The Bishop stretched out a hand and caught Walden’s in a close grasp.
“Right!” — he said— “Do that, and you will do well! It is all a question of fighting and conquering, or — being conquered. But YOU will never give in, John! You are not the man to yield to the wiles of the devil. For there IS a devil! — I am sure of it!” And his dark eyes flashed with a sudden wild light. “A cozening, crafty, lurking devil, that sets temptation before us in such varied and pleasing forms that it is difficult — sometimes impossible — to tell which is right and which is wrong! Walden, we must escape from this devil — we must escape!”
He sprang up with an impulsive quickness which startled Walden, and began to pace up and down the room again.
“A mocking devil,” — he said— “a lying devil! — whispering from morning till evening, and from evening till morning, doubts of God! Doubts whether He, the Creator of worlds, really exists,-doubts as to whether He, or It, is not some huge blind, deaf Force, grinding its way on through limitless and eternal Production and Reproduction to one end, — Annihilation! Walden, you must now hear MY confession! These doubts are driving me mad! I cannot bear the thought of the whirl of countless universes, immeasurable solar systems, crammed with tortured life for which there seems to be no hope, no care, no rescue, no future! I am unable to preach or to FEEL comfort for the human race! The very tragedy of the Cross only brings me to one result — that Truth is always crucified. The world prefers Falsehood. So much so indeed that the Christian religion itself is little more than a super-structure of lies raised above the sepulchre of a murdered Truth. I told you in my letter I had serious thoughts of resigning my bishopric. So I have. My spirit turns to Rome!”
“Rome!” cried Walden— “What, YOU, Brent! — you think of going over to Rome? What strange fantasy has seized you?”
“Rome,” said Brent, slowly, stopping in his restless walk— “is the Mother of Creeds — the antique Muse of the world’s history! Filled with the blood of martyrs, hallowed by the memories of saints, she is, she must always be, supreme in matters of faith — or superstition!” And he smiled, — a wan and sorrowful smile— “Or even idolatry, if you will! Emotionalism, — sensationalism in religion — these the craving soul must have, and these Rome gives! We must believe, — mark you, Walden! — we must positively BELIEVE that the Creator of all Universes was moved to such wrath against the helpless human creature He had made, that he cursed that creature forever for merely eating, like a child, fruit which had been forbidden! And after that we must believe everything else that has since followed in the track of the Woman, the Serpent and the Tree. Now in the Church of England I find I cannot believe these things — in the Church of Rome I WILL believe, because I MUST! I will humble myself in dust and ashes, and accept all — all. Anything is better than Nothingness! I will be the lowest of lay brethren, and in solitude and silence, make atonement for my unbelief. It is the only way, Walden! — for me, it is the only way! To Her!” And he pointed up to the picture of the Virgin and Child— “To Her, my vows! As Woman, she will pity me — as Woman, she can be loved!”
Walden heard this wild speech without any word or gesture of interruption. Then, raising his eyes to the picture Brent thus apostrophised, he said, quietly —
“When did you have that painted, Brent?”
A sudden change came over the Bishop’s features. He looked as though startled by some vague terror. Then he answered, slowly:
“Some years ago — in Florence. Why do you ask? It is a copy—”
“Of HER likeness — yes!” said Walden, softly— “I saw that at once. You had it done, of course! She was beautiful and good — she died young. I know! But you have no right to turn your personal passion and grief into a form of worship, Harry!”
The Bishop gazed at him fixedly and solemnly.
“You do not know,” — he murmured— “You have not seen what I have seen! She has come to me lately — she, who died so long ago! — she has come to me night after night, and she has told me to pray for her— ‘pray’ she says— ‘pray that I may help to save your soul!’ And I must surely do as she bids. I must get away from this place — away from this city of turmoil and wickedness, into some quieter comer of the world, — some monastic retreat where I may end my days in peace,- -I cannot fight my devils here — they are too strong for me!”
