I
Percy Franklin, the new Cardinal-Protector of England, came slowly along
the passage leading from the Pope’s apartments, with Hans Steinmann,
Cardinal-Protector of Germany, blowing at his side. They entered the
lift, still in silence, and passed out, two splendid vivid figures, one
erect and virile, the other bent, fat, and very German from spectacles
to flat buckled feet.
At the door of Percy’s suite, the Englishman paused, made a little
gesture of reverence, and went in without a word.
A secretary, young Mr. Brent, lately from England, stood up as his
patron came in.
“Eminence,” he said, “the English papers are come.”
Percy put out a hand, took a paper, passed on into his inner room, and
sat down.
There it all was--gigantic headlines, and four columns of print broken
by startling title phrases in capital letters, after the fashion set by
America a hundred years ago. No better way even yet had been found of
misinforming the unintelligent.
He looked at the top. It was the English edition of the _Era_. Then he
read the headlines. They ran as follows:
“THE NATIONAL WORSHIP. BEWILDERING SPLENDOUR. RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. THE
ABBEY AND GOD. CATHOLIC FANATIC. EX-PRIESTS AS FUNCTIONARIES.”
He ran his eyes down the page, reading the vivid little phrases, and
drawing from the whole a kind of impressionist view of the scenes in the
Abbey on the previous day, of which he had already been informed by the
telegraph, and the discussion of which had been the purpose of his
interview just now with the Holy Father.
There plainly was no additional news; and he was laying the paper down
when his eye caught a name.
“It is understood that Mr. Francis, the _ceremoniarius_ (to whom the
thanks of all are due for his reverent zeal and skill), will proceed
shortly to the northern towns to lecture on the Ritual. It is
interesting to reflect that this gentleman only a few months ago was
officiating at a Catholic altar. He was assisted in his labours by
twenty-four confreres with the same experience behind them.”
“Good God!” said Percy aloud. Then he laid the paper down.
But his thoughts had soon left this renegade behind, and once more he
was running over in his mind the significance of the whole affair, and
the advice that he had thought it his duty to give just now upstairs.
Briefly, there was no use in disputing the fact that the inauguration of
Pantheistic worship had been as stupendous a success in England as in
Germany. France, by the way, was still too busy with the cult of human
individuals, to develop larger ideas.
But England was deeper; and, somehow, in spite of prophecy, the affair
had taken place without even a touch of bathos or grotesqueness. It had
been said that England was too solid and too humorous. Yet there had
been extraordinary scenes the day before. A great murmur of enthusiasm
had rolled round the Abbey from end to end as the gorgeous curtains ran
back, and the huge masculine figure, majestic and overwhelming, coloured
with exquisite art, had stood out above the blaze of candles against the
tall screen that shrouded the shrine. Markenheim had done his work well;
and Mr. Brand’s passionate discourse had well prepared the popular mind
for the revelation. He had quoted in his peroration passage after
passage from the Jewish prophets, telling of the City of Peace whose
walls rose now before their eyes.
“_Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is
risen upon thee.... For behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and
the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind.... Violence shall
no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy
borders. O thou so long afflicted, tossed with tempest and not
comforted; behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and thy
foundations with sapphires.... I will make thy windows of agates and thy
gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. Arise,
shine, for thy light is come._”
As the chink of the censer-chains had sounded in the stillness, with one
consent the enormous crowd had fallen on its knees, and so remained, as
the smoke curled up from the hands of the rebel figure who held the
thurible. Then the organ had begun to blow, and from the huge massed
chorus in the transepts had rolled out the anthem, broken by one
passionate cry, from some mad Catholic. But it had been silenced in an
instant....
It was incredible--utterly incredible, Percy had told himself. Yet the
incredible had happened; and England had found its worship once
more--the necessary culmination of unimpeded subjectivity. From the
provinces had come the like news. In cathedral after cathedral had been
the same scenes. Markenheim’s masterpiece, executed in four days after
the passing of the bill, had been reproduced by the ordinary machinery,
and four thousand replicas had been despatched to every important
centre. Telegraphic reports had streamed into the London papers that
everywhere the new movement had been received with acclamation, and that
human instincts had found adequate expression at last. If there had not
been a God, mused Percy reminiscently, it would have been necessary to
invent one. He was astonished, too, at the skill with which the new cult
had been framed. It moved round no disputable points; there was no
possibility of divergent political tendencies to mar its success, no
over-insistence on citizenship, labour and the rest, for those who were
secretly individualistic and idle. Life was the one fount and centre of
it all, clad in the gorgeous robes of ancient worship. Of course the
thought had been Felsenburgh’s, though a German name had been mentioned.
