"Why, then, the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open!"
"God never wrought _miracles_ to convince atheism, because His
ordinary works convince it."--_Bacon_.
"No man doubts of a Supreme Being, until, from the consciousness of
his provocations, it becomes his interest there should be
none."--_Government of the Tongue._
"Men are atheistical because they are first vicious, and question
the _truth_ of Christianity because they hate
the _practice_."--_South._
The following will, perhaps, be thought misplaced as a polemical
subject. But in relating what may be conceived as the true motive that
incited Sir Edward Stanley to the founding of that beautiful structure
Hornby Chapel, we may be allowed to show the operation as well as the
effect--to trace the steps by which his conversion from an awful and
demoralising infidelity was accomplished.
We have borrowed some of the arguments from "Leslie's Short Method with
the Deists," condensing and illustrating them as the subject seemed to
require. We hope to be pardoned this freedom; the nature of the question
would necessarily refer to a range of argument and reply in frequent
use; and all that we could expect to accomplish was to place the main
arguments in such a position as to receive the light of some well-known
and self-evident truth.
The dark transactions to which the "Parson of Slaidburn" obscurely
refers may be found in Whitaker's "Whalley," pp. 475, 476.
The same historian remarks in another work,--"From several hints
obliquely thrown out by friends as well as enemies, this man appears to
have been a very wicked person, of a cast and character very uncommon in
those unreflecting times." "There certainly was something very
extraordinary about the man, which, amidst the feodal and knightly
habits in which young persons of his high rank were then bred, prompted
him to speculate, however unhappily, on any metaphysical subject. Now,
whether this abominable persuasion were the cause or the effect of his
actual guilt,--whether he had reasoned himself into materialism in order
to drown the voice of conscience, or fell into the sin of murder because
he had previously reasoned himself out of all ideas of responsibility,
does not appear; but his practice, as might have been expected, was
suited to his principles, and Hornby was too rich a bait to a man who
hoped for no enjoyment but in the present life, and feared no
retribution in another. Accordingly, we find him loudly accused of
having poisoned his brother-in-law, John Harrington, by the agency of a
servant; and he is suspected also of having, through subornation of
perjury, proved, or attempted to prove, himself tenant of the honour of
Hornby."
Sir Edward Stanley, the fifth son of Thomas, first Earl of Derby, early
received the notice and favour of his sovereign King Henry the Eighth.
It is said of him, "The camp was his school, and his learning the pike
and sword." The king's greeting, when they met, was "_Ho! my soldier_."
Honour floated in his veins, and valour danced in his spirits. At the
battle of Flodden he commanded the rear of the English army, and was
attacked by the Earls of Lennox and Argyle, both of whom were slain,
together with the King of Scots, on that memorable day. Through his
great bravery and skill he mainly contributed to its success. A sudden
feint inducing the Scots to descend a hill, their stronghold, an opening
was caused in their ranks, which Sir Edward Stanley espying, he attacked
them on the sudden with his Lancashire bowmen. So unexpected an assault
put them into great disorder, which gave the first hopes of success, and
kindled fresh courage through the English ranks, ending in the complete
overthrow and discomfiture of their enemies.
Upon this signal achievement, Sir Edward Stanley, being much advanced
thereby in the king's favour, received from the hand of his royal master
a letter of thanks, together with an assurance of some future reward.
Accordingly, we are told, the year ensuing, the king keeping Whitsuntide
at Eltham in Kent, Sir Edward being in his train, he commanded that, for
his valiant acts against the Scots, when he won the hill, and relieved
the English from their distress, an achievement worthy of his ancestors,
who bore an eagle on their crest, he should be created Lord Monteagle;
whereupon he had a special summons to parliament in the same year by the
title of Baron Stanley, Lord Monteagle.
