Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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"They must do so," said Manuel, "otherwise there would be cruelty in
creating the grace of love at all. But God Himself is Love. Those
who love truly can never be parted,--death has no power over their
souls. If one is on earth and one in heaven, what does it matter? If
they were in separate countries of the world they could hear news of
each other from time to time,--and so they can when apparent death
has divided them."

"How?" asked Angela with quick interest.

"Your wise men must tell you," said Manuel, with a grave little
smile, "I know no more than what Christ has said,--and He told us
plainly that not even a sparrow shall fall to the ground without our
Father. 'Fear not,' He said, 'Ye are more than many sparrows.' So,
as there is nothing which is useless, and nothing which is wasted,
it is very certain that love, which is the greatest of all things,
cannot lose what it loves."

Angela's eyes filled with tears, she knew not why, "Love which is
the greatest of all things cannot lose what it loves!"--How
wonderfully tender was Manuel's voice as he spoke these words!

"You have very sweet thoughts, Manuel," she said, "You would be a
great comfort to anyone in sorrow."

"That is what I have always wished to be," he answered, "But you are
not in sorrow yet,--that is to come!"

She looked up quickly.

"You think I shall have some great trouble?" she asked, with a
little tremour in her accents.

"Yes, most surely you will!" replied Manuel, "No one in the world
ever tried to be good and great at the same time without suffering
miscomprehension and bitter pain. Did not Christ say, 'In the world
ye shall have tribulation'?"

"Yes,--and I have often wondered why," said Angela musingly.

"Only that you might learn to love God best," answered Manuel with a
delicate inflexion of compassion in his voice, "And that you might
know for certain and beyond all doubt that this life is not all.
There is something better--greater--higher!--a glory that is worth
winning because immortal. 'In the world ye shall have tribulation'--
yes, that is true!--but the rest of the saying is true also--'Be of
good cheer,--I have overcome the world'!"

Moved by an impulse she could not understand, Angela suddenly turned
and extended her hands with an instinctive grace that implied
reverence as well as humility. The boy clasped them lightly then let
them go,--and without more words went softly away and left her.

XIII.

