CHAPTER
V
I
Percy Franklin,
the new Cardinal-Protector of England, came slowly along the passage leading
from the Pope's apartments, with Hans Steinmann, Cardinal-Protector of Germany,
blowing at his side. They entered the lift, still in silence, and passed out,
two splendid vivid figures, one erect and virile, the other bent, fat, and very
German from spectacles to flat buckled feet.
At the door of
Percy's suite, the Englishman paused, made a little gesture of reverence, and
went in without a word.
A secretary,
young Mr. Brent, lately from England, stood up as his patron came in.
"Eminence,"
he said, "the English papers are come."
Percy put out a
hand, took a paper, passed on into his inner room, and sat down.
There it all was
- gigantic headlines, and four columns of print broken by startling title
phrases in capital letters, after the fashion set by America a hundred years
ago. No better way even yet had been found of misinforming the unintelligent.
He looked at the
top. It was the English edition of the Era. Then he read the headlines. They
ran as follows:
"THE NATIONAL WORSHIP. BEWILDERING SPLENDOUR. RELIGIOUS
ENTHUSIASM.
THE ABBEY AND GOD. CATHOLIC FANATIC. EX-PRIESTS AS
FUNCTIONARIES."
He ran his eyes down the page, reading the vivid
little phrases, and drawing from the whole a kind of impressionist view of the
scenes in the Abbey on the previous day, of which he had already been informed
by the telegraph, and the discussion of which had been the purpose of his
interview just now with the Holy Father.
There plainly was
no additional news; and he was laying the paper down when his eye caught a
name.
"It is
understood that Mr. Francis, the ceremoniarius (to whom the thanks of all are
due for his reverent zeal and skill), will proceed shortly to the northern
towns to lecture on the Ritual. It is interesting to reflect that this
gentleman only a few months ago was officiating at a Catholic altar. He was
assisted in his labours by twenty-four confreres with the same experience
behind them."
"Good
God!" said Percy aloud. Then he laid the paper down.
But his thoughts
had soon left this renegade behind, and once more he was running over in his
mind the significance of the whole affair, and the advice that he had thought
it his duty to give just now upstairs.
Briefly, there
was no use in disputing the fact that the inauguration of Pantheistic worship
had been as stupendous a success in England as in Germany. France, by the way,
was still too busy with the cult of human individuals, to develop larger ideas.
But England was
deeper; and, somehow, in spite of prophecy, the affair had taken place without
even a touch of bathos or grotesqueness. It had been said that England was too
solid and too humorous. Yet there had been extraordinary scenes the day before.
A great murmur of enthusiasm had rolled round the Abbey from end to end as the
gorgeous curtains ran back, and the huge masculine figure, majestic and
overwhelming, coloured with exquisite art, had stood out above the blaze of
candles against the tall screen that shrouded the shrine. Markenheim had done
his work well; and Mr. Brand's passionate discourse had well prepared the
popular mind for the revelation. He had quoted in his peroration passage after
passage from the Jewish prophets, telling of the City of Peace whose walls rose
now before their eyes.
"Arise,
shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee… For
behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be
remembered nor come into mind… Violence shall no more be heard in thy land,
wasting nor destruction within thy borders. O thou so long afflicted, tossed
with tempest and not comforted; behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours,
and thy foundations with sapphires… I will make thy windows of agates and thy
gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. Arise, shine, for
thy light is come."
As the chink of
the censer-chains had sounded in the stillness, with one consent the enormous
crowd had fallen on its knees, and so remained, as the smoke curled up from the
hands of the rebel figure who held the thurible. Then the organ had begun to
blow, and from the huge massed chorus in the transepts had rolled out the
anthem, broken by one passionate cry, from some mad Catholic. But it had been
silenced in an instant…
It was incredible
- utterly incredible, Percy had told himself. Yet the incredible had happened;
and England had found its worship once more - the necessary culmination of
unimpeded subjectivity. From the provinces had come the like news. In cathedral
after cathedral had been the same scenes. Markenheim's masterpiece, executed in
four days after the passing of the bill, had been reproduced by the ordinary
machinery, and four thousand replicas had been despatched to every important
centre. Telegraphic reports had streamed into the London papers that everywhere
the new movement had been received with acclamation, and that human instincts
had found adequate expression at last. If there had not been a God, mused Percy
reminiscently, it would have been necessary to invent one. He was astonished,
too, at the skill with which the new cult had been framed. It moved round no
disputable points; there was no possibility of divergent political tendencies
to mar its success, no over-insistence on citizenship, labour and the rest, for
those who were secretly individualistic and idle. Life was the one fount and
centre of it all, clad in the gorgeous robes of ancient worship. Of course the
thought had been Felsenburgh's, though a German name had been mentioned. It was
Positivism of a kind, Catholicism without Christianity, Humanity worship
without its inadequacy. It was not man that was worshipped but the Idea of man,
deprived of his supernatural principle. Sacrifice, too, was recognised - the
instinct of oblation without the demand made by transcendent Holiness upon the
blood-guiltiness of man… In fact, - in fact, said Percy, it was exactly as
clever as the devil, and as old as Cain.
