"So it is in many ways. The Church is a human attempt to build
humanity up on a Divine model, and it has its human limitations. But
the Divine model endures!"
Brent threw himself back in his chair and closed his eyes.
"The Divine model endures--yes!" he murmured--"The Divine foundation
remains firm, but the human building totters and is insecure to the
point of utter falling and destruction!" Here, opening his eyes, he
gazed dreamily at the pictured face of the Madonna above him.
"Walden, it is useless to contend with facts, and the facts are,
that the masses of mankind are as unregenerate at this day as ever
they were before Christ came into the world! The Church is powerless
to stem the swelling tide of human crime and misery. The Church in
these days has become merely a harbour of refuge for hypocrites who
think to win conventional repute with their neighbours, by affecting
to believe in a religion not one of whose tenets they obey!
Blasphemy, rank blasphemy, Walden! It is bad enough in all
conscience to cheat one's neighbour, but an open attempt to cheat
the Creator of the Universe is the blackest crime of all, though it
be unnamed in the criminal calendar!"
He uttered these words with intense passion, rising from his seat,
and walking up and down the room as he spoke. Walden watched his
restless passing to and fro, with a wistful look in his honest eyes.
Presently he said, smiling a little--
"You are my Bishop--and I should not presume to differ from you,
Brent! YOU must instruct ME,--not I you! Yet if I may speak from my
own experience---"
"You may and you shall!"--replied Brent, swiftly--"But think for a
moment, before you speak, of what that experience has been! One
great grief has clouded your life--the loss of your sister. After
that, what has been your lot? A handful of simple souls set under
your charge, in the loveliest of little villages,--souls that love
you, trust you and obey you. Compared to this, take MY daily life!
An over-populated diocese--misery and starvation on all sides,--men
working for mere pittances,--women prostituting themselves to obtain
food--children starving--girls ruined in their teens--and over it
all, my wretched self, a leading representative of the Church which
can do nothing to remedy these evils! And worse than all, a Church
in which some of the clergy themselves who come under my rule and
dominance are more dishonourable and dissolute than many of the so-
called 'reprobates' of society whom they are elected to admonish! I
tell you, Walden, I have some men under my jurisdiction whom I
should like to see soundly flogged!--only I am powerless to order
the castigation--and some others who ought to be serving seven years
in penal servitude instead of preaching virtue to people a thousand
times more virtuous than themselves!"
"I quite believe that!" said Walden, smiling--"I know one of them!"
The Bishop glanced at him, and laughed.
"You mean Putwood Leveson?" he said--"He seems a mischievous fool--
but I don't suppose there is any real harm in him, is there?"
"Real harm?"--and John flared up in a blaze of wrath--"He is the
most pernicious scoundrel that ever masqueraded in the guise of a
Christian!"
The Bishop paused in his walk up and down, and clasping his hands
behind his back, an old habit of his, looked quizzically at his
friend. A smile, kindly and almost boyish, lightened the grey pallor
of his worn face.
"Why, John!" he said--"you are actually in a temper! Your mental
attitude is evidently that of squared fists and 'Come on!' What has
roused the slumbering lion, eh?"
"It doesn't need a lion to spring at Leveson,"--said Walden,
contemptuously--"A sheep would do it! The tamest cur that ever
crawled would have spirit enough to make a dash for a creature so
unutterably mean and false and petty! I may as well admit to you at
once that I myself nearly struck him!"
"You did?" And Bishop Brent's grave dark eyes flashed with a sudden
suspicion of laughter.
"I did. I know it was not Churchman-like,--I know it was a case of
'kicking against the pricks.' But Leveson's 'pricks' are too much
like hog's bristles for me to endure with patience!"
The Bishop assumed a serious demeanour.
"Come, come, let me hear this out!" he said--"Do you mean to tell me
that you--YOU, John--actually struck a brother minister?"
"No--I do not mean to tell you anything of the kind, my Lord
Bishop!" answered Walden, beginning to laugh. "I say that I 'nearly'
struck him,--not quite! Someone else came on the scene at the
critical moment, and did for me what I should certainly have done
for myself had I been left to it. I cannot say I am sorry for the
impulse!"
