THE OPEN DOOR
That night, Mark Griffin and Father Murray sat in the priest's room at
the New Willard until very late. Father Murray was by far the more
cheerful of the two, in spite of the strain upon him. Mark looked
broken. He had come into a full knowledge of the fact that Ruth had
not been false to him, and that no barrier existed to their union, but
he could not close his eyes to the danger of the girl's situation.
Father Murray, however, could see no dark clouds.
"My dear Mark," he said, "you don't understand the kind of a country
you are in. Affairs of state here do not justify murder, and an
elected public official cannot, even in the name diplomacy, connive at
it. It is true that a Minister cannot very well be arrested, but a
Minister can be disgraced, which is worse to his mind. You may be sure
that our knowledge of the murder of the Italian will be quite
sufficient to keep His Excellency in a painful state of suspense, and
ultimately force him to yield."
"I could wish him," said Mark, "a _more_ painful state of _suspense_."
Father Murray smiled at the grim jest. "He will never see the rope,
Mark, you may be sure of that. But there will be no more murdering.
The situation of the Ministry is bad enough as it is. His Excellency
looked very much perturbed--for a diplomat--before I was done with him.
There is nothing more certain than that he has had a messenger in
Baltimore to-day, and, unless I mistake very much, he will be able to
identify the body. Then they must free Ruth."
"I wish, Father," Mark's voice was very tense, "that I could look at
things as you do. But I know how a court works, and how serious are
the games of kings. Then I haven't religion to help me, as you have."
"I question a little," replied Father Murray, "if that last statement
is true--that you have no religion. You know, Mark, I am beginning to
think you have a great deal of religion. I wish that some who think
that they have very much could learn how to make what is really their
very little count as far as you have made yours count. It dawned upon
me to-night that there is a good reason why the most religious people
never make the best diplomats. Now, you would have been a failure in
that career."
"I think, Father Murray, that your good opinion of me is at least
partly due to the fact that I may yet be your nephew. Ruth is like a
daughter to you; and so I gain in your esteem because of her."
"Yes," answered the priest thoughtfully, "Ruth is like a daughter to
me. And it is a strange feeling for a priest to have--that he has
someone looking up to him and loving him in that way. Though a priest
is constituted the same as other men, long training and experience have
made his life and mental attitude different from those of men of more
worldly aspirations. A priest is bound to his work more closely than
is any other person in the world. Duty is almost an instinct with him.
That is why he seldom shines in any other line, no matter how talented
he may be. Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin almost had to
unfrock themselves in order to become statesmen. Cardinal Wolsey left
a heritage that at best is of doubtful value--not because he was a
priest as well as a lord chancellor, but because as lord chancellor he
so often forgot that he was a priest. There are many great
priest-authors, but few of them are among the greatest. A priest in
politics does not usually hold his head, because politics isn't his
place. There are priest-inventors; but somehow we forget the priest in
the inventor, and feel that the latter title makes him a little less
worthy of the former--rather illogical, is it not? The Abbot Mendel
was a scientist, but it is only now that he is coming into his own; and
how many know him only as Mendel, forgetting his priestly office?
Liszt was a cleric, but few called him Abbé. A priest as a priest can
be nothing else. In fact, it is almost inevitable that his greatness
in anything else will detract from his priesthood. Now the Church, my
dear Mark, has the wisdom of ages behind her. She never judges from
the exceptions, but always from the rule. She gets better service from
a man who has sunk his temporal interests in the spiritual. She is the
sternest mistress the ages have produced; she wants whole-hearted
service or none at all. I like thinking of Ruth as my daughter; but I
am not averse, for the good of my ministry, to having someone else take
the responsibility from off my shoulders."
"But," said Mark, "how could a wife and children interfere with a
priest's duties to his flock?"
"The church does not let them interfere," answered Father Murray. "She
holds a man to his sworn obligations taken in marriage. A husband must
'cleave to his wife.' How could a priestly husband do that and yet
fulfill his vow to be faithful to his priesthood until death? His wife
would come first. What of his priesthood? Besides, a father has for
his children a love that would tend to nullify, only too often, the
priest's obligations toward the children of his flock. A man who
offers a supreme sacrifice, and is eternally willing to live it, must
be supremely free. In theory, all clergymen must be prepared to
sacrifice themselves for their people, for 'the Good Shepherd gives up
his life for his sheep.' In practice, no one expects that except of
the priest; but from him everyone expects it."
"Do you really think," asked Mark, "that those outside the Church
expect such a sacrifice?"
Father Murray did not hesitate about his answer.