The advice he had
given to the Holy Father just now was a counsel of despair, or of hope; he
really did not know which. He had urged that a stringent decree should be
issued, forbidding any acts of violence on the part of Catholics. The faithful
were to be encouraged to be patient, to hold utterly aloof from the worship, to
say nothing unless they were questioned, to suffer bonds gladly. He had
suggested, in company with the German Cardinal, that they two should return to
their respective countries at the close of the year, to encourage the waverers;
but the answer had been that their vocation was to remain in Rome, unless
something unforeseen happened.
As for
Felsenburgh, there was little news. It was said that he was in the East; but
further details were secret. Percy understood quite well why he had not been
present at the worship as had been expected. First, it would have been
difficult to decide between the two countries that had established it; and,
secondly, he was too brilliant a politician to risk the possible association of
failure with his own person; thirdly, there was something the matter with the
East.
This last point
was difficult to understand; it had not yet become explicit, but it seemed as
if the movement of last year had not yet run its course. It was undoubtedly
difficult to explain the new President's constant absences from his adopted
continent, unless there was something that demanded his presence elsewhere; but
the extreme discretion of the East and the stringent precautions taken by the
Empire made it impossible to know any details. It was apparently connected with
religion; there were rumours, portents, prophets, ecstatics there.
* * * * *
Upon Percy himself had fallen a subtle change which
he himself was recognising. He no longer soared to confidence or sank to
despair. He said his mass, read his enormous correspondence, meditated
strictly; and, though he felt nothing he knew everything. There was not a tinge
of doubt upon his faith, but neither was there emotion in it. He was as one who
laboured in the depths of the earth, crushed even in imagination, yet conscious
that somewhere birds sang, and the sun shone, and water ran. He understood his
own state well enough, and perceived that he had come to a reality of faith
that was new to him, for it was sheer faith - sheer apprehension of the
Spiritual - without either the dangers or the joys of imaginative vision. He
expressed it to himself by saying that there were three processes through which
God led the soul: the first was that of external faith, which assents to all
things presented by the accustomed authority, practises religion, and is
neither interested nor doubtful; the second follows the quickening of the
emotional and perceptive powers of the soul, and is set about with
consolations, desires, mystical visions and perils; it is in this plane that
resolutions are taken and vocations found and shipwrecks experienced; and the
third, mysterious and inexpressible, consists in the re-enactment in the purely
spiritual sphere of all that has preceded (as a play follows a rehearsal), in which
God is grasped but not experienced, grace is absorbed unconsciously and even
distastefully, and little by little the inner spirit is conformed in the depths
of its being, far within the spheres of emotion and intellectual perception, to
the image and mind of Christ.
So he lay back
now, thinking, a long, stately, scarlet figure, in his deep chair, staring out
over Holy Rome seen through the misty September haze. How long, he wondered,
would there be peace? To his eyes even already the air was black with doom.
He struck his
hand-bell at last.
"Bring me
Father Blackmore's Last report," he said, as his secretary appeared.
II
Percy's intuitive
faculties were keen by nature and had been vastly increased by cultivation. He
had never forgotten Father Blackmore's shrewd remarks of a year ago; and one of
his first acts as Cardinal-Protector had been to appoint that priest on the
list of English correspondents. Hitherto he had received some dozen letters,
and not one of them had been without its grain of gold. Especially he had
noticed that one warning ran through them all, namely, that sooner or later
there would be some overt act of provocation on the part of English Catholics;
and it was the memory of this that had inspired his vehement entreaties to the
Pope this morning. As in the Roman and African persecutions of the first three
centuries, so now, the greatest danger to the Catholic community lay not in the
unjust measures of the Government but in the indiscreet zeal of the faithful
themselves. The world desired nothing better than a handle to its blade. The
scabbard was already cast away.
When the young
man had brought the four closely written sheets, dated from Westminster, the
previous evening, Percy turned at once to the last paragraph before the usual
Recommendations.
