“All God s angels will say, ‘Well done!’ Whenever thy mortal race is run. White and forgiven, Thou’lt enter heaven, And pass, unchallenged, the Golden Gate, Where welcoming spirits watch and wait To hail thy coming with sweet accord To the Holy City of God the Lord!”
A convulsive trembling seized the Cardinal’s mortal frame — but the soul within him was strong and invincible. With hands outstretched he turned to Manuel, — and lo! — the boy was moving away from him — moving slowly but resolutely up towards the Cross! Breathless, speechless, the aged Felix watched him with straining uplifted eyes, — and as he watched, saw his garments grow white and glistening, and a great light began to shine about him — till reaching the foot of the Cross He turned, — and then — He was no more a child! All the glory of the “Vision Beautiful” shone full upon the dying body and escaping soul of Christ’s faithful servant! — the Divine Head crowned with thorns! — the Divine arms stretched out against the beams of the great Cross! — the Divine look of love and welcome! — and with a loud cry of ecstasy Felix Bonpre extended his trembling hands.
“Master! Master!” he murmured. “Did not my heart burn within me when Thou didst talk with me by the way!”
Yearning towards that Mystic Glory he clasped his hands, and in the splendour of the dream, and through the pulsations of the solemn music he heard a Voice — the Voice of his child companion Manuel, but a Voice grown full of Divine authority while yet possessing all human tenderness.
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!”
And at that Voice — and in the inexplicable beauty of that Look of Love, Felix Bonpre, “Prince of the Roman Church,” whose faithfulness Rome called in question, gave up his mortal life, — and with a trembling sigh of death and delight intermingled, fell face forward at the foot of the Cross, where the radiance of his Master’s Presence shone like the sun in heaven! And as he passed from death to life, the Vision faded — the light grew dim, — the arches of the heavenly temple not made with hands melted away and rolled up like clouds of the night dispersing into space — the last dazzling Angel face, the last branch of Heavenly flowers — vanished — and the music of the spheres died into silence. And when the morning sun shone through the narrow windows of that Place of Prayer dedicated only to the poor, its wintry beams encircled the peaceful form of the Dead Cardinal with a pale halo of gold, — and when they came and found him there and turned his face to the light — it was as the face of a glorified saint, whom God had greatly loved!
. . . . . . . . . .
And of the “Cardinal’s foundling” — what of Him? Many wondered and sought to trace Him, but no one ever heard where He had gone. Now, — when the Cardinal himself has been laid to rest in the shadow of his own Cathedral spires — and the roses which he loved so well are growing into a crimson and white canopy over his quiet grave, there are those who wonder who that lonely child wanderer was, — and whether He ever will return? Some say He has never disappeared, — but that in some form or manifestation of wisdom, He is ever with as, watching to see whether His work is well or ill done, — whether His flocks are fed, or led astray to be devoured by wolves — whether His straight and simple commands are fulfilled or disobeyed. And the days grow dark and threatening — and life is more and more beset with difficulty and disaster — and the world is moving more and more swiftly on to its predestined end — and the Churches are as stagnant pools, from whence Death is far more often born than Life.
And may we not ask ourselves often in these days the question, —
“When the Son of Man cometh, think ye He shall find faith on earth?”
Appendix.
Relics of Paganism in Christianity as Approved by English Bishops.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, on being questioned as to certain Roman observances carried on at St. Bartholomew’s, Dover, admitted “There may be irregularities,” but added “they do not appear to be of any importance.” One of these “unimportant irregularities” was the introduction of the Confessional.
The Archbishop of York considers the use of incense, which is a relic of paganism, “a most beautiful and significant symbol of Divine Service” — and though the services at Christ Church, Doncaster, are known to be but a very slightly modified form of the Romish ritual, His Grace has not seen fit to interfere. The parish church of Hensall-cum-Heck, in the Archbishop’s diocese, is entirely Roman Catholic, and the Vicar, Mr. E. H. Bryan, might from his practices, be a priest of Rome endeavouring by secret methods to “convert” his parish to the Holy See.
The Bishop of London sanctions the use of incense and permits children’s Masses and hymns to the Virgin.
The Bishop of Chester advises the Rev. W. C. Reid, Vicar of Coppenhall, to use incense preceding the service of Holy Communion.
