Part 26 (1/2)
Moretti gave a gesture of impatience and contempt. Cyrillon noted it, and his dark eyes flashed, but he went on steadily,--
”And then I saw her die--she stretched her poor thin hard-working hands out to G.o.d, and over and over again she muttered and moaned in her fever the refrain of an old peasant song we have in Touraine, 'Oh, la tristesse d'avoir aime!' If you had heard her--if you had seen her--if you had, or have a heart to feel, nerves to wrench, a brain to rack, blood to be stung to frenzy, you would,--seeing your mother perish thus,--have thought, that to kill the man who had made such a wreck of a sweet pure life, would be a just, aye even a virtuous deed! I thought so. But my intended vengeance was frustrated--whether by the act of G.o.d, who can say? But the conduct of the man whom I am now proud to call my father--”
”You have great cause for pride!” said Moretti sarcastically.
”I think I have”--said the young man, ”In the close extremity of death at my hands, he won my respect. He shall keep it. It will be my glory now to show him what a son's love and pardon may be. If it be true as I understand, that he is attacked by a disease which needs must be fatal, his last hours will not be desolate! It may be that I shall give him more comfort than Churches,--more confidence than Creeds! It may be that the clasp of my hand in his may be a better preparation for his meeting with G.o.d,--and my mother,--than the touch of the Holy Oils in Extreme Unction!”
”Like all your accursed sect, you blaspheme the Sacraments”--interrupted Moretti indignantly--”And in the very presence of one of her chiefest Cardinals, you scorn the Church!”
Cyrillon gave a quick gesture of emphatic denial.
”Monsignor, I do not scorn the Church,--but I think that honesty and fair dealing with one another is better than any Church! Christ had no Church. He built no temples, He ama.s.sed no wealth,--He preached simply to those who would hear Him under the arching sky,--in the open air! He prophesied the fall of temples; 'In this place,' He said, 'is One greater than the temple.' [Footnote: Matt. xii. v. 6.] He sought to destroy long built-up hypocrisies. 'My house is called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.' Thieves, not only of gold, but of honour!--thieves of the very Gospel, which has been tampered with and twisted to suit the times, the conditions and opinions of varying phases of priestcraft. Who that has read, and thought, and travelled and studied the ma.n.u.scripts hidden away in the old monasteries of Armenia and Syria, believes that the Saviour of the world ever condescended to 'pun' on the word Petrus, and say, 'On this Rock (or stone) I will build my Church,' when He already knew that He had to deal with a coward who would soon deny Him?”
”Enough! I will hear no further!” cried Moretti, turning livid with fury--”Cardinal Bonpre, I appeal to you . . .”
But Cyrillon went on unheedingly,--
”Beware of that symbol of your Church, Monsignor! It is a very strange one! It seems about to be expanded into a reality of dreadful earnest!
'I know not the man,' said Peter. Does not the glittering of the world's wealth piled into the Vatican,--useless wealth lying idle in the midst of hideous beggary and starvation,--proclaim with no uncertain voice, 'I KNOW NOT THE MAN'? The Man of sorrows,--the Man of tender and pitying heart,--the Man who could not send the mult.i.tude away without bread, and compa.s.sed a miracle to give it to them,--the Man who wept for a friend's death,--who took little children in His arms and blessed them,--who pardoned the unhappy outcast and said, 'Sin no more,'--who was so selfless, so pure, so strong, so great, that even sceptics, while denying His Divinity, are compelled to own that His life and His actions were more Divine than those of any other creature in human shape that has ever walked the earth! Monsignor, there is no true representative of Christ in this world!”
”Not for heretics possibly,” said Moretti disdainfully.
