The Church of Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris with its yellow stucco
columns, and its hideous excess of paint and gilding, might be a
ball-room designed after the newest ideas of a vulgar nouveau riche
rather than a place of sanctity. The florid-minded Blondel, pupil of
the equally florid-minded Regnault, hastily sketched in some of the
theatrical frescoes in the "Chapel of the Eucharist," and a misguided
personage named Orsel, splashed out the gaudy decorations of the
"Chapel of the Virgin." The whole edifice glares at the spectator like
a badly-managed limelight, and the tricky, glittering, tawdry effect
blisters one's very soul. But here may be seen many little select
groups out of the hell of Paris,--fresh from the burning as it were,
and smelling of the brimstone,--demons who enjoy their
demonism,--satyrs, concerning whom, one feels that their polished boots
are cleverly designed to cover their animal hoofs, and that skilful
clothiers have arranged their garments so that their tails are not
perceived. But that hoofs and tails are existent would seem to be a
certainty. Here sometimes will sing a celebrated tenor, bulky and
brazen,--pouring out from his bull-throat such liquid devotional notes
as might lift the mind of the listener to Heaven ifone were not so
positive that a moral fiend sang them;--here sometimes may be seen the
stout chanteuse who is the glory of open-air cafes in the Champs
Elysees, kneeling with difficulty on a velvet hassock and actually
saying prayers. And one must own that it is an exhilarating and moving
sight to behold such a woman pretending to confess her sins, with the
full delight of them written on her face, and the avowed intention of
committing them all over again manifesting itself in every turn of her
head, every grin of her rouged lips, and every flash of her painted
eyes! For these sections out of the French "Inferno," Notre Dame de
Lorette is a good place to play penitence and feign prayer;--the
Madeleine is too classic and serene and sombre in its interior to
suggest anything but a museum, from which the proper custodian is
absent,--Notre Dame de Paris reeks too much with the blood of slain
Archbishops to be altogether comfortable,--St. Roch in its
"fashionable" congregation, numbers too many little girls who
innocently go to hear the music, and who have not yet begun to paint
their faces, to suit those whose lives are all paint and
masquerade,--and the "Lorette" is just the happy medium of a church
where, Sham being written on its walls, one is scarcely surprised to
see Sham in the general aspect of its worshippers. Among the ugly
columns, and against the heavy ceiling divided into huge raised lumps
of paint and gilding, Abbe Vergniaud's voice had often resounded,--and
his sermons were looked forward to as a kind of witty entertainment. In
the middle or the afterwards of a noisy Mass,--Mass which had been
"performed" with perhaps the bulky tenor giving the "Agnus Dei," with
as sensually dramatic an utterance as though it were a love-song in an
opera, and the "basso," shouting through the "Credo," with the deep
musical fury of the tenor's jealous rival,--with a violin "interlude,"
and a 'cello "solo,"--and a blare of trumpets at the "Elevation," as if
it were a cheap spectacle at a circus fair,--after all this
melodramatic and hysterical excitement it was a relief to see the Abbe
mount the pulpit stairs, portly but lightfooted, his black clerical
surtout buttoned closely up to his chin, his round cleanshaven face
wearing a pious but suggestive smile, his eyes twinkling with latent
satire, and his whole aspect expressing, "Welcome excellent humbugs! I,
a humbug myself, will proceed to expound Humbug!" His sermons were
generally satires on religion,--satires delicately veiled, and full of
the double-entendres so dear to the hearts of Parisians,--and their
delight in him arose chiefly from never quite knowing what he meant to
imply, or to enforce. Not that his hearers would have followed any
counsel even if he had been so misguided as to offer it; they did not
come to hear him "preach" in the full sense of the word,--they came to
hear him "say things,"--witty observations on the particular fad of the
hour--sharp polemics on the political situation--or what was still more
charming, neat remarks in the style of Rochefoucauld or Montaigne,
which covered and found excuses for vice while seemingly condemning
viciousness. There is nothing perhaps so satisfactory to persons who
pride themselves on their intellectuality, as a certain kind of
spurious philosophy which balances virtue and vice as it were on the
point of a finger, and argues prettily on the way the two can be easily
merged into each other, almost without perception. "If without
perception, then without sin," says the sophist; "it is merely a
question of balance." Certainly if generosity drifts into extravagance
you have a virtue turned into a vice;--but there is one thing these
spurious debaters cannot do, and that is to turn a vice into a virtue.