“They will be too strong for you anywhere, if you are a coward!” — said Walden, impetuously. “Brent, I thought you had gotten the victory over this old despair of yours long ago! I thought you had made the memory of the woman you loved a noble spur to noble actions! I never dreamed that it would be possible for you to brood silently on your sorrow till you made it a cause of protest against God’s will! And worst and strangest of all is this frenzied idea of yours to fly to the Church of Rome for shelter from yourself and your secret misery, and there give yourself over to monasticism and a silent, idolatrous worship, — not of Mary, the Mother of Christ, — but of the mere picture of the woman you loved! And you would pray to THAT? — you would kneel before THAT? — you would pass long hours of fasting and vigil, gazing at that face, till, like the ‘stigmata,’ it is almost outlined in blood upon your heart? My dear Brent, is it possible your brain is so shaken and your soul so feeble that you must needs seek refuge in a kind of half-spiritual, half-sensuous passion, which is absolute rank blasphemy?”
At this the Bishop raised his head with an air of imperious authority.
“I cannot permit!—” he said, in unsteady accents— “You have no right to speak to me in such a tone — it is not your place—”
Then, suddenly, his voice broke, and throwing himself into his chair, he dropped his head forward on the desk and covered it with his hands in an attitude of the utmost abandonment and dejection. The moisture rose to Walden’s eyes, — he knew the great tragedy of his friend’s life — all comprised in one brief, romantic episode of the adoring love, and sudden loss of a beautiful woman drowned by accident in her own pleasure-boat on the very eve of her marriage with him, — and be knew that just as deep and ardent as the man’s passion had been, so deep and ardent was his sorrow — a sorrow that could never be consoled. And John sat silent, deeply moved in himself, and ever and anon glancing upwards at the exquisite face of the painted Virgin above him, — the face of the dead girl whom her lover had thus sanctified. Presently Brent raised his head, — his face was white and worn — his eyes were wet.
“Forgive me, John!” he said— “I have been working hard of late, and my nerves are unstrung. And — I cannot, I cannot forget her! And what is more awful and terrible to me than anything is that I cannot forgive God!” He uttered these words in an awed whisper. “I cannot! I bear the Almighty a grudge for wrenching her life away from mine! Of what use was it to be so cruel? Of what purpose to kill one so young? If God is omnipotent, God could have saved her. But He let her die! I tell you, Walden, that ever since I have been Bishop of this diocese, I have tried to relieve sorrow and pain whenever I have met with it — I have striven to do my duty, hoping against hope that perhaps God would teach me — would explain the why and wherefore of so much needless agony to His creatures — and that by discovering reasons for the afflictions of others, I should learn to become reconciled to my own. But no! — nothing has been made clear! I have seen innocent women die in the tortures of the damned — while their drunken husbands have lived to carouse over their coffins. Children, — mere babes — are afflicted with diseases for which often no cause can be assigned and no cure discovered — while over the whole sweltering mass of human helplessness and ignorance, Death stalks triumphant, — and God, though called upon for rescue with prayers and tears, withdraws Himself in clouds of impenetrable silence. It is all hopeless, useless, irremediable! That is why my thoughts turn to Rome — I say, let me believe in SOMETHING, if it be only a fairy tale! Let me hear grand music mounting to heaven, even if human words cannot reach so high! — let me think that guardian angels exist, even
if there is nothing in space save a blind Chance spawning life particles uselessly, — let my soul and senses feel the touch of something higher, vaster, purer and better than what the Church of England calls Christianity at this present day!”
“And that ‘something higher, vaster, purer and better’ — would you call it the Church of Rome?” asked Walden. “In suggestion, — in emotion and poetic inspiration, yes!” — said Brent— “In theory and in practice, no!”
There was a pause. Walden sat for a few moments absorbed in anxious thought. Then he looked up with a cheerful air.
“Harry,” he said— “Will you do me a favour? Promise that you will postpone the idea of seceding, or as you put it, ‘returning’ to Rome, for six months. Will you? At the end of that time we’ll discuss it again.”
The Bishop looked uneasy.
“I would rather do what has to be done at once,” — he said.
