The Master-Christian. Marie Corelli
from his eyes and gazed about him, half-startled, half-appalled. Had anyone spoken these words?—or had they risen of themselves as it were in letters of fire out of the sea of music that was heaving and breaking tumultuously about him?
"WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMETH, THINK YE HE SHALL FIND FAITH ON EARTH?"
The question seemed to be whispered in his ears with a thrilling intensity of meaning; and moved by a sudden introspective and retrospective repentance, the gentle old man began mentally to grope his way back over the past years of his life, and to ask himself whether in very truth that life had been well or ill spent? Viewed by his own inner contemplative vision, Cardinal Felix Bonpre saw in himself nothing but wilful sin and total unworthiness;—but in the eyes of those he had served and assisted, he was a blameless priest,—a man beloved of God, and almost visibly encompassed by the guardianship of angels. He had been singularly happy in his election to a diocese which, though it had always had an Archbishop for its spiritual head, boasted scarce as many inhabitants as a prosperous English village,—and the result of this was that he had lived altogether away from the modern world, passing most of his time in reading and study,—while for relaxation, he permitted himself only the innocent delight of growing the finest roses in his neighbourhood. But he had pious scruples even about this rose-growing fancy of his,—he had a lurking distrust of himself in it, as to whether it was not a purely selfish pleasure,—and therefore, to somewhat smooth the circumstance, he never kept any of the choice blooms for his own gratification, but gave the best of them with a trust, as simple as it was beautiful, to the altar of the Virgin, sending all the rest to the bedsides of the sick and sorrowful, or to the coffins of the dead. It never once occurred to him that the "Cardinal's roses," as they were called, were looked upon by the poor people who received them as miraculous flowers long after they had withered,—that special virtues were assigned to them—and that dying lips kissed their fragrant petals with almost as much devotion as the holy crucifix, because it was instinctively believed that they contained a mystic blessing. He knew nothing of all this;—he was too painfully conscious of his own shortcomings,—and of late years, feeling himself growing old, and realising that every day brought him nearer to that verge which all must cross in passing from Time into Eternity, he had been sorely troubled in mind. He was wise with the wisdom which comes of deep reading, lonely meditation, and fervent study,—he had instructed himself in the modern schools of thought as well as the ancient,—and though his own soul was steadfastly set upon the faith he followed, he was compassionately aware of a strange and growing confusion in the world,—a combination of the elements of evil, which threatened, or seemed to threaten, some terrible and imminent disaster. This sorrowful foreboding had for a long time preyed upon him, physically as well as mentally; always thin, he had grown thinner and more careworn, till at the beginning of the year his health had threatened to break down altogether. Whereupon those who loved him, growing alarmed, summoned a physician, who, (with that sage experience of doctors to whom thought-trouble is an inexplicable and incurable complication) at once pronounced change of air to be absolutely necessary. Cardinal Bonpre must travel, he said, and seek rest and minddistraction in the contemplation of new and varying scenes. With smiling and resigned patience the Cardinal obeyed not so much the command of his medical attendant, as the anxious desire of his people,—and thereupon departed from his own Cathedral-town on a tour of several months, during which time he inwardly resolved to try and probe for himself the truth of how the world was going,—whether on the downward road to destruction and death, or up the high ascents of progress and life. He went alone and unattended,—he had arranged to meet his niece in Paris and accompany her to her father's house in Rome,—and he was on his way to Paris now. But he had purposely made a long and round-about journey through France with the intention of studying the religious condition of the people; and by the time he reached Rouen, the old sickness at his heart had rather increased than diminished. The confusion and the trouble of the world were not mere hearsay,—they in very truth existed. And what seemed to the Cardinal to be the chief cause of the general bewilderment of things, was the growing lack of faith in God and a Hereafter. How came this lack of faith into the Christian world? Sorrowfully he considered the question,—and persistently the same answer always asserted itself—that the blame rested principally with the Church itself, and its teachers and preachers, and not only in one, but in all forms of Creed.