The Church of Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris with its yellow stucco
columns, and its hideous excess of paint and gilding, might be a
ball-room designed after the newest ideas of a vulgar nouveau riche
rather than a place of sanctity. The florid-minded Blondel, pupil of
the equally florid-minded Regnault, hastily sketched in some of the
theatrical frescoes in the "Chapel of the Eucharist," and a
misguided personage named Orsel, splashed out the gaudy decorations
of the "Chapel of the Virgin." The whole edifice glares at the
spectator like a badly-managed limelight, and the tricky,
glittering, tawdry effect blisters one's very soul. But here may be
seen many little select groups out of the hell of Paris,--fresh from
the burning as it were, and smelling of the brimstone,--demons who
enjoy their demonism,--satyrs, concerning whom, one feels that their
polished boots are cleverly designed to cover their animal hoofs,
and that skilful clothiers have arranged their garments so that
their tails are not perceived. But that hoofs and tails are existent
would seem to be a certainty. Here sometimes will sing a celebrated
tenor, bulky and brazen,--pouring out from his bull-throat such
liquid devotional notes as might lift the mind of the listener to
Heaven ifone were not so positive that a moral fiend sang them;--
here sometimes may be seen the stout chanteuse who is the glory of
open-air cafes in the Champs Elysees, kneeling with difficulty on a
velvet hassock and actually saying prayers. And one must own that it
is an exhilarating and moving sight to behold such a woman
pretending to confess her sins, with the full delight of them
written on her face, and the avowed intention of committing them all
over again manifesting itself in every turn of her head, every grin
of her rouged lips, and every flash of her painted eyes! For these
sections out of the French "Inferno," Notre Dame de Lorette is a
good place to play penitence and feign prayer;--the Madeleine is too
classic and serene and sombre in its interior to suggest anything
but a museum, from which the proper custodian is absent,--Notre Dame
de Paris reeks too much with the blood of slain Archbishops to be
altogether comfortable,--St. Roch in its "fashionable" congregation,
numbers too many little girls who innocently go to hear the music,
and who have not yet begun to paint their faces, to suit those whose
lives are all paint and masquerade,--and the "Lorette" is just the
happy medium of a church where, Sham being written on its walls, one
is scarcely surprised to see Sham in the general aspect of its
worshippers. Among the ugly columns, and against the heavy ceiling
divided into huge raised lumps of paint and gilding, Abbe
Vergniaud's voice had often resounded,--and his sermons were looked
forward to as a kind of witty entertainment. In the middle or the
afterwards of a noisy Mass,--Mass which had been "performed" with
perhaps the bulky tenor giving the "Agnus Dei," with as sensually
dramatic an utterance as though it were a love-song in an opera, and
the "basso," shouting through the "Credo," with the deep musical
fury of the tenor's jealous rival,--with a violin "interlude," and a
'cello "solo,"--and a blare of trumpets at the "Elevation," as if it
were a cheap spectacle at a circus fair,--after all this
melodramatic and hysterical excitement it was a relief to see the
Abbe mount the pulpit stairs, portly but lightfooted, his black
clerical surtout buttoned closely up to his chin, his round
cleanshaven face wearing a pious but suggestive smile, his eyes
twinkling with latent satire, and his whole aspect expressing,
"Welcome excellent humbugs! I, a humbug myself, will proceed to
expound Humbug!" His sermons were generally satires on religion,--
satires delicately veiled, and full of the double-entendres so dear
to the hearts of Parisians,--and their delight in him arose chiefly
from never quite knowing what he meant to imply, or to enforce. Not
that his hearers would have followed any counsel even if he had been
so misguided as to offer it; they did not come to hear him "preach"
in the full sense of the word,--they came to hear him "say things,"-
-witty observations on the particular fad of the hour--sharp
polemics on the political situation--or what was still more
charming, neat remarks in the style of Rochefoucauld or Montaigne,
which covered and found excuses for vice while seemingly condemning
viciousness. There is nothing perhaps so satisfactory to persons who
pride themselves on their intellectuality, as a certain kind of
spurious philosophy which balances virtue and vice as it were on the
point of a finger, and argues prettily on the way the two can be
easily merged into each other, almost without perception. "If
without perception, then without sin," says the sophist; "it is
merely a question of balance." Certainly if generosity drifts into
extravagance you have a virtue turned into a vice;--but there is one
thing these spurious debaters cannot do, and that is to turn a vice
into a virtue. That cannot be done, and has never been done. A vice
is a vice, and its inherent quality is to "wax fat and gross," and
to generally enlarge itself;--whereas, a virtue being a part of the
Spiritual quality and acquired with difficulty, it must be
continually practised, and guarded in the practice, lest it lapse
into vice. We are always forgetting that we have been, and still are
in a state of Evolution,--out of the Beast God has made Man,--but
now He expects us, with all the wisdom, learning and experience He
has given us, to evolve for ourselves from Man the Angel,--the
supreme height of His divine intention. Weak as yet on our spiritual
wings, we hark back to the Beast period only too willingly, and
sometimes not all the persuasion in the world can lift us out of the
mire wherein we elect to wallow. Nevertheless, there must be and
will be a serious day of reckoning for any professing priest of the
Church, or so-called "servant of the Gospel", who by the least word
or covert innuendo, gives us a push back into prehistoric slime and
loathliness,--and that there are numbers who do so, no one can deny.
Abbe Vergniaud had flung many a pebble of sarcasm at the half-
sinking faith of some of his hearers with the result that he had
sunk it altogether. In his way he had done as much harm as the
intolerant bigot, who when he finds persons believing devoutly in
Christ, but refusing to accept Church-authority, considers such
persons atheists and does not hesitate to call them so. The
"Pharisees" in Christian doctrine are as haughty, hypocritical and
narrow as the Pharisees whom Jesus calls "ravening wolves," and
towhom He said, "Ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men; for
ye neither go in yourselves, NEITHER SUFFER YE THEM THAT ARE
ENTERING TO GO IN," and "Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous
unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." The
last words, it may be said, will apply fittingly to more than one-
half of the preachers of the Gospel at the present day!