"Twice did he and Sir John Wallop penetrate, with only eight hundred
men, into the very heart of France, and four times did he and Sir Thomas
Lovell save Calais,--the first time by intelligence, the second by
stratagem, the third by their valour and undaunted courage, and the
fourth by their unwearied patience and assiduity." "In the dangerous
insurrection by Aske and Captain Cobler, his zeal for the prince's
service and the welfare of his country caused him to outstrip his
sovereign's commands by putting himself at the head of his troops
without the king's commission, for which dangerous piece of loyalty he
asked pardon, and received thanks." By stirring up jealousy and
sedition, too, amongst the rebels, he gave his majesty time, by
pretended treaties, to draw off the most eminent of the faction, and to
overcome and dissipate the rest. Yet, with all this outward show of
prosperity, and the bruit of noble deeds so various and multiplied, that
Fame herself seemed weary of rehearsing them, there were not wanting
evil reports and dark insinuations against his honour. Foul surmises
prevailed, especially in the latter part of his life, as to the means by
which he possessed himself of the estates he then held in right of his
lady, and those too that he enjoyed through the attainder of her uncle,
Sir James Harrington. He acknowledged himself a freethinker and a
materialist, a character of rare occurrence in those ages, showing him
to be as daring in his opinions as in his pursuits. That the soul of man
was like the winding up of a watch, and that when the spring was run
down the man died, and the soul was extinct, are still recorded as his
expressions. In those days of demoralising ignorance, this open and
unhesitating opinion might be the means of creating him many dangerous
and deadly enemies, especially amongst the priesthood, whose office,
though tending to higher and nobler ends than the mere thralling of
man's spirit to creeds and systems of secular ambition, was yet but too
often devoted to this purpose. Every power that human cruelty and
ingenuity could compass was tried, but happily in vain, to confine the
free and unfettered spirit for ever in the dark cells of ignorance and
superstition.
From a number of unconnected accounts respecting this great, if not good
man, whose virtues even would have been the vices of our own age, we
find as the most prominent parts of his disposition a thorough contempt
for the maxims and opinions of the world, and an utter recklessness of
its censure or esteem. Marrying into the family of the Harringtons, he
resided the latter part of his life at the Castle of Hornby, where we
find him engaged in schemes for the most part tending to his own wealth
and aggrandisement.
The chapel which he built is said to have been vowed at Flodden, but
this statement is evidently untrue, having no foundation but the
averments of those who content not themselves with a plain narrative of
facts, but assume a licence to invent motives agreeable to their own
folly or caprice. That Sir Edward Stanley made any such vow we cannot
imagine, much less would he put it into execution. "Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die," was the governing principle of his life,
and the mainspring of his actions. It would be a strange anomaly in the
records of human opinions to find an edifice reared to perpetuate a
belief which the founder thought a delusion, a mere system of
priestcraft and superstition. To this prominent feature in his history
our attention has been directed, and we think the following tradition
assigns a better and more plausible motive for the founding of that
beautiful structure, the chapel at Hornby.
It was by the still light of a cloudless harvest-moon that two men
appeared to be sauntering up the stream that winds through the vale near
Hornby. One of them wore a clerical habit, and the other, from his
dress, seemed to attend in the capacity of a menial. They rested at the
foot of a steep cliff overhung with firs and copse-wood. The castle,
upon the summit, with its tall and narrow tower, like a feather stuck in
its crown, was not visible from where they sat. The moon threw an
unclouded lustre from her broad full face far away over the wide and
heavy woods by which they were surrounded. A shallow bend of the stream
towards the left glittered over its bed like molten silver, issuing from
a dark and deep pool shaded by the jutting boughs and grim-visaged rocks
from whence they hung.
The travellers now ascended by a narrow and precipitous path. Their task
was continued with no little difficulty, by reason of the looseness of
the soil, and the huge rocks that obstructed their progress. By dint of
scrambling, rather than walking, they, however, approached to the
summit, when a light became visible over the hill, growing brighter as
they ascended. It was the castle turret, where Lord Monteagle generally
spent the greater part of the night in study. Whatever might be the
precise nature of his pursuits, they were not supposed to be of the most
reputable sort.
"Wizard spells and rites unholy"
were said to occupy these midnight vigils. Often, as that lonely
watch-tower caught the eye of the benighted peasant, did he cross
himself, and fancy that shadows were flitting to and fro on the
trembling and distant beam.
"There it is," said the hindmost person, who was none other than the
parson of Slaidburn. "That lantern, I think, is unquenchable. Does thy
master never quit yon burning pinnacle?"
"May be," replied the servant, "he careth not to be oft abroad; and who
dare thwart his will? 'Troth he had need be of a tough temper that
should give him speech unquestioned."
"They who hold a higher communion reck but little of this frail and
pitiful dust," returned the clergyman, after a solemn pause. "It is
enough that he hath sent for me. I would fain warn him ere he depart,
else yon walls had not again echoed my footstep."