That cannot be done, and has never been done. A vice is a vice, and its
inherent quality is to "wax fat and gross," and to generally enlarge
itself;--whereas, a virtue being a part of the Spiritual quality and
acquired with difficulty, it must be continually practised, and guarded
in the practice, lest it lapse into vice. We are always forgetting that
we have been, and still are in a state of Evolution,--out of the Beast
God has made Man,--but now He expects us, with all the wisdom, learning
and experience He has given us, to evolve for ourselves from Man the
Angel,--the supreme height of His divine intention. Weak as yet on our
spiritual wings, we hark back to the Beast period only too willingly,
and sometimes not all the persuasion in the world can lift us out of
the mire wherein we elect to wallow. Nevertheless, there must be and
will be a serious day of reckoning for any professing priest of the
Church, or so-called "servant of the Gospel", who by the least word or
covert innuendo, gives us a push back into prehistoric slime and
loathliness,--and that there are numbers who do so, no one can deny.
Abbe Vergniaud had flung many a pebble of sarcasm at the half-sinking
faith of some of his hearers with the result that he had sunk it
altogether. In his way he had done as much harm as the intolerant
bigot, who when he finds persons believing devoutly in Christ, but
refusing to accept Church-authority, considers such persons atheists
and does not hesitate to call them so. The "Pharisees" in Christian
doctrine are as haughty, hypocritical and narrow as the Pharisees whom
Jesus calls "ravening wolves," and towhom He said, "Ye shut up the
Kingdom of Heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, NEITHER
SUFFER YE THEM THAT ARE ENTERING TO GO IN," and "Even so ye also
outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of
hypocrisy and iniquity." The last words, it may be said, will apply
fittingly to more than one-half of the preachers of the Gospel at the
present day!
It was a brilliant, soft autumnal Sunday morning when Cardinal Bonpre,
mindful of Abbe Vergniaud's request that he should be present to hear
him preach, took his slow and thoughtful way to the church of the
Lorette, accompanied by his niece Angela and Manuel. The building was
crammed, and had not the Abbe been previously careful to reserve seats,
and to mention the Cardinal's name to the custodian, he would have
scarcely obtained admission. As it was, however, he passed slowly up
the centre aisle without hindrance, followed by Manuel and Angela, and
watched by a good many inquisitive persons, who wondered as they
looked, who the boy was that walked after His Eminence with such easy
self-possession,--with such a noble and modest bearing, and with such a
strangely thoughtful face. A few whispered and nudged each other as
"the Sovrani" passed them, dressed in her usual quiet black, her head
slightly bent and her eyes downcast. The Marquis Fontenelle, seated in
an attitude which suggested a languid indifference to all persons and
events, lifted his bright hazel eyes as she passed,--and a sudden wave
of consciousness swept over him,--uneasy consciousness that perhaps
this small slight woman despised him. This was not quite a pleasant
reflection for a man and a Marquis to boot,--one who could boast of an
ancient and honourable family pedigree dating back to the fighting days
of Coeur-de-Lion and whose coat-of-arms was distinguished by three
white lilies of France on one of its quarterings. The lilies of
France!--emblems of honour, loyalty, truth, and chivalry!--what smudged
and trampled blossoms they seem to day! He frowned as this fancy
crossed his mind, and turned his eyes away from the following of
Angela's slight form up the aisle; and his glance fell instead on a
face he detested, because it was almost the counterpart of his
own,--the face of the great French actor Miraudin. The same
clean-shaven classic face and clustering hair,--the same glittering,
amorous hazel eyes;--the same charming and kindly smile,--all these
attributes were in Miraudin's face, indefinably coarsened, while in
Fontenelle's they remained refined and inicative of the highest
breeding. The Marquis moved uneasily in his seat,--he saw himself in
the famous actor,--himself as he would be, if he continued his career
of self-indulgence,--for Miraudin though gifted with a genius that
could move all Paris to the wildest excesses of admiration, was in
private life known as a man of detestable reputation, whose liaisons
with women were endless, but who, in his extreme egotism and
callousness had never been known to yield to the saving grace of a
"grande passion,"--one of those faithful passions which sometimes make
the greatness of both man and woman concerned, and adorn the pages of
dull history with the brilliancy of deathless romance. Was he, Guy
Beausire de Fontenelle no better, no nobler, no higher, in his desires
and ambitions than Miraudin? What was he doing with the three lilies
emblazoned on his escutcheon? He thought with a certain fretful
impatience of Sylvie, of her captivating grace, her tender eyes, her
sweet laughter, and sweeter smile. She had seemed to him a mere slight
creation of the air and the moonbeams,--something dainty that would
have melted at a touch, and dropped into his mouth, as it were, like a
French bon-bon. So he, man-like, had judged, and now lo!--the little
ethereal creature had suddenly displayed a soul of adamant--hard and
pure, and glittering as a diamond,--which no persuasion could break or
bend. She had actually kept her word!--she had most certainly left
Paris. The Marquis knew that, by the lamentable story of her dismissed
