, it cannot be his will. Our very name would die out—our heritage pass from us!”
“And suppose it does! Who shall promise you that if Heinrich marries there shall ever be child of his to fill his place? And what are place, and name, and heritage, madame? That which death, or war, or a king’s caprice may snatch away in a moment. But your spiritual heritage shall never die. What mother on earth but might envy you if you give your three sons—your all—to God! Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath an husband, saith the Lord. He maketh a barren woman to dwell in a house the joyful mother of children. There is a place and a name within his walls better than sons and daughters. Do you dream what risk you run, what part you play, when you would tempt from his calling one who, if you leave God to work his own pleasure, shall hereafter shine as the stars through all eternity?”
She did not answer back with pride. Instead, her whole face grew soft, and the large tears filled her eyes and ran slowly down her cheeks. “I want to do right,” she said humbly; “but I cannot feel that it is right. Father, see: I will not ask you to make my intention yours. But I promise you one thing: I must ask God to grant me this blessing, but it shall be the last time. If I fail now, let his will be done. And do you, father, ask him to make it plain to me what his will is.”
“God bless you, daughter!” the old priest answered, much moved by her humility. “I will pray that indeed. But still I warn you that I think you are doing wrong in so much as trying such an experiment as this which you have undertaken.”
“No, no,” she cried again. “No, no, father. This once I must try, or my heart will break.”
Again in the carriage, she pressed Elizabeth to her closely, and kissed her, and said words of passionate love, finding relief thus for the pent-up feelings of her heart; but Elizabeth knew not how to reply. It troubled and perplexed her—this lavish affection; for she could not repay it in kind. It only served to waken a suffering which she had known from childhood, a strange, unsatisfied yearning within her, which came at the sight of a lovely landscape, or the sound of exquisite music, or the caresses of some friend. She wanted more; and where and what was that “more,” which seemed to lie beyond everything, and which she could never grasp?
She felt it often during her visit—that visit where attention was constantly bestowed on her, and she lived in the midst of such luxury as she had never known before. Something in Heinrich’s face seemed to her to promise an answer to her questionings—it was so at rest, so settled; and this, more than anything else about him, interested and attracted her. Madame saw the interest, without guessing the cause. She felt also that Heinrich was not wholly insensible to Elizabeth’s presence; and though she asked him no direct questions, she contrived to turn conversation into the channels which could not fail to engage him, and which the young convert also cared for most.
Elizabeth decided that Heinrich knew more than any one else, but even he tired her sometimes. “He knows too much,” she thought, “and he is so cold and indifferent. Yet he would not be himself if he were more like madame; and she is too tender. Oh! what does it all mean? There is nothing that makes one content except church, and one cannot be always there.”
So passed the time till S. Agnes’ Eve. That night, when the young people entered the dining-hall, madame was absent. She sent a message that they must dine without her, as she had a severe headache, and Elizabeth might come to her an hour after dinner.
The meal was a silent one. When it was over, and they went into the library, Heinrich seated himself at the organ. Grand chorals, funeral marches full of mourning and awe and hope, Mass music welcoming the coming of the Lord of Sabaoth, filled the lofty room. When he ceased, Elizabeth was sobbing irrepressibly.
“Forgive me, forgive me!” she said. “I cannot help it. O monsieur! I know not what it means. Love and hate, beauty and deformity, joy and suffering—I cannot understand. Nothing satisfies, and to be a Catholic makes the craving worse. Is it because I am only just beginning, and that I shall understand better by and by?”
He stood at a little distance from her, looking not at her at all, but upward and far away.
“I will tell mademoiselle a story, if she will permit it,” he said. “Many years ago there was a princess, very beautiful, very wise, and very wealthy. Her councillors begged that she would marry, and at last she told them that she would do so, if they would find for her the prince she should describe, he should be so rich that he should esteem all the treasures of the Indies as a little dust; so wise that no man could ever mention in his presence aught that he did not already know; so fair that no child of man should compare with him in beauty; so spotless in his soul that the very heavens should not be pure in his sight. They knew not where to find that prince, but their lady knew.”
