Books: The Master Christian

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"No Church!" exclaimed Moretti, "His Eminence must educate you, boy.
You must be received."

"Yes," said Manuel, raising his eyes, and fixing them full on
Moretti, "I must be received! I need education to understand the
Church. And so,--for me to be received might be difficult!"

XVI.

As he thus spoke, slowly and with an exquisite softness, something
in his voice, manner, or words aroused a sudden and violent
antipathy in Moretti's mind. He became curiously annoyed, without
any possible cause, and out of his annoyance answered roughly.

"Ignorance is always difficult to deal with," he said, "But if it is
not accompanied by self-will or obstinacy--(and boys of your age are
apt to be self-willed and obstinate)--then much can be done. The
Church has infinite patience even with refractory sinners."

"Has it?" asked Manuel simply, and his clear eyes, turning slowly
towards Vergniaud and his son, rested there a moment, and then came
back to fix the same steady look upon Moretti's face. Not another
word did he say,--but Moretti flushed darkly, and anon grew very
pale. Restraining his emotions however by an effort, he addressed
himself with cold formality once more to the Abbe.

"You have no explanation then to offer to His Holiness, beyond what
you have already said?"

"None!" replied Vergniaud steadily. "The reasons for my conduct I
think are sufficiently vital and earnest to be easily understood."

"And your Eminence has nothing more to say on this matter?" pursued
Moretti, turning to the Cardinal.

"Nothing, my son! But I would urge that the Holy Father should
extend his pardon to the offenders, the more so as one of them is on
the verge of that land where we 'go hence and are no more seen.'"

Moretti's eyelids quivered, and his lips drew together in a hard and
cruel line.

"I will assuredly represent your wishes to His Holiness," he
replied, "But I doubt whether they will meet with so much approval
as surprise and regret. I have the honour to wish your Eminence
farewell!"

"Farewell, my son!" said the Cardinal mildly, "Benedicite!"

Moretti bent down, as custom forced him to do, under the gently
uttered blessing, and the extended thin white hand that signed the
cross above him. Then with a furtive under-glance at Manuel, whose
quiet and contemplative observation of him greatly vexed and
disturbed his composure, he left the room.

There was a short silence. Then Abbe Vergniaud, somewhat
hesitatingly, approached Bonpre.

"I much fear, my dear friend, that all this means unpleasantness for
you at the Vatican," he said, "And I sincerely grieve to be the
means of bringing you into any trouble."

"Nay, there should be no trouble," said Bonpre quietly, "Nothing has
happened which should really cause me any perplexity--on the
contrary, events have arranged themselves so that there shall be no
obstacle in the way of speaking my mind. I have journeyed far from
my diocese to study and to discover for myself the various phases of
opinion on religious matters in these days, and I am steadily
learning much as I go. I regret nothing, and would have nothing
altered,--for I am perfectly confident that in all the things I
meet, or may have to consider, my Master is my Guide. All is well
wherever we hear His Voice;--all things work for the best when we
are able to perceive His command clearly, and have strength and
resolution enough to forsake our sins and follow Him."

As he spoke, a tranquil smile brightened his venerable features, and
seeing the fine small hand of Manuel resting on his chair, he laid
his own wrinkled palm over it and clasped it tenderly. Cyrillon
Vergniaud, moved by a quick impulse, suddenly advanced towards him.

"Monseigneur," he said, with unaffected deference, "You are much
more than a Cardinal,--you are a good and honest man! And that you
serve Christ purely is plainly evidenced in your look and bearing.
Do me one favour! Extend your pardon to me for my almost committed
crime of to-day,--and give me your blessing! I will try to be worthy
of it!"

The Cardinal was silent for a few minutes looking at him earnestly.

"My blessing is of small value," he said, "And yet I do not think
you would ask it for mere mockery of an old man's faith. I should
like,--" here he paused--then slowly went on again, "I should like
to say a few words to you if I might--to ask you one or two
questions concerning yourself--"

"Ask anything you please, Monseigneur," replied Cyrillon, "I will
answer you frankly and fully. I have never had any mysteries in my
life save one,--that of my birth, which up till to day was a stigma
and a drawback;--but now, I feel I may be proud of my father. A man
who sacrifices his entire social reputation and position to make
amends for a wrong done to the innocent is worthy of honour."

