PREACHING IN PRISON.
Diego was not suffered long to monopolize conversation with the
new-comer. One of the smugglers drew near, and addressed himself to
Alcala.
"I trow, caballero, that you've not seen the inside of a prison quite
so often as I have; you are new to this kind of lodging. Maybe you've
been sent hither for some little duelling affair; you've run some
rival through the body, and, to judge by your looks, he has returned
the compliment by giving you a taste of his steel."
There was a general hush in the conversation which had been going on
amongst the various groups of prisoners, all listening to hear
Alcala's reply.
"No," answered De Aguilera, "I have injured no man."
"You're a Carlist?" suggested the brigand, who stood near, with his
brawny arms folded across his broad chest.
"I have taken no part in politics," was the reply.
"What then have you done?" asked Diego; "gentlemen are not given free
quarters for nothing."
"I have been placed under confinement," answered Alcala, "for the
crime of reading a book aloud in my own private dwelling."
This reply excited a good deal of surprise amongst the assemblage of
gipsies, foot-pads, smugglers, and thieves. They were acquainted with
most kinds of crimes; the novelty of this one whetted their curiosity.
"What was the book, senor?" was asked by half-a-dozen voices at once.
"The Bible," replied Alcala.
"Ah! that's what the friars are mad against," said one.
"What the monks want to burn," muttered another.
"What is to Claret and the rest of 'em what the red flag is to the
bull," observed Diego the chulo.
Alcala remarked that not one of the speakers appeared inclined to make
common cause with the priests.
"I wonder what there is in that Bible to make men fear it as if a
stiletto were hidden between its two boards!" said the robber.
"Have you the book with you, caballero?" asked the smuggler who had
before addressed Aguilera.
"Unfortunately I have not," said Alcala; "but I have committed to
memory many portions of its contents. If it would be any gratification
to the gentlemen present,"--Alcala glanced around him as he spoke,--"I
would willingly let them judge for themselves whether or not it is
wise and right in the priests to try to put the Bible beyond the reach
of the people."
"Let's hear, let's hear," resounded from every side, and the groups at
the further end of the dungeon drew nearer to listen. Curiosity, the
love of novelty, and eagerness to hear anything that would break on
the wretched monotony of prison life, were powerful incentives with
all.
That was a strange audience indeed! Villains stained with various
crimes thus brought together to hear for the first time in their lives
the gospel message of mercy. Alcala silently prayed for wisdom and the
bodily strength which he so sorely needed; for what with the heat and
the scent of the place, the fatigue which his weakened frame had
undergone, and the reaction after excitement, the cavalier doubted
whether his physical powers would hold out under the strain. Diego
noticed the deadly pallor of the prisoner's face, and stretching out
his hand where he lay, the chulo drew towards him a jar partly filled
with water, which had been left near the wall.
"Let the senor drink first," said Diego. "Pity 'tis that we cannot
offer him the good wine of Xeres; but water is better than nothing."
"It is the gift of God," thought Alcala, as he first drank eagerly of
the contents of the jar, and then pouring some into his hand,
moistened with it his feverish brow and aching temples. The
refreshment was great, and Alcala's strong will could now for a time
master the weakness of nature. Diego, who seemed to think that the
fact of their having attacked the same bull formed a kind of link
between himself and Alcala, now helped the cavalier to rise to his
feet. It was only in a standing posture that Aguilera could make
himself heard by his numerous auditors, but he still leaned for
support against the friendly wall of the prison.
"I will repeat to you," began Alcala, "the Bible account of the
imprisonment, after severe scourging, of the Apostle Paul and Silas
his friend and companion. You shall hear how they endured their
sufferings, how they prayed and received such an answer from Heaven,
that their jailer himself, struck with terror, came trembling and
fell at their feet."
This preface commanded the silent attention of those who were
themselves inmates of a prison.
Simply, but impressively, Alcala repeated the narrative contained in
the sixteenth chapter of Acts; but when he came to the jailer's
all-important question, "_What must I do to be saved?_" the speaker
made a solemn pause, and gazed earnestly on the wild dark faces before
him.
"_What must I do to be saved?_ is not that question echoed by each one
here?" said Alcala, every word welling up from the depths of a soul
filled with that love to the Saviour which overflows in love to the
souls which His life-blood bought. "Can reason answer that question?"
The speaker paused; no voice made reply. "How does the Church of Rome
try to answer it? She bids us trust the safety of our undying souls to
confession to man, and absolution pronounced by man, to the penance
which man may prescribe, to forms and rites and Latin prayers, and the
intercessions of those who were themselves but men in need of
salvation. In the Romanist Church man comes between the sinner and the
Saviour. But what was the answer to the cry, 'What must I do to be
saved?' given by the holy apostle whom the Spirit of God inspired?"
The prisoner for conscience' sake forgot all but the glorious truth
which he uttered when repeating another prisoner's words, "'_Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!_'"
"Is that message for us too?" asked Diego, whose voice was the first
to break the silence which ensued.
"It is for all," cried Alcala; "the offer of mercy embraces all. Will
you hear in how singular a manner it was brought home to me?"
The time had not been long past when it would have been impossible to
the proud young Spaniard to have owned a weakness, or confessed an
error, before such an audience as this. The cavalier would sooner have
died than have stooped to place himself on a level with such outcasts
as those now before him. But pride, a strong man armed, had been
overcome by a stronger than he. Alcala told how his own soul had been
darkened by the shadow of death, how the future had seemed a terrible
blank, and how life and light and joy had been brought by a single
verse from that Book which the Church of Rome would shut out from the
people. The cavalier told of the strange coincidence, which to some of
his hearers appeared a miracle, by which the torn leaf once flung to
the dust, then written upon by himself, had reappeared at the moment
when most he needed its message of peace. Then, leaving all personal
themes, Alcala spoke of justification by faith, of free pardon offered
to rebels, but not that they should continue in their rebellion
against a merciful God. Alcala spoke of what that pardon had cost,--of
the cross and passion, the agony and bloody sweat, and of the return
of love which the redeemed must make for such unutterable love!
Scripture truths in Scripture words flowed spontaneously from the lips
of Alcala; and while the fervour of the spirit overcame the weakness
of the suffering flesh, the Spaniard was indeed as "a dying man
preaching to dying men."
The effort could not last long; the address was a brief one, and all
the more forcible because it was brief. When Alcala, faint and
exhausted, stretched himself on the hard floor of his dungeon, and
closed his eyes, he experienced that sweet rest which has been
described as "a sense of duty performed." The captive had borne
witness for his Master, he had glorified God in the fires, he had been
permitted to scatter seeds of life where no sower had ever laboured
before. Alcala left the result in the hand of Him who once from a
cross spoke the word of grace to a thief.
"Is he sleeping--or dead?" said one of the robbers to Diego, who was
nearest to the now prostrate form of Alcala.
"I trow that he sleeps,--but he looks as if the sleep would be his
last," was the softly-uttered reply. The chulo took off his own
mantle, and laid it gently over the young cavalier.
"No marvel that the Bishop of Cadiz calls the Bible contraband,"
observed a smuggler; "if it were carried through Spain by such men as
this caballero, I trow that it would spoil the business of friar and
monk."
"And ours too," muttered the robber.