This confidential domestic spoke not; he was either too much attached to
his master, or implicated with him, to hazard a remark.
The path was now wider and less difficult of access, leading over a
pretty knoll, glittering like lode-stars in the dew, beyond which arose
the huge and cumbrous pile then distinguished as the castle of Hornby.
The barking of some half-dozen hoarse-mouthed dogs announced their
approach. Passing over the drawbridge, they entered the court-yard, from
whence a side postern at that time opened a communication to the
turret-chamber without passing through the main building. A winding
staircase led them directly to the summit. Soft gleams of moonlight came
at intervals through the narrow loopholes, being the only help or
direction whereby to accomplish their ascent. After a tedious gyration,
which more than once made the hindmost party pause to obtain a respite,
the guide opened a low door. It swung heavily aside, disclosing a small
ante-room, destitute of all furniture save a large oaken chest, that
seemed to be the depository, or "ark," as it was usually called, for the
safe keeping of the family archives.
The conductor approaching an opposite door gave a private signal. It
flew open as if by its own impulse, displaying a chamber of no mean
dimensions, in which, by the light from a gigantic lamp, was seen a
figure seated before a table absolutely groaning with piles of books,
and various apparatus of unknown and wondrous import. Instruments of
unimaginable shape lay in heaps round the apartment; their use it were
impossible to conjecture. Furnaces, alembics, jars, glass urinals, and
bottles of all sizes, rendered the chamber perilous of access, save to
those who were acquainted with the intricacies of this labyrinth. "Sir
Edward," as he was yet generally styled, looked full at his visitors as
they entered. His eye was large and dark, the expression fierce and
commanding. He was clad in a gown of black silk, covering an inner vest
of sables. From a broad belt, glittering with costly stones, hung a
short sword and a pair of pistols richly embossed.
The upper portion of his head was bald; the hair on its sides short and
frizzly. His beard was of a reddish tinge, trimmed square and bushy,
beneath which his white ruff seemed to glisten from the sudden contrast.
His forehead was high and retreating; his face pale, and-his cheek
hollow and slightly wrinkled. His nose was small, looking ill suited to
the other features, which were large and strongly-marked. His mouth was
full, but compressed; and his teeth beautifully white and well shaped.
When he spoke, they were much exposed, projecting slightly, and tending
to give an air of ferocity to his countenance.
In stature he was tall and well formed. Proudly upright in his gait and
attitude, he appeared like one born to be obeyed,--to rule in whatsoever
station he occupied.
"Sir Hugh Parker. The parson of Slaidburn is welcome to Hornby," said
Lord Monteagle, rising. "It is long since we have met. I claim the
privilege of old fellowship: give me thy hand."
"My lord, I am here at your request. Your wishes are commands with my
poor endeavours."
"Thou mayest retire, Maudsley," said the baron to his servant, motioning
him to depart. The minister was accommodated with a low stool, made
vacant for the occasion. Lord Monteagle, closing the book, abruptly
addressed his visitor.
"I knew thou wast in the neighbourhood, and I would unravel a few
arguments with thee; a few quiddities about thy profession. I know thou
art skilful at thy trade, which, though a vocation having its basis in
fraud, finding countenance through the weakness and credulity of
mankind, doth yet hold the commonalty in thrall and terror--a restraint
which none other scheme might peradventure impose."
"You are too harsh, my lord. I minister not to aught that, my
conscience disapproves. Being of the Reformed Church, I do not mightily
affect creeds and opinions. The Bible is the fountain, pure and
undefiled; its waters fertilise and invigorate the seed of the faith,
but choke and rot the rampant weeds of error and superstition."
"The Bible! A forgery: the invention of a cunning priesthood to mask and
perpetuate their delusions. Prove its falsehoods to be the truth.
Distinguish me thy revelation from the impostures of Mahomet, the dreams
of the Sibyls, and the lying oracles of Heathenrie. Oblige me either to
renounce my reason and the common principles which distinguish truth
from error, or to admit the proof thou shalt allege, which proof, look
thee, must be such as no imposture can lay claim to, otherwise it proves
thy doctrine to be an imposture. If thy religion be true, there _must_
be such a proof. For if the Being who gave this revelation which He
requires all men to receive, have left His own truth destitute of the
only proof which can distinguish it from an imposture, this will be an
impeaching of His wisdom, an error in the very outset of the case,
proving Him not the Allwise, but liable to infirmity and error. This,
thou seest, will bring our debate within a narrow compass."