"Expect it? They demand it. Why, my dear Mark, even as a Presbyterian
minister I expected it of the men I almost hated. I never liked
priests then. Instinctively I classed them as my enemies, even as my
personal enemies. Deep down in my heart I knew that, with the Catholic
Church eliminated from Christianity, the whole fabric tottered and
fell, and Christ was stamped with the mark of an impostor and a
failure--His life, His wonders, and His death, shams. Instinctively I
knew, too, that without the Catholic Church the Christian world would
fall to the level of Rome at its worst, and that every enemy of Christ
turned his face against her priests. I knew that every real atheist,
every licentious man, most revolutionists, every anarchist, hated a
priest. It annoyed me to think that they didn't hate me, the
representative, as I thought, of a purer religion. But they did not
hate me at all. They ignored the sacredness of my calling, and classed
me with themselves because of what they thought was the common bond of
enmity to the priest. I resented that, for, while I was against their
enemy, I certainly was not with them. The anomaly of my position
increased my bitterness toward priests until I came almost to welcome a
scandal among them, even though I knew that every scandal reacted on my
own kind. But each rare scandal served to throw into clearer relief
the high honor and stern purity of the great mass of those men who had
forsaken all to follow Christ. And my vague feeling of satisfaction
was tempered by an insistent sense of my own injustice which would not
be denied, for I knew that I was demanding of the Catholic priest
greater things than I demanded of any other men. Even while I
judged--and, judging, condemned--I knew that I was measuring him by his
own magnificent standard, the very seeking of which made him worthy of
honor. To have sought the highest goal and failed is better than never
to have sought at all. So long as life lasts, no failure is forever;
it is always possible to arise and return to the path. And a fall
should call forth the charity of the beholder, leading him closer to
God. But there is no charity for the Catholic priest who stumbles--no
return save in spaces hidden from the world. The most arrant
criminals, the most dangerous atheists, the most sincere Protestants,
demand of the priest not only literal obedience to his vows, but a
sublime observance of their spirit. Why, Mark, you demand it
yourself--you know you do."
For a moment Mark did not answer.
"Yes," he said, after a pause, "I do demand it. I only wondered if
others felt as I do. This job of trying to analyze one's own emotions
and thoughts is a difficult one. I have been trying to do it for
years. Frankly, there are things I cannot grasp. Let me put one of
them before you now."
"Go on," said Father Murray. "I am glad the conversation is off the
worry."
"You remember, Father," said Mark, "the day I met you in your study
that eventful Sunday in London?"
The priest nodded.
"I had decided then to go out of the church, as I told you, to get away
from my faith. I thought that I had come to that decision with a clear
conscience, but I know now that I had merely built up a false one and
that that was why I sought you out--not to give up, but to defy you,
and defy my own heart at the same time. I thought that if I could
justify myself before such a man as you it would set things at rest
within me for the remainder of my days. I did not justify myself.
Ever since that day I have been attracted by the open doors of Catholic
churches. I never pass one without seeing that open door. The minute
I seriously think of religion the picture of an open church door is in
front of me; it has become almost an obsession. I seem to see a hand
beckoning from that door; some day I shall see more than the hand--my
mother's face will be behind it. I can't get away from it--and I can't
understand why."
Father Murray's eyes were serious.
"Why, my dear Mark," he answered, "you ought to know that you can't get
away. Do you suppose anybody ever got away from God? Do you suppose
any man ever could close his eyes to the fact of His existence? Then
how is it possible for you to get away from that which first told you
of God, and which so long represented to you all that you knew about
Him? There is in the Catholic faith a strange something which makes
those who have not belonged to it vaguely uneasy, but which makes those
who have once had it always unsatisfied without it. There is an
influence akin to that of the magnetic pole, only it draws
_everything_. It intrudes itself upon every life. There seems to be
no middle course between loving it and hating it; but, once known, it
cannot be ignored. It has had its chain around _you_, Mark, and you
are only now realizing that you can't cast it off."
Mark Griffin was silent. For some minutes not a word was exchanged
between the two men. Then Mark arose and, without looking at his
friend, said good night and left the room.
A minute later he returned.
"Father," he said, "you are very hopeful about Ruth. I am trying to
share your hope. If everything comes out right and she is not lost to
me, will you--heretic or unfaithful son though I may still be,
whichever you are pleased to call me--will you still be a friend and,
should she accept me, join our hands?"
Father Murray walked over and put his hand on Mark's shoulders.
"I am afraid, Mark, that it is again the Faith instinct. Of course I
will marry you--that I expected to do. I could not be a mere onlooker
to give her away. When you get her, Mark, you will get her from me,
not only with an uncle's blessing, but with another as strong as Mother
Church can make it and as binding as eternity."