It was Positivism of a kind, Catholicism without Christianity, Humanity
worship without its inadequacy. It was not man that was worshipped but
the Idea of man, deprived of his supernatural principle. Sacrifice,
too, was recognised--the instinct of oblation without the demand made by
transcendent Holiness upon the blood-guiltiness of man.... In fact,--in
fact, said Percy, it was exactly as clever as the devil, and as old as
Cain.
The advice he had given to the Holy Father just now was a counsel of
despair, or of hope; he really did not know which. He had urged that a
stringent decree should be issued, forbidding any acts of violence on
the part of Catholics. The faithful were to be encouraged to be patient,
to hold utterly aloof from the worship, to say nothing unless they were
questioned, to suffer bonds gladly. He had suggested, in company with
the German Cardinal, that they two should return to their respective
countries at the close of the year, to encourage the waverers; but the
answer had been that their vocation was to remain in Rome, unless
something unforeseen happened.
As for Felsenburgh, there was little news. It was said that he was in
the East; but further details were secret. Percy understood quite well
why he had not been present at the worship as had been expected. First,
it would have been difficult to decide between the two countries that
had established it; and, secondly, he was too brilliant a politician to
risk the possible association of failure with his own person; thirdly,
there was something the matter with the East.
This last point was difficult to understand; it had not yet become
explicit, but it seemed as if the movement of last year had not yet run
its course. It was undoubtedly difficult to explain the new President’s
constant absences from his adopted continent, unless there was something
that demanded his presence elsewhere; but the extreme discretion of the
East and the stringent precautions taken by the Empire made it
impossible to know any details. It was apparently connected with
religion; there were rumours, portents, prophets, ecstatics there.
* * * * *
Upon Percy himself had fallen a subtle change which he himself was
recognising. He no longer soared to confidence or sank to despair. He
said his mass, read his enormous correspondence, meditated strictly;
and, though he felt nothing he knew everything. There was not a tinge of
doubt upon his faith, but neither was there emotion in it. He was as one
who laboured in the depths of the earth, crushed even in imagination,
yet conscious that somewhere birds sang, and the sun shone, and water
ran. He understood his own state well enough, and perceived that he had
come to a reality of faith that was new to him, for it was sheer
faith--sheer apprehension of the Spiritual--without either the dangers
or the joys of imaginative vision. He expressed it to himself by saying
that there were three processes through which God led the soul: the
first was that of external faith, which assents to all things presented
by the accustomed authority, practises religion, and is neither
interested nor doubtful; the second follows the quickening of the
emotional and perceptive powers of the soul, and is set about with
consolations, desires, mystical visions and perils; it is in this plane
that resolutions are taken and vocations found and shipwrecks
experienced; and the third, mysterious and inexpressible, consists in
the re-enactment in the purely spiritual sphere of all that has preceded
(as a play follows a rehearsal), in which God is grasped but not
experienced, grace is absorbed unconsciously and even distastefully, and
little by little the inner spirit is conformed in the depths of its
being, far within the spheres of emotion and intellectual perception, to
the image and mind of Christ.
So he lay back now, thinking, a long, stately, scarlet figure, in his
deep chair, staring out over Holy Rome seen through the misty September
haze. How long, he wondered, would there be peace? To his eyes even
already the air was black with doom.
He struck his hand-bell at last.
“Bring me Father Blackmore’s Last report,” he said, as his secretary
appeared.
II
Percy’s intuitive faculties were keen by nature and had been vastly
increased by cultivation. He had never forgotten Father Blackmore’s
shrewd remarks of a year ago; and one of his first acts as
Cardinal-Protector had been to appoint that priest on the list of
English correspondents. Hitherto he had received some dozen letters, and
not one of them had been without its grain of gold. Especially he had
noticed that one warning ran through them all, namely, that sooner or
later there would be some overt act of provocation on the part of
English Catholics; and it was the memory of this that had inspired his
vehement entreaties to the Pope this morning. As in the Roman and
African persecutions of the first three centuries, so now, the greatest
danger to the Catholic community lay not in the unjust measures of the
Government but in the indiscreet zeal of the faithful themselves. The
world desired nothing better than a handle to its blade. The scabbard
was already cast away.
When the young man had brought the four closely written sheets, dated
from Westminster, the previous evening, Percy turned at once to the last
paragraph before the usual Recommendations.
“Mr. Brand’s late secretary, Mr. Phillips, whom your Eminence commended
to me, has been to see me two or three times. He is in a curious state.
