The Secret Chamber at Chad

by Evelyn Everett-Green

"On earth, as we have seen, the blessed Saviour intrusted His truth to the care of chosen men. Now let us see how He acted when, ascended into the heavens, He looked down upon earth, and directed from thence the affairs of this world. Did He then ordain that a written testimony was to be prepared and sent forth into all lands? No. What we learn then is that when He ascended into the heavens and received and gave gifts to men, He gave to them apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers--a living ministry again, a fourfold living ministry--that by this living ministry, surely typified in the vision of St. John by the four living creatures with the fourfold head, the saints were to be perfected, the unity of the faith preserved, and the body of Christ edified and kept in its full growth and perfection till He come Himself to claim the Bride."

Edred's eyes were full of vivid intelligence. He followed in the Latin tongue the words as Brother Emmanuel spoke them, and looking up he asked wistfully:

"But where are they now, the apostles and prophets, the evangelists and pastors? Have we got them with us yet?"

"We have at least the semblance of them; doubtless but for our own sins and shortcomings we should have a fuller ministry--a fuller outpouring of the water of life through those four God-given channels by which the Church is to be fed. We have the apostolic office ever in exercise in our spiritual head at Rome. St. Peter has left us a successor, and his throne shall never be empty so long as the world lasts. Now and again the prophetic fire bursts forth in some holy man who has fasted and prayed until the veil betwixt the seen and the unseen has grown thin. Would to God there was more light of prophecy in the earth! Perchance in His grace and mercy He will outpour His Spirit once again upon the earth, and gather about his Holiness a band of men lighted by fire from above. In our wandering friars, ever going forth to the people with the word of the gospel, we have the office of evangelist in exercise; and the priest who guides the flock and dwells in the midst of the people of the land, surely he is the pastor, the keeper of the sheep. And thus we see that our blessed Saviour's gifts to men have been preserved all through these long centuries, and are still amongst us in greater or less degree; and we can well understand that having given us these channels, by which His vineyard is to be watered, by which the living waters are to flow forth, it is not His will that every man should be his own evangelist or pastor, feeding himself at will, drinking, perhaps to surfeit, of the precious waters which should be conveyed to him through the appointed channel, but that he should be under dutiful obedience and submission, and that thus and thus only may unity and peace be preserved, and the body grow together into its perfect stature and fullness."

"I see all that exactly," cried Bertram, "and I will strive to keep it in mind. I mislike the very name of Lollard, and I well know that they be a mischievous and pernicious brood, whom it were well to see exterminated root and branch. Yet no man can fail to see that they love the Scriptures, and I felt they were in the right there. Now I well see that they may love the Word as much as they will, but that they must still seek to be taught and fed by those who are over them in the Church, and not seek to eat and drink (in the spiritual sense of the word) at their own will and pleasure. That is truly what the Church has ever taught, but I never heard it so clearly explained before.

"Come, Julian; the sun is losing much of its power now. Let us stroll along the margin of the stream, and see where best we may fish upon the morrow.

"Edred, wilt thou come? No; I thought not. Thou art half a monk already. We will leave thee with Brother Emmanuel to talk more on these hard matters. I have heard enough to satisfy me, I shall never want to turn Lollard now. The name was always enough, but now I see more and more clearly how wrong-headed and wilful they be."

Julian, too, had got an answer that completely satisfied him, and he readily rose to go with his brother. Those two found an hour or two of thought and study as much at a time as they cared for. They called their dogs and sallied forth over the fields towards the shady, well-fringed river banks, and Brother Emmanuel was left alone with his second pupil, Edred, whose eyes were still fixed upon the black lettering of the great Bible open at the last passage under discussion.

The monk bent an earnest glance upon the boy's face. He saw that an argument which had completely satisfied the other two had not satisfied this other keener mind. But he asked no questions, leaving the boy to speak or not as he chose. These were days in which too much questioning was a dangerous thing. Many men felt as though they were treading the crust of a volcano, and that a single unwary step might plunge them headlong into the burning gulf.

When even such a man as Bishop Peacock had been threatened with the stake, and sent into perpetual imprisonment, even after having "recanted" his errors, no wonder that all men holding broad or enlightened opinions trembled for themselves. And yet, as thought will not be bound, and the young are ever the most ardent in the pursuit of truth, and the most impatient under the yoke of fetters unwillingly worn, so neither this young monk nor his still more youthful companion could be content to drift on without looking into the stirring questions of the day for themselves.