The Bishop of Chichester ignores the fact that at St. Bartholomew’s, Brighton, seven hundred confessions were heard before Christmas, 1898, and that ten thousand were heard in that parish last year.
The Bishop of Lincoln preached at “High Mass” at St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington, on January 7, 1899. The only difference in the service on this occasion from that of the Roman Church was the use of the English language instead of Latin.
The Bishop of Oxford, on being appealed to by parishioners on January 11, 1900, attending at the Church of St. John, Cowley, Oxford, and asked to suppress the Romish practices carried on there, which were totally out of keeping with the simplicity of true Christian worship, gave them no redress.
The Bishop of St. Aibans, charged in the House of Lords with favouring practices not lawful in the Church of England, declined to answer. On this point the Daily Telegraph wrote— “Does the Bishop of St. Albans understand that he is responsible to the State as well as to his own conscience? Has he any inkling of the notorious fact that the proper administration of a diocese is not a private or a personal matter, but an onerous public task, for which he is rightly held accountable?”
Temporal Power
A STUDY IN SUPREMACY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. — THE KING’S PLEASAUNCE
CHAPTER II. — MAJESTY CONSIDERS AND RESOLVES
CHAPTER III. — A NATION OR A CHURCH?
CHAPTER IV. — SEALED ORDERS
CHAPTER V.— “IF I LOVED YOU!”
CHAPTER VI. — SERGIUS THORD
CHAPTER VII. — THE IDEALISTS
CHAPTER VIII. — THE KING’S DOUBLE
CHAPTER IX. — THE PREMIER’S SIGNET
CHAPTER X. — THE ISLANDS
CHAPTER XI.— “GLORIA — IN EXCELSIS!”
CHAPTER XII. — A SEA PRINCESS
CHAPTER XIII. — SECRET SERVICE
CHAPTER XIV. — THE KING’S VETO
CHAPTER XV.— “MORGANATIC” OR — ?
CHAPTER XVI. — THE PROFESSOR ADVISES
CHAPTER XVII. — AN “HONOURABLE” STATESMAN
CHAPTER XVIII. — ROYAL LOVERS
CHAPTER XIX. — OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE STATE
CHAPTER XX. — THE SCORN OF KINGS
CHAPTER XXI. — AN INVITATION TO COURT
CHAPTER XXII. — A FAIR DÉBUTANTE
CHAPTER XXIII. — THE KING’S DEFENDER
CHAPTER XXIV. — A WOMAN’S REASON
CHAPTER XXV.— “I SAY— ‘ROME’!”
CHAPTER XXVI.— “ONE WAY, — ONE WOMAN!”
CHAPTER XXVII. — THE SONG OF FREEDOM
CHAPTER XXVIII.— “FATE GIVES — THE KING!”
CHAPTER XXIX. — THE COMRADE OF HIS FOES
CHAPTER XXX. — KING AND SOCIALIST
CHAPTER XXXI. — A VOTE FOR LOVE
CHAPTER XXXII. — BETWEEN TWO PASSIONS
CHAPTER XXXIII. — SAILING TO THE INFINITE
CHAPTER XXXIV. — ABDICATION
CHAPTER I. — THE KING’S PLEASAUNCE
“In the beginning,” so we are told, “G
od made the heavens and the earth.”
The statement is simple and terse; it is evidently intended to be wholly comprehensive. Its decisive, almost abrupt tone would seem to forbid either question or argument. The old-world narrator of the sublime event thus briefly chronicled was a poet of no mean quality, though moved by the natural conceit of man to give undue importance to the earth as his own particular habitation. The perfect confidence with which he explains ‘God’ as making ‘two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night,’ is touching to the verge of pathos; and the additional remark which he throws in, as it were casually,— ‘He made the stars also,’ cannot but move us to admiration. How childlike the simplicity of the soul which could so venture to deal with the inexplicable and tremendous problem of the Universe! How self-centred and sure the faith which could so arrange the work of Infinite and Eternal forces to suit its own limited intelligence! It is easy and natural to believe that ‘God,’ or an everlasting Power of Goodness and Beauty called by that name, ‘created the heavens and the earth,’ but one is often tempted to think that an altogether different and rival element must have been concerned in the making of Man. For the heavens and the earth are harmonious; man is a discord. And not only is he a discord in himself, but he takes pleasure in producing and multiplying discords. Often, with the least possible amount of education, and on the slightest provocation, he mentally sets Himself, and his trivial personal opinion on religion, morals, and government, in direct opposition to the immutable laws of the Universe, and the attitude he assumes towards the mysterious Cause and Original Source of Life is nearly always one of three things; contradiction, negation, or defiance. From the first to the last he torments himself with inventions to outwit or subdue Nature, and in the end dies, utterly defeated. His civilizations, his dynasties, his laws, his manners, his customs, are all doomed to destruction and oblivion as completely as an ant-hill which exists one night and is trodden down the next. Forever and forever he works and plans in vain; forever and forever Nature, the visible and active Spirit of God, rises up and crushes her puny rebel.