"Nevertheless, I must own the task is hard," replied the clergyman,
"because of the blindness and impotency of that same reason of which
thou vauntest, and the feebleness of our mental sight; for we cannot
come at any abstract truth whatsoever but by many inferences hanging
together as by a chain, one link of which, not fully apprehended or made
fast, loosens the whole, and the argument falls to the ground."
"Does the reformed doctrine, too, require a belief in what the hearer
may not comprehend?" said the baron, scornfully.
"Nay, there is a sufficiency in the evidence, and a fulness in this
testimony, of which none other history can boast. What book is that, my
lord?"
"The Anabasis."
"By whom?"
"Surely thou art in j'est. 'Tis Xenophon's."
"How? Xenophon!" said the divine; "methinks thou speakest unadvisedly.
My reason or apprehension knoweth not of such a man, or that he writ
this book, and yet thou boldly affirmest the history to be true!"
"I know not that it was ever doubted," replied the other. "The common
consent and belief of mankind, the transmission of the record from
remote ages, are of themselves no mean evidence of its truth. But there
must have been a time when it was first written, and as he appeals in it
to facts, to matters which were then of recent occurrence, and to the
public knowledge and belief of those facts, surely every of these
statements would have insured detection, especially if put forth at or
about the time when the events took place. Would it not have been
madness to appeal to eye-witnesses of transactions which never happened,
which witnesses were then alive, and could easily have belied such an
impudent and furtive attempt at imposture? The idea seems almost too
absurd to refute."
"Thou judgest well. It would be madness and absurdity in the extreme to
deny the existence of thy historian, or the events to which he refers;
and yet a record which to thee is of the greatest moment, wherein thine
own interests are for ever involved, and to the truth of which there is
much more clear and irrefragable testimony, thou rejectest as a fraud
and an imposture."
"What proof can its promulgers give me of the infallibility of their
doctrines, even supposing these events to be true?"
"Miracles, acknowledged to be such, contravening and transcending the
common course of nature,--these, I reckon, will be a sufficient warranty
that the message is from the great Author of all things Himself."
"I own these are the strongest evidences that I could require, and I
would admit them if I had witnessed their performance."
"Good. Now to the proof. It is impossible that any simple fact could be
imposed, or that a number of persons could be made to believe they had
witnessed such fact, unless it had actually taken place. For instance,
if I were to assert that I had divided the waters of this river here, in
the presence of the inhabitants, and that I had once led the whole of
them over dryshod, the waters standing like a wall on each side, to
guard their path, appealing to them at the same time in proof of my
testimony; it would be impossible, I say, to convince those people it
were true, provided the event had not happened. Every person would be at
hand to contradict me, and consequently it would be impossible that such
an imposition could be put upon them against the direct evidence of
their senses."
"Granted," replied the baron. "But this tale I am not too bold to infer
might be invented when that generation had passed, when the credulity of
coming ages might lead men to believe in such foolish and monstrous
imaginings, like the labours of Hercules, the amours of Jove, and the
cannibal exploits of Saturn."
"Nay, but hear me. Whenever such a story was first promulged, were it
then stated that not only public monuments remained to attest the event,
but that public rites and ceremonies were kept up for its express
commemoration, which rites were to that day continual, and to which
those writings appealed as evidence attesting the performance of such
miracles, then must the deceit have been rendered but the more glaring
and easy of detection, as no such monuments could exist, no rites, no
ceremonies demonstrating the truth of this appeal could be in
observance. Thus, if I should now invent the tale about something done
two thousand odd years ago, a few might, peradventure, be credulous
enough to believe me; but if I were to say that ever after, even to this
day, every male had his nose slit and his ears bored in memory of this
event, it would be absolutely impossible that I should gain credit for
my story, because the universality of the falsehood being manifest, and
the attestation thereof visibly untrue, would prove the whole history to
be false. Such were the rites and customs of the Jews."
"But still, rites and observances were practised by the heathen, which
ceremonies ye acknowledge to have been false and impious, yet their
followers worshipped and slid their neck into the yoke as readily as thy
favourite Hebrews, who are proverbially rogues and cheats in the
estimation even of infidels themselves."