maid who had come to him with hysterical tears, declaring that "Madame"
had suddenly developed a "humeur incroyable"--and had gone away
alone,--alone, save for a little dusky-skinned Arab boy whom she had
once brought away from Biskra and had trained as an attendant,--her
"gouvernante" and companion, Madame Bozier, and her old butler who had
known her from childhood. Fontenelle felt that the dismissal of the
maid who had been such a convenient spy for him, was due to Angela
Sovrani's interference, and though angry, he was conscious of feeling
at the same time mean in himself, and miserable. To employ a servant to
play the spy on her mistress, and report to him her actions and
movements, might be worthy of a Miraudin, but was it quite the thing
for a Marquis Fontenelle? Thinking over these things his handsome face
grew flushed and anon pale again, as from time to time he stole a vexed
side glance at the easy Miraudin,--so like him in features
and--unfortunately so equally like him in morals! Meanwhile, the music
of the Mass surged round him, in thunders of the organ, wailings of
violins, groaning of 'cellos, and flutings of boys' and men's
voices,--and as the cloudy incense rose upon the air he began to weave
strange fancies in his mind, and to see in the beams of sunlight
falling through the stained glass windows a vision of the bright face
of Sylvie looking down upon him with a half-tender, half-reproving
smile,--a smile that seemed to say, "If thou lovest me, set the grace
of honour on thy love!" These were strange thoughts for him to
entertain, and he was almost ashamed of them,--but as long as the
melodies of the Mass kept rolling on and reverberating around him he
could not help thinking of them; so that he was relieved when a pause
came,--the interval for the sermon,--and Abbe Vergniaud, leisurely
mounting the steps of the pulpit, stood surveying the congregation with
the composed yet quizzical air for which he was celebrated, and waiting
till the rustling, fidgeting, coughing, snuffing, toe-scraping noises
of the congregation had settled down into comparative silence. His
attitude during this interval was suggestive. It implied contempt,
wearied patience, resignation, and a curious touch of defiance. Holding
himself very erect he rested his left hand on the elaborate sculptured
edge of the pulpit,--it was the hand on which he usually wore his ring,
a diamond of purest lustre,--but on this occasion the jewel had been
removed and the white, firm fingers, outlined against the pulpit edge,
looked as though they had just relaxed their grasp of something that
had been more or less of a trouble to retain. Nothing perhaps is so
expressive as a hand,--the face can disguise itself,--even the eyes can
lie,--but the hand never. Its shape, its movements, its attitude in
repose, give a more certain clue to character and disposition than
almost any other human feature. Thus, with the Abbe, while his left
hand suggested a "letting go," his right hand, which held a small
black-bound Testament implied defiance, grip, resolve and courage. And
when the people seated immediately around the pulpit lifted their eyes
expectantly to the popular preacher's face, several of the more
observant noticed something in his look and manner which was unfamiliar
and curiously disconcerting. If it be true, as there is every reason to
believe it is, that each human being unconsciously gives out an "aura"
of his interior personality which is made more or less powerful to
attract or repel by the nature of his intentions, and which affects the
"aura" of those with whom he is brought in contact, then Abbe Vergniaud
was this morning creating all unawares to himself a very singular
impression of uneasiness. Some of the persons thus uncomfortably
influenced coughed violently in an instinctive attempt to divert or
frustrate the preacher's mood, but even the most persistent cougher
must cease coughing at some time or another--and the Abbe was evidently
determined to wait for an absolute silence before he spoke. At last
silence came, and he opened the Testament. Holding it up to the view of
the congregation, he began with all that easy eloquence which the
French tongue gives to a cultured speaker,--his voice full and
sonorous, reaching distinctly to every part of the crowded church.
"This," he said, "is a small book which you all pretend to know. It is
so small a book that it can easily be read through in an hour. It is
the Testament;--or the Last Will and Command to the world of one Jesus
Christ, who was crucified on account of His Divinity more than eighteen
hundred years ago. I mention the fact, in case any of you have
forgotten it! It is generally understood that this book is the message
of God and the key of Faith;--upon it our churches and religious
systems are founded;--by its teaching we are supposed to order our
conduct of life--and yet,--though as I have said, it is a very small
book, and would not take you an hour to read it--none of you know any
thing about it! That is a strange thing, is it not?"
Here he leaned over the pulpit edge, and his bright eyes, coldly
satiric, flashed a comprehensive glance over the whole congregation.
"Yes, it is a strange thing, but I affirm it true,--that none of you
know anything whatever about the contents of this small volume which is
the foundation of the Christian Faith! You never read it
yourselves,--and if we priests read it to you, you never remember it!
It is a locked Mystery,--perhaps, for all we know, the greatest mystery
in the world,--and the one most worth probing! For the days seem to be
coming, if they have not already come, which were prophesied by St.
