It was high noon in the little town of Parbridge; the streets were
bright and silent, and the walls of the houses were hot to the touch.
The limes in the narrow avenue leading to the west door of the great
church of St. Mary stood breathless and still. The ancient church
itself looked as if it pondered gravely on what had been and what was
to be; and the tall windows of the belfry, with their wooden louvres,
seemed to be solemn half-shut eyes. At the south side of the church,
connected with it by a wooden cloister, stood a tall house of grey
stone. In a room looking out upon the graveyard sate two men. The room
had an austere air; its plain whitened walls bore a single picture, so
old and dark that it was difficult to see what was represented in it.
On some shelves stood a few volumes; near the window was a tall black
crucifix of plain wood, the figure white. There was an oak table with
writing materials. The floor was paved with squares of wood.
The two men sate close together. One was an old and weather-worn man
in a secular dress of dark material; the other a young priest in a
cassock, whose pale face, large eyes and wasted hands betokened
illness, or the strain of some overmastering thought. It seemed as
though they had been holding a grave conversation of strange or sad
import, and had fallen into a momentary silence.
The priest was the first to speak. "Well, beloved physician," he said,
in a slow and languid voice, though with a half-smile, "I have told
you my trouble; and I would have your most frank opinion."
"I hardly know what to say," said the Doctor. "I have prescribed for
many years and do not know that I ever heard the like; I must tell you
plainly that such things are not written in our medical books."
The priest said nothing, but looked sadly out of the window; presently
the Doctor said, "Let me hear the tale from the first beginning, dear
Herbert;--it is well to have the whole complete. I would consult with
a learned friend of mine about this dark matter, a physician who is
more skilled than I am in maladies of the mind--for I think that more
ails the mind than the body."
"Well," said the priest a little wearily, "I will tell it you.
"Almost a year ago, on one of the hottest days of the early summer, I
went abroad as usual, about noon, to visit Mistress Dennis who was
ill. I do not think I felt myself to be unwell, and was full to the
brim of little joyous businesses; I stood for a time at the porch to
speak with Master Dennis himself, who came in just as I left the
house, and I stood uncovered at the door; suddenly the sun stabbed and
struck me, as with a scythe, and I saw a whirling blackness before my
eyes and staggered. Master Dennis was alarmed, and would have had me
go within; but I would not, for I had other work to do; so he led me
home; that afternoon I sate over my book; but I could neither read nor
think; I was in pain, I remember, and felt that some strange thing had
happened to me; I recall, too, rising from my chair, and I am told I
fainted and fell.
"Then I remember nothing more but fierce and wild dreams of pain.
Sometimes I heard my own voice crying out; at last the pain died away,
and left me very weak and sad; but I was still pent up, it seemed to
me, in some dark dungeon of the mind, and the view of the room I lay
in and the sight of those who visited me only came to me in short
glimpses. I am told I babbled strangely; then one morning I came out
suddenly, like a man rising from a dive in a pool, and knew that I was
myself again; that day was a day of quiet joy; I was weak and silent,
but it seemed good to be alive. It was not till the next day that I
noticed the thing that I have tried to tell you, that haunts me
yet--and I can hardly put it into words.
"It seemed to me that I noticed round about those who came to me a
thin veil, as it were of vapour, but it was not dense like smoke or
mist; I could see them as well through it as before; it was more like
a light that played about them, and it was brightest over the heart
and above the brow; at first I thought it was some effect of my weak
state, but as I grew stronger I saw it still more clearly.
"And then comes the strangest part of all; the light changed
according to the thoughts that were passing in the mind of the person
on whom my eyes were set--the thought that it was so came suddenly
into my mind and bewildered me; but in a little I was sure of it. I
need not give long instances--but I saw, or thought I saw, that when
the mind of the man or woman was pure and pitiful, the light was pure
and clear, but that when the thoughts were selfish, or covetous, or
angry, or unclean, there came a darkness into the light, as when you
drop a little ink into clear water. Few came to see me; and I suppose
that they were full of pity and perhaps a little love for me in my
helpless state, so that the light about them was pure and even; but
one day the good dame Ann, who tended me, in stooping to give me
drink, thrust a dish off the table, which broke, and spilled its
contents, and a dark flush came into the light that was round her for
a moment.