"Mr. Brand's
late secretary, Mr. Phillips, whom your Eminence commended to me, has been to
see me two or three times. He is in a curious state. He has no faith; yet,
intellectually, he sees no hope anywhere but in the Catholic Church. He has
even begged for admission to the Order of Christ Crucified, which of course is
impossible. But there is no doubt he is sincere; otherwise he would have
professed Catholicism. I have introduced him to many Catholics in the hope that
they may help him. I should much wish your Eminence to see him."
Before leaving
England, Percy had followed up the acquaintance he had made so strangely over
Mrs. Brand's reconciliation to God, and, scarcely knowing why, had commended
him to the priest. He had not been particularly impressed by Mr. Phillips; he
had thought him a timid, undecided creature, yet he had been struck by the
extremely unselfish action by which the man had forfeited his position. There
must surely be a good deal behind.
And now the
impulse had come to send for him. Perhaps the spiritual atmosphere of Rome
would precipitate faith. In any case, the conversation of Mr. Brand's late
secretary might be instructive.
He struck the
bell again.
"Mr.
Brent," he said, "in your next letter to Father Blackmore, tell him
that I wish to see the man whom he proposed to send - Mr. Phillips."
"Yes,
Eminence."
"There is no
hurry. He can send him at his leisure."
"Yes,
Eminence."
"But he must
not come till January. That will be time enough, unless there is urgent reason."
"Yes,
Eminence."
* * * * *
The development of the Order of Christ Crucified
had gone forward with almost miraculous success. The appeal issued by the Holy
Father throughout Christendom had been as fire among stubble. It seemed as if
the Christian world had reached exactly that point of tension at which a new
organisation of this nature was needed, and the response had startled even the
most sanguine. Practically the whole of Rome with its suburbs - three millions
in all - had run to the enrolling stations in St. Peter's as starving men run
to food, and desperate to the storming of a breach. For day after day the Pope
himself had sat enthroned below the altar of the Chair, a glorious, radiant
figure, growing ever white and weary towards evening, imparting his Blessing
with a silent sign to each individual of the vast crowd that swarmed up between
the barriers, fresh from fast and Communion, to kneel before his new Superior
and kiss the Pontifical ring. The requirements had been as stringent as circumstances
allowed. Each postulant was obliged to go to confession to a specially
authorised priest, who examined sharply into motives and sincerity, and only
one-third of the applicants had been accepted. This, the authorities pointed
out to the scornful, was not an excessive proportion; for it was to be
remembered that most of those who had presented themselves had already
undergone a sifting fierce as fire. Of the three millions in Rome, two millions
at least were exiles for their faith, preferring to live obscure and despised
in the shadow of God rather than in the desolate glare of their own infidel
countries.
On the fifth
evening of the enrolment of novices an astonishing incident had taken place.
The old King of Spain (Queen Victoria's second son), already on the edge of the
grave, had just risen and tottered before his Ruler; it seemed for an instant
as if he would fall, when the Pope himself, by a sudden movement, had risen,
caught him in his arms and kissed him; and then, still standing, had spread his
arms abroad and delivered a fervorino such as never had been heard before in
the history of the basilica.
"Benedictus
Dominus!" he cried, with upraised face and shining eyes. "Blessed be
the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people. I, John,
Vicar of Christ, Servant of Servants, and sinner among sinners, bid you be of
good courage in the Name of God. By Him Who hung on the Cross, I promise
eternal life to all who persevere in His Order. He Himself has said it. To him
that overcometh I will give a crown of life.
"Little
children; fear not him that killeth the body. There is no more that he can do.
God and His Mother are amongst us…"
So his voice had
poured on, telling the enormous awe-stricken crowd of the blood that already
had been shed on the place where they stood, of the body of the Apostle that
lay scarcely fifty yards away, urging, encouraging, inspiring. They had vowed
themselves to death, if that were God's Will; and if not, the intention would
be taken for the deed. They were under obedience now; their wills were no
longer theirs but God's; under chastity - for their bodies were bought with a
price; under poverty, and theirs was the kingdom of heaven.
He had ended by a
great silent Benediction of the City and the World: and there were not wanting
a half-dozen of the faithful who had seen, they thought, a white shape in the
form of a bird that hung in the air while he spoke white as a mist, translucent
as water…
The consequent
scenes in the city and suburbs had been unparalleled, for thousands of families
had with one consent dissolved human ties. Husbands had found their way to the
huge houses on the Quirinal set apart for them; wives to the Aventine; while
the children, as confident as their parents, had swarmed over to the Sisters of
St. Vincent who had received at the Pope's orders the gift of three streets to
shelter them in. Everywhere the smoke of burning went up in the squares where
household property, rendered useless by the vows of poverty, were consumed by
their late owners; and daily long trains moved out from the station outside the
walls carrying jubilant loads of those who were despatched by the Pope's
delegates to be the salt of men, consumed in their function, and leaven plunged
in the vast measures of the infidel world. And that infidel world welcomed
their coming with bitter laughter.