John the Divine, whom certain 'clever' men of the time have set down as
mad;--days which were described as 'shaking the powers of heaven and
creating confusion on the earth.' St. John said some strange things;
one thing in particular, concerning this very book, which reads
thus;--'I saw in the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne a book
sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a
loud voice; Who is worthy to open and to loose the seals thereof? And
no man in heaven or in earth was able to open the book neither to look
thereon. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to
read the book, neither to look thereon.' But St. John the Divine was
mad, we are told,--madness and inspiration being judged as one and the
same thing. Well, if in these statements he is supposed to prove his
madness, I consider a doubt must be set upon everyone's sanity. For his
words are an exact description of the present period of the world's
existence and its attitude towards the Gospel of Christ,--'NO MAN IS
FOUND WORTHY TO LOOSE THE SEALS OF THE BOOK OR TO LOOK THEREON.' But I
am not going to talk to you about the seven seals. They adequately
represent our favourite 'seven deadly sins,' which have kept the book
closed since the days of the early martyrs;--and are likely to keep it
closed still. Nor shall I speak of our unworthiness to read what we
have never taken the trouble to rightly understand,--for all this would
be waste of time. It is part of our social sham to pretend we know the
Gospel,--and it is a still greater sham to assume that we have ever
tried in the smallest degree to follow its teaching. What we know of
these teachings has influenced us unconsciously, but the sayings in the
Gospel of Christ are in very truth as enveloped in mystery to each
separate individual reader as the oracles of the ancient Egyptians were
to the outside multitude. And why? Merely because, to comprehend the
teaching of Jesus we should have to think,--and we all hate thinking.
It is too much exertion,--and exertion itself is unpleasant. A quarter
of an hour's hard thinking will convince each one of us that he or she
is a very worthless and ridiculous person, and we strongly object to
any process which will, in itself, bring us to that conclusion. I say
'we' object,--that is, I and you; particularly I. I admit at once that
to appear worthless and ridiculous to the world has always seemed to me
a distressing position, and one to be avoided. Worthless and ridiculous
in my own eyes I have always been,--but that is not your affair. It is
strictly mine! And though I feel I am not worthy 'to loose the seals of
the book or look thereon,' there is one passage in it which strikes me
as particularly applicable to the present day, and from it I will
endeavour to draw a lesson for your instruction, though perhaps not for
your entertainment."
Here he paused and glanced at his hearers with an indefinable
expression of mingled scorn and humour.
"What an absurdity it is to talk of giving a 'lesson' to you!--you who
will barely listen to a friend's advice,--you who will never take a
hint for your mental education or improvement, you who are apt to fly
into a passion, or take to the sulks when you are ever so slightly
contradicted. Tiens, tiens! c'est drole! Now the words I am about to
preach from, are supposed to have been uttered by Divine lips; and if
you thoroughly believed this, you would of your own accord kneel down
and pray that you might receive them with full comprehension and ready
obedience. But you do not believe;--so I will not ask you to kneel down
in mockery, or feign to pray when you are ignorant of the very spirit
of prayer! So take the words,--without preparation, without thought,
without gratitude, as you take everything God gives you, and see what
you can make of them. 'The light of the body is the eye,--if therefore
thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if
thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If
therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that
darkness!'"
Here he closed the Testament, and rested it edgewise on the pulpit
cushion, keeping one hand firmly clasped upon it as he turned himself
about and surveyed the whole congregation.
"What is the exact meaning of the words, 'IF THINE EYE BE SINGLE'? It
is an expressive term; and in its curt simplicity covers a profound
truth. 'If thine eye,' namely,--the ability to see,--'be single,' that
is straight and clear, without dimness or obliquity,--'thy whole body
shall be full of light.' Christ evidently did not apply this expression
to the merely physical capability of sight,--but to the moral and
mental, or psychic vision. It matters nothing really to the infinite
forces around us, whether physically speaking, we are able to see, or
whether we are born blind; but spiritually, it is the chief necessity
of our lives that we should be able to see straight morally. Yet that
is what we can seldom or never do. Modern education, particularly
education in France, provides us at once with a double psychic lens,
and a side-squint into the bargain! Seeing straight would be too
primitive and simple for us. But Christ says, 'If thine eye be evil,
thy whole body shall be full of darkness.' Now this word 'evil,' as set
in juxtaposition to the former term 'single,' evidently implies a
double sight or perverted vision. With this 'evil,' or double sight,
our whole body 'shall be full of darkness.' Very well, my friends, if
this be true,--(and you surely must believe it true, otherwise you
would not support churches for the exposition of the truth as spoken by
the Founder of our Faith;--) then we are children of the dark indeed! I
doubt if one amongst us,--for I include myself with you,--can be said
to see clearly with a straight psychic vision. The straight psychic
vision teaches us that God is the Creator of all things,--God is Light
and Love,--God desires good from us, and from every particle of his
creation;--but the double or perverted line of sight offers a different