"Then too as I got better, and was able to see and speak with my
people, there came to me several in trouble of different kinds, and
the light was sullen and wavering; one, whose name I will not tell
you, came to me with a sin upon his mind, and the vapour was all dark
and stained; and so it has been till now; and these last weeks it has
been even stranger; because by a kind of practice I have been led to
infer what the thoughts in the mind of each person are, at first
seeing them. It is true that they have not always told me in words
what the light would seem to suggest; but I have good reason to
believe that the thoughts are there behind.
"Now," he went on, "this is a sad and dreadful gift, and I do not
desire it. It is horrible that the thoughts of men should be made
manifest to a man, the thoughts that should be read only by God; and I
go to and fro in the world with this cruel horror upon me, and so I am
in evil case."
He ceased, as if tired of speaking, and the old Doctor mused, looking
on the floor--then he shook his head and said, "My dear friend, I am
powerless at present; such a thing has never come to me before--you
are as it were in a chamber of life that I have never visited, and I
can but stand on the threshold and listen at a closed door." Then he
was silent for a little, but presently he said, "This light that you
speak of--does it envelop every one?--do you see it about _me_ as I
speak with you?" "Yes," said Herbert, turning his eyes upon the
Doctor, "it is round you, very pure and clean; you are giving all your
heart to my story; and it is a good and tender heart. You have not
many sorrows except the sorrows of others," and then suddenly Herbert
broke off with a vague gesture of the hand and looked at the Doctor
with a bewildered look. "Finish what you were saying," said the Doctor
with a grave look. "Nay, nay," said Herbert with a sad air, "you have
sorrows indeed--the light changes and darkens--but they are not all
for yourself."
"This is a strange thing," said the Doctor very seriously--"tell me
what you mean."
"Then you must keep from thoughts on your trouble, whatever it is,"
said Herbert. "I would read no man's secrets; but let this prove to
you that I am not speaking of a mere sick fancy--turn not your
thoughts on me." Then there was a pause and then Herbert said slowly,
"As far as I can read the light, you did a wrong once, long ago, in
your youth, and bear the burden of it yet; and you have striven to
amend it; and now it is not a selfish fear;"--the priest mused a
moment--"How, if the deed has borne fruit in another, for whom you
sorrow, for you think that your wrongdoing was the seed of his?"
The Doctor grew pale to the lips, and said in a low voice, "This is a
very fearful gift, dear friend. You have indeed laid your finger on
the sore spot--it is a thing I have never spoken of to any but God."
Then there was a silence again; and then Herbert said, "But there is
another thing of which I have not told you; it is this; you know what
I was before my illness--simple, I think, and humble, and with a heart
that for all its faults was tender and faithful. Well, with this gift,
that has all departed from me; I seem to care neither for man nor God;
I see the trouble in another heart, and it moves me not. I feel as if
I would not put out a finger to heal another's grief, except that
habit has made it hard for me to do otherwise." And then with a sudden
burst of passion, "Oh, my heart of stone!" he said.
The Doctor looked at him very sadly and lovingly, and then he rose.
"I must be gone," he said, "but by your leave I will consult, without
any mention of name, an old friend of mine, the wise physician of whom
I spoke; and meanwhile, dear friend, rest and be still. God has sent
you a very strange and terrible gift, but He sends not His gifts in
vain; and you must see how you may use it for His service."
"Yes, yes, I doubt not," said Herbert wearily--"but the will to serve
is gone from me--I would I were sleeping quietly out yonder--the world
is poisoned for me, and yet I loved it once."