"I grant it!" said the Cardinal, "But you yourself--why have you
made a name which is like a firebrand to start a conflagration of
discord in Europe?--why do you use your gifts of language and
expression to awaken a national danger which even the strongest
Government may find itself unable to stand against? I do not blame
you till I hear,--till I know;--but your writings,--your appeals for
truth in all things,--are like loud clarion blasts which may awaken
more evil than good."

"Monseigneur, the evil is not of my making,--it exists!" replied
Cyrillon, "My name, my writings,--are only as a spark from the huge
smouldering fire of religious discontent in the world. If it were
not MY name it would be another's. If _I_ did not write or speak,
someone else would write and speak--perhaps better--perhaps not so
well. At any rate I am sincere in my convictions, and write from the
fulness of the heart. I do not care for money--I make none at all by
literature,--but I earn enough by my labour in the fields to keep me
in food and lodging. I have no desire for fame,--except in so far as
my name may serve as an encouragement and help to others. If you
care to hear my story--"

"I should appreciate your confidence greatly," said the Cardinal
earnestly, "The Fates have made you a leading spirit of the time,--
it would interest me to know your thoughts and theories. But if you
would prefer not to speak--"

"I generally prefer not to speak," replied Cyrillon, "But to-day is
one of open confession,--and I think too that it is sometimes
advisable for men of the Church to understand and enter into the
minds of those who are outside the Church,--who will have no
Church,--not from disobedience or insubordination, but simply
because they do not find God or Christ in that institution as it at
present exists. And nowadays we are seeking for God strenuously and
passionately! We have found Him too in places where the Church
assured us He was not and could not be."

"Is there any portion of life where God is not?" asked Manuel
gently.

Cyrillon's dark eyes softened as he met the boy's glance.

"No, dear child!--truly there is not,--but the priests do nothing to
maintain or to prove that," he replied; "and the more the world
lifts itself higher and higher into the light, the more we shall
perceive God, and the less we will permit anything to intervene
between ourselves and Him. But you are too young to understand--"

"No, not at all too young to understand!" answered Manuel, "Not at
all too young to understand that God is love, and pardon, and
patience;--and that wheresoever men are intolerant, uncharitable,
and bigoted, there they straightway depart from God and know Him not
at all."

"Truly that is how I understand Christianity," said Cyrillon, "But
for so simple and plain a perception of duty one is called atheist
and socialist, and one's opinions are branded as dangerous to the
community. Truth is dangerous, I know--but why?"

"Would that not take a century to explain?" said the silvery voice
of the Princesse D'Agramont, who entered with Angela at that moment,
and made her deep obeisance before the Cardinal, glancing
inquisitively as she did so at Manuel who still stood resting
against the prelate's chair, "Pardon our abrupt appearance,
Monseigneur, but Angela and I are moved by the spirit of curiosity!-
-and if we are swept out of the Church like straws before the wind
for our impertinence, we care not! Monsignor Moretti has just left
the house, wrapt up in his wrath like a bird of prey in a thunder-
cloud, muttering menaces against 'Gys Grandit' the Socialist writer.
Now what in the world has Gys Grandit to do with him or with us?
Salut, cher Abbe!"--and she gave Vergniaud her hand with charming
friendliness; "I came here really to see you, and place the Chateau
D'Agramont at your disposal, while I am away passing the winter in
Italy. Pray make yourself at home there--and your son also . . ."

"Madame," said the Abbe, profoundly touched by the sincerity of her
manner, and by the evident cordiality of her intention, "I thank you
from my heart for your friendship at this moment when friendship is
most needed! But I feel I ought not to cast the shadow of my
presence on your house under such circumstances--and as for my son--
it would certainly be unwise for you to extend your gracious
hospitality to him . . . he is my son--yes truly!--and I acknowledge him
as such; but he is also another person of his own making--Gys
Grandit!"

Angela Sovrani gave a slight cry, and a wave of colour flushed her
face,--the Princesse stood amazed.

"Gys Grandit!" she echoed in a low tone, "And Vergniaud's son! Grand
Dieu! Is it possible!" Then advancing, she extended both her hands
to Cyrillon, "Monsieur, accept my homage! You have a supreme
genius,--and with it you command more than one-half of the thoughts
of France!"

Cyrillon took her hands,--lightly pressed, and released them.

"Madame, you are too generous!"

