Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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Here he paused, for there was a distinct movement of surprise among
his audience, which till now, had remained to a man so still that
the buzz of a fly on the window-pane sounded almost as loud as the
drone of a bag-pipe,--then with a faint smile on his lips he
resumed,--

"I hope you all heard my words distinctly! I said, the false
position I have attained among you. I repeat it lest there should be
any mistake. It IS a false position and always has been. I have
never for an instant believed half what I have asked you to believe!
And I have preached to you what I have never dreamed of practising!
Yet I venture to say that I am not worse than most of my brethren.
The intellectual men of France, whether clergy or laity, are in a
difficult situation. Their brains are keen and clear; and,
intellectually speaking, they are totally unable to accept the
Church superstitions of the tenth and twelfth centuries. But in
rejecting superstition it would have been quite possible to have
held them fast to a sublime faith in God and an Immortal Future, had
the Church caught them when slipping, and risen to the mental demand
made upon her resources. But the old worn-out thunder of the
Vatican, which lately made a feeble noise in America, has rolled
through France with the same assertion, 'Discussion cannot be
tolerated'; and what has been the result? Simply this,--that all the
intellectual force of the country is arrayed against priestcraft;--
and the spirit of an insolent, witty, domineering atheism and
materialism rules us all. Even young children can be found by the
score who laugh at the very idea of a God, and who fling a jeer at
the story of the Crucifixion of Christ,--while vice and crime are
tolerated and often excused. Moral restraint is being less and less
enforced, and the clamouring for sensual indulgence has become so
incessant that the desire of the whole country, if put into one
line, might be summed up in the impotent cry of the Persian
voluptuary Omar Khayyam to his god, 'Reconcile the law to my
desires'. This is as though a gnat should seek to build a cathedral,
and ask for the laws of architecture to be altered in order to suit
his gnat-like capacity. The Law is the Law; and if broken, brings
punishment. The Law makes for good,--and if we pull back for evil,
destroys us in its outward course. Vice breeds corruption in body
and in soul; and history furnishes us with more than sufficient
examples of that festering disease. It is plainly demanded of us
that we should assist God's universe in its way towards perfection;
if we refuse, and set a drag on the majestic Wheel, we are ourselves
crushed in its progress. Here is where our Church errs in the
present generation. It is setting itself as a drag on the Wheel.
Meanwhile, Truth advances every day, and with no uncertain voice
proclaims the majesty of God. Heaven's gates are thrown open;--the
secrets of the stars are declared,--the mysteries of light and sound
are discovered; and we are approaching possibly to the time when the
very graves shall give up their dead, and the secrets of all men's
hearts shall be made manifest. Yet we go on lying, deceiving,
cajoling, humbugging each other and ourselves;--living a daily life
of fraud and hypocrisy, with a sort of smug conviction in our souls
that we shall never be found out. We make a virtue of animalism, and
declare the Beast-Philosophy to be in strict keeping with the order
of nature. We gloat over our secret sins, and face the world with a
brazen front of assumed honour. Oh, we are excellent liars all! But
somehow we never seem to think we are fools as well! We never
remember that all we do and all we say, is merely the adding of
figures to a sum which in the end must be made up to the grand
total, and paid! Every figure tells;--the figure 'nought'
especially, puts an extra thousand on the whole quantity! But the
light in us being darkness, how great is that darkness! So great
that we refuse to look an inch before us! We will not see, we will
not understand,--we utterly decline to accept any teaching or advice
which might inflict some slight inconvenience on our own Ego. And so
we go on day after day, till all at once a reckoning is called and
death stares us in the face. What! So soon finished? All over? Must
we go at once, and no delay? Must we really and truly drop all our
ridiculous lies and conventions and be sent away naked-souled into
the Living Unknown? Not the Dead Unknown remember!--for nothing is
actually dead! The whole universe palpitates and burns with ever re-
created life. What have we done with the past life?--and what shall
we do with this other life? Oh, but there is no time to ask
questions now,--we should have asked them before; the hour of
departure is come, and there is not a moment's breathing time! Our
dear friends (if we have any), and our paid doctors and servants
stand around us awe-struck,--they watch out last convulsive shudder-
-and weep--not so much for sorrow sometimes as terror,--and then
when all is over, they say we are 'gone'. Yes,--we are gone--but
where? Well, we shall each of us find that out, my friends, when we
pass away from Popes, Churches, Creeds, and Conventions to the
majesty of the actual Glory! Shall we pray then? Shall we weep?
Shall we talk of rituals? Shall we say this or that form of prayer
was the true one?--this or that creed was the 'only' one? Shall we
complain of our neighbours?--or shall we not suddenly realise that
there never was but one way of life and progress through creation,--
the good and pure, the truthful and courageous, as taught with
infinite patience by the God-Man, and that wheresoever we have
followed our own inclinations rather than His counsel, then our OWN
action, not God's punishment, condemns us,--our OWN words, not
God's, re-echo back our sins upon ourselves!"

