“It has affected my nerves,” he said, “and it would be rather a relief
to tell you. Would you mind if I did so?”
On my assurance that it would greatly interest me, he began.
“It is a fashion among those who do not really accept Revelation as
revelation to believe in a kind of Universalism. Quite apart from
authority, this doctrine contravenes, as you of course know, the reality
of man’s free will. The incident of which I wish to tell you concerns
the way in which I first caught a glimpse of that for myself.
“A good many years ago I made the acquaintance of a man in the West of
England, under circumstances that I need not describe further than
saying that he seemed to have confidence in me. He asked me to stay with
him in his country house, and I went down from London for the inside of
a week. I found him living the usual country life, fishing and so forth;
for it was summer when I visited him. It was a fine old house that he
lived in, surrounded by coverts. He had a charming wife and two or three
children, and at first I thought him extremely happy and contented.
“Then I thought that I noticed that things were not so well with him.
The cottages on his estate were ill-cared for, and that is always a bad
sign. From one or two small signs, such as you can guess, I found that
the tone among his servants was not what it should be; and one or two
horrid pieces of cruelty came under my notice. I know this sounds as if
I were a sort of spy, greedy for information; but all that I can say is,
that these signs were unmistakable and obvious, and came to me, of
course, unsought and unexpected. Then I saw that his domestic relations
were not right. I do not know how else to describe all this than by
saying that there seemed a kind of blight upon his surroundings. Nothing
was absolutely wrong, and yet all was just wrong.
“At first I thought that I myself was depressed or jaundiced in some
way; but at last I could not continue to believe that; and on the Friday
of my stay, the last day, I became finally certain that something was
horribly wrong with the man himself. Then that evening he opened his
heart to me, so far as it was possible for him to do so.
“His wife, with the two daughters, had left us after dessert and gone
into the garden, and we remained in the dining-room. The windows looked
to the west, across a smooth sloping lawn, with the lake at the end;
beyond that rose up a delicate birch wood, and beyond that again a soft
green sky, where the sun had set, deepening into a liquid evening blue
overhead, in which a star or two glimmered. I could see, as I looked
out, the white figures of his wife and daughters against the shining
surface of the lake at the end of the lawn.
“After he had lit his cigarette, and had a glass or two of wine,
suddenly he opened his heart to me, and told me an appalling story that
I could not tell you. I sat and watched his strong sinewy hand rise and
fall with the cigarette, under the red lamp-light; I glanced at his
quiet well-bred face with the downcast eyes and the long moustache, and
I wondered whether it was possible really for such a tale to be true;
but he spoke with a restrained conviction that left no room for doubt.
What I gathered from the story was this;––that he had identified
himself, his whole will, his whole life practically, with the cause of
Satan. I could not detect as he talked that he had ever seriously
attempted to detach himself from that cause. It has been said that a
saint is one who always chooses the better of the two courses open to
him at every step; so far as I could see this man had always chosen the
worse of the two courses. When he had done things that you and I would
think right, he had always done them for some bad reason. He had been
continuously aware, too, of what was happening. I do not think that I
have ever heard such a skilful self-analysis. Now and then, as I saw the
gulf of despair towards which his talk was leading, I interrupted him,
suggesting alleviations of the horror––suggesting that he was
pessimistic––that he had acted often under misconceptions––and the like;
but he always met me with a quiet answer that silenced me. In fact,”
said the priest, who was beginning to tremble a little, “I have never
thought it possible that a heart could be so corrupt and yet retain so
much knowledge and feeling.
“When he had finished his story he looked at me for a moment, and then
said:
“‘Lately I have seen what I have lost, and what I shall lose; and I have
told you this to ask if the Christian Gospel has any hope for such as I
am.’
“Of course I answered as a Christian priest must answer, for I honestly
thought that here was the greatest miracle of God’s grace that I had
ever seen. When I had finished I lifted my eyes from the cloth and
looked up. His fingers, while I was speaking, had been playing with an
apostle spoon, but as I looked up he looked up too, and our eyes met.”
As the priest said this, he got up, and leaned his head against the high
oak mantelpiece, and was silent a moment. Then he went on:
“God forgive me if I was wrong––if I am wrong now––but this is what I
think I saw.
“Out of his eyes looked a lost soul. As a symbol, or a sign, too, his
eyes shone suddenly with that dull red light that you may see sometimes
in a dog’s eyes. It was the _poena damni_ of which I had read, which
shone there. It was true, as he had said, that he was seeing clearly
what he had lost and would lose; it was the gate of heaven opening to
one who could not enter in. It was the chink of light under the door to
one who cried, ‘Lord, Lord, open to me,’ but through the door there came
that answer, ‘I know you not.’ Ah! it was not that he had never known
before what God was, and His service and love; it was just his
condemnation that he had known: that he had seen, not once or twice but
again and again, the two ways, and had, not once nor twice but again and
again, chosen the worse of those two; and now he was powerless.