Then the old physician went away, lost in thought, and Herbert made
attempt to address himself to his book, but he could not; he looked
back over his life, and saw himself a simple child, very innocent and
loving; he saw his eager and clean boyhood, and how the thought had
come into his mind to be a priest--it was not for a noble reason,
Herbert thought; he had loved the beauty of the dark rich church, the
slow and delicate music of the organ, the singing of the choir, the
faint sweetness of the incense smoke, the solemn figures of the
priests as they moved about the altar--it had been but a love of
beauty and solemnity; no desire to save others, and very little love
to the Father, though a strange uplifted desire of heart toward the
Lord Christ; but as he thought of it now, sitting in the afternoon
sunshine, it seemed to him as though he had loved the Saviour more for
the beauty of worship which surrounded Him, throned as it were so
piteously upon the awful Cross, lifted up, the desire of the world, in
all His stainless strength and adorable suffering, to draw souls to
Him.
Then he had gone to Oxford, and he thought of his time there, his
small bare rooms, the punctual vivid life, so repressed, yet so full
of human movement. Herbert had won friends very easily there, and the
good fathers had loved him; but all this love, looking back, seemed to
him to have been called out not by the lovingness of his own heart,
but by a certain unconscious charm, a sweet humility of manner, a
readiness to please and be pleased, a desire to do what should win his
companion, whoever it might chance to be.
Then he went for a time as a young priest to the cathedral, as a
vicar, and there again life had been easy for him; he had gained fame
for a sort of easy and pathetic eloquence, that allowed him to make
what he spoke of seem beautiful to those who heard it, but now Herbert
thought sadly that he had not done this for love of the thoughts of
which he spoke, but for the pleasure of arraying them so that they
moved and pleased others; and yet he had won some power over souls
too, he had himself been so courteous, so gentle, so seeming tender,
that others spoke easily to him of their troubles and seemed to find
help in his words; then had come the day when the Bishop had sent him
to St. Mary's, and there too everything had been as easy to him as
before. Yes, that had been the fault all through! he had won by a
certain grace what ought to have been won by deep purity and eager
desire and great striving.
And this too had at last begun to come home to him; and then he had
half despaired of changing himself. He had been like a shallow
rippling brook, yet seemed to others like a swift and patient river;
and he had prayed very earnestly to God to change his heart; to deepen
and widen it, to make it strong and sincere and faithful. And was
this, thought Herbert, the terrible answer? was he who had loved ease
and beauty on all sides, had loved the surface and the seeming of
things, to be thrust violently into the deep places of the human
heart, to be shown by a dreadful clearness of vision the stain, the
horror, the shadow of the world?
But what was to him the most despairing thought of all was this--and
thinking quietly over it, it seemed to him that if this clearness of
vision had quickened his zeal to serve, if it had shown him how true
and fierce was the battle to be waged in life, and how few men walked
in the peace that was so near them that they could have taken it by
stretching out their hand--if it had taught him this, had nerved his
heart, had sent him speeding into the throng to heal the secret
sorrows that his quickened sight could see, then the reason of the
gift would have been plain to him; but with the clearer vision had
come this deadly apathy, this strange and bitter loathing for a world
where all seemed so sweet outwardly and was so heavy-hearted within.
And Herbert thought of how once as a child he had seen a beautiful
rose-bush just bursting into bloom; and he had gone near to draw the
sweet scent into his nostrils, and had recognised a dreadful heavy
odour below and behind the delicate scent of the roses, and there,
when he put the bush aside, was the swollen body of a dog that had
crept into the very heart of the bush to die, and tainted all the air
with the horror of death. He had hated roses long after, and now it
seemed to him that all the world was like that.
He came suddenly out of his sad reverie with a start; the bell of the
church began to toll for vespers, and he rose up wearily enough to go.
His work, he hardly dared confess to himself, was a heavy burden to
him; of old he had found great peace, day by day, in the quiet
evensong in the dark cool church, the few worshippers, the gracious
pleading of the ancient psalms, so sweet in themselves, and so
fragrant with the incense of immemorial prayer; and he thought that,
besides the actual worshippers, there were round him a great company
of faithful souls, unseen yet none the less present--all this had been
to him a deep refreshment, a draught of the waters of comfort; but now
there was never a gathering when the dark trouble of thought in other
souls was not visibly revealed to him.