"It sounds like a tavern brawl,"--said the Bishop, shaking his head
dubiously--"or a street fight. So unlike you, Walden! What was it
all about?"
"The fellow was slandering a woman,"--replied Walden, hotly--
"Poisoning her name with his foul tongue, and polluting it by his
mere utterance--contemptible brute! I should like to have
horsewhipped him---"
"Stop, stop!" interrupted the Bishop, stretching out his thin long
white hand, on which one single amethyst set in a plain gold ring,
shone with a pale violet fire--"I am not sure that I quite follow
you, John! What woman is this?"
Despite himself, a rush of colour sprang to Walden's brows. But he
answered quite quietly.
"Miss Vancourt,--of Abbot's Manor."
"Miss Vancourt!" Bishop Brent looked, as he felt, utterly
bewildered. "Miss Vancourt! My dear Walden, you surprise me! Did I
not write to you--do you not know---"
"Oh, I know all that is reported of her,"--said John, quickly--"And
I remember what you wrote. But it's a mistake, Brent! In fact, if
you will exonerate me for speaking bluntly, it's a lie! There never
was a gentler, sweeter woman than Maryllia Vancourt,--and perhaps
there never was one more basely or more systematically calumniated!"
The Bishop took a turn up to the farther end of the room. Then he
came back and confronted Walden with an authoritative yet kindly
air.
"Look me straight in the face, John!"
John obeyed. There was a silence, while Brent scanned slowly and
with appreciative affection the fine intellectual features, brave
eyes, and firm, yet tender mouth of the man whom he had, since the
days of their youth together, held dearest in his esteem among all
other men he had ever known, while Walden, in his turn, bore the sad
and searching gaze without flinching. Then the Bishop laid one hand
gently on his shoulder.
"So it has come, John!" he said.
Then and then only the brave eyes fell,--then and then only the firm
mouth trembled. But Walden was not the man to shirk any pain or
confusion to himself in matters of conscience.
"I suppose it has!" he answered, simply.
The Bishop sat down, and, seemingly out of long habit, raised his
eyes to the blandly smiling Virgin and Child above him.
"I am sorry!"--he murmured--"John, my dear old fellow, I am very
sorry---"
"Why should you be sorry?" broke out Walden, impetuously, "There is
nothing to be sorry for, except that I am a fool! But I knew THAT
long ago, even if you did not!"--and he forced a smile--"Don't be
sorry for me, Brent!--I'm not in the least sorry for myself. Indeed,
if I tell you the whole truth, I believe I rather like my own folly.
It does nobody any harm! And after all it is not absolutely a
world's wonder that a decaying tree should, even in its decaying
process, be aware of the touch of spring. It should not make the
tree unhappy!"
The Bishop raised his eyes. They were full of a deep melancholy.
"We are not trees--we are men!" he said--"And as men, God has made
us all aware of the love of woman,--the irresistible passion that at
one time or another makes havoc or glory of our lives! It is the
direst temptation on earth. Worst of all and bitterest it is when
love comes too late,--too late, John!--I say in your case, it comes
too late!"
John sighed and smiled.
"Love--if it has come to me at all--is never too late,"--he said
with quiet patience,--"My dear Brent, don't you understand? This
little girl--this child--for she is nothing more than that to a man
of my years--has slipped into my life by chance, as it were, like a
stray sunbeam--no more! I feel her brightness--her warmth--her
vitality--and my soul is conscious of an animation and gladness
whenever she is near, of which she is the sole cause. But that is
all. Her pretty ways--her utter loneliness,--are the facts of her
existence which touch me to pity, and I would see her cared for and
protected,--but I know myself to be too old and too unworthy to so
care for and protect her. I want her to be happy, but I am fully
conscious that I can never make her so. Would you call this kind of
chill sentiment 'love'?"
Brent regarded him steadfastly.
"Yes, John! I think I should!--yes, I certainly should call 'this
chill sentiment' love! And tell me--have you never got out of your
depth in the water of this 'chill sentiment,' or found yourself
battling for dear life against an outbreak of volcanic fire?"
Walden was silent.