“I tell you I saw this for a moment. There was this human face, so
well-bred, with its delicate lines, looking almost ethereal in the soft
red light of the lamp: behind him, between the windows hung a portrait
of an ancestor, some old Caroline divine in ruff and bands. Through the
windows was that sweet glory of evening––with the three figures by the
lake. Here, between us, was the delicate soothing luxury of cleanliness
and coolness and refreshment, such as glass and silver and fruit
suggest: and there for one second in this frame of beauty and peace
looked the eyes of one who desired even a drop of living water to cool
his tongue, for he was tormented in a flame.
“And I saw all this; and then the room began to swim and whirl, and the
table to tilt and sway, and I fell, I suppose, forward, and sank down on
to the floor. When I recovered there were the men in the room, and the
anxious face of my host looking down on me.
“I had to return to town the next morning. I wrote to him a long letter
the following week, saying that I had been ill on the evening on which
he had given me his confidence: and that I had not said all that I could
say: and I went on, giving the lie to what I had thought I had seen,
speaking to him as I should speak to any soul who was weary of sin and
desired God.
“Indeed I thought it most possible, as I wrote the letter, that I had
had a horrible delusion; and that all could be well with him. I got an
answer of a few lines, saying that he must apologise for having troubled
me with such a story; adding that he had greatly exaggerated his own
sin; that he too had been over-excited and unwell: and that he too
trusted in a God of Love––and begging me not to refer to the
conversation again.”
The priest sat down again.
“Now you may of course accept this version of it, if you will. I only
would to God that I could too.”
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“Consolatrix Afflictorum”
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“Should it be burdensome for thee ... she will for thy sake herself
raise me up when I chance to fall, and console me when sorrowing.”
_St. Leander of Seville._
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“Consolatrix Afflictorum”
THE following letter will explain itself.
The original was read to me by my friend on one of those days during my
stay with him; and he allowed me, at my request, to make a copy. The
sermon referred to in the first sentence of the letter was preached in a
foreign watering-place on Christmas Day.
“VILLA––––
“_December 29, 18––_
“Reverend and Dear Sir,
“I listened with great attention to your sermon on Christmas Day; I
am getting on in years, and I am an invalid; so you will understand
that I have few friends––and I think none who would not think me mad
if I told them the story that I am proposing to tell you. For many
years I have been silent on this subject; since it always used to be
received with incredulity. But I fancy that you will not be
incredulous. As I watched you and listened to you on Christmas Day,
I thought I saw in you one to whom the supernatural was more than a
beautiful and symbolical fairy-story, and one who held it not
impossible that this unseen should sometimes manifest itself. As you
reminded us, the Religion of the Incarnation rests on the fact that
the Infinite and the Eternal expresses Himself in terms of space and
time; and that it is in this that the greatness of the Love of God
consists. Since then, as you said, the Creation, the Incarnation,
and the Sacramental System alike, in various degree, are the
manifestation of God under these conditions, surely it cannot be
‘materialistic’ (whatever that exactly means), to believe that the
‘spiritual’ world and the personages that inhabit it sometimes
express themselves in the same manner as their Maker. However, will
you have patience with me while I tell you this story? I cannot
believe that such a grace should be kept in darkness.
“I was about seven years old when my mother died, and my father left
me chiefly to the care of servants. Either I must have been a
difficult child, or my nurse must have been a hard woman: but I
never gave her my confidence. I had clung to my mother as a saint
clings to God: and when I lost her, it nearly broke my heart. Night
after night I used to lie awake, with the firelight in the room,
remembering how she would look in on her way to bed; when at last I
slept it seems to me now as if I never did anything but dream of
her; and it was only to wake again to that desolate emptiness. I
would torture myself by closing my eyes, and fancying she was there;
and then opening them and seeing the room empty. I would turn and
toss and sob without a sound. I suppose that I was as near the limit
that divides sanity from madness as it is possible to be. During the
day I would sit on the stairs when I could get away from my nurse,
and pretend that my mother’s footsteps were moving overhead, that
her door opened, that I heard her dress on the carpet: again I would
open my eyes, and in self-cruelty compel myself to understand that
she was gone. Then again I would tell myself that it was all right:
that she was away for the day, but would come back at night. In the
evenings I would be happier, as the time for her return drew nearer;
even when I said my prayers I would look forward to the moment, into
which I had cheated myself in believing, when the door would open,
after I was in bed, and my mother look in. Then as the time passed,
my false faith would break down, and I would sob myself to sleep,
dream of her, and sob myself awake again. As I look back it appears
to me as if this went on for months: I suppose, however, in reality,
it could not have been more than a very few weeks, or my reason
would have given way. And at last I was caught on the edge of the
precipice, and drawn lovingly back to safety and peace.