He paused, looking everywhere around him,--all his hearers were
listening with an almost breathless attention.

"Oh, yes! I know the charm of sin!" he continued with mingled
mockery and passion vibrating in his voice;--"The singular
fascination of pure devilry! All of you know it too,--those of you
who court the world's applause on the stage, or in the salons of art
and literature, and who pretend that by your work you are elevating
and assisting humanity, while in your own private lives you revel in
such vice as the very dogs you keep might be ashamed of! There is no
beast so bestial as man at his worst! And some of you whom I know,
glory in being seen at your worst always. There are many among you
here to-day whose sole excuse for a life of animalism is, that it is
your nature, 'I live according to my temperament,--my disposition,--
I do not wish to change myself--you cannot change me; I am as I am
made'! So might the thief argue as he steals his neighbour's money,-
-so may the murderer console himself as he stabs his victim! 'It is
my nature to stab and to steal--it is my nature to live as a beast--
I do not wish to change; you cannot change me'. Now if these
arguments were true, and hold good, man would be still where he
begun,--in the woods and caves,--an uncouth savage with nothing save
an animal instinct to lead him where he could find food. But even
this earliest instinct, savage though it was, taught him that
something higher than himself had made him, and so he began to creep
on by slow degrees towards that higher at once; hence instinct led
to reason, and reason to culture and civilization. And now having
touched as high a point of experience and knowledge as the ancient
Assyrians and Egyptians attained before their decline, he is
beginning even as they did, to be weary and somewhat afraid of what
lies beyond in the as yet unfathomed realms of knowledge; and he
half wishes to creep back again on all-fours to the days when he was
beast merely. The close contemplation of the Angel terrifies him,--
he dare not grow his wings! Further than life, as life appears to
him on its material side, he is afraid to soar,--what lies in the
far distance he dare not consider! This is where the Pause comes in
all progress,--the hesitation, the doubt, the fear;--the moment when
the Creature draws so near to his Creator that he is dazzled and
confounded. And it is a strange fact that he is always left alone,--
alone with his own Will, in every such grand crisis. He has been
helped so much by divine influences, that he is evidently considered
strong enough to decide his own fate. He is strong enough,--he has
sufficient reason and knowledge to decide it for the Highest, if he
would. But, with national culture goes national luxury,--the more
civilised a community, the greater its bodily ease,--the more
numerous the temptations against which we are told we must fight.
Spirit flies forward--Body pulls back. But Spirit is one day bound
to win! We have attained in this generation a certain knowledge of
Soul-forces--and we are on a verge, where, if we hesitate, we are
lost, and must recoil upon our own Ego as the centre of all desire.
But if we go on boldly and leave our own Ego behind, we shall see
the gates of Heaven opening indeed, and all the Mysteries unveiled!
How often we pause on the verge of better things, doubting whether
to rise or grovel! The light in us is darkness, and how great is
that darkness! Such is the state of mind in which I, your preacher,
have found myself for many years! I do not know whether to rise or
grovel,--to sink or soar! To be absolutely candid with you, I am
quite sure that I should not sink in your opinion for confessing
myself to be as outrageous in my conceptions of mortality as many of
you are. You would possibly pretend to be ashamed of me, but in your
hearts you would like me all the better. The sinking or the soaring
of my nature has therefore nothing whatever to do with you. It is a
strictly personal question. But what I specially wish to advise you
of this morning,--taking myself as an example,--is that none of you,
whether inclined to virtue or to vice, should remain such arrant
fools as to imagine that your sins will not find you out. They
will,--the instant they are committed, their sole mission is to
start on your track, and hunt you down! I cannot absolutely vouch to
you that there is a God,--but I am positive there is a hidden
process of mathematics going on in the universe which sums up our
slightest human affairs with an exactitude which at the least is
amazing. Twenty-five years ago I did a great wrong to a human
creature who was innocent, and who absolutely trusted me. There is
no crime worse than this, yet it seemed to me quite a trifling
affair,--an amusement--a nothing! I was perfectly aware that by some
excessively straightlaced people it might be termed a sin; but my
ideas of sin were as easy and condoning as yours are. I never
repented it,--I can hardly say I ever thought of it,--if I did I
excused myself quickly, and assured my own conscience in the usual
way, that the fault was merely the result of circumstances over
which I had no control. Oh, those uncontrollable circumstances! How
convenient they are! And what a weak creature they make of man, who
at other times than those of temptation, is wont to assert himself
master of this planet! Master of a planet and cannot control a vice!
Excellent! Well,--I never, as I say, thought of the wrong I had
done,--but if _I_ forgot it, some One or some Thing remembered it!
Yes--remembered it!--put it down--chronicled it with precision as to
time and place,--and set it, a breathing fact, before me in my old
age,--a living witness of my own treachery."

