The Dawn of All
Page 65
(I)
The sight on which the watcher's eyes rested, as he sat, hunghere in motionlessness above Westminster, a hundred feet higherthan the great St. Edward's Tower itself, was one not onlyundreamed of, but even inconceivable to men of earlier days.
For it seemed as if some vast invisible air-way had been flungstraight from the midst of London, down away to the south-westhorizon, where it ran into the faint summer haze thirty milesaway. So level was the line held by the waiting volors on eitherside--vast barges shining like silver, hung with the greatstate-cloths of modern days--that it appeared as if the eyeitself were deceived, as if there were indeed a pavement ofcrystal, a river of glass, so clear as itself to be unseen, onwhose surface floated this navy of a dream such as the worlditself had never imagined.
Now and again, like a fly on water, there darted from one side tothe other a tiny boat, in the blue and silver of the city guards,or dropped, ducked and vanished; now and again it wheeled, andcame whirling up the line, vanishing at last in the longperspective. But, for the rest, the monsters waited motionless inthe sunlight, their state-cloths, hung as from the old barges,from stem to stern, as motionless as themselves, except when nowand again the summer breeze stirred from the south-west, liftingthe lazy streamers, wafting softly the heavy embroideries, andstirring, even as the wind stirs the wheat, the glittering giantsthat waited to do their Lord honour.
Opposite the air-barge where the watcher sat, perhaps a hundredyards away, floated the royal boat, between a pair of warships,one blaze of scarlet, blue, and gold, flapping out the RoyalStandard of England, and flashing the glass of the stern-cabin asthe great creature rocked gently now and again in the breeze; andupon its deck rose up the canopy where the king and his consortsat together, and the line of scarlet guards visible behind. Onthe warships on either side the crew waited, the ship itselfdressed as for a review, every man motionless at his post, withthe crash of brass sounding from the lower decks. And so down theline the eye of the watcher went again and again, fascinated bythe beauty and the glory, down past where the great ducal bargeshung, each in order, past the officers of state, past theParliament barges, down to where the boats, in numbers beyond allreckoning, faded away into the haze.
To those who looked across to where the man himself sat thesight must have been no less amazing. For he sat there, in hisnew dress of Cardinal's scarlet, on the throne of ceremonybeneath his canopy with his attendants about him, on a wide decklaid down with scarlet, its prow crowned by the silver cross--asilent watching figure, with a splendour of romance about himmore suggestive even than the material glory that showed hisnewly won dignity.
There was not a soul there in those astounding crowds, whetheramong those who, hanging here between heaven and earth, awaitedfor the ceremonial reception, the coming of him who was Vicar ofone and Lord of the other, or even among those incalculablemultitudes beneath, who packed the streets, crowded the flat roofsand looked from every window. It was this man, they knew, thistiny red figure, sitting solitary and motionless, who scarcelythree months before had stood before the revolutionary Council ofBerlin, of his own will and choice--who had gone there and facedwhat seemed a certain death, for love of the old man whose bodynow lay beneath the high-altar of the tremendous cathedralbeneath, and to whose office and honours he had succeeded, and forthe sake of the message he had carried. It was this man, alone ofthe whole Christian world, who after looking into the face ofdeath, not for himself only, but for one who was dearer to him andto that Christian world than life itself, had seen in one momentthe last storm roll away from human history for ever; who had seenwith his own eyes, Christ in His Vicar--_Princeps gloriosus_ comeat last--take the power and reign.
He too was conscious of all this, at least subconsciously, as hesat motionless, a figure carved in ivory, a man who had foundpeace at last. Here, in the contemplating brain, as with his eyeshe looked over the vast city of London, enormous and exquisitebeyond the dreams of either the reformers or the artists of acentury ago, seen as through the crystal of the summer air, as helifted his eyes now and again to the solemn barges opposite withall that that dignity meant; above all as he looked down thatimmeasurable line, that roadway of a god, along which presentlyat least the Vicar of a God should come--all this and a thousandmemories more--memories of events such as few experience in alifetime, crowded into twelve months--passed in endless defile,coherent and consistent at last under the pointing finger of Himwho had directed and evolved them all.
