CALLISTA’S PREACHING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
It is undeniably a solemn moment, under any circumstances, and requires a
strong heart, when any one deliberately surrenders himself, soul and body,
to the keeping of another while life shall last; and this, or something
like this, reserving the supreme claim of duty to the Creator, is the
matrimonial contract. In individual cases it may be made without thought
or distress, but surveyed objectively, and as carried out into a
sufficient range of instances, it is so tremendous an undertaking that
nature seems to sink under its responsibilities. When the Christian binds
himself by vows to a religious life, he makes a surrender to Him who is
all-perfect, and whom he may unreservedly trust. Moreover, looking at that
surrender on its human side, he has the safeguard of distinct _provisos_
and regulations, and of the principles of theology, to secure him against
tyranny on the part of his superiors. But what shall be his encouragement
to make himself over, without condition or stipulation, as an absolute
property, to a fallible being, and that not for a season, but for life?
The mind shrinks from such a sacrifice, and demands that, as religion
enjoins it, religion should sanction and bless it. It instinctively
desires that either the bond should be dissoluble, or that the subjects of
it should be sacramentally strengthened to maintain it. “So help me God,”
the formula of every oath, is emphatically necessary here.
But Agellius is contemplating a superhuman engagement without superhuman
assistance; and that in a state of society in which public opinion, which
in some sense compensates for the absence of religion, supplied human
motives, not for, but against keeping it, and with one who had given no
indication that she understood what marriage meant. No wonder then, that,
in spite of his simplicity, his sanguine temperament, and his delusion,
the more he thought of the step he had taken, the more unsatisfactory he
found it, and the nearer he grew to the time when he must open the subject
with Aristo, the less he felt able to do so. In consequence he was in a
distress of mind, as he ascended the staircase which led to his friend’s
lodging, to which his anxiety, as he mounted the hill on the other side of
the city, was tranquillity itself; and, except that he was coming by
engagement, he would have turned back, and for the time at least have put
the whole subject from his thoughts. Yet even then, as often as Callista
rose in his mind’s eye, his scruples and misgivings vanished before the
beauty of that image, as mists before the sun; and when he actually stood
in her sweet presence, it seemed as if some secret emanation from her
flowed in upon his heart, and he stood breathless and giddy under the
intensity of the fascination.
However, the reader must not suppose that in the third century of our era
such negotiations as that which now seems to be on the point of coming off
between Callista and Agellius, were embellished with those transcendental
sentiments and that magnificent ceremonial with which chivalry has
invested them in these latter ages. There was little occasion then for
fine speaking or exquisite deportment; and if there had been, we, who are
the narrators of these hitherto unrecorded transactions, should have been
utterly unable to do justice to them. At that time of day the Christian
had too much simplicity, the heathen too little of real delicacy, to
indulge in the sublimities of modern love-making, at least as it is found
in novels; and in the case before us both gentleman and lady will be
thought, we consider, sadly matter-of-fact, or rather semi-barbarous, by
the votaries of what is just now called European civilization.
On Agellius’s entering the room, Aristo was pacing to and fro in some
discomposure; however, he ran up to his friend, embraced him, and, looking
at him with significance, congratulated him on his good looks. “There is
more fire in your eye,” he said, “dear Agellius, and more eloquence in the
turn of your lip, than I have ever yet seen. A new spirit is in you. So
you are determined to come out of your solitude? That you should have been
able to exist in it so long is the wonderment to me.”
Agellius had recovered himself, yet he dared not look again on Callista.
“Do not jest, Aristo,” he said; “I am come, as you know, to talk to you
about your sister. I have brought her a present of flowers; they are my
best present, or rather not mine, but the birth of the opening year, as
fair and fragrant as herself.”
“We will offer them to our Pallas Athene,” said his friend, “to whom we
artists are especially devout.” And he would have led Agellius on, and
made him place them in her niche in the opposite wall.
“I am more serious than you are,” said Agellius; “and I have brought the
best my garden contains as an offering to your sister. _She_ will not
think I bring them for any other purpose. Where are you going?” he
continued, as he saw his friend take down his broad _petasus_.
“Why,” answered Aristo, “since I am so poor an interpreter of your
meaning, you can dispense with me altogether. I will leave you to speak
for yourself, and meanwhile will go and see what old Dromo has to tell,
before the sun is too high in the heavens.”
Saying this, with a half-imploring, half-satirical look at his sister, he
set off to the barber’s at the Forum.
Agellius took up the flowers, and laid them on the table before her, as
she sat at work. “Do you accept my flowers, Callista?” he asked.
“Fair and fragrant, like myself, are they?” she made reply. “Give them to
me.” She took them, and bent over them. “The blushing rose,” she said,
gravely, “the stately lily, the royal carnation, the golden moly, the
purple amaranth, the green bryon, the diosanthos, the sertula, the sweet
modest saliunca, fit emblems of Callista. Well, in a few hours they will
have faded; yes, they will get more and more like her.”