"We have erred in some vital manner," mused the Cardinal, with a feeling of strange personal contrition, as though he were more to blame than any of his compeers—"We have failed to follow the Master's teaching in its true perfection. We have planted in ourselves a seed of corruption, and we have permitted—nay, some of us have encouraged—its poisonous growth, till it now threatens to contaminate the whole field of labour."
And he thought of the words of St. John the Divine to the Church of
Sardis—
"I KNOW THY WORKS,—THAT THOU HAST A NAME THAT THOU LIVEST AND ART DEAD.
"BE WATCHFUL, AND STRENGTHEN THE THINGS THAT REMAIN, THAT ARE READY TO DIE,—FOR I HAVE NOT FOUND THY WORKS PERFECT BEFORE GOD. REMEMBER THEREFORE HOW THOU HAST RECEIVED AND HEARD, AND HOLD FAST AND REPENT.
"IF, THEREFORE, THOU SHALT NOT WATCH, I WILL COME ON THEE AS A THIEF, AND THOU SHALL NOT KNOW WHAT HOUR I WILL COME UPON THEE.
"THOU HAST A FEW NAMES EVEN IN SARDIS, WHICH HAVE NOT DEFILED THEIR GARMENTS, AND THEY SHALL WALK WITH ME IN WHITE, FOR THEY ARE WORTHY.
"HE THAT OVERCOMETH, THE SAME SHALL BE CLOTHED IN WHITE RAIMENT; AND I WILL NOT BLOT HIS NAME OUT OF THE BOOK OF LIFE, BUT I WILL CONFESS HIS NAME BEFORE MY FATHER AND BEFORE HIS ANGELS."
Dimmer and duskier grew the long shadows now gathering in the Cathedral,—two of the twinkling candles near the Virgin's statue suddenly sank in their sockets with a spluttering noise and guttered out,—the solemn music of the organ continued, growing softer and softer as it sounded, till it crept through the vastness of the building like a light breeze wafted from the sea, bringing with it suggestions of far flower-islands in the tropics, golden shores kissed by languid foam, and sweet-throated birds singing, and still the Cardinal sat thinking of griefs and cares and inexplicable human perplexities, which were not his own, but which seemed to burden the greater portion of the world. He drew no comparisons,—he never considered that, as absolutely as day is day and night is night, his own beautiful and placid life, lived in the faith of God and Christ, was tortured by no such storm-tossed tribulation as that which affected the lives of many others,—and that the old trite saying, almost despised because so commonplace, namely that "goodness makes happiness," is as eternally true as that the sun shines in heaven, and that it is only evil which creates misery. To think of himself in the matter never occurred to him; had he for a moment entertained the merest glimmering of an idea that he was better, and therefore happier than most men, he would, in his own opinion, have been guilty of unpardonable arrogance and presumption. What he saw, and what sincerely and unselfishly grieved him, was that the people of this present age were unhappy—discontented—restless,—that something of the simple joy of existence had gone out of the world,—that even the brilliant discoveries of science and the so-called "progress" of men only served apparently to increase their discontent,—that when they were overcome by sorrow, sickness, or death, they had little philosophy and less faith to support them,—and that except in the few cases where Christ was still believed in, they gave way altogether and broke down like frightened children in a storm.
"Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis!" A few names! But how few! Universal weariness of life seemed a disease of the time,—there was nothing that seemed to satisfy—even the newest and most miraculous results of scientific research and knowledge ceased to be interesting after the first week of their triumphant public demonstration and acceptance.
"The world must be growing old," said the Cardinal sadly,—"It must be losing its vigour,—it is too tired to lift itself to the light; too weary and worn out to pray. Perhaps the end of all present things is at hand,—perhaps it is the beginning of the promised 'new heavens and new earth.'"
Just then the organ-music ceased abruptly, and the Cardinal, waking from his thoughts as from a trance, rose up slowly and stood for a moment facing the