"I never thought,"--continued the Bishop, rather sorrowfully,--"when
I wrote to you about the return of Robert Vancourt's daughter to her
childhood's home, that she would in any serious way interfere with
the peace of your life, John! I told you just what I had heard--no
more. I have never seen the girl. I only know what people say of
her. And that is not altogether pleasing."
"Do you believe what people say?" interrupted Walden, suddenly,--"Is
it not true that when a woman is pretty, intelligent, clean-souled
and pure-minded, and as unlike the rest of 'society' women as she
can well be, she is slandered for having the very virtues her rivals
do not possess?"
"Quite true!"--said Brent--"and quite common. It is always the old
story--'Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not
escape calumny.' Do not imagine for a moment, John, that I am going
to run the risk of losing your friendship by repeating anything that
may have been said against the reputation or the character of Miss
Vancourt. I have always prayed that no woman might ever come between
us,"--and here a faint tinge of colour warmed the pallor of his
face--"And, so far, I fancy the prayer has been granted. And I do
not think that this--this--shall we call it glamour, John?--this
glamour, of the imagination and the senses, will overcome you in any
detrimental way. I cannot picture you as the victim of a 'society'
siren!"
John smiled. A vision rose up before his eyes of a little figure in
sparkling white draperies--a figure that bent appealingly towards
him, while a soft childlike voice said--'I'm sorry! Will you forgive
me?' The tender lines round his mouth deepened and softened at the
mental picture.
"She is not a society siren,"--he said, gently--"Poor little soul!
She is a mere woman, needing what woman best thrives upon--love!"
"Well, she has been loved and sought in marriage for at least three
years by Lord Roxmouth,"--said the Bishop.
"Has SHE been loved and sought, or her aunt's millions?" queried
Walden--"That is the point at issue. But my dear Brent, do not let
us waste time in talking over this little folly of mine--for I grant
you it is folly. I'm not sorry you have found it out, for in any
case I had meant to make a clean breast of it before we parted,"--he
hesitated--then looked up frankly--"I would rather you spoke no more
of it, Harry! I've made my confession. I admit I nearly struck
Leveson for slandering an innocent and defenseless woman,--and I
believe you'll forgive me for that. Next, I own that though I am
getting into the sere and yellow leaf, I am still conscious of a
heart,--and that I feel a regretful yearning at times for the joys I
have missed out of my life--and you'll forgive me for that too,--I
know you will! For the rest, draw a curtain over this little
weakness of mine, will you? I don't want to speak of it--I want to
fight it and conquer it."
The Bishop stretched out a hand and caught Walden's in a close
grasp.
"Right!"--he said--"Do that, and you will do well! It is all a
question of fighting and conquering, or--being conquered. But YOU
will never give in, John! You are not the man to yield to the wiles
of the devil. For there IS a devil!--I am sure of it!" And his dark
eyes flashed with a sudden wild light. "A cozening, crafty, lurking
devil, that sets temptation before us in such varied and pleasing
forms that it is difficult--sometimes impossible--to tell which is
right and which is wrong! Walden, we must escape from this devil--we
must escape!"
He sprang up with an impulsive quickness which startled Walden, and
began to pace up and down the room again.
"A mocking devil,"--he said--"a lying devil!--whispering from
morning till evening, and from evening till morning, doubts of God!
Doubts whether He, the Creator of worlds, really exists,-doubts as
to whether He, or It, is not some huge blind, deaf Force, grinding
its way on through limitless and eternal Production and Reproduction
to one end,--Annihilation! Walden, you must now hear MY confession!
These doubts are driving me mad! I cannot bear the thought of the
whirl of countless universes, immeasurable solar systems, crammed
with tortured life for which there seems to be no hope, no care, no
rescue, no future! I am unable to preach or to FEEL comfort for the
human race! The very tragedy of the Cross only brings me to one
result--that Truth is always crucified. The world prefers Falsehood.
So much so indeed that the Christian religion itself is little more
than a super-structure of lies raised above the sepulchre of a
murdered Truth. I told you in my letter I had serious thoughts of
resigning my bishopric. So I have. My spirit turns to Rome!"