He has no faith; yet, intellectually, he sees no hope anywhere but in
the Catholic Church. He has even begged for admission to the Order of
Christ Crucified, which of course is impossible. But there is no doubt
he is sincere; otherwise he would have professed Catholicism. I have
introduced him to many Catholics in the hope that they may help him. I
should much wish your Eminence to see him.”
Before leaving England, Percy had followed up the acquaintance he had
made so strangely over Mrs. Brand’s reconciliation to God, and, scarcely
knowing why, had commended him to the priest. He had not been
particularly impressed by Mr. Phillips; he had thought him a timid,
undecided creature, yet he had been struck by the extremely unselfish
action by which the man had forfeited his position. There must surely be
a good deal behind.
And now the impulse had come to send for him. Perhaps the spiritual
atmosphere of Rome would precipitate faith. In any case, the
conversation of Mr. Brand’s late secretary might be instructive.
He struck the bell again.
“Mr. Brent,” he said, “in your next letter to Father Blackmore, tell him
that I wish to see the man whom he proposed to send--Mr. Phillips.”
“Yes, Eminence.”
“There is no hurry. He can send him at his leisure.”
“Yes, Eminence.”
“But he must not come till January. That will be time enough, unless
there is urgent reason.”
“Yes, Eminence.”
* * * * *
The development of the Order of Christ Crucified had gone forward with
almost miraculous success. The appeal issued by the Holy Father
throughout Christendom had been as fire among stubble. It seemed as if
the Christian world had reached exactly that point of tension at which a
new organisation of this nature was needed, and the response had
startled even the most sanguine. Practically the whole of Rome with its
suburbs--three millions in all--had run to the enrolling stations in
St. Peter’s as starving men run to food, and desperate to the storming
of a breach. For day after day the Pope himself had sat enthroned below
the altar of the Chair, a glorious, radiant figure, growing ever white
and weary towards evening, imparting his Blessing with a silent sign to
each individual of the vast crowd that swarmed up between the barriers,
fresh from fast and Communion, to kneel before his new Superior and kiss
the Pontifical ring. The requirements had been as stringent as
circumstances allowed. Each postulant was obliged to go to confession to
a specially authorised priest, who examined sharply into motives and
sincerity, and only one-third of the applicants had been accepted. This,
the authorities pointed out to the scornful, was not an excessive
proportion; for it was to be remembered that most of those who had
presented themselves had already undergone a sifting fierce as fire. Of
the three millions in Rome, two millions at least were exiles for their
faith, preferring to live obscure and despised in the shadow of God
rather than in the desolate glare of their own infidel countries.
On the fifth evening of the enrolment of novices an astonishing incident
had taken place. The old King of Spain (Queen Victoria’s second son),
already on the edge of the grave, had just risen and tottered before his
Ruler; it seemed for an instant as if he would fall, when the Pope
himself, by a sudden movement, had risen, caught him in his arms and
kissed him; and then, still standing, had spread his arms abroad and
delivered a _fervorino_ such as never had been heard before in the
history of the basilica.
“_Benedictus Dominus!_” he cried, with upraised face and shining eyes.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His
people. I, John, Vicar of Christ, Servant of Servants, and sinner among
sinners, bid you be of good courage in the Name of God. By Him Who hung
on the Cross, I promise eternal life to all who persevere in His Order.
He Himself has said it. _To him that overcometh I will give a crown of
life._
“Little children; fear not him that killeth the body. There is no more
that he can do. God and His Mother are amongst us....”
So his voice had poured on, telling the enormous awe-stricken crowd of
the blood that already had been shed on the place where they stood, of
the body of the Apostle that lay scarcely fifty yards away, urging,
encouraging, inspiring. They had vowed themselves to death, if that were
God’s Will; and if not, the intention would be taken for the deed. They
were under obedience now; their wills were no longer theirs but God’s;
under chastity--for their bodies were bought with a price; under
poverty, and theirs was the kingdom of heaven.
He had ended by a great silent Benediction of the City and the World:
and there were not wanting a half-dozen of the faithful who had seen,
they thought, a white shape in the form of a bird that hung in the air
while he spoke white as a mist, translucent as water....
The consequent scenes in the city and suburbs had been unparalleled, for
thousands of families had with one consent dissolved human ties.
Husbands had found their way to the huge houses on the Quirinal set
apart for them; wives to the Aventine; while the children, as confident
as their parents, had swarmed over to the Sisters of St. Vincent who had
received at the Pope’s orders the gift of three streets to shelter them
in. Everywhere the smoke of burning went up in the squares where
household property, rendered useless by the vows of poverty, were
consumed by their late owners; and daily long trains moved out from the
station outside the walls carrying jubilant loads of those who were
despatched by the Pope’s delegates to be the salt of men, consumed in
their function, and leaven plunged in the vast measures of the infidel
world. And that infidel world welcomed their coming with bitter
laughter.
