Still, even faithful hearts quailed before the storm, and were scandalized at the way in which God seemed to forsake his own, not recognizing in this mysterious abandonment another trait of resemblance between his Vicar and the divine Model, who cried out in his dereliction, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”
Amélie was forced to hear and see much that was unutterably painful to hear as a true child of the church; many who called themselves such, and who were glad enough to draw upon her magnificent sacramental treasury, and to praise and serve her in the days of peace, were not stout-hearted enough to share her tribulations or even to understand them, and stood aloof when they ought to have acted, or remained dumb when they ought to have spoken, or spoke what they had better have left unsaid. But alongside of this indifference or treachery she witnessed a great deal that was beautiful and consoling. Pilgrims were flocking from the four quarters of the globe to lay at the feet of Pius IX. the tribute of their fidelity and abundant offerings, often collected in perilous journeys at great risk and sacrifice. Then there were the Zouaves, nos chers Zouaves, as Amélie always called them, presenting a noble example to us all by their heroic devotion to the cause of God, their spirit of immolation, their chivalrous valor in action, and the marvellous purity of their lives. These modern crusaders replaced the suffering soldiers of Marseilles in Amélie's solicitude during her stay in Rome. She tended them and worked for them indefatigably, and dwelt continually in letters home on the consolation the spectacle of their childlike piety afforded her.
Early in December she wrote to a friend at Marseilles: “Our dear Zouaves have made their entry into Rome. They passed under my windows. They are the flower of the French nation. They are full of that energy which nothing but the spirit of the faith gives. It is beautiful to see them receive Holy Communion before arming themselves. This morning eighteen hundred of them, bent on shedding their blood in the cause of God, marched proudly into the Eternal City with the band playing and colors flying; they reminded one of the Theban legion. I witnessed a touching sight. The Holy Father met them on their way, and they fell on their knees like one man to get his blessing. He blessed them with visible emotion. How could a father not be moved at seeing the devotion of his children? The Flemish and the Bretons are particularly conspicuous; ancient traditions have been preserved amongst them, and have come down from the fathers to the sons. This evening they accompanied His Holiness to the Vatican, where they cheered him with the enthusiasm of Christian hearts. It was impossible to withhold one's tears as one beheld the venerable Pontiff rest his loving and gentle gaze on all this youth, so devoted to him, and burning to prove their fidelity. In these days, the position of the Zouaves amongst Christian soldiers is a noble one. Oh! if the idle youth of France knew what a happiness it is to serve God, how many families would be happy and blest even in this world as well as the [pg 825] next! I see here numbers of young men who had strayed away from the right path for a time, but who had the grace to return to it, and are now as happy as children, pure as angels, attached to the church and the Vicar of Christ. Their sole ambition is martyrdom; their joy is to look forward to it. Oh! I see here admirable things. Adieu, dear friend. Let us pray always.”
Sinister reports and wild alarms, sometimes the result of malice, sometimes of fear, were constantly starting up in Rome, terrifying the weak, and stimulating the brave to greater vigilance and courage, but keeping every one on the qui vive from day to day. In the midst of the general excitement of expectation or terror, the serene confidence of Pius IX. remained unshaken, like the rock on which it rested. Amélie, who was admitted frequently to the honor and happiness of speaking to the Holy Father, was lost in wonder at it—at the unearthly peace that was visible in his countenance and pervaded every word of his conversation. Shortly before the date of the foregoing letter, she wrote to the same friend:
“The most contradictory stories are current here, but the peace, the calm, the abandon of the Holy Father are indescribable, and go further to inspire confidence than the most sinister conjectures to create terrors. The daughters of Jerusalem followed our Redeemer to Calvary: a sort of filial sentiment holds me in Rome. I cannot go away.... Let us pray! The power of prayer obtains all things.”
Let us pray! This had been the lifelong burthen of her song, and the cry grew louder and more intense as she drew near the close. It was not the shrill cry of those who say, Lord! Lord! but the irrepressible voice of a soul whom the spirit of prayer possessed in the fulness of its availing power, and side by side with whose growth grew the spirit of sacrifice, the thirst for self-immolation. She clung firmly to hope as the anchor of courage and resignation in the present trials of the church, but the sense of the outrages that God's glory was enduring in the person of His Vicar increased in her soul to positive anguish. The consideration of her own nothingness and utter inability to lighten the cross that was pressing on the saintly Pontiff, pursued her day and night with the mysterious pain that is born of the love of God.