He went slowly across the little garden in front of the house; there
by the road grew a few flowers--for Herbert loved to have all things
trim and bright about him. A boy was leaning over the rail looking at
the flowers; and Herbert saw, in the secret light that hung round the
child, the darkening flush that told of the presence of some
conscience-stricken wish. The child got hurriedly down from the rail
at the sight of Herbert, who stopped and called him. "Little one," he
said, "come hither." The child stood a moment absorbed, finger on lip,
and presently came up to Herbert, who gathered a few of the flowers
and put them into the child's hands. "Here is a posy for you," he
said, "but, dear one, remember this--the flowers were mine, and you
did desire them. God sends us gifts sometimes and sometimes not; when
He sends them, it is well to take them gratefully, thus--but if He
gives them not, and the voice within says, 'Then will I take them,' we
must fly from temptation. Do you understand that, little one?" The
child stood considering a moment, and then shyly gave the flowers
back. "Ay, that is right," said Herbert, "but you may take them
now--God gives them to you!" and he stooped and kissed the child on
the forehead.
A few days after the old physician came again to see Herbert,
evidently troubled. He told Herbert that he had consulted his friend,
who could make nothing of the case. "He said--" he added, and then
stopped short. "Nay, I will tell you," he went on, "for in such a
matter we may not hesitate. He said that it was a delusion of the
mind, not of the eye--and that it was more a case for a priest than
for a doctor." "He is right," said Herbert. "I had even thought of
that--and I will do what I ought to have done before. I will take my
story to my lord the Bishop and I will ask his advice; he is my
friend, and he has been a true father to my spirit--and he is a good
and holy man as well."
So Herbert wrote to the Bishop, and the Bishop appointed a day to see
him. The cathedral city was but a few miles from Parbridge, and
Herbert went thither by boat because he was not strong enough to walk.
The river ran through a flat country, with distant hills on a far
horizon; the clear flowing of the water, the cool weedy bowers and
gravelled spaces seen beneath, and the green and glistening rushes
that stood up so fresh and strong out of the ripple pleased Herbert's
tired mind; he tried much to think what he would say to the Bishop;
but he could frame no arguments and thought it best to leave it, and
to say what God might put in his mouth to say.
He found the Bishop writing in a little panelled room that gave on a
garden. He was in his purple cassock; he rose at Herbert's entrance,
and greeted him very kindly. The Bishop's face was smooth and
fresh-coloured and lit with a pleasant light of benevolence. He was an
active man, and loved little businesses, which he did with all his
might. He, like all that knew Herbert, loved him and found pleasure in
his company. So Herbert took what courage he might--though he saw
somewhat that he was both grieved and surprised to see--and told his
story, though his heart was heavy, and he thought somehow that the
Bishop would not understand him. While he spoke the Bishop's face grew
very grave, for he did not love things out of the common; but he asked
him questions from time to time--and when Herbert said that the
trouble had come upon him after a stroke of the sun, the Bishop's face
lightened a little, and he said that the sun at its hottest had great
power.
When Herbert had quite finished, the Bishop said courteously that he
thought it was a case for a physician, and Herbert said that he had
himself thought so, but that the doctors could do nothing, but had
sent him back to the priests. Then the Bishop made as though he would
speak, and cleared his throat, but spake nothing. At last he said,
"Dear son, this is a strange and heavy affliction; but I think it will
give way to rest and quiet--and prayer," he added a little
shamefacedly. "These bodies of ours are delicate instruments, and if
we work them too hard--as methinks you have done--they get
overstrained in the place in which we drive them; and just as a
scholar who has been disordered dreams of books, and as a doctor thus
afflicted would have grievous fancies of diseases, so you, my dear
son, who have been a very faithful priest, are thus sadly concerned
with the souls of the flock of Christ--and so my advice is that you go
and rest; and if you will, I will send you a little priest to help you
for awhile--or you may travel abroad for a time, and see fresh things;
and, dear son, if there be any narrowness of means, I will myself
supply your necessities, and deem the money well lent to the Lord--and
so be comforted!"--and he put out his hand to bless him.