view and declares, 'This life is short and offers many pleasures. I
cannot be sure of God because I have never seen Him;--the Universe is
certainly very majestic, and somewhat startling to me in its exact
mathematical proportions; but I have no more to do with it than has a
grain of sand;--my lot is no more important than that of the midge in
the sunbeam;--I live,--I breed--I die;--and it matters to no one but
myself how I do these three things, provided I satisfy my nature.' This
is the Philosophy of the Beast, and it is just now very fashionable. It
is 'la haute mode' both in France, and England, Italy, and Spain. Only
young America seem to be struggling for a Faith,--a Christian
Faith;--it has almost, albeit faintly and with a touching indecision,
asked for such a Faith from the Pope,--who has however declared it to
be impossible in these words addressed to Cardinal Gibbons, 'Discussion
of the principles of the Church cannot be tolerated even in the United
States. There can only be one interpreter, the Pope. In the matter of
discipline, concessions may be allowed, but in doctrine none.' Mark the
words, 'cannot be tolerated'! Consider what stability a Faith can have
whose principles may not be discussed! Yet the authority of the Church
is, we are told the authority of God Himself. How is this? We can
discuss God and His principles. He 'tolerates' us while we search for
His laws, and stand amazed and confounded before His marvellous
creation. The more we look for Him the more He gives Himself gloriously
to us; and Christ declares 'Seek and ye shall find,'--the Church says
'Seek and ye shall not be tolerated'! How are we to reconcile these two
assertions? We do not reconcile them; we cannot; it is a case of double
sight,--oblique and perverted psychic vision. Christ spoke
plainly;--the Church speaks obscurely. Christ gave straight
commands,--we fly in the face of them and openly disobey them. Truth
can always be 'discussed,' and Truth MUST be 'tolerated' were a
thousand Holy Fathers to say it nay! But note again the further words
to America, 'There can only be one interpreter,--the Pope. In the
matter of discipline, concessions may be allowed, but in doctrine
none.' Let us examine into this doctrine. It is the doctrine of Christ,
plain and straightforward; enunciated in such simple words that even a
child can understand them. But the Church announces with a strident
voice that there can only be one interpreter,--the Pope. Nevertheless
Truth has a more resonant voice than even that of the Church. Truth
cries out at this present day, 'Unless you will listen to Me who am the
absolute utterance of God, who spake by the prophets, who spake through
Christ,--who speaks through Christ and all things still,--your little
systems, your uncertain churches, your inefficient creeds, your
quarrelsome sects, shall crumble away into dust and ruins! For humanity
is waiting for the true Church of Christ; the one pure House of Praise
from which all sophistry, all superstition and vanity shall have fled,
and only God in the Christ-Miracle and the perfection of His Creation
shall remain!' And there is no more sure foundation for this
much-needed House of Praise than the Catholic Church,--the word
'catholic' being applied in its widest sense, meaning a 'Universal'
answering to the needs of all;--and I am willing to maintain that the
ROMAN Catholic Church has within it the vital germ of a sprouting
perfection. If it would utterly discard pomp and riches, if it would
set its dignity at too high an estimate for any wish to meddle in
temporal or political affairs, if it would firmly trample down all
superstition, idolatry and bigotry, and 'use no vain repetition as the
heathen do'--to quote Christ's own words,--if in place of ancient dogma
and incredible legendary lore, it would open its doors to the marvels
of science, the miracles and magnificence daily displayed to us in the
wonderful work of God's Universe, then indeed it might obtain a lasting
hold on mankind. It might conquer Buddhism, and Christianize the whole
earth. But--'If thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of
darkness,'--and while the Church remains double-sighted we are bound
also to see double. And so we listen with a complete and cynical
atheism to the conventional statement that 'one man alone' shall
interpret Christ's teaching to us of the Roman following,--and this man
an old frail teacher, whose bodily and intellectual powers are, in the
course of nature, steadily on the decline. Why we ask, must an aged man
be always elected to decide on the teaching of the ever-young and
deathless Christ?--to whom the burden of years was unknown, and whose
immortal spirit, cased for a while in clay, saw ever the rapt vision of
'old things being made new'? In all other work but this of religious
faith, men in the prime of life are selected to lead,--men of energy,
thought, action, and endeavour,--but for the sublime and difficult task
of lifting the struggling human soul out of low things to lofty, an old
man, weak, and tottering on the verge of the grave, is set before us as
our 'infallible' teacher! There is something appalling in the fact,
that look where we may, no profession holds out much chance of power or
authority to any man past sixty, but the Head of the Church may be so
old that he can hardly move one foot before the other, yet he is
permitted to be declared the representative of the ever-working,
ever-helping, ever-comforting Christ, who never knew what it was to be
old! Enough, however of this strange superstition which is only one of
many in the Church, and which are all the result of double or perverted
sight,--I come to the last part of the text which runs, 'If therefore
the light in thee be darkness how great is that darkness.' IF THEREFORE
THE LIGHT IN THEE BE DARKNESS! My friends, that is exactly my
condition, and has been my condition ever since I was twenty. The light
in me has been darkness. The intellectual quality of my brain which has
helped me to attain my present false position among you . . ."
