The Last Miracle

by M. P. Shiel

"But is this the right day and hour?" I asked.

"There's a service every day at noon," he answered, "we should be just in time."

Well, I let myself be led. As I was getting ready Magee called to me: "by the way, you must put on a belt; one doesn't go in braces and corsets." So I put on a belt, and we went.

It was a sultry day in May, like summer almost, and most strange, I remember, was the look and mood of everything to me that day as we drove to Kensington. Arrived there, under the porch of the church I was struck by a prodigious fresco of Jesus, which was rather a revelation to me, for then first I seemed to see Jesus, a brown peasant in a turban—not going about blessing little children with long hair and nothing on his head in a blazing climate, according to the too churchy fancy of the painters, in defiance of St Paul's "It is a shame for a man to have long hair." Here, anyway, as it struck me, was the Man, the dusky Lily, and though much too garishly painted, it powerfully engaged our gaze. However, the crowd pressed; we went in.

But never yet had I bowed the head under half so vast a house of man! most vast, though cheap and unhandsome. Magee and I were so fortunate as to be led far forward toward the stage, and there we sat, each in a pew four feet long—only one person sitting in each pew—while hosts of nuns haunted the aisles and seven galleries, nutmegging the air with incense swung from censers; and I noticed that the roofs were in some way detached, and the air as pure and fresh as in the open.

A young man, parting the curtain, stood and howled out with all his heart a number out of a hymn-book; upon which the host of people started up, and shouted it—Tennyson's "Brook"—"for men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever." But that burden of sound was almost too over-ponderous for the bethundered eardrum! trumpets pealed, organs braved, while the earthquake and brotherhood of it brushed in ague-chills down my back, and was still humming about my head half-a-minute after it was hushed.

The next twenty minutes were taken up with the Blessed Sacrament, partaken of in early-Christian manner, only that there was no table. It was served by a hive of nuns, who bore baskets of sandwiches, fruit, cakes, etc., and water dashed with wine. The sandwiches were rather palpable for my palate! but, as with early-Christians, those who were not hungry no longer partook of the Lord's body, though all drank of his blood, those who were not thirsty drinking from liqueur-glasses and the thirsty from tumblers. Meantime, a man at the edge of the stage was howling: "though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee...." And again he howled with passion: "he was oppressed, yet he humbled himself, and opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb: yea! he opened not his mouth...."

When this was over the curtains rushed away, the stage was opened, and for some twenty minutes I was the witness of a set of shows. There was no dialogue, and never should I have supposed that means so guileless would persuade to so high a sense of art: each heart, I think, was touched. The shows were little pictures of man in his various doings and modes of being, and we had all to become human, and brothers of one another; in one case it was a dog that caused the music, and we had all to become brothers of the dog and of one another. First, there sprang upon the stage a Japanese athlete, naked but for a loin-cloth, who did nothing but parade himself as our pattern, with a few wanton movements about the waist to give assurance of his grace and perfected joy. Then followed a boy and girl who kissed on the sly behind a horrid aunt. Then a Jewish rag-picker, who did nothing but pick up rags, but still moved the springs of one's breast with love of him. Then a woman in a loose garment who lay down on a couch, and we marked the pangs that wrung her; she ran off slimmer than she came on! laughing! with an infant in her arms, while the people pursued her with the acclaims proper to victors. Then a child was stolen, but its mother was joyfully guided to it by a dog. Then came a ship-boy, a musician who forgot his own name, a grey astronomer, and three or four more.

While our hearts were still fond at these shows an acolyth who took his stand at the front and left of the stage vociferated the shout: "Blessed are the poor in spirit!" and at once there appeared on the stage a shoeblack, and also a young man rather shabbily dressed, with a bag in his hand; the young man begged the shoeblack to shine his boots, for he had stepped into bog: but he made the request with such polite shynesses and diffidences that the shoeblack at once put him down as a nobody, and cut some faces at him. When, however, the boots were shined the shabbily-dressed young man handed the shoeblack a handful of shillings for his pains. The shoeblack, seeing now that here must be a millionaire, gaped so open-mouthed at his riches, that only after some time did he observe that the young man had gone and forgotten his bag behind. The shoeblack then opened the bag, and drew out what was crowded within—an old lady's portrait, a lock of hair, a violin, an etching, and a copy of Ronsard: and the instant he drew out the Ronsard the acolyth who before had shouted out "blessed are the poor in spirit" rang now to the high dome his shout of triumph: "for theirs is the kingdom of the soul!"

The acolyth next shouted out: "Blessed are the pure in heart!" and at once there appeared an Egyptian man and woman—Joseph and Potiphar's wife; Joseph had bone tablets in his hand, adding up figures; Potiphar's wife tickled his neck and drew him: Joseph smiled, pinched her cheek, puzzling ever over his figures. Still the woman would have him, she coaxed, she intrigued: Joseph patted her shoulder, shook her ear, without ever budging or looking up out of his tablets. At last the woman drew him over to left-centre, Joseph going unconsciously with her; but at the door itself he woke up, laughed, escaped, as who should say "not for Joseph," leaving his garment in her hands, and instantly was puzzling over his figures again. But now all at once Joseph began to wave out gestures of glad new discovery! The man had detected some mistake in his arithmetic! and the instant he detected his mistake, the acolyth gave out the high shout of triumph: "for they shall see God!"