"Ay, but impostors appeal not to facts, to eye-witnesses of some event,
confirming and attesting the authority of their mission. Moses could not
have persuaded half-a-million of persons that he had brought them
through the Red Sea, fed them forty years with manna in the wilderness,
and performed many other miracles during their journey, had not the
facts been well known; and down to this day the rites and ceremonies of
the Jews are, in consequence, linked to these main facts as securely as
though we ourselves had formed the first series of the chain,
eye-witnesses to the miracles they attest. Again, the books of Moses
expressly represent that they are the great history and transcript of
the Jewish law, and speak of their being delivered by him and kept in
the ark from his time; likewise they are commanded to be read at stated
periods, and to be taught from father to son throughout all generations,
to the end that no imposition might be practised. In whatever age,
therefore, after Moses, these forgeries were committed, it were
impossible they should have been believed--every one must have known
they had not even heard of them aforetime, much less been taught all
these burdensome precepts by their forefathers."
"Still the cunning and wily priests might have prepared men's minds for
the discovery, having themselves deposited these writings in the ark."
"A manifest impossibility, my lord, and for this plain reason: those
writings profess to be a book of statutes, the standing law of the land,
a code of ordinances by which the people had all along been governed.
Could any person invent a body of statutes for this good realm of
England, and make it pass upon the nation as the only book of laws which
they had ever known or observed? Could any man, could any priest, or
conspiracy of priests, have persuaded the Jews they had owned and obeyed
these ordinances from the time of Moses, when they had not even so much
as heard of them in times past?"
"These rites, it is most likely, having their origin in the simplest
occurrences, might still have been practised prior to the forgeries; and
these books, by allusions to them, deceived the nation, causing it to
believe they were performed in memory of some miraculous events which
never happened."
"What! Is it possible to persuade men they have kept laws which they
have not even heard of? If I were to frame some idle story of things
done a long while ago, and say that our Sabbath was kept holy in
commemoration of these events--this I think, my lord, will answer to the
terms of your assertion. Suppose I made an attempt to persuade the
people this day was kept holy in memory of Julius Cæsar or Mahomet, and
that everybody had been circumcised or baptized in their names; that in
the courts of judicature oaths had been taken on these very writings I
had fabricated, and which, of necessity, they could not have seen prior
to my attempt; and that these books likewise contained their laws and
religion--ordinances which they had always acknowledged--is it possible,
I ask, that such a cheat could for one moment have existed? An impostor
would not have dared to make any such references, knowing they must
inevitably have led to the rejection of his testimony."
"But surely if this great transaction, the passage of the Red Sea, had
really happened, and in the way thou hast pointed out, the evidence
would not have been suffered to rest solely on the frail and uncertain
records to which thou hast referred. Books of laws, for instance, the
writings of Mahomet, we know have been forged, as even thou wilt
acknowledge."
"True, but those books refer not to miracles and the testimony of
eye-witnesses, nor to laws and ordinances handed down from generation to
generation, even to that time. That Mahomet pretended not to the working
of miracles, he tells us in the Koran. The ridiculous legends related by
his followers are rejected as spurious by the scholars and expounders of
the prophet; and even his converse with the moon, his night journey from
Mecca to Jerusalem, and from thence to heaven, were not performed before
witnesses. The same may be said of the absurd exploits related of the
heathen deities."
"But had not the heathen their priests, their public rites and
sacrifices, equally with the Jews?"
"They had. But it was not even pretended that these rites commenced at
the time when the things which they commemorate were said to have
happened. The Bacchanalia, for example, and other festivals, were
established long after the fabulous events to which they refer. The
priests of Juno and Venus were not appointed by those imaginary deities,
but arose in some after-age, and are therefore no evidence whatever to
the truth of their worship."
"But where is thy proof in the unwritten evidence--monuments which
cannot lie, bearing silent but convincing testimony to the truth of
these miracles?"
"Twelve stones" it is said, were set up at Gilgal to commemorate the
passage over Jordan."
"Ay, in thy book we read it."
"But mark the intention, to which no lying imposture durst have
referred,--to the end, it is written, that when the children of those
who had witnessed this miracle, and their children's children, should
ask their meaning, it should be told them. Now the miracle for which
these stones were set up as a memorial by the eye-witnesses themselves,
could not, as before proved, have been imposed upon the people at the
time it happened, had it not really occurred."
"All this I can safely grant. Yet thou lackest wherewith to conclude
thine argument."
"Bear with me, my lord, until I have made an end. Let us suppose, for
one moment, there was no such miracle wrought as this same passage over
Jordan."
