One far fierce hour and sweet,
There was a shout about my ears
And palms before my feet.
_'The Donkey' ('The Wild Knight')._
MAUNDAY THURSDAY
Jesus Christ made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. But Omar makes
it, not a sacrament, but a medicine. He feasts because life is not
joyful; he revels because he is not glad. 'Drink,' he says, 'for you
know not whence you come nor why. Drink, for you know not when you go
nor where. Drink, because the stars are cruel and the world as idle as
a humming-top. Drink, because there is nothing worth trusting, nothing
worth fighting for. Drink, because all things are lapsed in a base
equality and an evil peace.' So he stands offering us the cup in his
hands. And in the high altar of Christianity stands another figure in
whose hand also is the cup of the vine. 'Drink,' he says, 'for
the whole world is as red as this wine with the crimson of the love and
wrath of God. Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle, and this
is the stirrup cup. Drink, for this is my blood of the New Testament
that is shed for you. Drink, for I know whence you come and why. Drink,
for I know when you go and where.'
_'Heretics.'_
GOOD FRIDAY
And well may God with the serving folk
Cast in His dreadful lot.
Is not He too a servant,
And is not He forgot?
Wherefore was God in Golgotha
Slain as a serf is slain;
And hate He had of prince and peer,
And love He had and made good cheer,
Of them that, like this woman here,
Go powerfully in pain.
_'Ballad of Alfred.'_
HOLY SATURDAY
The Cross cannot be defeated for it is defeat.
_'The Ball and the Cross.'_
EASTER DAY
I said to my companion the Dickensian, 'Do you see that angel over
there? I think it must be meant for the Angel at the Sepulchre.' He saw
that I was somewhat singularly moved, and he raised his eyebrows.
'I daresay,' he said. 'What is there odd about that?'
After a pause I answered, 'Do you remember what the Angel at the
Sepulchre said?'
'Not particularly,' ha replied; 'but where are you off to in such a
hurry?'
'I am going,' I said, 'to put pennies into automatic machines on the
beach. I am going to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my
photograph taken. I will buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat.
I am ready to listen to a concertina, and but for the defects of my
education should be ready to play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey;
that is, if the donkey is willing. For all this was commanded me by the
angel in the stained glass window.'
'I really think,' said the Dickensian, 'that I had better put you in
charge of your relations.'
'Sir,' I answered, 'there are certain writers to whom humanity owes
much, whose talent is yet of so shy and delicate or retrospective a
type that we do well to link it with certain quaint places or certain
perishing associations. It would not be unnatural to look for the
spirit of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, or even for the shade of
Thackeray in old Kensington. But let us have no antiquarianism about
Dickens for Dickens is not an antiquity. Dickens looks not backward but
forward; he might look at our modern mobs with satire, or with fury,
but he would love to look at them. He might lash our democracy, but
it would be because, like a democrat, he asked much from it. We will
not have all his books bound up under the title 'The Old Curiosity
Shop.' Rather we will have them all bound up under the title of 'Great
Expectations.' Wherever humanity is he would have us face it and make
something of it, swallow it with a holy cannibalism and assimilate it
with the digestion of a giant. We must take these trippers as he would
have taken them and tear out of them their tragedy and their farce. Do
you remember now what the Angel said at the Sepulchre? 'Why seek ye the
living among the dead? He is not here; He is risen.'
_'Tremendous Trifles.'_
ASCENSION DAY
What is the difference between Christ and Satan?
It is quite simple. Christ descended into hell; Satan fell into it. One
of them wanted to go up and went down; the other wanted to go down and
went up.
_'The Ball and the Cross.'_
WHITSUNDAY
I have a far more solid and central ground for submitting to
Christianity as a faith, instead of merely picking up hints from it as
a scheme. And that is this; that the Christian Church in its practical
relation to my soul is a living teacher, not a dead one. It not only
certainly taught me yesterday, but will almost certainly teach me
to-morrow. Once I saw suddenly the meaning of the shape of the cross;
some day I may see suddenly the meaning of the shape of the mitre. One
fine morning I saw why windows were pointed; some fine morning I may
see why priests were shaven. Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is
dead. Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will
not startle you with any more. But imagine what it would be to live
with such men still living. To know that Plato might break out with an
original lecture to-morrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might
shatter everything with a single song. The man who lives in contact
with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting
to meet Plato and Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast. He is always
expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before.
_'Orthodoxy.'_
TRINITY SUNDAY
The meanest man in grey fields gone
Behind the set of sun,
Heareth between star and other star,
Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar,
The Council eldest of things that are,
The talk of the Three in One.
_'Ballad of Alfred.'_
CORPUS CHRISTI
All great spiritual Scriptures are full of the invitation not to test
but to taste; not to examine but to eat. Their phrases are full of
living water and heavenly bread, mysterious manna and dreadful wine.
Worldliness and the polite society of the world has despised this
instinct of eating, but religion has never despised it.
_'Daily News.'_
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End of Project Gutenberg's A Chesterton Calendar, by G. K. Chesterton