He paused, the congregation stirred,--the actor Miraudin looked up
at him with a surprised half-smile. Angela Sovrani lifted her
beautiful violet eyes towards him in amazed compassion,--Cardinal
Bonpre, recalling the Abbe previous confession to him, bent his
head, deeply moved.

"Treachery," resumed Vergniaud determinedly, "Is always a covert
thing. We betray each other in the dark, with silent foot-steps and
sibilant voices. We whisper our lies. We concoct our intrigues with
carefully closed doors. I did so. I was a priest of the Roman Church
as I am now; it would never have done for a priest to be a social
sinner! I therefore took every precaution to hide my fault;--but out
of my lie springs a living condemnation; from my carefully concealed
hypocrisy comes a blazonry of truth, and from my secret sin comes an
open vengeance . . ."

At the last words the loud report of a pistol sounded through the
building . . . there was a puff of smoke, a gleam of flame, and a bullet
whizzed straight at the head of the preacher! The congregation rose,
en masse, uttering exclamations of terror,--but before anyone could
know exactly what had happened the smoke cleared, and the Abbe
Vergniaud was seen leaning against the steps of the pulpit, pale but
uninjured, and in front of him stood the boy Manuel with arms
outstretched, and a smile on his face. The bullet had split the
pulpit immediately above him. An excited group assembled round them
immediately, and the Abbe was the first to speak.

"I am not hurt!--" he said quickly--"See to the boy! He sprang in
front of me and saved my life."

But Manuel was equally unhurt, and waived aside all enquiries and
compliments. And while eager questions were poured out and answered,
a couple of gendarmes were seen struggling in the centre of the
church with a man who seemed to have the power of a demon, so fierce
and frantic were his efforts to escape.

"Ah, voila! The assassin!" cried Miraudin, hastening to give
assistance.

"The assassin!" echoed a dozen other persons pressing in the same
direction.

Vergniaud heard, and gave one swift glance at Cardinal Bonpre who,
though startled by the rapidity and excitement of the scene that had
occurred, was equal to the occasion, and understood his friend's
appeal at once, even before he said hurriedly,

"Monseigneur! Tell them to let him go!--or--bring him face to face
with me!"

The Cardinal endeavoured to pass through the crowd, but though some
made way for him on account of his ecclesiastical dignity, others
closed in, and he found it impossible to move more than a few steps.
Then Vergniaud, moved by a sudden resolve, raised himself a little,
and resting one hand on the shoulder of Manuel, who still remained
on the steps of the pulpit in front of him, he called,

"Let Monsieur the assassin come here to me! I have a word to say to
him!"

Through the swaying, tumultuous, murmuring throng came a sudden
stillness, and everyone drew back as the gendarmes responding to
Abbe Vergniaud's command, pushed their way along, dragging and
hustling their prisoner between them,--a young black-browed, black-
eyed peasant with a handsome face and proud bearing, whose defiant
manner implied that having made one fierce struggle for liberty and
finding it in vain, he was now disdainfully resigned to the
inevitable. When brought face to face with the Abbe he lifted his
head, and flashed his dark eyes upon him with a look of withering
contempt. His lips parted,--he seemed about to speak when his glance
accidentally fell upon Manuel,--then something caused him to
hesitate,--he checked himself on the very verge of speech and
remained silent. The Abbe surveyed him with something of a quizzical
half-admiring smile, then addressing the gendarmes he said,

"Let him go!"

The men looked up astonished, doubting whether they had heard
aright.

"Let him go!" repeated the Abbe firmly, "I have no accusation to
make against him. Had he killed me he would have been perfectly
justified! Let him go!"

