AUCTOR. Who began it? You protested my power to give benediction, and
I must now prove it at length; otherwise I should fall under the
accusation of lesser Simony--that is, the false assumption of
particular powers. Well, then, there is the Official who _ex officio_,
and when he makes it quite clear that it is _qua sponsus_ and not
_sicut ut ipse_, can give formal benediction. This power belongs
certainly to all Bishops, mitred Abbots, and Archimandrates; to
Patriarchs of course, and _a fortiori_ to the Pope. In Rome they will
have it that Monsignores also can so bless, and I have heard it
debated whether or no the same were not true in some rustic way of
parish priests. However this may be, all their power proceeds, not
from themselves, but from the accumulation of goodness left as a
deposit by the multitudes of exceptionally good men who have lived in
times past, and who have now no use for it.
(3) Thirdly--and this is my point--any one, good or bad, official or
non-official, who is for the moment engaged in an _opusfaustum_ can
act certainly as a conductor or medium, and the influence of what he
is touching or doing passes to you from him. This is admitted by every
one who worships trees, wells, and stones; and indeed it stands to
reason, for it is but a branch of the well-known _'Sanctificatio ex
loco, opere, tactu vel conditione.'_ I will admit that this power is
but vague, slight, tenuous, and dissipatory, still there it is: though
of course its poor effect is to that of the _Benedictio major_ what a
cat's-paw in the Solent is to a north-east snorter on Lindsey Deeps.
I am sorry to have been at such length, but it is necessary to have
these things thrashed out once for all. So now you see how I, being on
pilgrimage, could give a kind of little creeping blessing to the
people on the way, though, as St Louis said to the Hascisch-eaters,
_'May it be a long time before you can kiss my bones.'_
So I entered the 'Sun' inn and saw there a woman sewing, a great
dull-faced man like an ox, and a youth writing down figures in a
little book. I said--
'Good morning, madam, and sirs, and the company. Could you give me a
little red wine?' Not a head moved.
True I was very dirty and tired, and they may have thought me a
beggar, to whom, like good sensible Christians who had no nonsense
about them, they would rather have given a handsome kick than a cup of
cold water. However, I think it was not only my poverty but a native
churlishness which bound their bovine souls in that valley.
I sat down at a very clean table. I notice that those whom the Devil
has made his own are always spick and span, just as firemen who have
to go into great furnaces have to keep all their gear highly polished.
I sat down at it, and said again, still gently--
'It is, indeed, a fine country this of yours. Could you give me a
little red wine?'
Then the ox-faced man who had his back turned to me, and was the worst
of the lot, said sulkily, not to me, but to the woman--
'He wants wine.'