Here he paused, for there was a distinct movement of surprise among his
audience, which till now, had remained to a man so still that the buzz
of a fly on the window-pane sounded almost as loud as the drone of a
bag-pipe,--then with a faint smile on his lips he resumed,--
"I hope you all heard my words distinctly! I said, the false position I
have attained among you. I repeat it lest there should be any mistake.
It IS a false position and always has been. I have never for an instant
believed half what I have asked you to believe! And I have preached to
you what I have never dreamed of practising! Yet I venture to say that
I am not worse than most of my brethren. The intellectual men of
France, whether clergy or laity, are in a difficult situation. Their
brains are keen and clear; and, intellectually speaking, they are
totally unable to accept the Church superstitions of the tenth and
twelfth centuries. But in rejecting superstition it would have been
quite possible to have held them fast to a sublime faith in God and an
Immortal Future, had the Church caught them when slipping, and risen to
the mental demand made upon her resources. But the old worn-out thunder
of the Vatican, which lately made a feeble noise in America, has rolled
through France with the same assertion, 'Discussion cannot be
tolerated'; and what has been the result? Simply this,--that all the
intellectual force of the country is arrayed against priestcraft;--and
the spirit of an insolent, witty, domineering atheism and materialism
rules us all. Even young children can be found by the score who laugh
at the very idea of a God, and who fling a jeer at the story of the
Crucifixion of Christ,--while vice and crime are tolerated and often
excused. Moral restraint is being less and less enforced, and the
clamouring for sensual indulgence has become so incessant that the
desire of the whole country, if put into one line, might be summed up
in the impotent cry of the Persian voluptuary Omar Khayyam to his god,
'Reconcile the law to my desires'. This is as though a gnat should seek
to build a cathedral, and ask for the laws of architecture to be
altered in order to suit his gnat-like capacity. The Law is the Law;
and if broken, brings punishment. The Law makes for good,--and if we
pull back for evil, destroys us in its outward course. Vice breeds
corruption in body and in soul; and history furnishes us with more than
sufficient examples of that festering disease. It is plainly demanded
of us that we should assist God's universe in its way towards
perfection; if we refuse, and set a drag on the majestic Wheel, we are
ourselves crushed in its progress. Here is where our Church errs in the
present generation. It is setting itself as a drag on the Wheel.
Meanwhile, Truth advances every day, and with no uncertain voice
proclaims the majesty of God. Heaven's gates are thrown open;--the
secrets of the stars are declared,--the mysteries of light and sound
are discovered; and we are approaching possibly to the time when the
very graves shall give up their dead, and the secrets of all men's
hearts shall be made manifest. Yet we go on lying, deceiving, cajoling,
humbugging each other and ourselves;--living a daily life of fraud and
hypocrisy, with a sort of smug conviction in our souls that we shall
never be found out. We make a virtue of animalism, and declare the
Beast-Philosophy to be in strict keeping with the order of nature. We
gloat over our secret sins, and face the world with a brazen front of
assumed honour. Oh, we are excellent liars all! But somehow we never
seem to think we are fools as well! We never remember that all we do
and all we say, is merely the adding of figures to a sum which in the
end must be made up to the grand total, and paid! Every figure
tells;--the figure 'nought' especially, puts an extra thousand on the
whole quantity! But the light in us being darkness, how great is that
darkness! So great that we refuse to look an inch before us! We will
not see, we will not understand,--we utterly decline to accept any
teaching or advice which might inflict some slight inconvenience on our
own Ego. And so we go on day after day, till all at once a reckoning is
called and death stares us in the face. What! So soon finished? All
over? Must we go at once, and no delay? Must we really and truly drop
all our ridiculous lies and conventions and be sent away naked-souled
into the Living Unknown? Not the Dead Unknown remember!--for nothing is
actually dead! The whole universe palpitates and burns with ever
re-created life. What have we done with the past life?--and what shall
we do with this other life? Oh, but there is no time to ask questions
now,--we should have asked them before; the hour of departure is come,
and there is not a moment's breathing time! Our dear friends (if we
have any), and our paid doctors and servants stand around us
awe-struck,--they watch out last convulsive shudder--and weep--not so
much for sorrow sometimes as terror,--and then when all is over, they
say we are 'gone'. Yes,--we are gone--but where? Well, we shall each of
us find that out, my friends, when we pass away from Popes, Churches,
Creeds, and Conventions to the majesty of the actual Glory! Shall we
pray then? Shall we weep? Shall we talk of rituals? Shall we say this
or that form of prayer was the true one?--this or that creed was the
'only' one? Shall we complain of our neighbours?--or shall we not
suddenly realise that there never was but one way of life and progress
through creation,--the good and pure, the truthful and courageous, as
taught with infinite patience by the God-Man, and that wheresoever we
have followed our own inclinations rather than His counsel, then our
OWN action, not God's punishment, condemns us,--our OWN words, not
God's, re-echo back our sins upon ourselves!"
