Within the Cathedral the cool atmosphere met him with a sweet calm, which flowed over his perturbed soul like a benediction. He drew a chair from a pile in a corner and sat down for a moment near one of the little side chapels, to recover from the stifling heat without and prepare his thought for the impending interview with the Bishop. A dim twilight enveloped the interior of the building, affording a grateful relief from the blinding glare of the streets. It brought him a transient sense of peace––the peace which his wearied soul had never fully known. Peace brooded over the great nave, and hovered in the soft air that drifted slowly through the deserted aisle up to the High Altar, where lay the Sacred Host. A few votive candles were struggling to send their feeble glow through the darkness. The great images of the suffering Christ, of the Saints and the Virgin Mother had merged their outlines into the heavy shadows which lay upon them.
The haunting memory of years of soul-struggle with doubt and fear, of passionate longing for the light of truth in the gloom of superstition and man-made creeds, for guidance among the devious paths of human conjecture which lead nowhither––or to madness––seemed to fade into the darkness which wrapped him in that holy calm. After all, what had he won in his lifelong warfare with human beliefs? What had he gained by his mad opposition to Holy Church? There she stood, calm, majestic, undisturbed. Had not the Christ himself declared that the gates of hell should not prevail against her? Was not the unfoldment of truth a matter, not of years, but of ages? And were the minds of men to-day prepared for higher verities than those she offered? Did not the Church plant the seed as rapidly as the barren soil of the human mind was tilled and made fallow? True, her sons, whom he had so obstinately opposed, were blindly zealous. But were they wholly without 8 wisdom? Had not his own zeal been as unreasoningly directed to the forcing of events? And still, through it all, she had held her indulgent arms extended to him, as to all erring mankind. Why not now, like a tired child, weary of futile resistance, yield to her motherly embrace and be at last at peace? Again the temptation which he had stubbornly resisted for a lifetime urged upon him with all its mesmeric insistence.
He looked up, and his glance fell upon a small, glass-covered case, dimly visible in the uncertain light at one side of the little altar. The case was filled with tiny images of gold––milagros. Each had received priestly blessing, and each was believed to have worked a miraculous cure. The relaxed lines of the priest’s care-worn face instantly drew into an expression of hard austerity. Like the ebb of the ocean, his recalcitrant thought surged back again in a towering flood.
“What a spectacle!” he murmured. “Holy Church, assuming spiritual leadership of the world, sunken in idolatry, and publicly parading her fetishism in these lingering echoes of primitive demon-worship!”
Ah, the Master taught the omnipotence of God, whose ways he declared as high above the blind grovelings of man as the dome of heaven swings above earth. But how long, gentle Master, shall such as this be declared thy Father’s ways? How long shall superstition and idolatry retain the power to fetter the souls of men? Is there no end to the black curse of ignorance of Truth, which, after untold centuries, still makes men sink with vain toil and consume with disease? And––are those who sit about Peter’s gorgeous tomb and approve these things unerring guides to a right knowledge of God, to know whom, the Christ has said, is life eternal?
A step behind him broke the flow of his dark revery.
“Our good Josè dreams below, while His Grace bites his nails above,” said a soft, mellifluous voice. “Qué chiste! It is––”
The priest sprang to his feet and faced the speaker. For a moment the men regarded each other, the one uncertain as to the impending event, but supremely confident of his ability to meet it; the other sick in soul and torn with mental struggle, but for the moment fired anew with the righteous wrath which his recent brief interview with the woman, Marcelena, had kindled.
“Wenceslas––” The priest spoke in a strained, uncertain tone, striving to hold his emotions in leash. “I have learned to-day––The girl, Maria––”
“Caro amigo,” interrupted Wenceslas smoothly, “what you have learned to-day, or any other day, of the girl, Maria, is a lie.”