LECTOR. For Heaven's sake--
AUCTOR. Who began it? You protested my power to give benediction, and I must now prove it at length; otherwise I should fall under the accusation of lesser Simony--that is, the false assumption of particular powers. Well, then, there is the Official who ex officio, and when he makes it quite clear that it is qua sponsus and not sicut ut ipse, can give formal benediction. This power belongs certainly to all Bishops, mitred Abbots, and Archimandrates; to Patriarchs of course, and a fortiori to the Pope. In Rome they will have it that Monsignores also can so bless, and I have heard it debated whether or no the same were not true in some rustic way of parish priests. However this may be, all their power proceeds, not from themselves, but from the accumulation of goodness left as a deposit by the multitudes of exceptionally good men who have lived in times past, and who have now no use for it.
(3) Thirdly--and this is my point--any one, good or bad, official or non-official, who is for the moment engaged in an opusfaustum can act certainly as a conductor or medium, and the influence of what he is touching or doing passes to you from him. This is admitted by every one who worships trees, wells, and stones; and indeed it stands to reason, for it is but a branch of the well-known 'Sanctificatio ex loco, opere, tactu vel conditione.' I will admit that this power is but vague, slight, tenuous, and dissipatory, still there it is: though of course its poor effect is to that of the Benedictio major what a cat's-paw in the Solent is to a north-east snorter on Lindsey Deeps.
I am sorry to have been at such length, but it is necessary to have these things thrashed out once for all. So now you see how I, being on pilgrimage, could give a kind of little creeping blessing to the people on the way, though, as St Louis said to the Hascisch-eaters, 'May it be a long time before you can kiss my bones.'
So I entered the 'Sun' inn and saw there a woman sewing, a great dull-faced man like an ox, and a youth writing down figures in a little book. I said--
'Good morning, madam, and sirs, and the company. Could you give me a little red wine?' Not a head moved.
84
THE RUDE PEASANTS
True I was very dirty and tired, and they may have thought me a beggar, to whom, like good sensible Christians who had no nonsense about them, they would rather have given a handsome kick than a cup of cold water. However, I think it was not only my poverty but a native churlishness which bound their bovine souls in that valley.