What a wonderful thing the soul of a saint or even a saintlike human being must be! How one longs to go within the veil and get a glimpse of the life that is lived there! It is so strange to us to see a creature take God's cause to heart, and pine and suffer about it as we do about our personal cares and sorrows. It sets us wondering what sort of inner life theirs can be, and through what process of grace and correspondence and mysterious training they have grown to that state of mind when the things of God and his eternity are poignant realities, and the things of earth hollow phantoms that have lost the power to charm, or terrify, or touch. We see them hungering after justice as we hunger after bread, pining actually for the accomplishment of God's will as eagerly as we pine for the success of our puny enterprises and the triumph of our small ambitions; and we are astonished, as it behoves our stupidity and hardness of heart to be, at the incomprehensible character of their faith and love. When life presses heavily upon us, and the cross is bruising our shoulders, and all things are dark and dreary, we catch ourselves occasionally sighing for death. This is about [pg 826] our nearest approach to that homesick yearning expressed in the words of the apostle: “I long to die, to be dissolved, and to be with Christ!” What an altogether different feeling it must be with these saintlike souls when they long for death! They are not impatient of life, or, like tired travellers, angry with the dust and sun of the road, and disgusted with the uncomfortable wayside inn where they put up; they are impatient of heaven and of the vision that makes the bliss and the glory of heaven. Too jealous of their Creator's rights to rob him even in desire of one year, or day, or hour of their poor service while he sees good to employ them, they are willing to go on toiling through eternity if he wishes it; but they are homesick, they long to see him, they yearn after his possession with a sacred unrest that we who have but little kinship with their spirit cannot understand. They are saddened by their exile and by the sight of sin and of the small harvest their Lord's glory reaps amidst the great harvest of iniquity that overruns the world. They watch the sea of humanity rolling its waves along time, moaning with conscious agonies of sin, storm-lashed and terrible, breaking in billows of impotent rage against the Rock of redemption, and dashing headlong past it into the gulf, where it is sucked down into everlasting darkness; and seeing these things as God sees them, and as they affect his interests, they are filled with sorrow, and call out for the end, that this mighty torrent may be stayed. They call out to the stars to rise on the far-off heights, that loom dim and gloomy through the swirl and vapor of the storm. They would fain hush the winds and the waves, and hasten the advent of the Judge before whose splendor the dark horizon will vanish, and whose glory will outshine the sunrise and fill the universe with joy. It is not their own selfish deliverance or the world's annihilation that they long for, but its consummation in man's happiness and the Creator's glory.
Amélie longed with all the strength of her generous heart to do something for her Lord, to help ever so little towards hastening the coming of his kingdom before he called her away. One morning, after communion, as she was praying very fervently for the Holy Father, whose health just then was a source of great anxiety amongst the faithful, this longing came upon her with an intensity that she had never felt before; she was seized with a sudden impulse to make the sacrifice of her life in exchange for his, and to offer herself as a victim that he might be spared yet awhile to guide and sustain the church through the trials and temptations that were afflicting her. The impulse was so vehement that it was with difficulty she restrained herself from obeying it on the spot; the desire, however, to obtain the blessing of obedience in her sacrifice enabled her to do so. She quietly continued her thanksgiving, and, on leaving the church, went straight to the Vatican. There, kneeling at the feet of the suffering Vicar of Christ, she told him of the desire that had come to her, and begged him to bless it, and to permit her to offer herself up next day at Holy Communion as a victim in his place if it should please God to accept her.
Pius IX. was silent for some moments, while Amélie, with uplifted face and clasped hands, awaited his reply. Then, as if obeying a voice that had spoken to him in the silence, he laid his hand upon her head, and said, with great solemnity: “Go, my daughter, and do as the Spirit of God [pg 827] has prompted you.” He blessed her with emotion, and Amélie left his presence filled with gladness and renewed fervor. She spent the greater part of the day in prayer. In the afternoon she wrote two letters: one of them, of too private a character to be given at length, contained the foregoing account of the morning's occurrences; the other we transcribe. It is a revelation beyond all comment of the state of her soul as it stood on what she believed to be the threshold of eternity.
Saturday, Dec. 15—Rome.