The Wanderers

by Mary Johnston

Victorinus preached Christ, leading her guardedly from height to height. With all his soul he would have her soul for his Lord. He saw that it was a deep soul and in need. He wished its individual salvation, and always, behind it, he saw looming tribes and nations, captured for Christ....

He preached Christ, and she listened with parted lips and deep eyes. She heard of a god who cared, and that she did not perish when she died. It came hauntingly, as though she remembered that, but had forgotten and now remembered again, vividly and eternally. He preached of sin, and she acquiesced. She knew that she sinned. He preached salvation, through the love of God, and because he thought fit not to dwell here upon the terrors of his doctrine, she read it to be through her love of God as well as through God’s love for her. She acquiesced; when she loved and practised good she had joy; not else. That joy was salvation. She was somewhat silent, not quickly and easily moved as were many converts of his acquaintance. Because of that seeming coldness, and because he found mind in her questions, Victorinus put his own mind fully and strongly to the work. From things she said of the gods of her people—to the Christian, dæmons—from processes of her thought that now and then she let him see—he found an undue expansiveness in her idea of good. He must prune away that wildness, bring into bounds that barbarian tolerance of ideas without kinship, show her the narrow way, the one lighted way. His will, his imagination, his genius worked; on all sides he laid siege to her soul to take it solely for Christ and the growth of His Church.

He took her in the spring-time, in her ductile youth, in the void and loneliness made by Alaran’s going. He took her in a longing of her nature for what she knew not, save that it was higher than she had climbed, in an inward trying of the wings and straining of the vision toward some cloud-banded eyrie. He preached a subtile Stair, an unseen Wing. He preached Christ, and he saw the fire slowly kindle in her eyes, and her frame begin to tremble.

One day it came to him to speak of the women in the Church of his God. He told of holy women, pure in the faith, standing fast in good works, dividers of bread to the poor, nurses and consolers of the sick, visiting the captive. He told of maidens who would not wed, but, putting by the sweetness of the flesh, remained virgin, dearer so to their heavenly Lord. He told of women who were wed, who were mothers, who turning to Christ had, some the sooner, some after years of strivings unutterable, the joy of bringing husband or son to His fold Who was only safety, only joy. He told of martyr women, told at length their suffering and triumph, told of Blandina, Felicitas, Perpetua, and many another. He told of the women of Jerusalem, of the sisters of Lazarus, of the Magdalen, of the Mother of Christ. He found, drawn into this barque, that there was much that he must say of women. The Vandal maiden stood with her eyes upon the little church set in the violet aisle of the forest. Victorinus made an end of his relation and sat looking at his clasped hands. He had not before in mind drawn these women facts together. He was moved, thinking of his own mother, who in her arms had brought him to the Church, and of his mother’s mother, who had sealed her faith with her blood in the Diocletian persecution.

Said Alleda, “If it is Truth, I would persuade Alaran whom I wed.”

“O maiden!” answered Victorinus, “not alone your lord who will be king of this folk, but through him this folk, this nation! Great would be your service, and dearly would Christ smile upon you!”

That was one day. Three passed before she came again. “Tell me now of the Soul Immortal, of Heaven, and of the Healing of the Nations!”

The flowers increased in number, the trees put forth their leaves, the ice melted from every sunken, shadowed pool, the host of birds sang from morn till eve. Victorinus the bishop, with the heart on fire, and the tongue of gold and honey, gained the convert for whom he prayed. He saw her tremble and burst into a passion of tears; he saw her lift herself from the earth where she had thrown herself, kneel and stand and lift her hands, her face, to the sky; he saw in her face the breaking light of an inner heaven.

Alleda bent before the altar in the chapel in the wood, Alleda confessed Christ. The ten brethren witnessing, Victorinus baptized her. It was done in secret, so many upon the face of the earth that yet was in the grasp of the Prince of the Powers of the Air being baptized in secret. One day it should be known....

It was Victorinus who advised that secrecy. Of all temporal things in this forest, he wished the marriage of Alaran and Alleda, and the continued love of Alaran for Alleda. Unknown to himself, he wished the death of Terig. If Alaran were king in Terig’s place, then might Alleda, when her woman’s wiles had wrought a yielding and propitious hour, then might Alleda, kneeling, say, “I am Christian: O lord and husband, become Christian with me!” Then might she bring Victorinus to him, and Alaran hearken as Terig had not, and all the Goths be baptized with their king. Victorinus dreamed so....