"Cher Abbe!" remonstrated the Marquis Fontenelle, who had made
himself one of the group immediately around the pulpit, "Is not this
a mistake on your part? Let me advise you not to be so merciful . . ."

"'Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy'"! quoted the
Abbe with a strange smile, while his breath came and went quickly,
and his face grew paler as he spoke. "Set him free, messieurs, if
you please! I decline to prosecute my own flesh and blood! I will be
answerable for his future conduct,--I am entirely answerable for his
past! He is my son!"

XIV.

No one ever afterwards quite knew how the crowd in the church broke
up and dispersed itself after this denouement. For a few minutes the
crush of people round the pulpit was terrific; all eyes were fixed
on the young black-browed peasant who had so nearly been a
parricide,--and on the father who publicly exonerated him,--and then
there came a pressing towards the doors which was excessively
dangerous to life and limb. Cardinal Bonpre, greatly moved by the
whole unprecedented scene, placed himself in front of Angela as a
shield and defence from the crowd; but before he had time to
consider how he should best pilot her through the pushing and
scrambling throng, a way was made for him by Manuel, who,--with a
quiet step and unruffled bearing,--walked through the thickest
centre of the crowd, which parted easily on either side of him, as
though commanded to do so by some unheard but absolute authority.
Admiring and wondering glances were turned upon the boy, whose face
shone with such a grave peace and sweetness;--he had saved the
Abbe's life, the people whispered, by springing up the steps of the
pulpit, and throwing himself between the intended victim and the
bullet of his assailant. Who was he? Where did he come from? No one
knew;--he was merely the attendant of that tall ascetic-looking
Cardinal, the uncle of the famous Sovrani. So the words ran from
mouth to mouth, as Felix Bonpre and his niece moved slowly through
the throng, following Manuel;--then, when they had passed, there
came a general hubbub and confusion once more, and the people
hustled and elbowed each other through the church regardless of
consequences, eager to escape and discuss among themselves the
sensation of the morning.

"C'est un drame! Un veritable drame!" said Miraudin, pausing, as he
found himself face to face with the Marquis Fontenelle.

Fontenelle stared haughtily.

"Did you speak to me, Monsieur?" he enquired, glancing the actor up
and down with an air of supreme disdain.

Miraudin laughed carelessly.

"Yes, I spoke to you, Marquis!" he replied, "I said that the public
confession of our dear priest Vergniaud was a veritable drame!"

"An unfortunate scandal in the Church!" said Fontenelle curtly.

"Yes!" went on the unabashed Miraudin, "If it were on the stage it
would be taken as a matter of course. An actor's follies help to
populate the world. But a priest's petite faute would seem to
suggest the crushing down of a universe!"

"Custom and usage make the rule in these things," said Fontenelle
turning away, "I have the honour to wish you good-day, Monsieur!"

"One moment!" said the actor smiling, "There is a curious personal
resemblance between you and me, Monsieur le Marquis! Have you ever
noticed it? We might almost be brothers by our looks--and also I
believe by our temperaments!"

Fontenelle's hazel eyes flashed angrily.

"I think not!" he said coldly, "A certain resemblance between
totally unrelated persons is quite common. For the rest, we are
absolutely different--absolutely!"

Again Miraudin laughed.

"As you will, Marquis!" and he raised his hat with a light, half-
mocking air, "Au revoir!"

Fontenelle scarcely acknowledged the salutation,--he was too much
annoyed. He considered it a piece of insolence on Miraudin's part to
have addressed him at all without previous introduction. It was true
that the famous actor was permitted a license not granted to the
ordinary individual,--as indeed most actors are. Even princes, who
hedge themselves round with impassable barriers to certain of their
subjects who are in all ways great and worthy of notice, unbend to
the Mime who today takes the place of the Court-jester, and allow
him to enter the royal presence, often bringing his newest wanton
with him. And there was not the slightest reason for the Marquis
Fontenelle to be at all particular in his choice of acquaintances.
Yet somehow or other, he was. The fine and sensitive instincts of a
gentleman were in him, and though in the very depths of his own
conscience he knew himself to be as much of a social actor as
Miraudin was a professional one,--though he was aware that his
passions were as sensual, and therefore as vulgar, (for sensuality
is vulgarity), there was a latent pride in him which forbade him to
set himself altogether on the same level. And now as he walked away
haughtily, his fine aristocratic head lifted a little higher in air
than usual, he was excessively irritated--with everything and
everybody, but with himself in particular. Abbe Vergniaud's sermon
had stung him in several ways, and the startling FINALE had vexed
him still more.