“I used to sleep alone in the night-nursery at this time, and my
nurse occupied a room opening out of it. The night-nursery had two
doors, one at the foot of my bed, and one at the further end of the
room, in the corner diagonally opposite to that in which the head of
my bed stood. The first opened upon the landing, and the second into
my nurse’s room, and this latter was generally kept a few inches
open. There was no light in my room, but a night-light was kept
burning in the nurse’s room, so that even without the firelight my
room was not in total darkness.
“I was lying awake one night (I suppose it would be about eleven
o’clock), having gone through a dreadful hour or two of misery,
half-waking and half-sleeping. I had been crying quietly, for fear
my nurse should hear through the partly opened door, burying my hot
face in the pillow. I was feeling really exhausted, listening to my
own heart, and cheating myself into the half-faith that its throbs
were the footsteps of my mother coming towards my room; I had raised
my face and was staring at the door at the foot of my bed, when it
opened suddenly without a sound; and there, as I thought, my mother
stood, with the light from the oil-lamp outside shining upon her.
She was dressed, it seemed, as once before I had seen her in London,
when she came into my room to bid me good-night before she went out
to an evening party. Her head shone with jewels that flashed as the
firelight rose and sank in the room, a dark cloak shrouded her neck
and shoulders, one hand held the edge of the door, and a great jewel
gleamed on one of her fingers. She seemed to be looking at me.
“I sat up in bed in a moment, amazed but not frightened, for was it
not what I had so often fancied? and I called out to her:
“‘Mother, mother!’
“At the word she turned and looked on to the landing, and gave a
slight movement with her head, as if to some one waiting there,
either of assent or dismissal, and then turned to me again. The door
closed silently, and I could see in the firelight, and in the faint
glimmer that came through the other door, that she held out her arms
to me. I threw off the bedclothes in a moment, and scrambled down to
the end of the bed, and she lifted me gently in her arms, but said
no word. I too said nothing, but she raised the cloak a little and
wrapped it round me, and I lay there in bliss, my head on her
shoulder, and my arm round her neck. She walked smoothly and
noiselessly to a rocking-chair that stood beside the fire and sat
down, and then began to rock gently to and fro. Now it may be
difficult to believe, but I tell you that I neither said anything,
nor desired to say anything. It was enough that she was there. After
a little while I suppose I fell asleep, for I found myself in an
agony of tears and trembling again, but those arms held me firmly,
and I was soon at peace; still she spoke no word, and I did not see
her face.
“When I woke again she was gone, and it was morning, and I was in
bed, and the nurse was drawing up the blind, and the winter sunshine
lay on the wall. That day was the happiest I had known since my
mother’s death; for I knew she would come again.
“After I was in bed that evening I lay awake waiting, so full of
happy content and certainty that I fell asleep. When I awoke the
fire was out, and there was no light but a narrow streak that came
through the door from my nurse’s room. I lay there a minute or two
waiting, expecting every moment to see the door open at the foot of
my bed; but the minutes passed, and then the clock in the hall below
beat three. Then I fell into a passion of tears; the night was
nearly gone, and she had not come to me. Then, as I tossed to and
fro, trying to stifle my crying, through my tears there came the
misty flash of light as the door opened, and there she stood again.
Once again I was in her arms, and my face on her shoulder. And again
I fell asleep there.
“Now this went on night after night, but not every night, and never
unless I awoke and cried. It seemed that if I needed her desperately
she came, but only then.
“But there were two curious incidents that occurred in the order in
which I will write them down. The second I understand now, at any
rate; the first I have never altogether understood, or rather there
are several possible explanations.
“One night as I lay in her arms by the fire, a large coal suddenly
slipped from the grate and fell with a crash, awaking the nurse in
the other room. I suppose she thought something was wrong, for she
appeared at the door with a shawl over her shoulders, holding the
night-light in one hand and shading it with the other. I was going
to speak, when my mother laid her hand across my mouth. The nurse
advanced into the room, passed close beside us, apparently without
seeing us, went straight to the empty bed, looked down on the
tumbled clothes, and then turned away as if satisfied, and went back
to her room. The next day I managed to elicit from her, by
questioning, the fact that she had been disturbed in the night, and
had come into my room, but had seen me sleeping quietly in bed.