Herbert was moved by the Bishop's kindness; but he felt that the
Bishop did not see the matter aright, but thought it all a sad
delusion; and he made up his mind to speak. So he said, "Dear father
and my lord, forgive me if I speak yet further--for I am greatly moved
by your kindness, but in this case there is need of great frankness.
It is not indeed as your goodness thinks; indeed there is no delusion,
but a real and yet grievous power of sight--which I pray God would
remove from me--and that as He took the scales off the eyes of the
blessed Paul, so I pray that He would put them back on mine. For I see
the things I would not, and to me is revealed what ought to be
hidden."
Then the Bishop looked a little angered by Herbert's insistence, and
said, "Dear son, if this were a gift of God to you, it would be more
than He gave even to the blessed Apostles, for we read of no such gift
being given to man. Some He made apostles, and some evangelists, but
we hear not that He made any to see the very secrets of the soul--such
sight is given to God alone--and indeed, dear son, for I will use the
same frankness as yourself, it seems to me but a chastening from God.
He delivers even those He loves (like the blessed Paul himself, and
Austin, and others whom I need not name) to Satan to be buffeted; and
though I have myself no fault to find with your ministration, it is
plain to me that God is not satisfied, and by His chastening would
lead you higher yet."
"But come, for I will ask you a question. This light that you speak
of, that plays about the heads (is it so?) of other men, is it always
there? Has it, to ask an instance, appeared to you with _me_? I charge
you to speak to me with entire freedom in this matter." So Herbert
raised his eyes, and looked the Bishop in the face, and said very
gravely, "Yes, dear father, it doth appear."
Then the Bishop's face changed a little, and Herbert saw that he was
moved; then the Bishop said with a kind of smile, as though he forced
himself, "And what is it like?" And Herbert said, looking shamefacedly
upon the ground, "Must I answer the question truly?" And the Bishop
said, "Yes, upon your vows." Then Herbert said, "Dear father, it is
strangely dark and angry." Then the Bishop, knitting his brows, said,
"Does it seem so? And how is this a true light? My son, I speak to you
plainly; I am a sinner indeed--we are all such--but my whole life is
spent in labour for God's Church, and I can truly say that from hour
to hour I think not of carnal things, but all my desire is to feed and
keep the flock. How dost thou interpret that?" And Herbert, very low,
said, "My lord, must I speak?" And the Bishop said, "Yes, upon your
vows." Then Herbert said very slowly and sadly, "My lord, I know
indeed that your heart is with the work of the Lord, and that you
labour abundantly. But can it be--I speak as a faithful son, and sore
unwilling--that you have your pleasure in this work, and think of
yourself as a profitable servant?"
Then the Bishop looked very blackly upon him and said, "You take too
much upon yourself, my son. This is indeed the messenger of Satan that
hath you in his grip; but I will pray for you if the Lord will heal
you--it may be that there is some dark sin upon your mind; and if so
pluck it out of the heart. But we will talk no more; I will only tell
you to rest and pray, and think not of these lights and flashes, which
are never told of in Holy Church, except in the case of those who are
held of evil." And he rose and made a gesture that Herbert should go;
so Herbert kissed the Bishop's hand and went very sadly out, for it
seemed as though his burden was too great for him to bear.
There followed very sad and weary days when Herbert hardly knew how
he could bear the sorrow that pressed upon him. But he preached
diligently, and went in and out among his people. And in that time he
helped many sad souls and set struggling feet upon the right road,
though he knew it not and even cared not.
One day he was walking in the street, and came past a little mean
house that lay on the outskirts of the town. There was a small and
pitiful garden, sadly disordered, that lay in front of the house. Here
there dwelt a wretched man named John, who had done an evil deed in
his youth. He had robbed his mother, it was said, a poor and crippled
woman, of her little savings; she had struggled hard for her all, but
he had beaten her off, and done her violence, and she, between grief
and disease, had died. In her last hour she had told the tale; her son
had been driven from his employment, and the hearts of all had turned
against him. He had left the place, but a few years after he had
returned, a man old before his time, with a sore disease upon him, in
which all readily saw the wise judgment of God.