But even while he exchanged these courtesies with her, his eyes were
fixed on Angela Sovrani, who, moving close to her uncle's chair, had
folded her hands upon its sculptured edge and now stood beside it, a
graceful nymph-like figure of statuesque repose. But her breath came
and went quickly, and her face was very pale.

"No wonder Monsignor Moretti was so exceedingly angry," resumed the
Princesse D'Agramont with a smile, "I understand the position now.
It is a truly remarkable one. Monseigneur," this with a profound
reverence to the Cardinal, "you have found it difficult to be umpire
in the discussion."

"The discussion was not mine," said the Cardinal slowly, "But the
cause of the trouble is a point which affects many,--and I am one of
those who desire to hear all before I presume to judge one. I have
asked the son of my old friend Vergniaud to tell me what led him to
make his assumed name one of such terror and confusion in the world;
he is but six-and-twenty, and yet . . ."

"And yet people talk much of me you would say, Monseigneur," said
Cyrillon, a touch of scorn lighting up his fine eyes, "True, and it
is easy to be talked of. That is nothing, I do not wish for that,
except in so far as it helps me to attain my ambition."

"And that ambition is?" queried the Princesse.

"To lead!" answered Cyrillon with a passionate gesture, "To gather
the straying thoughts of men into one burning focus--and turn THAT
fire on the world!"

They were all silent for a minute--then the Princesse D'Agramont
spoke again--

"But--Pardon me! Then you were about to destroy all your own chances
of the future in your wild impulse of this morning?"

"Oh, Madame, it was no wild impulse! When a man takes an oath by the
side of a dead woman, and that woman his mother, he generally means
to keep it! And I most resolutely meant to kill my father and make
of myself a parricide. But I considered my mother had been murdered
too--socially and morally--and I judged my vengeance just. If it had
not been for the boy there--" and he glanced at Manuel, "I should
certainly have fulfilled my intention."

"And then there would have been no Abbe Vergniaud, and no 'Gys
Grandit,'" said the Princesse lightly, endeavouring to change the
sombre tone of the conversation,--"and the 'Christian Democratic'
party would have been in sackcloth and ashes!"

"The Christian Democratic party!" echoed the Cardinal, "What do they
mean? What do they want?"

"Christianity, Monseigneur! That is all!" replied Cyrillon, "All--
but so much! You asked me for my history--will you hear it now?"

There was an immediate murmur of assent, and the group around
Cardinal Bonpre were soon seated--all save Manuel, who remained
standing. Angela sat on a cushion at her uncle's feet, and her deep
violet eyes were full of an eager, almost feverish interest which
she could scarcely conceal; and the Abbe Vergniaud, vitally and
painfully concerned as he was in the narrative about to be told,
could not help looking at her, and wondering at the extraordinary
light and beauty of her face thus transfigured by an excitation of
thought. Was she a secret follower of his son's theories, he
wondered? Composing himself in his chair, he sat with bent head,
marvelling as he heard the story of the bold and fearless and
philosophic life that had sprung into the world all out of his
summer's romance with a little innocent girl, whom he had found
praying to her guardian angel.

"It is not always ourselves," began Cyrillon in his slow, emphatic,
yet musical voice, "who are responsible for the good or the evil we
may do in our lives. Much of our character is formed by the earliest
impressions of childhood--and my earliest impressions were those of
sorrow. I started life with the pulse of my mother's broken heart
beating in me,--hence my thoughts were sombre, and of an altogether
unnatural character to a child of tender years. We lived--my mother
and I--in a small cottage on the edge of a meadow outside the quaint
old city of Tours--a meadow, full at all seasons, of the loveliest
wild flowers, but sweetest in the springtime when the narcissi
bloomed, lifting their thousand cups of sweet perfume like incense
to the sky. I used to sit among their cool green stems,--thinking
many thoughts, chief among which was a wonder why God had made my
little mother so unhappy. I heard afterwards that God was not to
blame,--only man, breaking God's laws of equity. She was a good
brave woman, for despite her loneliness and tears, she worked hard;-
-worked to send me to school, and to teach me all she herself knew--
which was little enough, poor soul,--but she studied in order to
instruct me,--and often when I slept the unconscious sleep of
healthy childhood, she was up through half the night spelling out
abstruse books, difficult enough for an educated woman to master,
but for a peasant--(she was nothing more)--presenting almost
superhuman obstacles. I was very quick to learn, and her loving
patience was not wasted upon me;--but when I was about eleven years
old I resolved that I could no longer burden her with the expenses
of my life--so without asking her consent, I hired myself out to a
farmer, to clear weeds from his fields, and so began to earn my
bread, which is the best and noblest form of knowledge existing in
the world for all of us. With the earning of my body's keep came
spiritual independence, and young as I was I began to read and
consider for myself--till when I was about fifteen chance brought me
across the path of a man whose example inspired me and decided my
fate, named Aubrey Leigh."