There must be good reason for this ceaseless waste of human life, — this constant and steady obliteration of man’s attempts, since there can be no Effect without Cause. It is, as if like children at a school, we were set a certain sum to do, and because we blunder foolishly over it and add it up to a wrong total, it is again and again wiped off the blackboard, and again and again rewritten for our more careful consideration. Possibly the secret of our failure to conquer Nature lies in ourselves, and our own obstinate tendency to work in only one groove of what we term ‘advancement,’ — namely our material self-interest. Possibly we might be victors if we would, even to the very vanquishment of Death!
So many of us think, — and so thought one man of sovereign influence in this world’s affairs as, seated on the terrace of a Royal palace fronting seaward, he pondered his own life’s problem for perhaps the thousandth time.
“What is the use of thinking?” asked a wit at the court of Louis XVI. “It only intensifies the bad opinion you have of others, — or of yourself!”
He found this saying true. Thinking is a pernicious habit in which very great personages are not supposed to indulge; and in his younger days he had avoided it. He had allowed the time to take him as it found him, and had gone with it unresistingly wherever it had led. It was the best way; the wisest way; the way Solomon found most congenial, despite its end in ‘vanity and vexation of spirit.’ But with the passing of the years a veil had been dropped over that path of roses, hiding it altogether from his sight; and another veil rose inch by inch before him, disclosing a new and less joyous prospect on which he was not too-well-pleased to look.
The sea, stretching out in a broad shining expanse opposite to him, sparkled dancingly in the warm sunshine, and the snowy sails of many yachts and pleasure-boats dipped now and again into the glittering waves like white birds skimming over the tiny flashing foam-crests. Dazzling and well-nigh blinding to his eyes were the burning glow and exquisite radiance of colour which seemed melted like gold and sapphire into that bright half-circle of water and sky, — beautiful, and full of a dream-like evanescent quality, such as marks all the loveliest scenes and impressions of our life on earth. There was a subtle scent of violets in the air, — and a gardener, cutting sheafs of narcissi from the edges of the velvety green banks which rolled away in smooth undulations upward from the terrace to the wider extent of the palace pleasaunce beyond, scattered such perfume with his snipping shears as might have lured another Proserpine from Hell. Cluster after cluster of white blooms, carefully selected for the adornment of the Royal apartments, he laid beside him on the grass, not presuming to look in the direction where that other Workman in the ways of life sat silent and absorbed in thought. That other, in his own long-practised manner, feigned not to be aware of his dependant’s proximity, — and in this fashion they twain — human beings made of the same clay and relegated, to the same dust — gave sport to the Fates by playing at Sham with Heaven and themselves. Custom, law, and all the paraphernalia of civilization, had set the division and marked the boundary between them, — had forbidden the lesser in world’s rank to speak to the greater, unless the greater began conversation, — had equally forbidden the greater to speak to the lesser lest such condescension should inflate the lesser’s vanity so much as to make him obnoxious to his fellows. Thus, — of two men, who, if left to nature would have been merely — men, and sincere enough at that, — man himself had made two pretenders, — the one as gardener, the other as — King! The white narcissi lying on the grass, and preparing to die sweetly, like sacrificed maiden-victims of the flower-world, could turn true faces to the God who made them, — but the men at that particular moment of time had no real features ready for God’s inspection, — only masks.