She paused and looked him steadily in the face, and then continued:
“Agellius, I once had a slave who belonged to your religion. She had been
born in a Christian family, and came into my possession on her master’s
death. She was unlike any one I have seen before or since; she cared for
nothing, yet was not morose or peevish or hard-hearted. She died young in
my service. Shortly before her end she had a dream. She saw a company of
bright shades, clothed in white, like the hours which circle round the god
of day. They were crowned with flowers, and they said to each other,
‘_She_ ought to have a token too.’ So they took her hand, and led her to a
most beautiful lady, as stately as Juno and as sweet as Ariadne, so
radiant in countenance that they themselves suddenly looked like
Ethiopians by the side of her. She, too, was crowned with flowers, and
these so dazzling that they might be the stars of heaven or the gems of
Asia for what Chione could tell. And that fair goddess (angel you call
her) said, ‘My dear, here is something for you from my Son. He sends you
by me a red rose for your love, a white lily for your chastity, purple
violets to strew your grave, and green palms to flourish over it.’ Is this
the reason why you give me flowers, Agellius, that I may rank with Chione?
and is this their interpretation?”
“Callista,” he answered, “it is my heart’s most fervent wish, it is my
mind’s vivid anticipation, that the day may come when you will receive
such a crown, nay, a brighter one.”
“And you are come, of course, to philosophize to me, and to put me in the
way of dying like Chione,” she made answer. “I implore your pardon. You
are offering me flowers, it seems, not for a bridal wreath, but for a
funeral urn.”
“Is it wonderful,” said Agellius, “that the two wishes should have gone
together in my heart; and that while I trusted and prayed that you might
have the same Master in heaven as I have myself, I also hoped you would
have the same service, the same aims, the same home upon earth?”
“And that you should speak one word for your Master and two for yourself!”
she retorted.
“It has been by feeling how much you could be to me,” he answered, “that I
have been led to think how much my Master may be doing for you already,
and how much in time to come you might do for Him. Callista, do not urge
me with your Greek subtlety, or expect me to analyze my feelings more
precisely than I have the ability to do. May I calmly tell you the state
of my mind, as I do know it, and will you patiently listen?”
She signified her willingness, and he continued—“This only I know,” he
said, “what I have experienced ever since I first heard you converse, that
there is between you and me a unity of thought so strange that I should
have deemed it could not have been, before I found it actually to exist,
between any two persons whatever; and which, widely as we are separated in
opinion and habit, and differently as we have been brought up, is to me
inexplicable. I find it difficult to explain what I mean; we disagree
certainly on the most important subjects, yet there is an unaccountable
correspondence in the views we take of things, in our impressions, in the
line in which our minds move, and the issues to which they come, in our
judgment of what is great and little, and the manner in which objects
affect our feelings. When I speak to my uncle, when I speak to your
brother, I do not understand them, nor they me. We are moving in different
spheres, and I am solitary, however much they talk. But to my
astonishment, I find between you and me one language. Is it wonderful
that, in proportion to my astonishment, I am led to refer it to one cause,
and think that one Master Hand must have engraven those lines on the soul
of each of us? Is it wonderful that I should fancy that He who has made us
alike has made us for each other, and that the very same persuasives by
which I bring you to cast your eyes on me, may draw you also to cast
yourself in adoration at the feet of my Master?”
For an instant tears seemed about to start from Callista’s eyes, but she
repressed the emotion, if it were such, and answered with impetuosity,
“Your Master! who is your Master? what know I of your Master? what have
you ever told me of your Master? I suppose it is an esoteric doctrine
which I am not worthy to know; but so it is, here you have been again and
again, and talked freely of many things, yet I am in as much darkness
about your Master as if I had never seen you. I know He died; I know too
that Christians say He lives. In some fortunate island, I suppose; for,
when I have asked, you have got rid of the subject as best you could. You
have talked about your law and your various duties, and what you consider
right, and what is forbidden, and of some of the old writers of your sect,
and of the Jews before them; but if, as you imply, my wants and
aspirations are the same as yours, what have you done towards satisfying
them? what have you done for that Master towards whom you now propose to
lead me? No!” she continued, starting up, “you have watched those wants
and aspirations for yourself, not for Him; you have taken interest in
them, you have cherished them, as if you were the author, you the object
of them. You profess to believe in One True God, and to reject every
other; and now you are implying that the Hand, the Shadow of that God is
on my mind and heart. Who is this God? where? how? in what? O Agellius,
you have stood in the way of Him, ready to speak for yourself, using Him
as a means to an end.”
“O Callista,” said Agellius, in an agitated voice, when he could speak,
“do my ears hear aright? do you really wish to be taught who the true God
is?”