He paused, looking everywhere around him,--all his hearers were
listening with an almost breathless attention.
"Oh, yes! I know the charm of sin!" he continued with mingled mockery
and passion vibrating in his voice;--"The singular fascination of pure
devilry! All of you know it too,--those of you who court the world's
applause on the stage, or in the salons of art and literature, and who
pretend that by your work you are elevating and assisting humanity,
while in your own private lives you revel in such vice as the very dogs
you keep might be ashamed of! There is no beast so bestial as man at
his worst! And some of you whom I know, glory in being seen at your
worst always. There are many among you here to-day whose sole excuse
for a life of animalism is, that it is your nature, 'I live according
to my temperament,--my disposition,--I do not wish to change
myself--you cannot change me; I am as I am made'! So might the thief
argue as he steals his neighbour's money,--so may the murderer console
himself as he stabs his victim! 'It is my nature to stab and to
steal--it is my nature to live as a beast--I do not wish to change; you
cannot change me'. Now if these arguments were true, and hold good, man
would be still where he begun,--in the woods and caves,--an uncouth
savage with nothing save an animal instinct to lead him where he could
find food. But even this earliest instinct, savage though it was,
taught him that something higher than himself had made him, and so he
began to creep on by slow degrees towards that higher at once; hence
instinct led to reason, and reason to culture and civilization. And now
having touched as high a point of experience and knowledge as the
ancient Assyrians and Egyptians attained before their decline, he is
beginning even as they did, to be weary and somewhat afraid of what
lies beyond in the as yet unfathomed realms of knowledge; and he half
wishes to creep back again on all-fours to the days when he was beast
merely. The close contemplation of the Angel terrifies him,--he dare
not grow his wings! Further than life, as life appears to him on its
material side, he is afraid to soar,--what lies in the far distance he
dare not consider! This is where the Pause comes in all progress,--the
hesitation, the doubt, the fear;--the moment when the Creature draws so
near to his Creator that he is dazzled and confounded. And it is a
strange fact that he is always left alone,--alone with his own Will, in
every such grand crisis. He has been helped so much by divine
influences, that he is evidently considered strong enough to decide his
own fate. He is strong enough,--he has sufficient reason and knowledge
to decide it for the Highest, if he would. But, with national culture
goes national luxury,--the more civilised a community, the greater its
bodily ease,--the more numerous the temptations against which we are
told we must fight. Spirit flies forward--Body pulls back. But Spirit
is one day bound to win! We have attained in this generation a certain
knowledge of Soul-forces--and we are on a verge, where, if we hesitate,
we are lost, and must recoil upon our own Ego as the centre of all
desire. But if we go on boldly and leave our own Ego behind, we shall
see the gates of Heaven opening indeed, and all the Mysteries unveiled!
How often we pause on the verge of better things, doubting whether to
rise or grovel! The light in us is darkness, and how great is that
darkness! Such is the state of mind in which I, your preacher, have
found myself for many years! I do not know whether to rise or
grovel,--to sink or soar! To be absolutely candid with you, I am quite
sure that I should not sink in your opinion for confessing myself to be
as outrageous in my conceptions of mortality as many of you are. You
would possibly pretend to be ashamed of me, but in your hearts you
would like me all the better. The sinking or the soaring of my nature
has therefore nothing whatever to do with you. It is a strictly
personal question. But what I specially wish to advise you of this
morning,--taking myself as an example,--is that none of you, whether
inclined to virtue or to vice, should remain such arrant fools as to
imagine that your sins will not find you out. They will,--the instant
they are committed, their sole mission is to start on your track, and
hunt you down! I cannot absolutely vouch to you that there is a
God,--but I am positive there is a hidden process of mathematics going
on in the universe which sums up our slightest human affairs with an
exactitude which at the least is amazing. Twenty-five years ago I did a
great wrong to a human creature who was innocent, and who absolutely
trusted me. There is no crime worse than this, yet it seemed to me
quite a trifling affair,--an amusement--a nothing! I was perfectly
aware that by some excessively straightlaced people it might be termed
a sin; but my ideas of sin were as easy and condoning as yours are. I
never repented it,--I can hardly say I ever thought of it,--if I did I
excused myself quickly, and assured my own conscience in the usual way,
that the fault was merely the result of circumstances over which I had
no control. Oh, those uncontrollable circumstances! How convenient they
are! And what a weak creature they make of man, who at other times than
those of temptation, is wont to assert himself master of this planet!