“C’est mon metier d’être Roi!” So said one of the many dead and gone martyrs on the rack of sovereignty. Alas, poor soul, thou would’st have been happier in any other ‘métier’ I warrant! For kingship is a profession which cannot be abandoned for a change of humour, or cast aside in light indifference and independence because a man is bored by it and would have something new. It is a routine and drudgery to which some few are born, for which they are prepared, to which they must devote their span of life, and in which they must die. “How shall we pass the day?” asked a weary Roman emperor, “I am even tired of killing my enemies!”
‘Even’ that! And the strangest part of it is, that there are people who would give all their freedom and peace of mind to occupy for a few years an uneasy throne, and who actually live under the delusion that a monarch is happy!
The gardener soon finished his task of cutting the narcissi, and though he might not, without audacity, look at his Sovereign-master, his Sovereign-master looked at him, furtively, from under half-closed eyelids, watching him as he bound the blossoms together carefully, with the view of giving as little trouble as possible to those whose duty it would be to arrange them for the Royal pleasure. His work done, he walked quickly, yet with a certain humble stealthiness, — thus admitting his consciousness of that greater presence than his own, — down a broad garden walk beyond the terrace towards a private entrance to the palace, and there disappeared.
The King was left alone, — or apparently so, for to speak truly, he was never alone. An equerry, a page-in-waiting, — or what was still more commonplace as well as ominous, a detective, — lurked about him, ever near, ever ready to spring on any unknown intruder, or to answer his slightest call.
But to the limited extent of the solitude allowed to kings, this man was alone, — alone for a brief space to consider, as he had informed his secretary, certain documents awaiting his particular and private perusal.
The marble pavilion in which he sat had been built by his father, the late King, for his own pleasure, when pleasure was more possible than it is now. Its slender Ionic columns, its sculptured friezes, its painted cei
lings, all expressed a gaiety, grace and beauty gone from the world, perchance for ever. Open on three sides to the living picture of the ocean, crimson and white roses clambered about it, and tall plume-like mimosa shook fragrance from its golden blossoms down every breath of wind. The costly table on which this particular Majesty of a nation occasionally wrote his letters, would, if sold, have kept a little town in food for a year, — the rich furs at his feet would have bought bread for hundreds of starving families, — and every delicious rose that nodded its dainty head towards him with the breeze would have given an hour’s joy to a sick child. Socialists say this kind of thing with wildly eloquent fervour, and blame all kings in passionate rhodomontade for the tables, the furs and the roses, — but they forget — it is not the sad and weary kings who care for these or any luxuries, — they would be far happier without them. It is the People who insist on having kings that should be blamed, — not the monarchs themselves. A king is merely the people’s Prisoner of State, — they chain him to a throne, — they make him clothe himself in sundry fantastic forms of attire and exhibit his person thus decked out, for their pleasure, — they calculate, often with greed and grudging, how much it will cost to feed him and keep him in proper state on the national premises, that they may use him at their will, — but they seldom or never seem to remember the fact that there is a Man behind the King!
It is not easy to govern nowadays, since there is no real autocracy, and no strong soul likely to create one. But the original idea of sovereignty was grand and wise; — the strongest man and bravest, raised aloft on shields and bucklers with warrior cries of approval from the people who voluntarily chose him as their leader in battle, — their utmost Head of affairs. Progress has demolished this ideal, with many others equally fine and inspiring; and now all kings are so, by right of descent merely. Whether they be infirm or palsied, weak or wise, sane or crazed, still are they as of old elected; only no more as the Strongest, but simply as the Sign-posts of a traditional bygone authority. This King however, here written of, was not deficient in either mental or physical attributes. His outward look and bearing betokened him as far more fit to be lifted in triumph on the shoulders of his battle-heroes, a real and visible Man, than to play a more or less cautiously inactive part in the modern dumb-show of Royalty. Well-built and muscular, with a compact head regally poised on broad shoulders, and finely formed features which indicated in their firm modelling strong characteristics of pride, indomitable resolution and courage, he had an air of rare and reposeful dignity which made him much more impressive as a personality than many of his fellow-sovereigns. His expression was neither foolish nor sensual, — his clear dark grey eyes were sane and steady in their regard and had no tricks of shiftiness. As an ordinary man of the people his appearance would have been distinctive, — as a King, it was remarkable.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 522