From the rest of
Christendom had poured in news of success. The same precautions had been
observed as in Rome, for the directions issued were precise and searching; and
day after day came in the long rolls of the new Religious drawn up by the
diocesan superiors.
Within the last
few days, too, other lists had arrived, more glorious than all. Not only did
reports stream in that already the Order was beginning its work and that already
broken communications were being re-established, that devoted missioners were
in process of organising themselves, and that hope was once more rising in the
most desperate hearts; but better than all this was the tidings of victory in
another sphere. In Paris forty of the new-born Order had been burned alive in
one day in the Latin quarter, before the Government intervened. From Spain,
Holland, Russia had come in other names. In Dusseldorf eighteen men and boys,
surprised at their singing of Prime in the church of Saint Laurence, had been
cast down one by one into the city-sewer, each chanting as he vanished:
"Christi
Fili Dei vivi miserere nobis," and from the darkness had come up the same
broken song till it was silenced with stones. Meanwhile, the German prisons
were thronged with the first batches of recusants. The world shrugged its
shoulders, and declared that they had brought it on themselves, while yet it
deprecated mob-violence, and requested the attention of the authorities and the
decisive repression of this new conspiracy of superstition. And within St.
Peter's Church the workmen were busy at the long rows of new altars, affixing
to the stone diptychs the brass-forged names of those who had already fulfilled
their vows and gained their crowns.
It was the first
word of God's reply to the world's challenge.
* * * * *
As Christmas drew on it was announced that the
Sovereign pontiff would sing mass on the last day of the year, at the papal
altar of Saint Peter's, on behalf of the Order; and preparations began to be
made.
It was to be a
kind of public inauguration of the new enterprise; and, to the astonishment of
all, a special summons was issued to all members of the Sacred College
throughout the world to be present, unless hindered by sickness. It seemed as
if the Pope were determined that the world should understand that war was
declared; for, although the command would not involve the absence of any
Cardinal from his province for more than five days, yet many inconveniences
must surely result. However, it had been said, and it was to be done.
* * * * *
It was a strange Christmas.
Percy was ordered
to attend the Pope at his second mass, and himself said his three at midnight
in his own private oratory. For the first time in his life he saw that of which
he had heard so often, the wonderful old-world Pontifical procession, lit by
torches, going through the streets from the Lateran to St. Anastasia, where the
Pope for the last few years had restored the ancient custom discontinued for nearly
a century-and-a-half. The little basilica was reserved, of course, in every
corner for the peculiarly privileged; but the streets outside along the whole
route from the Cathedral to the church - and, indeed, the other two sides of
the triangle as well, were one dense mass of silent heads and flaming torches.
The Holy Father was attended at the altar by the usual sovereigns; and Percy
from his place watched the heavenly drama of Christ's Passion enacted through
the veil of His nativity at the hands of His old Angelic Vicar. It was hard to
perceive Calvary here; it was surely the air of Bethlehem, the celestial light,
not the supernatural darkness, that beamed round the simple altar. It was the
Child called Wonderful that lay there beneath the old hands, rather than the
stricken Man of Sorrows.
Adeste fideles
sang the choir from the tribune. - Come, let us adore, rather than weep; let us
exult, be content, be ourselves like little children. As He for us became a
child, let us become childlike for Him. Let us put on the garments of infancy
and the shoes of peace. For the Lord hath reigned; He is clothed with beauty:
the Lord is clothed with strength and hath girded Himself. He hath established
the world which shall not be moved: His throne is prepared from of old. He is
from everlasting. Rejoice greatly then, O daughter of Zion, shout for joy, O
daughter of Jerusalem; behold thy King cometh, to thee, the Holy One, the
Saviour of the world. It will be time, then, to suffer by and bye, when the
Prince of this world cometh upon the Prince of Heaven.
So Percy mused,
standing apart in his gorgeousness, striving to make himself little and simple.
Surely nothing was too hard for God! Might not this mystic Birth once more do
what it had done before - bring into subjection through the might of its
weakness every proud thing that exalts itself above all that is called God? It
had drawn wise Kings once across the desert, as well as shepherds from their
flocks. It had kings about it now, kneeling with the poor and foolish, kings
who had laid down their crowns, who brought the gold of loyal hearts, the myrrh
of desired martyrdom, and the incense of a pure faith. Could not republics,
too, lay aside their splendour, mobs be tamed, selfishness deny itself, and
wisdom confess its ignorance?…
Then he
remembered Felsenburgh; and his heart sickened within him.
