The Path of Life

by Stijn Streuvels

“Oh, so much, so much, Mam’selle Julie! I myself hardly know.... For father and mother and all the family and that I may always be a good girl and stay at home with them and not fall among wicked people and that we may all live a long time and go to Heaven....”

“And that the harvest may succeed and we be able to pay the rent ... and for the farmer ... and that father may keep in health and be fit to work,” mother ordered.

They reached the village. Mother remained waiting among the folk in the street; Horieneke, with the other youngsters, went through the school-gates where their wax tapers stood burning above the bunches of gold flowers and leaves shining in the warm light. The children looked at one another’s clothes, whispered in one another’s ears what theirs had cost and wrangled as to which looked the prettiest. The boys vied with one another in showing their bright pennies and their steel watch-chains.

The procession filed out: first the acolytes, in scarlet, with gleaming crucifix, brass candle-sticks and censer, followed by boys and girls symbolically dressed, a lilting dance of flags and banners in brilliant colours. Next came the priest, in a gorgeous vestment stiff with silk and silver thread and gold tracery; and, in two rows, on either side of the street, preceded by four little angels with gold wings, the first-communicants, really such on this occasion, in their proper clothes, with the great wax tapers in their white-gloved hands and a glow in their faces and laughter in their eyes. All the people crowded after them, through the street to the church. The bells rang out, the priest sang with the sacristan and the whole procession triumphantly entered the wide church-doors. There was a mighty stamping and pushing to get near and to see the children sitting in straight rows on the front benches of the nave. The girls settled in their clothes and the boys looked down at their stiff, wide cloth breeches and their new shoes, or shoved their fingers up their noses or into their tight collar-bands. The organ droned out a mighty prelude; the priest, all in gold, stood at the altar; the ceremony began; the people were silent and prayed over their prayer-books.

The sun appeared! And green and red and yellow shafts of light slanted through the stained-glass panes and mingled with the blue incense-wreaths. They made the corners of the brasswork shine and brought smiles to the faces of the saints in their niches. A splash of gold fell on the curly heads of the children, dark and fair; and tiny rays flashed upon the gilt edges of their prayer-books. The congregation prayed diligently and the full voices sang the joyful Gloria in excelsis with the organ.

After the Gospel, the priest hung up his chasuble on the stand and mounted the pulpit. After a noisy shifting of chairs and dragging of feet and coughing, the people sat still, with their faces turned to the priest. He began by reading out the notices in a snuffling tone: the intentions of the masses for the ensuing week; the names of those about to be married or lately deceased. Then he waited, cast his eyes over that level multitude of raised heads, pulled up his white sleeves and turned his face towards the children. His drawling voice wished them proficiat.

It was the first time in their lives that the youngsters saw that face turned expressly towards them from a pulpit and also the first time that they listened to the sermon with attention. They kept their eyes fixed on the priest so as not to lose a word. The great day had arrived; a few moments more and they would be completing the solemn task, they, small children, the task that was denied to the pure angels in heaven.

“And that work must be the foundation on which all your future life is based. Your souls are now so clean, so pure, they are shining like clear water and are quite spotless. For years we have taught and instructed and prepared you in order to teach your virgin hearts, this day, now, in this beautiful chapel, to receive that strengthening food, that miracle of God’s love. Remember it always: this is the happiest day of your lives! You are still innocent and about to receive the Bread that raises the dead, cleanses sinners and purifies the fallen. You are still in your first youth, without experience of life, and are already allowed to approach the Holy Table and share the strengthening food that supports men and women in the trials of life. This also is the propitious moment, the mighty hour in which Our Lord can refuse you nothing that you ask Him. So make use of it, ask Him much, ask Him everything: for your parents and your masters, who have done so much for you, for your pastors, your village and especially for yourselves, that He may keep you from sin and continue to dwell in your hearts and allow you to grow up into stout champions of the faith and of your religion. It is the happiest day of your lives. You are here now, to-day, with your bright, clear eyes, young and beautiful as angels; we have watched over you, sheltered you against all that could have harmed or offended your innocence, far from the corrupt world of whose existence you have not even known. But to-morrow you will enter the wide world, with only your weak flesh to fight against life’s dangers: depravity, falsehood, lies and sin. Now life will begin for you, now for the first time will you be called upon to fight, to show courage and to stand firm. How many of those who once sat where you are now sitting and who were pure and innocent as yourselves have now, alas, become lost sinners, Judases who have rejected their God, devils as roaring lions going about seeking whom they may devour! Be strong, listen to your good parents: it is to them alone that you will have to listen henceforth....”

He turned round to the other side and, continuing with the same rise and fall in his voice, the same gestures of his thin right arm, with the flowing white sleeve, and the same movement of his sharp profile high up above the congregation, he began once more:

“To you, fathers and mothers, I also wish a cordial proficiat; for you also this is a glad and memorable day. How long is it not since you were kneeling there! And yet that day always lingers in your memory. Since that time you have been plunged into the world, have had to struggle and have perhaps fallen and more than once have known your courage fail you. Now your children are sitting there! For years you have left them to our care and to-day we give them back to you, instructed, enriched and supplied with all that they can need to pass onward. You receive them this day from our hands pure and innocent as on the day of their baptism. It is for you henceforth to preserve and to maintain that virtue and purity in them; it is for you to bring up these children so that later they may be exemplary Christians. See to it that your own conduct edifies them: it is according to you and all your actions that they will order their lives and take example. Admonish them in good season and chastise them when necessary: ‘He that spareth the rod hateth his son,’ says the Holy Ghost. And keep your eyes open, for God will ask an account of your stewardship and will reward or punish you according as you have brought them up well or ill. A good son, a virtuous daughter are the joy and the comfort of their parents.”