“I wish it,” she said—“I wish it very much. I think I may have the few comforts I can enjoy, and I will.”
This was uttered in a tone of such decision and defiance that I almost felt that I myself was supposed to oppose her in the matter. But the tone was really against the bitter opposition she knew she was courting, both for herself and me, from her anxious and affectionate relatives. The having of her own way and asserting herself on any subject, only added a spice to her enjoyment of what she attained, but it placed me in an awkward position toward her family. I knew that it would seem to them that I had urged this visit of Sister Francina, or at least brought it about by more direct means than was really the case. True, I was the instrument, but Miss Etheridge used me more voluntarily than they would believe. I did not like to be regarded in the light in which I was sure I would be viewed—as an undermining and scheming emissary of Rome. But, on the other hand, I did not like to be cowardly in refusing to procure for Miss Etheridge so very innocent a pleasure. If she were merely whimsical in her wish to have the sister visit her, still, why not let her be indulged? It was the sister’s mission to visit the afflicted, and here was an appeal to her charity, and to mine too. So I plucked up my courage, which was backed up by my affection for Miss Etheridge, and soon brought Sister Francina to her. It was as we anticipated. The family were up in arms about this visit. One would have supposed that I had brought a wolf, or “roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour,” to Miss Etheridge, instead of meek, gentle, innocent Sister Francina, strong only in her holy faith. But if no one else was brave, Miss Etheridge certainly was. She expressed herself so pleased at the sister’s visit, that she asked it as a personal favor and charity to herself that the sister would come often. With great delicacy, the sister was urged to accept a generous gift for the mission in which she was engaged. And Sister Francina did come; not very often—Miss Etheridge and her family could not think she presumed upon the encouragement she received—but still often enough to endear herself to Miss Etheridge more and more. The family were rampant, but powerless. Still Miss Etheridge chose to have me walk by her carriage. Still she would go and talk to Mrs. McGowan, and, doing so, she met at last Father B——. He was going in at the gate just as we, from an opposite direction, came around the corner of the house. I knew him at once, and told Miss Etheridge, asking if we should go on, which I supposed she would prefer. I was surprised at her expressing her intention to stop. She had in her lap a basket of fruit which she wished to leave for Mrs. McGowan, and, “if the priest would not object to her, she certainly would not shun him.”
Father B—— was a convert himself from the Anglican ranks. He bore about him all the genial bonhomie, the polished bearing, and gentle dignity which is characteristic of that class of Protestant clergy. Miss Etheridge had never been personally acquainted with him, but, having heard him preach in the bygone days when she went to church and his eloquence charmed Protestant audiences, she retained still a curiosity, if nothing more, concerning him. This at least was no stern-browed ascetic with the odor of a sanctity she could not appreciate about him, but a kindly, social gentleman, with many little points of sympathy whereon to begin an acquaintance. Father B——, seeing no repulse, readily responded to Miss Etheridge’s overtures of good-will. She certainly found her mind disabused of many previous notions of this priest at least. On the whole, I felt glad of the meeting. It thawed some remaining reserve on our part in discussing the differences between us in faith. I told her frankly how I had been led, step by step, into the fold wherein I now rejoiced to be. How my first dissatisfaction in the Episcopal Church had arisen from witnessing the utter inability of the pastor to withstand lay interference in matters which belonged exclusively to the clergy. How two wardens in open enmity still partook of the sacrament, in defiance of the rubric which bears upon the case, and which the rector never dared to enforce. How I had heard such various teaching and explaining of the creed, services, articles of religion, and everything appertaining to the whole system, that it seemed to me like the confusion of tongues “worse confounded.” That the desire to embrace in the Anglican fold such opposing elements as Calvinism on the one hand, and pure, “primitive,” and mediæval Christianity on the other—to be Ritualistic and Evangelical at the same time, worked such mischief and rebellion that I had longed for some authority, some utterance which had the ring of the true metal, and some fold wherein I might be at rest.
Miss Etheridge listened very patiently, very thoughtfully. I hardly expected so little opposition to all I said. She granted the force of my objections, but wondered at my being able to acquiesce in all which I had now accepted. I replied that perhaps what I had accepted would not seem to her so very unreasonable if she came to examine and understand it as I did; that nothing dispelled prejudice like an acquaintance with and analysis of the objectionable subjects; that the effect was frequently like that produced by examining some supposed spectre which has frightened us in the dark, and which we find to be only an innocent optical illusion.
After this, I refrained from obtruding any more of my religious views upon Miss Etheridge, until one day when she asked me to read Morte d’Arthur to her, and I came upon the passage:
“Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”
I remarked that Tennyson had, with a poet’s insight, spoken like a true Catholic. Miss Etheridge denied that it was Tennyson’s own belief advanced, but only that of King Arthur, the words being put into his mouth by the poet as fitting for him, the same as any writer would make any Catholic speak, or as he might put very evil words into the mouth of a blasphemer.
“True,” I said; “but while an author must make his characters speak according to their supposed faith, he is not obliged to give such forcible words to them in opposition to his own private belief. He is hardly likely to do so. He may screen himself behind his characters, or he may betray himself through them. We may guess at his own leanings more or less accurately, and he may contradict himself. Here certainly the poet seems in favor of prayers for the dead.”
“But is it prayer for the dead Arthur, after all?” said she. “Was he not only going away ‘to the island-valley of Avilion?’”
“Tennyson has named the poem Morte d’Arthur, and it is so accepted and understood,” I replied.