“The other incident was as follows. One night I was lying half
dozing against my mother’s breast, my head against her heart, and
not, as I usually lay, with my head on her shoulder. As I lay there
it seemed to me as if I heard a strange sound like the noise of the
sea in a shell, but more melodious. It is difficult to describe it,
but it was like the murmuring of a far-off crowd, overlaid with
musical pulsations. I nestled closer to her and listened; and then I
could distinguish, I thought, innumerable ripples of church bells
pealing, as if from another world. Then I listened more intently to
the other sound; there were words, but I could not distinguish them.
Again and again a voice seemed to rise above the others, but I could
hear no intelligible words. The voices cried in every sort of
tone––passion, content, despair, monotony. And then as I listened I
fell asleep. As I look back now, I have no doubt what voices those
were that I heard.
“And now comes the end of the story. My health began to improve so
remarkably that those about me noticed it. I never gave way, during
the day at any rate, to those old piteous imaginings; and at night,
when, I suppose, the will partly relaxes its control, whenever my
distress reached a certain point, she was there to comfort me. But
her visits grew more and more rare, as I needed her less, and at
last ceased. But it is of her last visit, which took place in the
spring of the following year, that I wish to speak.
“I had slept well all night, but had awakened in the dark just
before the dawn from some dream which I forget, but which left my
nerves shaken. When in my terror I cried out, again the door opened,
and she was there. She stood with the jewels in her hair, and the
cloak across her shoulders, and the light from the landing lay
partly on her face. I scrambled at once down the bed, and was lifted
and carried to the chair, and presently fell asleep. When I awoke
the dawn had come, and the birds were stirring and chirping, and a
pleasant green light was in the room; and I was still in her arms.
It was the first time, except in the instance I have mentioned, that
I had awakened except in bed, and it was a great joy to find her
there. As I turned a little I saw the cloak which sheltered us
both––of a deep blue, with an intricate pattern of flowers and
leaves and birds among branches. Then I turned still more to see her
face, which was so near me, but it was turned away; and even as I
moved she rose and carried me towards the bed. Still holding me on
her left arm she lifted and smoothed the bedclothes, and then laid
me gently in bed, with my head on the pillow. And then for the first
time I saw her face plainly. She bent over me, with one hand on my
breast as if to prevent me from rising, and looked straight into my
eyes; and it was not my mother.
“There was one moment of blinding shock and sorrow, and I gave a
great sob, and would have risen in bed, but her hand held me down,
and I seized it with both my own, and still looked in her eyes. It
was not my mother, and yet was there ever such a mother’s face as
that? I seemed to be looking into depths of indescribable tenderness
and strength, and I leaned on that strength in those moments of
misery. I gave another sob or two as I looked, but I was quieter,
and at last peace came to me, and I had learnt my lesson.
“I did not at the time know who she was, but my little soul dimly
saw that my own mother for some reason could not at that time come
to me who needed her so sorely, and that another great Mother had
taken her place; yet, after the first moment or so, I felt no anger
or jealousy, for one who had looked into that kindly face could have
no such unworthy thought.
“Then I lifted my head a little, I remember, and kissed the hand
that I held in my own, reverently and slowly. I do not know why I
did it, except that it was the natural thing to do. The hand was
strong and white, and delicately fragrant. Then it was withdrawn,
and she was standing by the door, and the door was open; and then
she was gone, and the door was closed.
“I have never seen her since, but I have never needed to see her,
for I know who she is; and, please God, I shall see her again; and
next time I hope my mother and I will be together; and perhaps it
will not be very long; and perhaps she will allow me to kiss her
hand again.
“Now, my dear sir, I do not know how all this will appear to you; it
may seem to you, though I do not think it will, merely childish.
Yet, in a sense, I desire nothing more than that, for our Saviour
Himself told us to be like children, and our Saviour too once lay on
His Mother’s breast. I know that I am getting an old man, and that
old men are sometimes very foolish; but it more and more seems to me
that experience, as well as His words, tells me that the great
Kingdom of Heaven has a low and narrow door that only little
children can enter, and that we must become little again, and drop
all our bundles, if we would go through.
“That, dear and Reverend Sir, is my story. And may I ask you to
remember me sometimes at the altar and in your prayers? for surely
God will ask much from one to whom He has given so much, and as yet
I have nothing to show for it; and my time must be nearly at an end,
even if His infinite patience is not.
“Believe me,
“Yours faithfully,
“–––– ––––.”
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