It was a brilliant, soft autumnal Sunday morning when Cardinal
Bonpre, mindful of Abbe Vergniaud's request that he should be
present to hear him preach, took his slow and thoughtful way to the
church of the Lorette, accompanied by his niece Angela and Manuel.
The building was crammed, and had not the Abbe been previously
careful to reserve seats, and to mention the Cardinal's name to the
custodian, he would have scarcely obtained admission. As it was,
however, he passed slowly up the centre aisle without hindrance,
followed by Manuel and Angela, and watched by a good many
inquisitive persons, who wondered as they looked, who the boy was
that walked after His Eminence with such easy self-possession,--with
such a noble and modest bearing, and with such a strangely
thoughtful face. A few whispered and nudged each other as "the
Sovrani" passed them, dressed in her usual quiet black, her head
slightly bent and her eyes downcast. The Marquis Fontenelle, seated
in an attitude which suggested a languid indifference to all persons
and events, lifted his bright hazel eyes as she passed,--and a
sudden wave of consciousness swept over him,--uneasy consciousness
that perhaps this small slight woman despised him. This was not
quite a pleasant reflection for a man and a Marquis to boot,--one
who could boast of an ancient and honourable family pedigree dating
back to the fighting days of Coeur-de-Lion and whose coat-of-arms
was distinguished by three white lilies of France on one of its
quarterings. The lilies of France!--emblems of honour, loyalty,
truth, and chivalry!--what smudged and trampled blossoms they seem
to day! He frowned as this fancy crossed his mind, and turned his
eyes away from the following of Angela's slight form up the aisle;
and his glance fell instead on a face he detested, because it was
almost the counterpart of his own,--the face of the great French
actor Miraudin. The same clean-shaven classic face and clustering
hair,--the same glittering, amorous hazel eyes;--the same charming
and kindly smile,--all these attributes were in Miraudin's face,
indefinably coarsened, while in Fontenelle's they remained refined
and inicative of the highest breeding. The Marquis moved uneasily in
his seat,--he saw himself in the famous actor,--himself as he would
be, if he continued his career of self-indulgence,--for Miraudin
though gifted with a genius that could move all Paris to the wildest
excesses of admiration, was in private life known as a man of
detestable reputation, whose liaisons with women were endless, but
who, in his extreme egotism and callousness had never been known to
yield to the saving grace of a "grande passion,"--one of those
faithful passions which sometimes make the greatness of both man and
woman concerned, and adorn the pages of dull history with the
brilliancy of deathless romance. Was he, Guy Beausire de Fontenelle
no better, no nobler, no higher, in his desires and ambitions than
Miraudin? What was he doing with the three lilies emblazoned on his
escutcheon? He thought with a certain fretful impatience of Sylvie,
of her captivating grace, her tender eyes, her sweet laughter, and
sweeter smile. She had seemed to him a mere slight creation of the
air and the moonbeams,--something dainty that would have melted at a
touch, and dropped into his mouth, as it were, like a French bon-
bon. So he, man-like, had judged, and now lo!--the little ethereal
creature had suddenly displayed a soul of adamant--hard and pure,
and glittering as a diamond,--which no persuasion could break or
bend. She had actually kept her word!--she had most certainly left
Paris. The Marquis knew that, by the lamentable story of her
dismissed maid who had come to him with hysterical tears, declaring
that "Madame" had suddenly developed a "humeur incroyable"--and had
gone away alone,--alone, save for a little dusky-skinned Arab boy
whom she had once brought away from Biskra and had trained as an
attendant,--her "gouvernante" and companion, Madame Bozier, and her
old butler who had known her from childhood. Fontenelle felt that
the dismissal of the maid who had been such a convenient spy for
him, was due to Angela Sovrani's interference, and though angry, he
was conscious of feeling at the same time mean in himself, and
miserable. To employ a servant to play the spy on her mistress, and
report to him her actions and movements, might be worthy of a
Miraudin, but was it quite the thing for a Marquis Fontenelle?
Thinking over these things his handsome face grew flushed and anon
pale again, as from time to time he stole a vexed side glance at the
easy Miraudin,--so like him in features and--unfortunately so
equally like him in morals! Meanwhile, the music of the Mass surged
round him, in thunders of the organ, wailings of violins, groaning
of 'cellos, and flutings of boys' and men's voices,--and as the
cloudy incense rose upon the air he began to weave strange fancies
in his mind, and to see in the beams of sunlight falling through the
stained glass windows a vision of the bright face of Sylvie looking
down upon him with a half-tender, half-reproving smile,--a smile
that seemed to say, "If thou lovest me, set the grace of honour on
thy love!" These were strange thoughts for him to entertain, and he
was almost ashamed of them,--but as long as the melodies of the Mass
kept rolling on and reverberating around him he could not help
thinking of them; so that he was relieved when a pause came,--the
interval for the sermon,--and Abbe Vergniaud, leisurely mounting the
steps of the pulpit, stood surveying the congregation with the
composed yet quizzical air for which he was celebrated, and waiting
till the rustling, fidgeting, coughing, snuffing, toe-scraping
noises of the congregation had settled down into comparative
silence. His attitude during this interval was suggestive. It
implied contempt, wearied patience, resignation, and a curious touch
of defiance. Holding himself very erect he rested his left hand on
the elaborate sculptured edge of the pulpit,--it was the hand on
which he usually wore his ring, a diamond of purest lustre,--but on
this occasion the jewel had been removed and the white, firm
fingers, outlined against the pulpit edge, looked as though they had
just relaxed their grasp of something that had been more or less of
a trouble to retain. Nothing perhaps is so expressive as a hand,--
the face can disguise itself,--even the eyes can lie,--but the hand
never. Its shape, its movements, its attitude in repose, give a more
certain clue to character and disposition than almost any other
human feature. Thus, with the Abbe, while his left hand suggested a
"letting go," his right hand, which held a small black-bound
Testament implied defiance, grip, resolve and courage. And when the
people seated immediately around the pulpit lifted their eyes
expectantly to the popular preacher's face, several of the more
observant noticed something in his look and manner which was
unfamiliar and curiously disconcerting. If it be true, as there is
every reason to believe it is, that each human being unconsciously
gives out an "aura" of his interior personality which is made more
or less powerful to attract or repel by the nature of his
intentions, and which affects the "aura" of those with whom he is
brought in contact, then Abbe Vergniaud was this morning creating
all unawares to himself a very singular impression of uneasiness.
Some of the persons thus uncomfortably influenced coughed violently
in an instinctive attempt to divert or frustrate the preacher's
mood, but even the most persistent cougher must cease coughing at
some time or another--and the Abbe was evidently determined to wait
for an absolute silence before he spoke. At last silence came, and
he opened the Testament. Holding it up to the view of the
congregation, he began with all that easy eloquence which the French
tongue gives to a cultured speaker,--his voice full and sonorous,
reaching distinctly to every part of the crowded church.