He paused, though not as for an answer. He had guessed well his mother’s plans and hopes; he fathomed as truly Elizabeth’s nature; and when he spoke again, it was as no one except the priest of God had ever heard him speak:
“There are some souls whom no one and nothing on earth can possibly satisfy. Beauty, and learning, and friendship, and home, and love, each alike wearies them. God only can content them, and he is enough—God alone. To such souls he gives himself, if they sincerely desire it. It is a love beyond all imaginable earthly love. It satisfies, yet leaves a constant craving which we have no wish should cease. He understands everything: even those things which we cannot explain to ourselves. It is he finding whom the soul loveth him, and will not let him go.”
After saying this, he sat down once more at the organ, and played again till the hour named by madame arrived. Elizabeth found her pale and suffering, but with a glad look in her eyes.
“You have had talk together, then,” she cried. “I heard the music cease for a while. And is he not charming and good, my Heinrich?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said dreamily. “He made me understand a little to-night—better than any one has ever done before.”
“Is that so, my little one? And how then?”
“Here,” Elizabeth said innocently, laying her hand on her heart, and with no suspicion of the meaning which the countess attached to the act. “If I could only understand more—more.”
“You will in time, most dear one—in time, in time.” And oh! the exulting ring in madame’s voice. “But see, my precious, what I have to show you.”
A chest was drawn up beside madame’s easy-chair. She opened it, and before Elizabeth’s dazzled eyes lay jewels of wondrous lustre and value—long strings of pearls, changing opals with the fire-spark trembling in them, sapphires blue as the sky, emeralds green as the sea, and glittering diamonds. Madame drew out the costly things, and adorned Elizabeth with one set after another by turn, watching the effect. Last of all, she touched a spring, and took from a secret drawer a set of pearls, large and round, with a soft amber tint in them. These she held caressingly and sighed.
“Look, Elizabeth,” she said. “Forty years ago this very night I wore them, when I was a girl like you. There was a great ball here. Some one—ah! but how grand and beautiful he looked; my poor heart remembers well, and is sore with the memory now—some one begged me to try the charm of S. Agnes’ Eve. Dost know it, dear? Nay? Then you shall try it too. Go supperless to rest; look not to left or right, nor yet behind you, but pray God to show you that which shall satisfy your heart of hearts.”
“Did he show you, madame?”
Madame sighed heavily. “Alas! love, alas! What contents us here? I had it for a time, and then God took it from me. No prouder wife than I, no prouder mother; but husband and sons are gone, all except my Heinrich. Pray God to keep him for me, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.”
“And who, then, was S. Agnes, madame? And shall I pray to her that prayer?”
Madame looked aghast, then smiled an amused yet troubled smile. “Nay, child, I thought not of that. S. Agnes was one who loved our blessed Lord alone, not man. She died rather than yield to earthly love and joy.”
“But why, madame?”
“O child, child! But I forget, You have only just begun the Catholic life, my sweet. God’s love, then, is enough for some people; but they are monks and nuns, not common Christians like you and me and Heinrich. We could not live in that way, could we, Elizabeth—you and Heinrich and I?”
“And God would never grow tired of us, madame! Nor ever die! Nor ever misunderstand! O madame! I think we could not live with less.” And Elizabeth stood up suddenly, as if too agitated to remain quiet.
“Ah! love, you are only just a convert. In one’s first excitement one fancies many things. You are meant to serve God in the world, my dear, for many years to come—you and my Heinrich. Pray for him to-night.”
But hurrying along the hall to her own room, Elizabeth whispered passionately in her heart: “I do not want to pray for him. Let him pray for himself. His saints pray for him too, and God loves him, and he does not need me. Does madame, then, suppose that he could ever care for me, or I for him? I want more than he can give—more—more! Show me my heart’s desire, O God, my God!”
In her excitement and in the darkness she laid her hand on the wrong door, and, opening it, found herself in an old gallery, at the end of which a light was glimmering. Scarcely heeding what she did, she moved toward it, and found that she was in the choir of the castle chapel. The door fell gently to behind her, but did not close, and Elizabeth was alone. Alone? The aisles were empty, the organ was still, the priest was gone; but before the sacred shrine the steady ray of the lamp told that He who filleth the heaven of heavens was dwelling in his earthly temple, and that unseen angels guarded all the place.