He had settled in the little house which had been his mother's before
him, and had stood vacant. But none would admit him to their houses or
give him work. Occasionally, when labour was short, he had a task
given him; but he was slow and feeble, and those that worked with him
mocked and derided him. He bore all mockeries patiently and silently,
with a kind of hunted look; but none pitied him, and the very children
of the street would point at him, call him murderer, and throw stones
at him. He would seek at times to do a kindness to the poor and
sorrowful by stealth, but his help was often refused even with anger.
Herbert had seen a little sight a few days before that stuck in his
mind. He had been passing along the road that led into the country,
and had seen some way ahead of him a little child, a girl, with a
heavy burden. She had put it down by the wood to rest, when John came
suddenly upon her from a lane, where he had been wandering, as his
manner was. The girl had seemed frightened, but Herbert, making haste
to join them--for he too had a great suspicion of the man--saw him
speak gently to her and lift up her burden, and walk on with her.
Herbert followed afar off, but gained on the pair, and as he came up
heard him speaking to her, and as Herbert thought, telling her a
simple story about the birds and flowers. The child was listening half
timidly, when from a gate beside the road, which led to the farm to
which the child was bound, came out her mother, a tall good-humoured
woman, who snatched the burden out of the hands of John, and dusted it
over with her apron, as though his touch had polluted it. Then she
scolded the child and then fell to rating John with very cruel words.
Herbert came up and from a distance saw John stand very meekly with
bowed head; and presently he turned away when the angry woman
departed, and Herbert heard him sigh very heavily. He had then half
formed a purpose to speak with the man, but he trusted him little, and
the old story of his crime chased pity out of Herbert's mind.
Now to-day the sight of the neglected house and wretched garden drew
his mind to the outcast; Herbert could not think how the man lived,
and his heart smote him for not having tried to comfort him.
So he turned aside and lifted the latch, and went up under an old
apple tree that hung over the path, and knocked at the door. Presently
it was opened by John himself, who stood there, a wretched figure of a
man, bowed with disease, and his face all ugly and scarred. Herbert,
who loved things beautiful, was strangely touched with disgust at the
sight of him, but he overcame it, and spoke gently to him, and asked
if he might come in and rest awhile.
The man, although he hardly seemed to understand, made way for him,
and Herbert entered a room that he thought the meanest and ugliest he
had ever seen. The walls were green with mould, and the paved floor
was all sunken and cracked. There was no table, nothing but a bench by
the fireplace, on which lay coarse roots and the leaves of some bitter
herb.
Herbert went on talking quietly about the fine summer and the pleasant
season of the year, and sate down upon the bench. And then he had a
great surprise. All about the miserable man who stood before him shone
the clearest and purest radiance of light he had ever beheld about a
human being, gushing in a pure fountain over his head and heart,
untouched by the least spot of darkness. It came into Herbert's mind
that he had found a man who was very near to God; and so he put all
other things aside, and saying that he was truly sorry that he had not
sought him out before, asked him in gentle and loving words to tell
him all the old sad story. And there, sitting in the mean room, he
heard the tale.
John spoke slowly and haltingly, as one who had little use of speech;
and the story was far different from what Herbert had believed. The
hoard was not that of John's mother, but John's own, which he had
entrusted to her. He had asked it of her for a purpose that seemed
good enough, to buy a little garden where he thought he could rear
fruits and flowers; but she had had the money so long that she
considered it to be her own. In telling the story, John laid no blame
upon her, but found much to say against himself, and he seemed bowed
down with utter contrition that he had ever asked it of her. She had
struck him, it seemed, and so his wrath had overmastered him, and he
had torn the money from her hands and gone out. Then she had fallen
sick, and died before his return, and after that no one had been
willing to listen to him. Herbert had asked him what had become of the
money, and John told him, with a sort of shame, that he had thrust it
into the church-box--"I could not touch the price of blood," he said.
Then Herbert spoke very lovingly to him and tried to comfort him, but
John said that he knew himself to be the most miserable of sinners,
and that he could not be forgiven, and that he deserved his chastising
every whit. And he told Herbert a tale of secret suffering and hunger
and cold and weariness, such as had never fallen on Herbert's ears,
but all without any thought of pity for himself--indeed, he said, God
was very good to him; for He let him live, and even allowed him to
take pleasure in the green trees, and the waving grass, and the voices
of birds. "And some day," said John, "when I have suffered enough, I
think the Father will forgive me, for I am sorry for my sin."