"What folly!" he thought, as he entered his luxuriously appointed
flat, and threw himself into a chair with a kind of angry weariness,
"How utterly stupid of Vergniaud to blazon the fact that he is no
better than other men, in the full face of his congregation! He must
be mad! A priest of the Roman Church publicly acknowledging a
natural son! [Footnote: ROME, August 19, 1899--A grave scandal has
just burst upon the world here. The Gazetta di Venezia having
attacked the bishops attending the recent conclave of "Latin
America," that is, Spanish-speaking America, as men of loose
morality, the Osservatore Cattolico, the Vatican organ, replied
declaring that the life of the bishops present at the conclave was
above suspicion. The Gazetta di Venezia responds, affirming that the
majority of the bishops brought with them to Rome their mistresses,
and in some instances their children. The Gazetta offers to disclose
the names of these bishops, and demands that the Pope shall satisfy
the Catholic world by taking measures against them.--Central News.]
Has ever such a thing been heard of! And the result is merely to
create scandal and invite his own disgrace! A quoi bon!"

He lit a cigarette and puffed at it impatiently. His particular
"code" of morality had been completely upset;--things seemed to have
taken a turn for general offence, and the simplest thoughts became
like bristles in his brain, pricking him uncomfortably in various
sore and sensitive places. Then, added to his general sense of
spleen was the unpleasant idea that he was really in love, where he
had never meant to be in love. "In love", is a wide term nowadays,
and covers a multitude of poor and petty passing emotions,--and it
is often necessary to add the word "really" to it, in order to
emphasise the fact that the passion has perhaps,--and even then it
is only a perhaps,--taken a somewhat lasting form. Why could not
Sylvie Hermenstein have allowed things to run their natural course?-
-this natural course being according to Fontenelle, to drop into his
arms when asked, and leave those arms again with equal alacrity also
when asked! It would have been quite pleasant and satisfactory to
him, the Marquis;--and for Sylvie--well!--for Sylvie, she would soon
have got over it! Now there was all this fuss and pother about
virtue! Virtue, quotha! In a woman, and in Paris! At this time of
day! Could anything be more preposterous and ridiculous!

"One would imagine I had stumbled into a convent for young ladies,"
he grumbled to himself, "What with Sylvie actually gone, and that
pretty pattern of chastity, Angela Sovrani, preaching at me with her
big violet eyes,--and now Vergniaud who used to be 'bon camarade et
bon vivant', branding himself a social sinner--really one would
imagine that some invisible Schoolmaster was trying to whip me into
order . . ."

"Peut-on entrer?" called a clear voice outside at this juncture, and
without waiting for permission the speaker entered, a very pretty
woman in an admirably fitting riding habit, which she held daintily
up with one gloved hand, extending the other as she came to the
Marquis who gracefully bent over it and kissed it.

"Charme de vous voir Princesse!" he murmured.

"Not at all! Spare me your falsehoods!" was the gay reply,
accompanied by a dazzling smile, "You are not in the least charmed,
nothing,--nobody charms you,--I least of all! Did you not see me in
church? No! Where were your eyes? On the courageous Vergniaud, who
so nearly gave us the melancholy task of arranging a 'Chapelle
ardente' for him this afternoon?" She laughed, and her eyes twinkled
maliciously,--then she went on, "Do you know he is quite a
delightful boy,--the peasant son and assassin? I think of taking him
to my Chateau and making something of him. I waited to see the whole
play out, and bring you the news. Papa Vergniaud has gone home with
his good-looking offspring--then Cardinal Bonpre--do you know the
Cardinal Bonpre?"

"By reputation merely," replied the Marquis, setting a chair for his
fair visitor, "And as the uncle of Donna Sovrani."

"Oh, reputation is nothing," laughed the lady, known as the
Princesse D'Agramont, an independent beauty of great wealth and
brilliant attainments, "Your butler can give you a reputation, or
take it away from you! But the Cardinal's reputation is truly
singular. It is goodness, merely! He is so good that he has become
actually famous for it! Now I once thought that to become famous for
goodness must surely imply that the person so celebrated had a very
hypocritical nature,--the worst of natures indeed;--that of
pretending to be what he was not,--but I was mistaken. Cardinal
Bonpre IS good. Absolutely sincere and noble--therefore a living
marvel in this age!"