"This," he said, "is a small book which you all pretend to know. It
is so small a book that it can easily be read through in an hour. It
is the Testament;--or the Last Will and Command to the world of one
Jesus Christ, who was crucified on account of His Divinity more than
eighteen hundred years ago. I mention the fact, in case any of you
have forgotten it! It is generally understood that this book is the
message of God and the key of Faith;--upon it our churches and
religious systems are founded;--by its teaching we are supposed to
order our conduct of life--and yet,--though as I have said, it is a
very small book, and would not take you an hour to read it--none of
you know any thing about it! That is a strange thing, is it not?"

Here he leaned over the pulpit edge, and his bright eyes, coldly
satiric, flashed a comprehensive glance over the whole congregation.

"Yes, it is a strange thing, but I affirm it true,--that none of you
know anything whatever about the contents of this small volume which
is the foundation of the Christian Faith! You never read it
yourselves,--and if we priests read it to you, you never remember
it! It is a locked Mystery,--perhaps, for all we know, the greatest
mystery in the world,--and the one most worth probing! For the days
seem to be coming, if they have not already come, which were
prophesied by St. John the Divine, whom certain 'clever' men of the
time have set down as mad;--days which were described as 'shaking
the powers of heaven and creating confusion on the earth.' St. John
said some strange things; one thing in particular, concerning this
very book, which reads thus;--'I saw in the right hand of Him that
sat upon the throne a book sealed with seven seals. And I saw a
strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice; Who is worthy to open
and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven or in earth was
able to open the book neither to look thereon. And I wept much
because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book,
neither to look thereon.' But St. John the Divine was mad, we are
told,--madness and inspiration being judged as one and the same
thing. Well, if in these statements he is supposed to prove his
madness, I consider a doubt must be set upon everyone's sanity. For
his words are an exact description of the present period of the
world's existence and its attitude towards the Gospel of Christ,--
'NO MAN IS FOUND WORTHY TO LOOSE THE SEALS OF THE BOOK OR TO LOOK
THEREON.' But I am not going to talk to you about the seven seals.
They adequately represent our favourite 'seven deadly sins,' which
have kept the book closed since the days of the early martyrs;--and
are likely to keep it closed still. Nor shall I speak of our
unworthiness to read what we have never taken the trouble to rightly
understand,--for all this would be waste of time. It is part of our
social sham to pretend we know the Gospel,--and it is a still
greater sham to assume that we have ever tried in the smallest
degree to follow its teaching. What we know of these teachings has
influenced us unconsciously, but the sayings in the Gospel of Christ
are in very truth as enveloped in mystery to each separate
individual reader as the oracles of the ancient Egyptians were to
the outside multitude. And why? Merely because, to comprehend the
teaching of Jesus we should have to think,--and we all hate
thinking. It is too much exertion,--and exertion itself is
unpleasant. A quarter of an hour's hard thinking will convince each
one of us that he or she is a very worthless and ridiculous person,
and we strongly object to any process which will, in itself, bring
us to that conclusion. I say 'we' object,--that is, I and you;
particularly I. I admit at once that to appear worthless and
ridiculous to the world has always seemed to me a distressing
position, and one to be avoided. Worthless and ridiculous in my own
eyes I have always been,--but that is not your affair. It is
strictly mine! And though I feel I am not worthy 'to loose the seals
of the book or look thereon,' there is one passage in it which
strikes me as particularly applicable to the present day, and from
it I will endeavour to draw a lesson for your instruction, though
perhaps not for your entertainment."