The water stood in Herbert's eyes, but he found some words of comfort,
and knelt and prayed with the outcast, telling him that indeed he was
forgiven. And he saw a look of joy strike like sunlight across the
poor face, when he said that he would not fail to visit him. And he
further told him that he should come to the Parsonage next day, and he
would give him work to do; and then he shook his hand and departed, a
little gladder than he had been for a month.
But on the next day he was bidden early to the cottage; John had been
found sitting on the little bench outside his door, cold and dead,
with a strange and upturned look almost as though he had seen the
heaven opened.
He was buried a few days after; none were found to stand at the grave
but Herbert, and the clerk who came unwillingly.
Then, on the next Sunday, Herbert made a little sermon at Evensong
and told them all the story of John's life, and his atonement. "My
brothers and sisters," he said very softly, making a pause, the
silence in the church being breathless below him, "here was a true
saint of God among us, and we knew it not. He sinned, though not so
grievously as we thought, he suffered grievously, and he took his
suffering as meekly as the little child of whom the dear Lord said
that of such was the Kingdom. Dear friends, I tell you a truth from my
heart; that in the day when we stand, if we are given to stand,
beneath the Throne of God, this our poor brother will be nearer to the
Throne than any of us, in robes of light, and very close to the
Father's heart. May the Father forgive us all, and let us be pitiful
and merciful, if by any means we may obtain mercy."
That night, in a dream, it seemed as if some one came suddenly out of
a dark place like a grave, and stood before Herbert, exceedingly
glorious to behold. How the change had passed upon him Herbert could
not tell, for it was John himself, the same, yet transformed into a
spirit of purest light. And he smiled upon Herbert and said, "It is
even so, dear brother; and now am I comforted in glory--and now that
you have seen the truth, the Father would have me visit you to tell
you that the trouble laid upon you is departed. Only be true and
faithful, and lead souls the nearest way." And in a moment he was
gone, but seemed to leave a shining track upon the darkness.
The next morning Herbert awoke with a strange stirring of the heart.
He looked abroad from his window, and saw the dew upon the grass, and
the quiet trees awakening. And he could hardly contain himself for
gladness. When he went to the church, he knew all at once that his
sorrow had departed from him, and that he saw no deeper into the heart
than other men. The lights that had seemed to shine round others were
gone, and his heart was full of love and pity again.
His first visit was to the house of the old physician, who greeted
him very kindly; and Herbert with a kind of happy radiance told him
that the trouble was departed from him as suddenly as it came; "and,"
he added, "dear friend, God has shown me marvellous things--I have
seen a soul in glory." The old physician's eyes filled with tears and
he said, "This is very wonderful and gracious."
The same day came a carriage from the Bishop to fetch Herbert, for the
Bishop desired to see him. He went in haste, and was amazed to see
that when the carriage came to the door of the Bishop's house, the
Bishop himself came out to receive him as though he had waited for
him.
The Bishop greeted him very lovingly and took him into his room, and
when the door was shut, he said, "Dear son, I sent you from me the
other day in bitterness of heart; for you had spoken the truth to me,
and I could not bear it; and now I ask your forgiveness; you found as
it were the key to my spirit, and flung the door open; and God has
shown me that you were right, and that the most secret shrine of my
heart, where the fire should burn clearest, was dark and bare. I gave
not God the glory, but laid violent hands upon it for myself; and now,
if God will, all shall be changed, and I will do my work for God and
not for myself, and strive to be humble of heart," and the Bishop's
eyes were full of tears. And he held out his hand to Herbert, who took
it; and so they sate for a while. Then Herbert said, "Dear father, I
will also tell you something. God has taken away from me the terrible
gift; also He has shown me the sight of a human spirit, made perfect
in suffering and patience; and I am very joyful thereat." So they held
sweet converse together, and were very glad at heart.