CHAPTER V
I
Percy Franklin, the new Cardinal-Protector of England, came slowly alongthe passage leading from the Pope's apartments, with Hans Steinmann,Cardinal-Protector of Germany, blowing at his side. They entered thelift, still in silence, and passed out, two splendid vivid figures, oneerect and virile, the other bent, fat, and very German from spectaclesto flat buckled feet.
At the door of Percy's suite, the Englishman paused, made a littlegesture of reverence, and went in without a word.
A secretary, young Mr. Brent, lately from England, stood up as hispatron came in.
"Eminence," he said, "the English papers are come."
Percy put out a hand, took a paper, passed on into his inner room, andsat down.
There it all was--gigantic headlines, and four columns of print brokenby startling title phrases in capital letters, after the fashion set byAmerica a hundred years ago. No better way even yet had been found ofmisinforming the unintelligent.
He looked at the top. It was the English edition of the _Era_. Then heread the headlines. They ran as follows:
"THE NATIONAL WORSHIP. BEWILDERING SPLENDOUR. RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. THEABBEY AND GOD. CATHOLIC FANATIC. EX-PRIESTS AS FUNCTIONARIES."
He ran his eyes down the page, reading the vivid little phrases, anddrawing from the whole a kind of impressionist view of the scenes in theAbbey on the previous day, of which he had already been informed by thetelegraph, and the discussion of which had been the purpose of hisinterview just now with the Holy Father.
There plainly was no additional news; and he was laying the paper downwhen his eye caught a name.
"It is understood that Mr. Francis, the _ceremoniarius_ (to whom thethanks of all are due for his reverent zeal and skill), will proceedshortly to the northern towns to lecture on the Ritual. It isinteresting to reflect that this gentleman only a few months ago wasofficiating at a Catholic altar. He was assisted in his labours bytwenty-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 hewas running over in his mind the significance of the whole affair, andthe 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 ofPantheistic worship had been as stupendous a success in England as inGermany. France, by the way, was still too busy with the cult of humanindividuals, to develop larger ideas.
But England was deeper; and, somehow, in spite of prophecy, the affairhad taken place without even a touch of bathos or grotesqueness. It hadbeen said that England was too solid and too humorous. Yet there hadbeen extraordinary scenes the day before. A great murmur of enthusiasmhad rolled round the Abbey from end to end as the gorgeous curtains ranback, and the huge masculine figure, majestic and overwhelming, colouredwith exquisite art, had stood out above the blaze of candles against thetall screen that shrouded the shrine. Markenheim had done his work well;and Mr. Brand's passionate discourse had well prepared the popular mindfor the revelation. He had quoted in his peroration passage afterpassage from the Jewish prophets, telling of the City of Peace whosewalls rose now before their eyes.
"_Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord isrisen upon thee.... For behold I create new heavens and a new earth; andthe former shall not be remembered nor come into mind.... Violence shallno more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thyborders. O thou so long afflicted, tossed with tempest and notcomforted; behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and thyfoundations with sapphires.... I will make thy windows of agates and thygates 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 oneconsent the enormous crowd had fallen on its knees, and so remained, asthe smoke curled up from the hands of the rebel figure who held thethurible. Then the organ had begun to blow, and from the huge massedchorus in the transepts had rolled out the anthem, broken by onepassionate cry, from some mad Catholic. But it had been silenced in aninstant....
It was incredible--utterly incredible, Percy had told himself. Yet theincredible had happened; and England had found its worship oncemore--the necessary culmination of unimpeded subjectivity. From theprovinces had come the like news. In cathedral after cathedral had beenthe same scenes. Markenheim's masterpiece, executed in four days afterthe passing of the bill, had been reproduced by the ordinary machinery,and four thousand replicas had been despatched to every importantcentre. Telegraphic reports had streamed into the London papers thateverywhere the new movement had been received with acclamation, and thathuman instincts had found adequate expression at last. If there had notbeen a God, mused Percy reminiscently, it would have been necessary toinvent one. He was astonished, too, at the skill with which the new culthad been framed. It moved round no disputable points; there was nopossibility of divergent political tendencies to mar its success, noover-insistence on citizenship, labour and the rest, for those who weresecretly individualistic and idle. Life was the one fount and centre ofit all, clad in the gorgeous robes of ancient worship. Of course thethought had been Felsenburgh's, though a German name had been mentioned.It was Positivism of a kind, Catholicism without Christianity, Humanityworship without its inadequacy. It was not man that was worshipped butthe Idea of man, deprived of his supernatural principle. Sacrifice,too, was recognised--the instinct of oblation without the demand made bytranscendent Holiness upon the blood-guiltiness of man.... In fact,--infact, said Percy, it was exactly as clever as the devil, and as old asCain.
The advice he had given to the Holy Father just now was a counsel ofdespair, or of hope; he really did not know which. He had urged that astringent decree should be issued, forbidding any acts of violence onthe part of Catholics. The faithful were to be encouraged to be patient,to hold utterly aloof from the worship, to say nothing unless they werequestioned, to suffer bonds gladly. He had suggested, in company withthe German Cardinal, that they two should return to their respectivecountries at the close of the year, to encourage the waverers; but theanswer had been that their vocation was to remain in Rome, unlesssomething unforeseen happened.
As for Felsenburgh, there was little news. It was said that he was inthe East; but further details were secret. Percy understood quite wellwhy he had not been present at the worship as had been expected. First,it would have been difficult to decide between the two countries thathad established it; and, secondly, he was too brilliant a politician torisk 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 becomeexplicit, but it seemed as if the movement of last year had not yet runits course. It was undoubtedly difficult to explain the new President'sconstant absences from his adopted continent, unless there was somethingthat demanded his presence elsewhere; but the extreme discretion of theEast and the stringent precautions taken by the Empire made itimpossible to know any details. It was apparently connected withreligion; there were rumours, portents, prophets, ecstatics there.
* * * * *
Upon Percy himself had fallen a subtle change which he himself wasrecognising. He no longer soared to confidence or sank to despair. Hesaid his mass, read his enormous correspondence, meditated strictly;and, though he felt nothing he knew everything. There was not a tinge ofdoubt upon his faith, but neither was there emotion in it. He was as onewho laboured in the depths of the earth, crushed even in imagination,yet conscious that somewhere birds sang, and the sun shone, and waterran. He understood his own state well enough, and perceived that he hadcome to a reality of faith that was new to him, for it was sheerfaith--sheer apprehension of the Spiritual--without either the dangersor the joys of imaginative vision. He expressed it to himself by sayingthat there were three processes through which God led the soul: thefirst was that of exter
nal faith, which assents to all things presentedby the accustomed authority, practises religion, and is neitherinterested nor doubtful; the second follows the quickening of theemotional and perceptive powers of the soul, and is set about withconsolations, desires, mystical visions and perils; it is in this planethat resolutions are taken and vocations found and shipwrecksexperienced; and the third, mysterious and inexpressible, consists inthe re-enactment in the purely spiritual sphere of all that has preceded(as a play follows a rehearsal), in which God is grasped but notexperienced, grace is absorbed unconsciously and even distastefully, andlittle by little the inner spirit is conformed in the depths of itsbeing, far within the spheres of emotion and intellectual perception, tothe image and mind of Christ.
So he lay back now, thinking, a long, stately, scarlet figure, in hisdeep chair, staring out over Holy Rome seen through the misty Septemberhaze. How long, he wondered, would there be peace? To his eyes evenalready the air was black with doom.
He struck his hand-bell at last.
"Bring me Father Blackmore's Last report," he said, as his secretaryappeared.
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