“Then I must talk to you straightly,” — continued John, bracing himself up, and squaring his shoulders resolutely— “I must forget that you are my Bishop, and speak just as man to man. All the facts of the case can be summed up in one word — Selfishness! Pure Selfishness, Harry! — and I never thought I should have had to convict you of it!”
Brent drew himself slowly up in his chair.
“Selfishness!” he echoed, dreamily— “I can take anything from you, John! — I did at college, — but — selfishness—”
“Selfishness!” repeated John, firmly— “You have had to suffer a grief — a great grief, — and because it was so sudden, so tragic and overwhelming, you draw a mourning veil of your own across the very face of God! You try to rule your diocese by the measure of your own rod of affliction. And, finding that nothing is clear to you, because of your own obstructive spirit, you would set up a fresh barrier between yourself and Eternal Wisdom, by deserting your post here, and separating yourself from all the world save the shadow of the woman you yourself loved! Harry, my dear old friend, unless I had heard this from your own lips, I should never have believed it of you!”
Brent sat heavily in his chair, sunk in a brooding melancholy.
“‘The heart knoweth its own bitterness!’” — he murmured wearily— “Your reproaches are just, — I know I deserve them, but they do not rouse me. They do not stir one pulse in my soul! What have I learned of Eternal Wisdom? — what have I seen? Nothing but cruelty upon cruelty dealt out, not to the wicked, but to the innocent! And because I protest against this, you call my spirit an obstructive one — well! — it may be so! But, Walden, you have never loved! — you have never felt all your life rush like a river to the sea of passion! — not low, debasing passion, but passion born of vitality, ardour, truth, hope, sympathy! — such emotion as most surely palpitates through the whole body of the natural creation, else there would be naught created. God Himself — if there be a God — must be conscious of Love! Do we not say: ‘God IS Love’? — and this too while we suffer beneath His heavy chastisements which are truely more like Hate! I repeat, Walden, you have never loved, — till now perhaps — and even now you are scarcely conscious of the hidden strength of your own feelings. But suppose — just for the sake of argument — suppose this ‘little girl’ as you call her, Maryllia Vancourt, were to die suddenly, would you not, as you express it, ‘draw a mourning veil of your own across the face of God’?”
Walden started as though suddenly wounded. If Maryllia were to die!’ He shuddered as the mere thought passed across his brain. ‘If Maryllia were to die!’ Why then — then the world would be a blank — there would be no more sunshine! — no roses! — no songs of birds! — nothing of fairness or pleasure left in life — not for him, whatever there might be for others. Was it possible that her existence meant so much to him? Yes, it meant so much! — it had come to mean so much! He felt his old friend’s melancholy eyes upon him, and looking up met their searching scrutiny with a serious and open frankness.
“Honestly, I think I should die myself, or lose my senses!” — he said— “And honestly, I hardly realised this, — which is just as much selfishness on my part as any of which I hastily accused you, — till you put it to me. I will not profess to have a stoicism beyond mortal limits, Harry, nor should I expect such from you. But I WILL say, that despite our human weakness, we must have courage! — we are not men without it. And whether faith stands fast or falters, whether God seems far off or very near, we must face and fight our destiny — not run away from it! You want to run away,” — and he smiled gravely— “or rather, just in the present mood of yours you think of doing so — but I believe it is only a mood — and that you will not, after putting your hand to the plough, turn back because of the aridness or ungratefulness of the soil, — that would not be like you. If one must needs perish, it is better to perish at one’s post of duty than desert over to the enemy.”
“I am not sure that Rome is an enemy;” — said the Bishop, musingly.