"Rome!" cried Walden--"What, YOU, Brent!--you think of going over to
Rome? What strange fantasy has seized you?"
"Rome," said Brent, slowly, stopping in his restless walk--"is the
Mother of Creeds--the antique Muse of the world's history! Filled
with the blood of martyrs, hallowed by the memories of saints, she
is, she must always be, supreme in matters of faith--or
superstition!" And he smiled,--a wan and sorrowful smile--"Or even
idolatry, if you will! Emotionalism,--sensationalism in religion--
these the craving soul must have, and these Rome gives! We must
believe,--mark you, Walden!--we must positively BELIEVE that the
Creator of all Universes was moved to such wrath against the
helpless human creature He had made, that he cursed that creature
forever for merely eating, like a child, fruit which had been
forbidden! And after that we must believe everything else that has
since followed in the track of the Woman, the Serpent and the Tree.
Now in the Church of England I find I cannot believe these things--
in the Church of Rome I WILL believe, because I MUST! I will humble
myself in dust and ashes, and accept all--all. Anything is better
than Nothingness! I will be the lowest of lay brethren, and in
solitude and silence, make atonement for my unbelief. It is the only
way, Walden!--for me, it is the only way! To Her!" And he pointed up
to the picture of the Virgin and Child--"To Her, my vows! As Woman,
she will pity me--as Woman, she can be loved!"
Walden heard this wild speech without any word or gesture of
interruption. Then, raising his eyes to the picture Brent thus
apostrophised, he said, quietly--
"When did you have that painted, Brent?"
A sudden change came over the Bishop's features. He looked as though
startled by some vague terror. Then he answered, slowly:
"Some years ago--in Florence. Why do you ask? It is a copy---"
"Of HER likeness--yes!" said Walden, softly--"I saw that at once.
You had it done, of course! She was beautiful and good--she died
young. I know! But you have no right to turn your personal passion
and grief into a form of worship, Harry!"
The Bishop gazed at him fixedly and solemnly.
"You do not know,"--he murmured--"You have not seen what I have
seen! She has come to me lately--she, who died so long ago!--she has
come to me night after night, and she has told me to pray for her--
'pray' she says--'pray that I may help to save your soul!' And I
must surely do as she bids. I must get away from this place--away
from this city of turmoil and wickedness, into some quieter comer of
the world,--some monastic retreat where I may end my days in peace,-
-I cannot fight my devils here--they are too strong for me!"
"They will be too strong for you anywhere, if you are a coward!"--
said Walden, impetuously. "Brent, I thought you had gotten the
victory over this old despair of yours long ago! I thought you had
made the memory of the woman you loved a noble spur to noble
actions! I never dreamed that it would be possible for you to brood
silently on your sorrow till you made it a cause of protest against
God's will! And worst and strangest of all is this frenzied idea of
yours to fly to the Church of Rome for shelter from yourself and
your secret misery, and there give yourself over to monasticism and
a silent, idolatrous worship,--not of Mary, the Mother of Christ,--
but of the mere picture of the woman you loved! And you would pray
to THAT?--you would kneel before THAT?--you would pass long hours of
fasting and vigil, gazing at that face, till, like the 'stigmata,'
it is almost outlined in blood upon your heart? My dear Brent, is it
possible your brain is so shaken and your soul so feeble that you
must needs seek refuge in a kind of half-spiritual, half-sensuous
passion, which is absolute rank blasphemy?"
At this the Bishop raised his head with an air of imperious
authority.
"I cannot permit!---" he said, in unsteady accents--"You have no
right to speak to me in such a tone--it is not your place---"
Then, suddenly, his voice broke, and throwing himself into his
chair, he dropped his head forward on the desk and covered it with
his hands in an attitude of the utmost abandonment and dejection.
The moisture rose to Walden's eyes,--he knew the great tragedy of
his friend's life--all comprised in one brief, romantic episode of
the adoring love, and sudden loss of a beautiful woman drowned by
accident in her own pleasure-boat on the very eve of her marriage
with him,--and be knew that just as deep and ardent as the man's
passion had been, so deep and ardent was his sorrow--a sorrow that
could never be consoled. And John sat silent, deeply moved in
himself, and ever and anon glancing upwards at the exquisite face of
the painted Virgin above him,--the face of the dead girl whom her
lover had thus sanctified. Presently Brent raised his head,--his
face was white and worn--his eyes were wet.