From the rest of Christendom had poured in news of success. The same
precautions had been observed as in Rome, for the directions issued were
precise and searching; and day after day came in the long rolls of the
new Religious drawn up by the diocesan superiors.
Within the last few days, too, other lists had arrived, more glorious
than all. Not only did reports stream in that already the Order was
beginning its work and that already broken communications were being
re-established, that devoted missioners were in process of organising
themselves, and that hope was once more rising in the most desperate
hearts; but better than all this was the tidings of victory in another
sphere. In Paris forty of the new-born Order had been burned alive in
one day in the Latin quarter, before the Government intervened. From
Spain, Holland, Russia had come in other names. In Dusseldorf eighteen
men and boys, surprised at their singing of Prime in the church of Saint
Laurence, had been cast down one by one into the city-sewer, each
chanting as he vanished:
“_Christi Fili Dei vivi miserere nobis,_”
and from the darkness had come up the same broken song till it was
silenced with stones. Meanwhile, the German prisons were thronged with
the first batches of recusants. The world shrugged its shoulders, and
declared that they had brought it on themselves, while yet it deprecated
mob-violence, and requested the attention of the authorities and the
decisive repression of this new conspiracy of superstition. And within
St. Peter’s Church the workmen were busy at the long rows of new altars,
affixing to the stone diptychs the brass-forged names of those who had
already fulfilled their vows and gained their crowns.
It was the first word of God’s reply to the world’s challenge.
* * * * *
As Christmas drew on it was announced that the Sovereign pontiff would
sing mass on the last day of the year, at the papal altar of Saint
Peter’s, on behalf of the Order; and preparations began to be made.
It was to be a kind of public inauguration of the new enterprise; and,
to the astonishment of all, a special summons was issued to all members
of the Sacred College throughout the world to be present, unless
hindered by sickness. It seemed as if the Pope were determined that
the world should understand that war was declared; for, although the
command would not involve the absence of any Cardinal from his province
for more than five days, yet many inconveniences must surely result.
However, it had been said, and it was to be done.
* * * * *
It was a strange Christmas.
Percy was ordered to attend the Pope at his second mass, and himself
said his three at midnight in his own private oratory. For the first
time in his life he saw that of which he had heard so often, the
wonderful old-world Pontifical procession, lit by torches, going through
the streets from the Lateran to St. Anastasia, where the Pope for the
last few years had restored the ancient custom discontinued for nearly a
century-and-a-half. The little basilica was reserved, of course, in
every corner for the peculiarly privileged; but the streets outside
along the whole route from the Cathedral to the church--and, indeed, the
other two sides of the triangle as well, were one dense mass of silent
heads and flaming torches. The Holy Father was attended at the altar by
the usual sovereigns; and Percy from his place watched the heavenly
drama of Christ’s Passion enacted through the veil of His nativity at
the hands of His old Angelic Vicar. It was hard to perceive Calvary
here; it was surely the air of Bethlehem, the celestial light, not the
supernatural darkness, that beamed round the simple altar. It was the
Child called Wonderful that lay there beneath the old hands, rather than
the stricken Man of Sorrows.
_Adeste fideles_ sang the choir from the tribune.--Come, let us adore,
rather than weep; let us exult, be content, be ourselves like little
children. As He for us became a child, let us become childlike for Him.
Let us put on the garments of infancy and the shoes of peace. _For the
Lord hath reigned; He is clothed with beauty: the Lord is clothed with
strength and hath girded Himself. He hath established the world which
shall not be moved: His throne is prepared from of old. He is from
everlasting. Rejoice greatly then, O daughter of Zion, shout for joy, O
daughter of Jerusalem; behold thy King cometh, to thee, the Holy One,
the Saviour of the world._ It will be time, then, to suffer by and bye,
when the Prince of this world cometh upon the Prince of Heaven.
So Percy mused, standing apart in his gorgeousness, striving to make
himself little and simple. Surely nothing was too hard for God! Might
not this mystic Birth once more do what it had done before--bring into
subjection through the might of its weakness every proud thing that
exalts itself above all that is called God? It had drawn wise Kings once
across the desert, as well as shepherds from their flocks. It had kings
about it now, kneeling with the poor and foolish, kings who had laid
down their crowns, who brought the gold of loyal hearts, the myrrh of
desired martyrdom, and the incense of a pure faith. Could not republics,
too, lay aside their splendour, mobs be tamed, selfishness deny itself,
and wisdom confess its ignorance?...