Here he paused and glanced at his hearers with an indefinable
expression of mingled scorn and humour.

"What an absurdity it is to talk of giving a 'lesson' to you!--you
who will barely listen to a friend's advice,--you who will never
take a hint for your mental education or improvement, you who are
apt to fly into a passion, or take to the sulks when you are ever so
slightly contradicted. Tiens, tiens! c'est drole! Now the words I am
about to preach from, are supposed to have been uttered by Divine
lips; and if you thoroughly believed this, you would of your own
accord kneel down and pray that you might receive them with full
comprehension and ready obedience. But you do not believe;--so I
will not ask you to kneel down in mockery, or feign to pray when you
are ignorant of the very spirit of prayer! So take the words,--
without preparation, without thought, without gratitude, as you take
everything God gives you, and see what you can make of them. 'The
light of the body is the eye,--if therefore thine eye be single, thy
whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy
whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!'"

Here he closed the Testament, and rested it edgewise on the pulpit
cushion, keeping one hand firmly clasped upon it as he turned
himself about and surveyed the whole congregation.

"What is the exact meaning of the words, 'IF THINE EYE BE SINGLE'?
It is an expressive term; and in its curt simplicity covers a
profound truth. 'If thine eye,' namely,--the ability to see,--'be
single,' that is straight and clear, without dimness or obliquity,--
'thy whole body shall be full of light.' Christ evidently did not
apply this expression to the merely physical capability of sight,--
but to the moral and mental, or psychic vision. It matters nothing
really to the infinite forces around us, whether physically
speaking, we are able to see, or whether we are born blind; but
spiritually, it is the chief necessity of our lives that we should
be able to see straight morally. Yet that is what we can seldom or
never do. Modern education, particularly education in France,
provides us at once with a double psychic lens, and a side-squint
into the bargain! Seeing straight would be too primitive and simple
for us. But Christ says, 'If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall
be full of darkness.' Now this word 'evil,' as set in juxtaposition
to the former term 'single,' evidently implies a double sight or
perverted vision. With this 'evil,' or double sight, our whole body
'shall be full of darkness.' Very well, my friends, if this be
true,--(and you surely must believe it true, otherwise you would not
support churches for the exposition of the truth as spoken by the
Founder of our Faith;--) then we are children of the dark indeed! I
doubt if one amongst us,--for I include myself with you,--can be
said to see clearly with a straight psychic vision. The straight
psychic vision teaches us that God is the Creator of all things,--
God is Light and Love,--God desires good from us, and from every
particle of his creation;--but the double or perverted line of sight
offers a different view and declares, 'This life is short and offers
many pleasures. I cannot be sure of God because I have never seen
Him;--the Universe is certainly very majestic, and somewhat
startling to me in its exact mathematical proportions; but I have no
more to do with it than has a grain of sand;--my lot is no more
important than that of the midge in the sunbeam;--I live,--I breed--
I die;--and it matters to no one but myself how I do these three
things, provided I satisfy my nature.' This is the Philosophy of the
Beast, and it is just now very fashionable. It is 'la haute mode'
both in France, and England, Italy, and Spain. Only young America
seem to be struggling for a Faith,--a Christian Faith;--it has
almost, albeit faintly and with a touching indecision, asked for
such a Faith from the Pope,--who has however declared it to be
impossible in these words addressed to Cardinal Gibbons, 'Discussion
of the principles of the Church cannot be tolerated even in the
United States. There can only be one interpreter, the Pope. In the
matter of discipline, concessions may be allowed, but in doctrine
none.' Mark the words, 'cannot be tolerated'! Consider what
stability a Faith can have whose principles may not be discussed!
Yet the authority of the Church is, we are told the authority of God
Himself. How is this? We can discuss God and His principles. He
'tolerates' us while we search for His laws, and stand amazed and
confounded before His marvellous creation. The more we look for Him