"Which supposition of thine I do hold to be the truth as firmly as I
believe your revelation is an imposture."
"And yet if it _should_ be true, my lord?" The minister said this in a
tone that made the listener start. He bit his lips. But the feeling had
subsided, as, with a sharp and hurried accent, he exclaimed--
"Why this pause? I am prepared to listen."
"These stones," continued the divine, "were, of necessity, well known as
public monuments existing at the time when these writings were first
rehearsed in the ears of all the people, because they are here referred
to as testimonials of the event. But supposing them to have been set up
on some unknown occasion, as you say, and that designing men in
after-ages invented the book of Joshua, affirming it was written at the
time of that imaginary event by Joshua himself, adducing this pile of
stones in evidence of its truth, what is the answer which every one who
heard it must have made to this witless falsehood? 'We know this pile of
stones,' they would say; 'but of such an origin as thou hast related we
have, not heard, nor even of this book of Joshua. Where has it been
concealed, and from whence was it brought forth? Besides, it solemnly
inculcates that this miraculous event, our fathers' passage over Jordan,
should be taught their children and children's children from that day
forward, who were to be shown and carefully instructed as to the meaning
and design of this very monument; but of this we have not so much as
heard, nor has thy history been handed down to us from our forefathers.
It is a lying testimony, therefore, and we cannot receive it.' Yet do we
find the children of Israel commemorating, handing down, and instructing
their children from age to age into the meaning and design of these
memorials, which instruction must at some time or another have had a
beginning, having its commencement with the very events to which they
refer, which events it would then have been impossible to make the
people believe against the plain evidence of their senses. Is the chain
complete, my lord?"
"But what has all this to do with thy religion?--a system far different,
methinks, from the primitive institutions of these remote ages."
"The self-same reasoning will apply, and in precisely the same mode, to
the miracles of our Lord and His apostles, together with their
transmission by records from their times. The histories of the Old and
New Testaments could not have been received at the time they were
written, if they had not been true, because the priesthoods of Levi and
of Christ,--the observance of the Sabbath, the passover, and
circumcision,--the ordinances of baptism and the eucharist, are there
represented as descending by uninterrupted succession from the time of
their respective institution. It would have been as impossible to
persuade men in after-ages that they had been circumcised or baptized,
had celebrated passovers and Sabbaths under the ministration of a
certain order of priests, if it were not so, as to make them believe
they had gone through the seas dryshod, seen the dead raised, and so
forth. But without such a persuasion neither the law nor gospel could
have been received."
"Yet, methinks, if I were the founder of a new religion, and had all the
stores of Nature and Omnipotence at my command--those boasted attributes
of thy Law-giver--I would not have left it liable to doubt, to the
sneers and cavils of any one who might question my pretensions, or my
right to control their belief. The truths of Omnipotence should be clear
as the sun's beam, and unquestioned as his existence."
"'If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither would they believe
though one should rise from the dead.' 'Tis not for lack of proof; 'tis
for lack of will. 'Tis not for lack of testimony, one tithe of which
would have gained a ready assent to any of the drivelling absurdities of
heathen mythology,--'tis for lack of inclination; 'tis a wish that these
revelations may not be true; and where the heart inclines, the judgment
is easily biassed."
"True, 'as the fool thinks.' The proverb is somewhat stale. I marvel
thou findest not its application to thine own bias, perdie!"
"At any rate, if I am fooled, I am none the worse for my belief, if my
creed be not true; but if man, as thou wouldest fain hope, is like the
beasts that perish, I am still at quits with thee. And if this dream of
thine should prove but a dream, and thou shouldest awake--to the horrors
of the pit, and the torments of the worm that dieth not!"
"Peace, thou croaker! I did not send for thee to prophesy, but to prove;
I would break a lance and hold a tilt at thine argument. Now, I have a
weapon in reserve which shall break down thy defences--the web of thy
reasoning shall vanish. The fear of punishment, and the hope of future
reward, held out as a bait to the cowardly and the selfish, shall be of
no avail when the object of my research is accomplished. Hast thou not
heard of the supreme elixir--the pabulum of life, which, if a man find,
he may renew his years, and bid defiance alike to time and the
destroyer? Then what will become of thy boasted system of opinions,
begotten by priesthood and nurtured by folly?"