Then he remembered Felsenburgh; and his heart sickened within him.
III
Six days later, Percy rose as usual, said his mass, breakfasted, and
sat down to say office until his servant should summon him to vest for
the Pontifical mass.
He had learned to expect bad news now so constantly--of apostasies,
deaths, losses--that the lull of the previous week had come to him with
extraordinary refreshment. It appeared to him as if his musings in St.
Anastasia had been truer than he thought, and that the sweetness of the
old feast had not yet wholly lost its power even over a world that
denied its substance. For nothing at all had happened of importance. A
few more martyrdoms had been chronicled, but they had been isolated
cases; and of Felsenburgh there had been no tidings at all. Europe
confessed its ignorance of his business.
On the other hand, to-morrow, Percy knew very well, would be a day of
extraordinary moment in England and Germany at any rate; for in England
it was appointed as the first occasion of compulsory worship throughout
the country, while it was the second in Germany. Men and women would
have to declare themselves now.
He had seen on the previous evening a photograph of the image that was
to be worshipped next day in the Abbey; and, in a fit of loathing, had
torn it to shreds. It represented a nude woman, huge and majestic,
entrancingly lovely, with head and shoulders thrown back, as one who
sees a strange and heavenly vision, arms downstretched and hands a
little raised, with wide fingers, as in astonishment--the whole
attitude, with feet and knees pressed together, suggestive of
expectation, hope and wonder; in devilish mockery her long hair was
crowned with twelve stars. This, then, was the spouse of the other, the
embodiment of man’s ideal maternity, still waiting for her child....
When the white scraps lay like poisonous snow at his feet, he had sprung
across the room to his _prie-dieu_, and fallen there in an agony of
reparation.
“Oh! Mother, Mother!” he cried to the stately Queen of Heaven who, with
Her true Son long ago in Her arms, looked down on him from Her
bracket--no more than that.
* * * * *
But he was still again this morning, and celebrated Saint Silvester,
Pope and Martyr, the last saint in the procession of the Christian year,
with tolerable equanimity. The sights of last night, the throng of
officials, the stately, scarlet, unfamiliar figures of the Cardinals who
had come in from north, south, east and west--these helped to reassure
him again--unreasonably, as he knew, yet effectually. The very air was
electric with expectation. All night the piazza had been crowded by a
huge, silent mob waiting till the opening of the doors at seven o’clock.
Now the church itself was full, and the piazza full again. Far down the
street to the river, so far as he could see as he had leaned from his
window just now, lay that solemn motionless pavement of heads. The roof
of the colonnade showed a fringe of them, the house-tops were black--and
this in the bitter cold of a clear, frosty morning, for it was announced
that after mass and the proceeding of the members of the Order past the
Pontifical Throne, the Pope would give Apostolic Benediction to the City
and the World.
Percy finished Terce, closed his book and lay back; his servant would be
here in a minute now.
His mind began to run over the function, and he reflected that the
entire Sacred College (with the exception of the Cardinal-Protector of
Jerusalem, detained by sickness), numbering sixty-four members, would
take part. This would mean an unique sight by and bye. Eight years
before, he remembered, after the freedom of Rome, there had been a
similar assembly; but the Cardinals at that time amounted to no more
than fifty-three all told, and four had been absent.
Then he heard voices in his ante-room, a quick step, and a loud English
expostulation. That was curious, and he sat up.
Then he heard a sentence.
“His Eminence must go to vest; it is useless.”
There was a sharp answer, a faint scuffle, and a snatch at the handle.
This was indecent; so Percy stood up, made three strides of it to the
door, and tore it open.
A man stood there, whom at first he did not recognise, pale and
disordered.
“Why---” began Percy, and recoiled.
“Mr. Phillips!” he said.
The other threw out his hands.
“It is I, sir--your Eminence--this moment arrived. It is life and death.
Your servant tells me---”
“Who sent you?”
“Father Blackmore.”
“Good news or bad?”
The man rolled his eyes towards the servant, who still stood erect and
offended a yard away; and Percy understood.
He put his hand on the other’s arm, drawing him through the doorway.
“Tap upon this door in two minutes, James,” he said.
They passed across the polished floor together; Percy went to his usual
place in the window, leaned against the shutter, and spoke.
“Tell me in one sentence, sir,” he said to the breathless man.
“There is a plot among the Catholics. They intend destroying the Abbey
to-morrow with explosives. I knew that the Pope---”
Percy cut him short with a gesture.