the more He gives Himself gloriously to us; and Christ declares
'Seek and ye shall find,'--the Church says 'Seek and ye shall not be
tolerated'! How are we to reconcile these two assertions? We do not
reconcile them; we cannot; it is a case of double sight,--oblique
and perverted psychic vision. Christ spoke plainly;--the Church
speaks obscurely. Christ gave straight commands,--we fly in the face
of them and openly disobey them. Truth can always be 'discussed,'
and Truth MUST be 'tolerated' were a thousand Holy Fathers to say it
nay! But note again the further words to America, 'There can only be
one interpreter,--the Pope. In the matter of discipline, concessions
may be allowed, but in doctrine none.' Let us examine into this
doctrine. It is the doctrine of Christ, plain and straightforward;
enunciated in such simple words that even a child can understand
them. But the Church announces with a strident voice that there can
only be one interpreter,--the Pope. Nevertheless Truth has a more
resonant voice than even that of the Church. Truth cries out at this
present day, 'Unless you will listen to Me who am the absolute
utterance of God, who spake by the prophets, who spake through
Christ,--who speaks through Christ and all things still,--your
little systems, your uncertain churches, your inefficient creeds,
your quarrelsome sects, shall crumble away into dust and ruins! For
humanity is waiting for the true Church of Christ; the one pure
House of Praise from which all sophistry, all superstition and
vanity shall have fled, and only God in the Christ-Miracle and the
perfection of His Creation shall remain!' And there is no more sure
foundation for this much-needed House of Praise than the Catholic
Church,--the word 'catholic' being applied in its widest sense,
meaning a 'Universal' answering to the needs of all;--and I am
willing to maintain that the ROMAN Catholic Church has within it the
vital germ of a sprouting perfection. If it would utterly discard
pomp and riches, if it would set its dignity at too high an estimate
for any wish to meddle in temporal or political affairs, if it would
firmly trample down all superstition, idolatry and bigotry, and 'use
no vain repetition as the heathen do'--to quote Christ's own words,-
-if in place of ancient dogma and incredible legendary lore, it
would open its doors to the marvels of science, the miracles and
magnificence daily displayed to us in the wonderful work of God's
Universe, then indeed it might obtain a lasting hold on mankind. It
might conquer Buddhism, and Christianize the whole earth. But--'If
thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness,'--and
while the Church remains double-sighted we are bound also to see
double. And so we listen with a complete and cynical atheism to the
conventional statement that 'one man alone' shall interpret Christ's
teaching to us of the Roman following,--and this man an old frail
teacher, whose bodily and intellectual powers are, in the course of
nature, steadily on the decline. Why we ask, must an aged man be
always elected to decide on the teaching of the ever-young and
deathless Christ?--to whom the burden of years was unknown, and
whose immortal spirit, cased for a while in clay, saw ever the rapt
vision of 'old things being made new'? In all other work but this of
religious faith, men in the prime of life are selected to lead,--men
of energy, thought, action, and endeavour,--but for the sublime and
difficult task of lifting the struggling human soul out of low
things to lofty, an old man, weak, and tottering on the verge of the
grave, is set before us as our 'infallible' teacher! There is
something appalling in the fact, that look where we may, no
profession holds out much chance of power or authority to any man
past sixty, but the Head of the Church may be so old that he can
hardly move one foot before the other, yet he is permitted to be
declared the representative of the ever-working, ever-helping, ever-
comforting Christ, who never knew what it was to be old! Enough,
however of this strange superstition which is only one of many in
the Church, and which are all the result of double or perverted
sight,--I come to the last part of the text which runs, 'If
therefore the light in thee be darkness how great is that darkness.'
IF THEREFORE THE LIGHT IN THEE BE DARKNESS! My friends, that is
exactly my condition, and has been my condition ever since I was
twenty. The light in me has been darkness. The intellectual quality
of my brain which has helped me to attain my present false position
among you . . ."