Angela gave a slight exclamation of surprise, and Cyrillon turned
his dark eyes upon her.

"Yes, mademoiselle!--I am aware that he has been in Paris lately. No
doubt you know him. Certainly he is born to be a leader of men, and
if a noble life and unsullied character, together with eloquence,
determination, and steadfastness of purpose can help him to fulfil
his mission, he will assuredly succeed. He is from America, though
born of British parents, and the first thing I gathered from him was
an overwhelming desire to study and to master the English language--
not because it was English, but because it was the universal
language spoken by America. I felt from what he said then,--and I
feel still from what I have learnt and know now,--that America has
all the future in the hollow of her hand. My intention, had I
succeeded in my revengeful attempt this morning, was to escape to
America immediately, and from there write under the nom de plume
which I have already made known. I can write as easily in English as
in French,--for my friend Aubrey Leigh was very kind and took a
great liking to me, and stayed in Touraine for a year and a half,
simply for the pleasure of instructing me and grafting his theories
upon my young and aspiring mind. And now we are as one in our hopes
and endeavours, and the years make little disparity between us. He
was twenty-two when I was but fifteen,--but now that I am twenty-six
and he thirty-three we are far better matched associates. From him I
learnt much of the discontents,--ethical and religious,--of the
world; from him I learnt how to speak in public. He was then an
actor, a sort of wandering 'Bohemian,'--but he soon tired of the
sordidness of the stage and aspired to higher platforms of work, and
he had already begun to lead the people by his powers of oratory, as
he leads them now. I heard him speak in French as fluently as in
English; and I resolved on my part to speak likewise in English as
easily as he did in French. And when we parted it was with a mutual
resolve TO LEAD!--to lead--and ever still to lead!--we would starve
on our theories, we said, but we would speak out if it cost us our
very lives. To earn daily bread I managed to obtain steady
employment as a labourer in the fields,--and I soon gained
sufficient to keep my mother and myself. My friend Aubrey had imbued
me thoroughly with the love of incessant hard work; there was no
disgrace, he said, in digging the soil, if the brain were kept
working as well as the hands. And I did keep my brain working; I
allowed it also to lie fallow, and to absorb everything of nature
that was complex, grand and beautiful,--and from such studies I
learnt the goodness and the majesty of the Creator as they are never
found in human expositions of Him made by the preachers of creeds.
At eighteen I made my first public address,--and the next year
published my first book in Tours. But though I won an instant
success my soul was hampered and heavy with the burning thought of
vengeance; and this thought greatly hindered the true conceptions of
life that I desired to entertain. When my mother died, and her
failing voice crooned for the last time, 'Ah, la tristesse d'avoir
aime!' the spark of hatred I had cherished all the years of my life
for my father burst into a flame, and leapt up to its final height
this morning as you saw. Now it has gone out into dust and ashes--
the way of all such flames! I have been spared for better things I
hope. What I have written and done, France knows,--but my thoughts
are not limited to France, they seek a wider horizon. France is a
decaying nation--her doom is sealed. I work and write for the To-Be,
not the Has-Been. Such as my life is, it has never been darkened or
brightened by love of any sort, save that which my mother gave me.
Your Eminence," and he turned towards the Cardinal, "asks me why I
inculcate theories which suggest change, terror and confusion;--
Monseigneur, terror and confusion can never be caused save among the
ranks of those who have secret reason to be terrorised! There is
nothing terrifying in Truth to those who are true! If I distract and
alarm unworthy societies, revolting hypocrism, established shams and
miserable conventions, I am only the wielder of the broom that
sweeps out the cobwebs and the dust from a dirty house. My one
desire is to make the habitation of Christian souls clean! Terror
and confusion there will be,--there must be;--the time is ripe for
it--none of us can escape it--it is the prophesied period of 'men's
hearts failing them for fear, and looking after those things which
are coming on the earth.' I have not made the time. I am born OF it-
-one WITH it;--God arranges these things. I am not working for self
or for money,--I can live on bread and herbs and water. I want no
luxurious surroundings,--no softnesses--no delicacies--no
tendernesses--no sympathies! I set my face forward in the teeth of a
thousand winds of opposition, forward still forward! I seek nothing
for my own personal needs! I know that nothing can hinder me or keep
me back! Nothing! Monseigneur, I voice the cry of multitudes!--they
have, as it were, been wandering in the wilderness listening to the
Gospel for many days,--days which have accumulated to more than
eighteen hundred years; just as they did of old,--only the Master
did not send them away hungry--He fed them lest they should 'faint
by the way.' He thought of that possibility!--we seldom care how
many faint by the way, or die in the effort to live! Monseigneur, I
must--I will speak for the dumb mouths of the nations! And every
unit that can so speak, or can so write, should hasten to turn
itself into a Pentecostal flame of fire to blaze and burn a warning
upon the verge of this new century,--causing men to prophesy with
divers tongues, of the Truth of God,--not of the lies that have been
made to represent Him!"