"Forgive me, John!" he said--"I have been working hard of late, and
my nerves are unstrung. And--I cannot, I cannot forget her! And what
is more awful and terrible to me than anything is that I cannot
forgive God!" He uttered these words in an awed whisper. "I cannot!
I bear the Almighty a grudge for wrenching her life away from mine!
Of what use was it to be so cruel? Of what purpose to kill one so
young? If God is omnipotent, God could have saved her. But He let
her die! I tell you, Walden, that ever since I have been Bishop of
this diocese, I have tried to relieve sorrow and pain whenever I
have met with it--I have striven to do my duty, hoping against hope
that perhaps God would teach me--would explain the why and wherefore
of so much needless agony to His creatures--and that by discovering
reasons for the afflictions of others, I should learn to become
reconciled to my own. But no!--nothing has been made clear! I have
seen innocent women die in the tortures of the damned--while their
drunken husbands have lived to carouse over their coffins.
Children,--mere babes--are afflicted with diseases for which often
no cause can be assigned and no cure discovered--while over the
whole sweltering mass of human helplessness and ignorance, Death
stalks triumphant,--and God, though called upon for rescue with
prayers and tears, withdraws Himself in clouds of impenetrable
silence. It is all hopeless, useless, irremediable! That is why my
thoughts turn to Rome--I say, let me believe in SOMETHING, if it be
only a fairy tale! Let me hear grand music mounting to heaven, even
if human words cannot reach so high!--let me think that guardian
angels exist, even if there is nothing in space save a blind Chance
spawning life particles uselessly,--let my soul and senses feel the
touch of something higher, vaster, purer and better than what the
Church of England calls Christianity at this present day!"
"And that 'something higher, vaster, purer and better'--would you
call it the Church of Rome?" asked Walden. "In suggestion,--in
emotion and poetic inspiration, yes!"--said Brent--"In theory and in
practice, no!"
There was a pause. Walden sat for a few moments absorbed in anxious
thought. Then he looked up with a cheerful air.
"Harry," he said--"Will you do me a favour? Promise that you will
postpone the idea of seceding, or as you put it, 'returning' to
Rome, for six months. Will you? At the end of that time we'll
discuss it again."
The Bishop looked uneasy.
"I would rather do what has to be done at once,"--he said.
"Then I must talk to you straightly,"--continued John, bracing
himself up, and squaring his shoulders resolutely--"I must forget
that you are my Bishop, and speak just as man to man. All the facts
of the case can be summed up in one word--Selfishness! Pure
Selfishness, Harry!--and I never thought I should have had to
convict you of it!"
Brent drew himself slowly up in his chair.
"Selfishness!" he echoed, dreamily--"I can take anything from you,
John!--I did at college,--but--selfishness---"
"Selfishness!" repeated John, firmly--"You have had to suffer a
grief--a great grief,--and because it was so sudden, so tragic and
overwhelming, you draw a mourning veil of your own across the very
face of God! You try to rule your diocese by the measure of your own
rod of affliction. And, finding that nothing is clear to you,
because of your own obstructive spirit, you would set up a fresh
barrier between yourself and Eternal Wisdom, by deserting your post
here, and separating yourself from all the world save the shadow of
the woman you yourself loved! Harry, my dear old friend, unless I
had heard this from your own lips, I should never have believed it
of you!"
Brent sat heavily in his chair, sunk in a brooding melancholy.