”For no one!” said Cyrillon pa.s.sionately--”For no poor sinking, seeking soul is there any such visible comforter! But there is a grand tendency in Mankind to absorb His Spirit and His teaching;--to turn from forms and shadows of faith to the Faith itself,--from descriptions of a possible heaven to the REAL Heaven, which is being disclosed to us in transcendent glimpses through the jewel-gates of science! There were twelve gates in the visioned heaven of St. John,--and each gate was composed of one pearl! Truly do the scoffers say that never did any planetary sea provide such pearls as these! No,--for they were but prophetic emblems of the then undiscovered Sciences. Ah, Monsignor!--and what of the psychic senses and forces?--forces which we are just beginning to discover and to use,--forces which enable me to read your mind at this present moment and to see how willingly you would send me to the burning, Christian as you call yourself, for my thoughts and opinions!--as your long-ago predecessors did with all men who dared to reason for themselves! But that time has pa.s.sed, Monsignor; the Spirit of Christ in the world has conquered the Church THERE!”
The words rushed from his lips with a fervid eloquence that was absolutely startling,--his eyes were aglow with feeling--his face so animated and inspired, that it seemed as though a flame behind it illumined every feature. Abbe Vergniaud, astonished and overcome, laid a trembling hand on the arm of the pa.s.sionate speaker with a gesture more of appeal than restraint, and the young man caught that hand within his own and held it fast. Moretti for a moment fixed his eyes upon father and son with an expression of intense hatred that darkened his face with a deep shadow as of a black mask,--and then without a word deliberately turned his back upon both.
”Your Eminence has heard all this,” he said coldly, addressing the Cardinal who sat rigidly in his chair, silent and very pale.
”I have,” replied Bonpre in a low strained tone.
”And I presume your Eminence permits--?”
”Why talk of permission?” interrupted the Cardinal, raising his eyes with a sorrowful look, ”Who is to permit or deny freedom of speech in these days? Have I--have you--the right to declare that a man shall not express his thoughts? In what way are we to act? Deny a hearing? We cannot--we dare not--not if we obey our Lord, who says, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.' If we ask for ourselves to be heard, we must also hear.”
”We may hear--but in such a case as the present one must we not also condemn?” demanded Moretti, watching the venerable prelate narrowly.
”We can only condemn in the case of a great sin,” replied Bonpre gently, ”and even then our condemnation must be pa.s.sed with fear and trembling, and with full knowledge of all the facts pertaining to the error. 'Judge not that ye be not judged.' We are told plainly that our brother may sin against us not only seven times but seventy times seven, and still we are bound to forgive, to sustain, to help, and not to trample down the already fallen.”
”These are your Eminence's opinions?” said Moretti.
”Most a.s.suredly! Are they not yours?”
Moretti smiled coldly.
”No. I confess they are not! I am a faithful servant of the Church; and the Church is a system of moral government in which, if the slightest laxity be permitted, the whole fabric is in danger--”
”A house of cards then, which a breath may blow down!” interposed ”Gys Grandit,” otherwise Cyrillon Vergniaud, ”Surely an unstable foundation for the everlasting ethics of Christ!”
”I did not speak to you, sir,” said Moretti, turning upon him angrily.
”I know you did not. I spoke to you,” answered the young man coolly, ”I have as much right to speak to you, as you have to speak to me, or to be silent--if you choose. You say the Church is a system of moral government. Well, look back on the past, and see what it has done in the way of governing. In the very earliest days of Christianity, when men were simple and sincere, when their faith in the power of the Divine things was strong and pure, the Church was indeed a safeguard, and a powerful restraint on man's uneducated licentiousness and inherent love of strife. But when the l.u.s.t of gain began to creep like a fever into the blood of those with whom worldly riches should be as nothing compared to the riches of the mind, the heart, and the spirit, then the dryrot of hypocrisy set in--then came craftiness, cruelty, injustice, and pitilessness, and such grossness of personal conduct as revolts even the soul of an admitted sinner. Moral government? Where is it to day? Look at France--Italy--Spain! Count up the lies told by the priests in these countries to feed the follies of the ignorant! Did Christ ever tell lies? No. Then why, if you are His follower, do you tell them?”