III
Six days later,
Percy rose as usual, said his mass, breakfasted, and sat down to say office
until his servant should summon him to vest for the Pontifical mass.
He had learned to
expect bad news now so constantly - of apostasies, deaths, losses - that the
lull of the previous week had come to him with extraordinary refreshment. It
appeared to him as if his musings in St. Anastasia had been truer than he
thought, and that the sweetness of the old feast had not yet wholly lost its
power even over a world that denied its substance. For nothing at all had
happened of importance. A few more martyrdoms had been chronicled, but they had
been isolated cases; and of Felsenburgh there had been no tidings at all.
Europe confessed its ignorance of his business.
On the other
hand, to-morrow, Percy knew very well, would be a day of extraordinary moment
in England and Germany at any rate; for in England it was appointed as the
first occasion of compulsory worship throughout the country, while it was the
second in Germany. Men and women would have to declare themselves now.
He had seen on
the previous evening a photograph of the image that was to be worshipped next
day in the Abbey; and, in a fit of loathing, had torn it to shreds. It
represented a nude woman, huge and majestic, entrancingly lovely, with head and
shoulders thrown back, as one who sees a strange and heavenly vision, arms
downstretched and hands a little raised, with wide fingers, as in astonishment
- the whole attitude, with feet and knees pressed together, suggestive of
expectation, hope and wonder; in devilish mockery her long hair was crowned
with twelve stars. This, then, was the spouse of the other, the embodiment of
man's ideal maternity, still waiting for her child…
When the white
scraps lay like poisonous snow at his feet, he had sprung across the room to
his prie-dieu, and fallen there in an agony of reparation.
"Oh! Mother,
Mother!" he cried to the stately Queen of Heaven who, with Her true Son
long ago in Her arms, looked down on him from Her bracket - no more than that.
* * * * *
But he was still again this morning, and celebrated
Saint Silvester, Pope and Martyr, the last saint in the procession of the Christian
year, with tolerable equanimity. The sights of last night, the throng of
officials, the stately, scarlet, unfamiliar figures of the Cardinals who had
come in from north, south, east and west - these helped to reassure him again -
unreasonably, as he knew, yet effectually. The very air was electric with
expectation. All night the piazza had been crowded by a huge, silent mob
waiting till the opening of the doors at seven o'clock. Now the church itself
was full, and the piazza full again. Far down the street to the river, so far
as he could see as he had leaned from his window just now, lay that solemn
motionless pavement of heads. The roof of the colonnade showed a fringe of
them, the house-tops were black - and this in the bitter cold of a clear, frosty
morning, for it was announced that after mass and the proceeding of the members
of the Order past the Pontifical Throne, the Pope would give Apostolic
Benediction to the City and the World.
Percy finished
Terce, closed his book and lay back; his servant would be here in a minute now.
His mind began to
run over the function, and he reflected that the entire Sacred College (with
the exception of the Cardinal-Protector of Jerusalem, detained by sickness),
numbering sixty-four members, would take part. This would mean an unique sight
by and bye. Eight years before, he remembered, after the freedom of Rome, there
had been a similar assembly; but the Cardinals at that time amounted to no more
than fifty-three all told, and four had been absent.
Then he heard voices
in his ante-room, a quick step, and a loud English expostulation. That was
curious, and he sat up.
Then he heard a
sentence.
"His
Eminence must go to vest; it is useless."
There was a sharp
answer, a faint scuffle, and a snatch at the handle. This was indecent; so
Percy stood up, made three strides of it to the door, and tore it open.
A man stood
there, whom at first he did not recognise, pale and disordered.
"Why -"
began Percy, and recoiled.
"Mr.
Phillips!" he said.
The other threw
out his hands.
"It is I,
sir - your Eminence - this moment arrived. It is life and death. Your servant
tells me -"
"Who sent
you?"
"Father
Blackmore."
"Good news
or bad?"
The man rolled
his eyes towards the servant, who still stood erect and offended a yard away;
and Percy understood.
He put his hand
on the other's arm, drawing him through the doorway.
"Tap upon
this door in two minutes, James," he said.
They passed
across the polished floor together; Percy went to his usual place in the
window, leaned against the shutter, and spoke.
"Tell me in
one sentence, sir," he said to the breathless man.
"There is a
plot among the Catholics. They intend destroying the Abbey to-morrow with
explosives. I knew that the Pope -"
Percy cut him
short with a gesture.