"'The heart knoweth its own bitterness!'"--he murmured wearily--
"Your reproaches are just,--I know I deserve them, but they do not
rouse me. They do not stir one pulse in my soul! What have _I_
learned of Eternal Wisdom?--what have _I_ seen? Nothing but cruelty
upon cruelty dealt out, not to the wicked, but to the innocent! And
because I protest against this, you call my spirit an obstructive
one--well!--it may be so! But, Walden, you have never loved!--you
have never felt all your life rush like a river to the sea of
passion!--not low, debasing passion, but passion born of vitality,
ardour, truth, hope, sympathy!--such emotion as most surely
palpitates through the whole body of the natural creation, else
there would be naught created. God Himself--if there be a God--must
be conscious of Love! Do we not say: 'God IS Love'?--and this too
while we suffer beneath His heavy chastisements which are truely
more like Hate! I repeat, Walden, you have never loved,--till now
perhaps--and even now you are scarcely conscious of the hidden
strength of your own feelings. But suppose--just for the sake of
argument--suppose this 'little girl' as you call her, Maryllia
Vancourt, were to die suddenly, would you not, as you express it,
'draw a mourning veil of your own across the face of God'?"
Walden started as though suddenly wounded. If Maryllia were to die!'
He shuddered as the mere thought passed across his brain. 'If
Maryllia were to die!' Why then--then the world would be a blank--
there would be no more sunshine!--no roses!--no songs of birds!--
nothing of fairness or pleasure left in life--not for him, whatever
there might be for others. Was it possible that her existence meant
so much to him? Yes, it meant so much!--it had come to mean so much!
He felt his old friend's melancholy eyes upon him, and looking up
met their searching scrutiny with a serious and open frankness.
"Honestly, I think I should die myself, or lose my senses!"--he
said--"And honestly, I hardly realised this,--which is just as much
selfishness on my part as any of which I hastily accused you,--till
you put it to me. I will not profess to have a stoicism beyond
mortal limits, Harry, nor should I expect such from you. But I WILL
say, that despite our human weakness, we must have courage!--we are
not men without it. And whether faith stands fast or falters,
whether God seems far off or very near, we must face and fight our
destiny--not run away from it! You want to run away,"--and he smiled
gravely--"or rather, just in the present mood of yours you think of
doing so--but I believe it is only a mood--and that you will not,
after putting your hand to the plough, turn back because of the
aridness or ungratefulness of the soil,--that would not be like you.
If one must needs perish, it is better to perish at one's post of
duty than desert over to the enemy."
"I am not sure that Rome is an enemy;"--said the Bishop, musingly.
To this Walden gave no reply, and the conversation fell into other
channels. But, during the whole time of his visit, John was forced
to realise, with much acute surprise and distress, that constant
brooding on grief,--and excessive spiritual emotion of an exalted
and sensuous kind, with much perplexed pondering on human evils for
which there seemed no remedy, had produced a painful impression of
life's despair and futility on Brent's mind,--an impression which it
would be difficult to eradicate, and which would only be softened
and possibly diminished by tenderly dealing with it as though it
were an illness, and gradually bringing about restoration and
recovery through the gentlest means. Though sometimes it was to be
feared that all persuasion would be useless, and that the scandalous
spectacle of an English Bishop seceding to the Church of Rome would
be exhibited with an almost theatrical effect in his friend's case.
For the ornate ritual which the Bishop maintained in his Cathedral
services was almost worthy of a Mass at St. Peter's. The old, simple
chaste English style of 'Morning Prayer' was exchanged for
'Matins,'--choristers perpetually chanted and sang,--crosses were
carried to and fro,--banners waved--processions were held--and the
'Via Crucis' was performed by a select number of the clergy and
congregation every Friday.
"I never have this sort of thing in my church,"--said Walden,
bluntly, on one occasion--"My parishioners would not understand it."
"Why not teach them to understand it?" asked the Bishop, dreamily.
They were standing together in the beautiful old Cathedral, now
empty save for their presence, and Brent's eyes were fixed with a
kind of sombre wistfulness on a great gold crucifix up on the altar.
"Teach them to understand it?" echoed Walden, with a touch of sorrow
and indignation--"You are my Bishop, but if you commanded me to
teach them these 'vain repetitions' prohibited by the Divine Master,
I should disobey you!"
The Bishop flushed red.
"You disapprove?"
"I disapprove of everything that tends to put England back again
into the old religious fetters which she so bravely broke and cast
aside,"--said John, warmly--"I disapprove of all that even hints at
the possibility of any part of the British Empire becoming the slave
of Rome!"