To this Walden gave no reply, and the conversation fell into other channels. But, during the whole time of his visit, John was forced to realise, with much acute surprise and distress, that constant brooding on grief, — and excessive spiritual emotion of an exalted and sensuous kind, with much perplexed pondering on human evils for which there seemed no remedy, had produced a painful impression of life’s despair and futility on Brent’s mind, — an impression which it would be difficult to eradicate, and which would only be softened and possibly diminished by tenderly dealing with it as though it were an illness, and gradually bringing about restoration and recovery through the gentlest means. Though sometimes it was to be feared that all persuasion would be useless, and that the scandalous spectacle of an English Bishop seceding to the Church of Rome would be exhibited with an almost theatrical effect in his friend’s case. For the ornate ritual which the Bishop maintained in his Cathedral services was almost worthy of a Mass at St. Peter’s. The old, simple chaste English style of ‘Morning Prayer’ was exchanged for ‘Matins,’ — choristers perpetually chanted and sang, — crosses were carried to and fro, — banners waved — processions were held — and the ‘Via Crucis’ was performed by a select number of the clergy and congregation every Friday.
“I never have this sort of thing in my church,” — said Walden, bluntly, on one occasion— “My parishioners would not understand it.”
“Why not teach them to understand it?” asked the Bishop, dreamily. They were standing together in the beautiful old Cathedral, now empty save for their presence, and Brent’s eyes were fixed with a kind of sombre wistfulness on a great gold crucifix up on the altar.
“Teach them to understand it?” echoed Walden, with a touch of sorrow and indignation— “You are my Bishop, but if you commanded me to teach them these ‘vain repetitions’ prohibited by the Divine Master, I should disobey you!”
The Bishop flushed red.
“You disapprove?”
“I disapprove of everything that tends to put England back again into the old religious fetters which she so bravely broke and cast aside,” — said John, warmly— “I disapprove of all that even hints at the possibility of any part of the British Empire becoming the slave of Rome!”
Brent gave a weary gesture.
“In religious matters it is wiser to be under subjection than free,” — he said, with a sigh— “In a state of freedom we may think as we please — and freedom of thought breeds doubt, — whereas in a state of subjection we think as we MUST, and so we are gradually forced into an attitude of belief. The spread of atheism among the English is entirely due to the wild, liberty of opinion allowed tham by their forms of faith.”
“I do not agree with you!” — declared Walden, firmly— “The spread of atheism is due, not to freedom of opinion, nor forms of faith, but simply to the laxity and weakness of the clergy.”
The Bishop looked at him with a smile.
“You always speak straight out, John!” he said— “You always did! And strange to say, I like you all the better for it. I co
uld, if I chose, both reprove and command you — but I will do neither. You must take your own way, as you always have done. But there is a flavour of Rome even in your little church of St. Rest, — your miracle shrine, — your unknown saint in the alabaster coffin. You and your parishioners kneel before that every Sunday.”
“True — but we do not kneel to IT, — nor do we pray through It,” — replied Walden— “It stays in the chancel because it was found in the chancel. But it does not make a miracle shrine’ as you say, — there is nothing miraculous about it.”
“If it contains the body of a Saint,” — said the Bishop, slowly— “it MUST be miraculous! If, in the far-gone centuries, the prayers and tears of sorrowful human beings have bedewed that cold stone, some efficacy, some tenderness, some vitality, born of these prayers and tears, must yet remain! Walden, we preach the supernatural — do we not believe in it?”
“The Divine supernatural — yes!” answered Walden,— “But—” The Bishop interrupted him by a gesture of his delicate hand.
“There are no ‘buts’ in the matter, John,” — he said, quietly— “What is supernatural is so by its own nature. The Divine is the Human, the Human is the Divine. In all and through all things the Spirit moves and makes its way. Our earth and ourselves are but particles of matter, worked by the spirit or essence of creative force. This spirit we can neither see nor touch, therefore we call it super- natural. But it permeates all things, — the stone as completely as the flower. It circulates through that alabaster sarcophagus in your church, as easily as through your own living veins. Hence, as I say, if the mortal remains of a saint are enshrined within that reliquary, the spirit or ‘soul’ enveloping it MAY work ‘miracles,’ for all we dare to know!” He paused, and looking kindly at Walden’s grave and somewhat troubled face, added— “Some day, when we are in very desperate straits, John, we will am what your saint can do for us!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 638