"And this phantasma, which man has never seen; which exists not upon the
least shadow of evidence--which has not even the lowest dictates of
sense and plausibility in its favour--on this _Ignis fatuus_, eluding
the grasp, and for ever mocking the folly of its pursuers, thou canst
build thine hopes, because it flatters thy wishes and thy fears?"
"My fears!" said the Baron, rising: "and who speaks of my _fears_? I
would chastise thee, thou insolent priest, wert thou not protected by
the laws of courtesy."
"Yes, _thy_ fears, Baron Monteagle," said this undaunted minister of the
truth. "Thou wouldest not care to face thy lady's cousin! His blood yet
crieth from the ground!"
"And who dares whisper, even to the walls, that I murdered John
Harrington?" cried the astonished adept, trembling with ill-suppressed
rage. "Methinks he holdeth his life too cheap who doth let this foul
suspicion even rest upon his thoughts." He drew his sword as he spoke;
but the minister stood undaunted, surveying his adversary with a look of
pity and commiseration.
"Put up thy sword. Thou hast enow of sins to repent thee of without an
old man's blood added to the number."
"How hast thou dared this insult? By my "----
"Nay, spare your oaths, my lord; they are better unspoken than unkept."
"Have I sent for thee to make sport? To gibe and taunt me even to my
face?"
"I'll tell thee for what cause thou didst crave my presence," replied
the other, firmly. "Thou hast misgivings lest thine own hopes should not
be true; lest thou shouldest perchance depart with a lie in thy right
hand. Thou didst send for me, an unworthy minister to the faith which I
profess, that by thy subtlety thou mightest deceive thyself; that by
overthrowing my arguments thine own might be strengthened, for truly
'tis a comfortable thing to have our opinions confirmed through the
weakness of an opponent."
"And daredst thou, with such apprehensions upon thy stomach, to commit
thyself alone to my mercy and my keeping? Suppose I should reward thee
according to thine own base suspicions. Understandest thou me?"
"Yes, proud and guilty man, too well! But I fear thee not!"
"What! holdest thou a charmed life? Thou mayest fall into a broil as
well as other men. And who shall require thy blood at my hands?"
"Ere I left," said the divine, warily, "I whispered a word in your
cousin Beaumont's ear. Should I not return, he will be here anon.
Peradventure I am not misunderstood. Thou hadst need be careful of my
life, otherwise thine own may be in jeopardy!"
A fierce and terrible brightness, like the lurid flashes from his own
torment, burst from his eye. The very anger and malice he strove to
quell made it burn still hotter. His visage gathered blackness, cloud
hurrying on cloud, like the grim billows of the storm across a glowing
atmosphere. Rapid was the transition. Rage, apprehension,
abhorrence,--all that hate and malignity could express, threw their
appalling shadows over his features. Still the dark hints uttered by his
visitor seemed to hold him in check. Chafed, maddened, yet not daring to
execute the vengeance he desired, he strode through the apartment with
an uneasy and perturbed gait. He paused at times, darting a look at the
minister as if about to address him. Suddenly he stood still, nerving
his spirit to some awful question.
"My cousin John Harrington died in his own chamber. In this house, God
wot. Thou didst shrive him at his last shift, and how sayest thou he was
poisoned?"
"I said not aught so plainly; but thou hast spoken out. Behold
him!--There!"--The divine pointed his finger slowly round the apartment.
"Within a short space he cites thee to that bar where his presence will
be a swift witness to thy doom!"
Had the spirit of the unfortunate heir of Hornby suddenly appeared, the
Baron could not have followed the movement of the minister's hand with
greater dismay and astonishment. The strong barrier of guilt seemed
breaking down. Conscience aroused, as if at once the veil that concealed
his iniquities had been withdrawn, they rose in all their unmitigated
horror and enormity. An arrow, drawn at a venture, had pierced the
joints of the harness. He stood powerless and without defence--motionless
as the image of despair. By a strange coincidence a thick white cloud
seemed to coil itself heavily round the room. Whether to the heated
imaginations of the disputants this appearance might not present an
image of the form then visible to their minds, it would be impossible to
determine. Suffice it to say, the effect was memorable, from whatever
cause it was produced.
An altered man was the Baron Monteagle. The arguments of this champion
of the truth had in some measure prepared his mind for its reception.
Under his ministrations he felt gradually more enlightened. His terrors
were calmed. Soon afterwards rose that noble structure, the chapel of
Hornby, bearing on its front the following legend:--