Brent gave a weary gesture.
"In religious matters it is wiser to be under subjection than
free,"--he said, with a sigh--"In a state of freedom we may think as
we please--and freedom of thought breeds doubt,--whereas in a state
of subjection we think as we MUST, and so we are gradually forced
into an attitude of belief. The spread of atheism among the English
is entirely due to the wild, liberty of opinion allowed tham by
their forms of faith."
"I do not agree with you!"--declared Walden, firmly--"The spread of
atheism is due, not to freedom of opinion, nor forms of faith, but
simply to the laxity and weakness of the clergy."
The Bishop looked at him with a smile.
"You always speak straight out, John!" he said--"You always did! And
strange to say, I like you all the better for it. I could, if I
chose, both reprove and command you--but I will do neither. You must
take your own way, as you always have done. But there is a flavour
of Rome even in your little church of St. Rest,--your miracle
shrine,--your unknown saint in the alabaster coffin. You and your
parishioners kneel before that every Sunday."
"True--but we do not kneel to IT,--nor do we pray through It,"--
replied Walden--"It stays in the chancel because it was found in the
chancel. But it does not make a miracle shrine' as you say,--there
is nothing miraculous about it."
"If it contains the body of a Saint,"--said the Bishop, slowly--"it
MUST be miraculous! If, in the far-gone centuries, the prayers and
tears of sorrowful human beings have bedewed that cold stone, some
efficacy, some tenderness, some vitality, born of these prayers and
tears, must yet remain! Walden, we preach the supernatural--do we
not believe in it?"
"The Divine supernatural--yes!" answered Walden,--"But---" The
Bishop interrupted him by a gesture of his delicate hand.
"There are no 'buts' in the matter, John,"--he said, quietly--"What
is supernatural is so by its own nature. The Divine is the Human,
the Human is the Divine. In all and through all things the Spirit
moves and makes its way. Our earth and ourselves are but particles
of matter, worked by the spirit or essence of creative force. This
spirit we can neither see nor touch, therefore we call it super-
natural. But it permeates all things,--the stone as completely as
the flower. It circulates through that alabaster sarcophagus in your
church, as easily as through your own living veins. Hence, as I say,
if the mortal remains of a saint are enshrined within that
reliquary, the spirit or 'soul' enveloping it MAY work 'miracles,'
for all we dare to know!" He paused, and looking kindly at Walden's
grave and somewhat troubled face, added--"Some day, when we are in
very desperate straits, John, we will am what your saint can do for
us!"
He smiled. Walden returned the smile, but nevertheless was conscious
of a sorrowful sense of regret at what he considered his friend's
leaning toward superstitious observances and idolatrous ceremonies.
At the same time he well knew that any violent opposition on the
subject would be worse than useless in the Bishop's present mood. He
therefore contented himself with, as he mentally said, 'putting in
the thin end of the wedge'--and,--carefully steering clear of all
controversial matters,--contrived in a great measure to reassert the
old magnetic sway he had been wont to exercise over Brent's more
pliable mind when at college--so that before they parted, he had
obtained from him a solemn promise that there should be no
'secession' or even preparation for secession to Rome, till six
months had elapsed.
"And if you would only put away that picture,"--said Walden,
earnestly, pointing towards the 'Virgin and Child'--"Or rather, if
you would have another one painted of the sweet woman you loved as
she really was in life, it would be wiser and safer for your own
peace."
The Bishop shook his head.
"The Virgin and Child are a symbol of all humanity,"--he said--
"Mother and Son,--Present and Future! Woman holds the human race in
her arms--at her breast!--without her, Chaos would come again! And
for me, all Womanhood is personified in that one face!"
He raised his eyes to the picture with an almost devout passion--and
then abruptly turned away. The conversation was not renewed again
between them, but when Walden parted from his friend, he had the
satisfaction of knowing that he left him in a brighter, more hopeful
and healthful condition, cheered, soothed and invigorated by the
exchange of that mutual confidence and close sympathy which had
linked their two lives together in boyhood, and which held them
still subtly and tenderly responsive to each other's most intimate
emotions as men.