“No, mistake me not,” she cried passionately, “I have no such wish. I
could not be of your religion. Ye Gods! how have I been deceived! I
thought every Christian was like Chione. I thought there could not be a
cold Christian. Chione spoke as if a Christian’s first thoughts were
goodwill to others; as if his state were of such blessedness, that his
dearest heart’s wish was to bring others into it. Here is a man who, so
far from feeling himself blest, thinks I can bless him! comes to me—me,
Callista, a herb of the field, a poor weed, exposed to every wind of
heaven, and shrivelling before the fierce sun—to me he comes to repose his
heart upon. But as for any blessedness he has to show me, why, since he
does not feel any himself, no wonder he has none to give away. I thought a
Christian was superior to time and place; but all is hollow. Alas, alas, I
am young in life to feel the force of that saying, with which sages go out
of it, ‘Vanity and hollowness!’ Agellius, when I first heard you were a
Christian, how my heart beat! I thought of her who was gone; and at first
I thought I saw her in you, as if there had been some magical sympathy
between you and her; and I hoped that from you I might have learned more
of that strange strength which my nature needs, and which she told me she
possessed. Your words, your manner, your looks were altogether different
from others who came near me. But so it was; you came, and you went, and
came again; I thought it reserve, I thought it timidity, I thought it the
caution of a persecuted sect; but O, my disappointment, when first I saw
in you indications that you were thinking of me only as others think, and
felt towards me as others may feel; that you were aiming at me, not at
your God; that you had much to tell of yourself, but nothing of Him! Time
was I might have been led to worship you, Agellius; you have hindered it
by worshipping _me_.”
It is not often, we suppose, that such deep offence is given to a lady by
the sort of admiration of which Agellius had been guilty in the case of
Callista; however, startled as he might be, and startled and stung he was,
there was too much earnestness in her distress, too much of truth in her
representations, too much which came home to his heart and conscience, to
allow of his being affronted or irritated. She had but supplied the true
interpretation of the misgiving which had haunted him that morning, from
the time he set out till the moment of his entering the room. Jucundus
some days back had readily acquiesced in his assurance that he was not
inconsistent; but Callista had not been so indulgent, though really more
merciful. There was a pause in the conversation, or rather in her
outpouring; each had bitter thoughts, and silently devoured them. At
length, she began again:—
“So the religion of Chione is a dream; now for four years I had hoped it
was a reality. All things again are vanity; I had hoped there was
something somewhere more than I could see; but there is nothing. Here am I
a living, breathing woman, with an over-flowing heart, with keen
affections, with a yearning after some object which may possess me. I
cannot exist without something to rest upon. I cannot fall back upon that
drear, forlorn state, which philosophers call wisdom, and moralists call
virtue. I cannot enrol myself a votary of that cold Moon, whose arrows do
but freeze me. I cannot sympathize in that majestic band of sisters whom
Rome has placed under the tutelage of Vesta. I must have something to
love; love is my life. Why do you come to me, Agellius, with your
every-day gallantry. Can you compete with the noble Grecian forms which
have passed before my eyes? Is your voice more manly, are its tones more
eloquent, than those which have thrilled through my ears since I ceased to
be a child? Can you add perfume to the feast by your wit, or pour sunshine
over grot and rushing stream by your smile? _What_ can you give me? There
was one thing which I thought you _could_ have given me, better than
anything else; but it is a shadow. You have nothing to give. You have
thrown me back upon my dreary, dismal self, and the deep wounds of my
memory.... Poor, poor Agellius! but it was not his fault, it could not be
helped,” she continued, as if in thought; “it could not be helped; for, if
he had nothing to give, how could he give it? After all, he wanted
something to love, just as I did; and he could find nothing better than
me.... And they thought to persuade her to spend herself upon him, as she
had spent herself upon others. Yes, it was Jucundus and Aristo—my brother,
even my own brother. They thought not of _me_.” Here her tears gushed out
violently, and she abandoned herself to a burst of emotion. “They were
thinking of _him_. I had hoped he could lead me to what was higher; but
woe, woe!” she cried, wringing her hands, “they thought I was only fit to
bring him low. Well; after all, _is_ Callista really good for much more
than the work they have set her to do?”
She was absorbed in her own misery in an intense sense of degradation, in
a keen consciousness of the bondage of nature, in a despair of ever
finding what alone could give meaning to her existence, and an object to
her intellect and affections. And Agellius on the other hand, what
surprise, remorse, and humiliation came upon him! It was a strange
contrast, the complaint of nature unregenerate on the one hand, the
self-reproach of nature regenerate and lapsing on the other. At last he
spoke, and they were his last words.
“Callista,” he said, “whatever injury I may have unwillingly inflicted
upon you, you at least have returned me good for evil, and have made
yourself my benefactress. Certainly, I now know myself better than I did;
and He who has made use of you as His instrument of mercy towards me, will
not forget to reward you tenfold. One word will I say for myself; nay, not
for myself, but for my Master. Do not for an instant suppose that what you
thought of the Christian religion is not true. It reveals a present God,
who satisfies every affection of the heart, yet keeps it pure. I serve a
Master,” he continued, blushing from modesty and earnestness as he spoke,
“I serve a Master whose love is stronger than created love. God help my
inconsistency! but I never meant to love you as I love Him. You are
destined for His love. I commit you to Him, your true Lord, whom I never
ought to have rivalled, for whom I ought simply to have pleaded. Though I
am not worthy to approach you, I shall trace you at a distance, who knows
where? perhaps even to the prison and to the arena of those who confess
the Saviour of men, and dare to suffer and die for His name. And now,
farewell; to His keeping and that of His holy martyrs I commit you.”
He did not trust himself to look at her as he turned to the door, and left
the room.