Felix Bonpre raised one hand with a slight gesture enjoining
silence, and seemed wrapped for a moment in painful meditation.
Angela looking anxiously up at him caught, not his glance, but that
of Manuel, who smiled at her encouragingly. Presently the Cardinal
spoke,--gently and with a kind of austere patience.

"Am I to understand from your speech, my son, and the work of your
life, that you consider the Church a lie? I put the question
plainly; but I do not ask it either to reproach or intimidate you. I
am well aware I can do neither. Thought is free to the individual as
well as to the nations; and whereas, in past time we had one man who
could think and speak, we have now a thousand! We are unfortunately
apt to forget the spread of education;--but a man who thinks as you
do, and dares all things for the right to act upon his thought,
should surely be able to clearly explain his reasons for arming
himself against any outwardly expressed form of faith, which has
received the acceptance and submission of the world?"

"Monseigneur, I do not attack any faith! Faith is necessary,--faith
is superb! I honour this uplifting virtue,--whether I find it in the
followers of the Talmud or the Koran, or the New Testament, and,
personally speaking, I would die for my belief in the great name and
ethical teaching of Christ. I attack the Church--yes,--and why?
Because it has departed from the Faith! Because it is a mere system
now,--corrupt in many parts, as all systems must naturally become
when worn out by long usage. In many ways it favours stupid
idolatries, and in others it remains deaf and blind and impervious
to the approach of great spiritual and religious facts, which are
being made splendidly manifest by Science. Why, there is not a
miracle in the Testament that science will not make possible!--there
is not a word Christ ever spoke that shall not be proved true! And
may I not be called a Christian? I may,--I must,--I will be,--for I
am! But hypocrisy, false measures, perverted aims, and low pandering
to ignorance and brutality, vile superstition and intimidation--
these things must be destroyed if the Church is to last with honour
to itself and with usefulness to others. To-day, over in England,
they are quarrelling with bitter acrimony concerning forms and
outward symbols of religion, thus fulfilling the words of the Lord,
'Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter but within
ye are full of extortion and excess.' Now, if the Spirit of Christ
were at all in these men who thus argue, there would be no trouble
about forms or symbols of faith,--there would be too much of the
faith itself for any such petty disputation. Monseigneur, I swear to
you, I say nothing, teach nothing but what is the straight and true
command of Christ! . . . no more, but also no less!"

Moved by the young man's eloquence, the Cardinal looked at him
straightly in the eyes.

"You speak well," he said, "Some people would tell you that you have
that fluency of tongue which is judged dangerous. But danger is
after all only for those who have something to fear. If we of the
Church are pure in our intent nothing should disturb our peace,--
nothing should move us from our anchorage. Your ideas, you say, are
founded on the Master's Word?"

"Entirely," replied Cyrillon, "I am working,--Aubrey Leigh is
working,--we are all working for a House of Praise more than a Place
of Prayer. We want to give thanks for what we are, and what, if we
follow the sane and healthy laws of life, we may be,--rather than
continue the clamour for more benefits when we have already
received, and are receiving so much."

"Would you not pray at all then?" asked Bonpre.

"Yes--for others, not for ourselves! And then not as the Church
prays. Her form of service is direct disobedience!"