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First, then, he saw himself, a child in knowledge, beginning lifeat a point where many leave it off, plunged into a world that waswholly strange and bewildering, a world which, though Christian inname, seemed brutal in nature--brutal as the pagan empires werebrutal, yet without the excuse of their ignorance and passion.
Yet his intellect had seemed unable to refute the conclusion ofthat march of events, that coherence of all ideals in a reasonedwhole, that fulfilment of instincts, that play of forces, uponwhich, as upon a tide, Catholicism had floated to final victoryin the history of mankind. Not one element had seemed wanting;and, as if to convince by sensible visions that brain whichshrank from merely argued logic, one by one he had seen forhimself as in a picture lesson, how at Versailles the socialtangle of an individual kingdom had once more submitted tomonarchy--that faulty mirror of the Divine government of theworld; how at Rome the stability of rival kingdoms, had founditself once more in an arbiter whose kingdom was not of thisworld; how finally, at Lourdes, in the widest circle of all, thevery science of the world itself had found itself not confrontedor opposed, but welcomed and transcended, by a school of thinkerswhose limitations lay only in the Infinite.
Once more then he had returned. Yet he had found that the headand the imagination are not all; that man has a heart as well;and that this has its demands no less inexorable that those ofintellect. And it was this heart of his that had seemed outragedand silenced. For he had found in Christianity a synthesis ofideas--a coincidence of knowledge--which, while satisfying thathead, emerged in a system to which his heart could be no party.He had learned that "Christian society must protect itself"; andhe had seemed in this to find a denial of the essential Christiandoctrine that success comes only by defeat, and triumph by theCross. It had seemed to him that Christ had accepted the tauntsat last, had come down from the Cross and won the homage only ofthose who did not understand Him. He had been quieted indeed fora time, under the power of men who, whatever the rest of theworld might do, still thought that suffering was the better part.Yet he had been quieted; not convinced.
Then he had sought a glimpse of the reverse of the picture--ofthat which now seemed the sole alternative to that faith which hefeared--a glimpse only; yet full of significance. For he had seenmen to whom the better part of themselves seemed nothing; men whowalked with downcast eyes, piling mud and stones together, andfancying the heap to be a very City of God.
Then, swift as grace itself, had come his answer.
He had seen men who had already all that the world could give,men who, he had thought, lusted only for power, go to an unknownand yet a certain death for the sake of a world over which hehad thought they cared only to reign--and go with smiles andcheerfulness. And while he still hung in indecision, stillhesitated as to whether this or that were the Kingdom ofGod--this shrinking dream of a world sufficient to itself, orthis brightening vision--then the last light had come, and hehad seen one to be victor by sheer self-abnegation, by contemptof his own life, by the all but divine power of an ordinary manwalking in grace. There had been no rhetoric in that triumph, nopromises, no intoxication of phrases, no overwhelmingpersonality such as that which had faced him. There had beennothing but a little quiet personage with a father's heart, whoby his very fidelity to his human type, by the absolutesimplicity of his presence had first climbed to the highestpoint that man could reach, and then by that same fidelity andsimplicity, had cast himself down, and in the very hour thatfollowed the unconditional surrender w
hich his enemies had made,had granted them a measure of liberty such as they had neverdreamed of. In the name of the Powers, whose super-lord andrepresentative he was, he had abolished the death-penalty foropinions subversive of society or faith, substituting in itsplace deportation to the new American colonies; he had flungopen certain positions in Catholic states hitherto tenable onlyon a profession of the Christian religion to all men alike; andhe had guaranteed to the new colonies in America a freedom fromexternal control and a place among civilized powers such as theyhad never expected or asked.
This then was the new type of man who had at last conquered theworld. It was not a superman that had been waited for so long,not a demigod armed with powers of light; not man raisinghimself above his stature, building towers on earthlyfoundations that should reach to heaven; but just man, utterlytrue to himself and his instincts, walking humbly before hisGod; looking for a city that has no foundations, coming down tohim out of heaven. It was supernature, not superman; grace andtruth transfiguring nature; not nature wrenching itself vainlytowards the stature of grace. It was man who could suffer, whocould reign; since he only who knows his weakness, dares to bestrong. . . . _Vicisti Galilaee!_