Master of a planet and cannot control a vice! Excellent! Well,--I
never, as I say, thought of the wrong I had done,--but if _I_ forgot
it, some One or some Thing remembered it! Yes--remembered it!--put it
down--chronicled it with precision as to time and place,--and set it, a
breathing fact, before me in my old age,--a living witness of my own
treachery."
He paused, the congregation stirred,--the actor Miraudin looked up at
him with a surprised half-smile. Angela Sovrani lifted her beautiful
violet eyes towards him in amazed compassion,--Cardinal Bonpre,
recalling the Abbe previous confession to him, bent his head, deeply
moved.
"Treachery," resumed Vergniaud determinedly, "Is always a covert thing.
We betray each other in the dark, with silent foot-steps and sibilant
voices. We whisper our lies. We concoct our intrigues with carefully
closed doors. I did so. I was a priest of the Roman Church as I am now;
it would never have done for a priest to be a social sinner! I
therefore took every precaution to hide my fault;--but out of my lie
springs a living condemnation; from my carefully concealed hypocrisy
comes a blazonry of truth, and from my secret sin comes an open
vengeance . . ."
At the last words the loud report of a pistol sounded through the
building . . . there was a puff of smoke, a gleam of flame, and a
bullet whizzed straight at the head of the preacher! The congregation
rose, en masse, uttering exclamations of terror,--but before anyone
could know exactly what had happened the smoke cleared, and the Abbe
Vergniaud was seen leaning against the steps of the pulpit, pale but
uninjured, and in front of him stood the boy Manuel with arms
outstretched, and a smile on his face. The bullet had split the pulpit
immediately above him. An excited group assembled round them
immediately, and the Abbe was the first to speak.
"I am not hurt!--" he said quickly--"See to the boy! He sprang in front
of me and saved my life."
But Manuel was equally unhurt, and waived aside all enquiries and
compliments. And while eager questions were poured out and answered, a
couple of gendarmes were seen struggling in the centre of the church
with a man who seemed to have the power of a demon, so fierce and
frantic were his efforts to escape.
"Ah, voila! The assassin!" cried Miraudin, hastening to give assistance.
"The assassin!" echoed a dozen other persons pressing in the same
direction.
Vergniaud heard, and gave one swift glance at Cardinal Bonpre who,
though startled by the rapidity and excitement of the scene that had
occurred, was equal to the occasion, and understood his friend's appeal
at once, even before he said hurriedly,
"Monseigneur! Tell them to let him go!--or--bring him face to face with
me!"
The Cardinal endeavoured to pass through the crowd, but though some
made way for him on account of his ecclesiastical dignity, others
closed in, and he found it impossible to move more than a few steps.
Then Vergniaud, moved by a sudden resolve, raised himself a little, and
resting one hand on the shoulder of Manuel, who still remained on the
steps of the pulpit in front of him, he called,
"Let Monsieur the assassin come here to me! I have a word to say to
him!"
Through the swaying, tumultuous, murmuring throng came a sudden
stillness, and everyone drew back as the gendarmes responding to Abbe
Vergniaud's command, pushed their way along, dragging and hustling
their prisoner between them,--a young black-browed, black-eyed peasant
with a handsome face and proud bearing, whose defiant manner implied
that having made one fierce struggle for liberty and finding it in
vain, he was now disdainfully resigned to the inevitable. When brought
face to face with the Abbe he lifted his head, and flashed his dark
eyes upon him with a look of withering contempt. His lips parted,--he
seemed about to speak when his glance accidentally fell upon
Manuel,--then something caused him to hesitate,--he checked himself on
the very verge of speech and remained silent. The Abbe surveyed him
with something of a quizzical half-admiring smile, then addressing the
gendarmes he said,
"Let him go!"
The men looked up astonished, doubting whether they had heard aright.
"Let him go!" repeated the Abbe firmly, "I have no accusation to make
against him. Had he killed me he would have been perfectly justified!
Let him go!"
"Cher Abbe!" remonstrated the Marquis Fontenelle, who had made himself
one of the group immediately around the pulpit, "Is not this a mistake
on your part? Let me advise you not to be so merciful . . ."
"'Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy'"! quoted the
Abbe with a strange smile, while his breath came and went quickly, and
his face grew paler as he spoke. "Set him free, messieurs, if you
please! I decline to prosecute my own flesh and blood! I will be
answerable for his future conduct,--I am entirely answerable for his
past! He is my son!"