But of angels or men Elizabeth thought not. Silently, slowly she moved onward, her hands pressed upon her heart, whose passionate beating grew still as she came nearer to the Sacred Heart which alone could fully comfort, fully strengthen, fully understand. Slowly she moved, as one who knows that some great joy is coming surely, and who lengthens willingly the bliss of expectation.
And so she reached a narrow flight of steps, and made her way gently down, and knelt. Outside, in the clear night, a great wind rose, and rocked the castle-tower, but Elizabeth knew it not. She was conscious only of the intense stillness of that unseen Presence; of peace flooding her whole soul like a river; of the nearness of One who is strength and love and truth, infinite and eternal.
“Show me my heart’s desire, O God, my God!” she sighed.
God, my God! She lifted up her eyes, and there, above the shrine, beheld the great crucifix of Hohenstein, brought from the far-off East by a Crusader knight. She lifted up her eyes, and saw the haggard face full of unceasing prayer, the sunken cheeks, the pierced hands and feet, the bones, easy to number, in the worn and tortured body, the side with its deep wound where a spear had passed.
Yet, looking upward steadily, all her excitement gone, a sacred calm upon her inmost soul, Elizabeth knew that her prayer was answered, her lifelong hunger satisfied. God had given her her heart’s desire.
God, my God! No love but his could satisfy; and his could with an eternal content. To that Heart, pierced for her, broken for her, she could offer no less than her whole heart; and that she must offer, not by constraint, but simply because she loved him beyond all, above all, and knew that in him, and in him only, she was sure of an unfailing, an everlasting love.
Madame, seeking her in the early morning, found her room unoccupied, then noticed the gallery-door ajar, and, trembling, sought her there. Elizabeth had kept S. Agnes’ Eve indeed, but it was before the shrine of S. Agnes’ Spouse and Lord.
“My daughter,” the countess said, using the word for the first time, and with oh! how sad a tone—“what have you done this night, my daughter?”
Elizabeth lifted hand and face toward the shrine. “Madame,” she answered slowly, as one who speaks unconsciously in sleep, “I have found Him whom my soul loveth. I hold him, and I will not let him go.”
God himself had made his way plain indeed before Madame the Countess of Hohenstein in this her last struggle with his will. The very plan which she had chosen to gain her cherished hopes had crushed them. Not priest or son, but the girl whom she herself had named for her final trial, had shown her that God’s purposes were far aside from hers.
“Take all, O Lord!” she cried, while her tears fell like rain. “Take all I have. I dare not struggle longer.”
One son gave up his life a martyr in the blood-stained church in Japan. Another endured a lifelong martyrdom among the lepers of the Levant, winning souls yet more tainted than the bodies home again to God. And one, the youngest, and the fairest, and the dearest, was seen in China and in India, in Peru and in Mexico, going without question wherever he was sent, for the greater glory of God; but he was never seen in his German home again. After they once left her, their mother never beheld their faces. And she who had been taken to her heart as a daughter entered an order in a distant land.
Yet none ever heard madame the last Countess of Hohenstein murmur against her lot. Clearly, tenderly, patiently, more and more did God vouchsafe to make his way plain to her. In chapel, day by day, she watched the decaying banners which told of the fields her fathers won; saw the monuments to men of her race who had fought and died for their king and their land; read the names once proudly vaunted, now almost forgotten. What was fame like this to the honor God had showered on her? Souls east and west brought safe to him; life laid down for the Lord of lords; a seed not to be reckoned; a lineage which could never fail; sons and daughters to stand at last in that multitude which no one can number, who have come out of great tribulation, with fadeless palms of victory in their hands—such was her place and name in the house of God.
The quaint German text upon her tombstone puzzled travellers greatly, and those who could decipher it wondered but the more. It ran thus:
Requiescat in Pace.
GERTRUDE,
Twenty-ninth and Last Countess of Hohenstein.
The children of thy barrenness shall still say in thy ears: The place is too strait for me; make me room to dwell in. And thou shalt say in thy heart: Who hath begotten me these? I was barren, and brought not forth, led away, and captive; and who hath brought up these? I was destitute and alone; and these, where were they?
Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and will set up my standard to the people. And they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and carry thy daughters upon their shoulders. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be confounded that wait for him.