Part 28 (2/2)
”Master,” he said, ”welcome! We are all waiting for you.”
Then he turned inquiringly to Eric Black. Joseph interpreted the look.
”This is a brother,” he said, ”who will be very strong in the Lord. He is a strong and tempered blade which has for long rested in the scabbard. Our Blessed Lord has come to him this night.”
The twenty or thirty people who had been waiting round the great hall now came forward in a group. With the exception of Joseph's friend Hampson, there was not a single person there who was not important in one way or another in English life. Here was a well-known and popular King's Counsel, his keen, clean-shaven face all alight with interest and wonder. By his side was a prominent society actress, a great artiste, as far removed from the Mimi Addington type as light is from darkness.
There were tears in the great grey eyes, and the sensitive mouth was quivering with emotion. A young peer, an intimate friend of Sir Thomas Ducaine, a group of well-known society women, a popular Mayfair doctor, a middle-aged baronet, who was one of the Court officials at Buckingham Palace--of such materials was the advance band of people composed.
Along the other side of the hall, in strange contrast to these fas.h.i.+onable and beautifully dressed people, the faithful band of Welsh miners and quarrymen was standing in their black coats, talking earnestly and quietly together.
They turned also as the Master entered.
Then David Owen took three or four steps in front of his companions and raised his gnarled old brown hands high above his head.
”Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” he cried, ”and who is filled with the Holy Spirit!”
Then he turned suddenly to his companions, and with a wave of his arm started the ”Veni Creator Spiritus”--
Come, Holy Ghost, eternal G.o.d, Proceeding from above, Both from the Father and the Son; The G.o.d of peace and love.
Visit our minds, into our hearts Thy heavenly grace inspire; That truth and G.o.dliness we may Pursue with full desire.
Thou art the Comforter In grief and all distress; The heavenly gift of G.o.d Most High No tongue can it express.
The fountain and the living spring Of joy celestial; The fire so bright, the love so sweet, The Unction spiritual.
A glorious burst of deep and moving harmony filled the great hall, and thundered away up in the dome above as the Welshmen caught up the old hymn.
None of the other people there had ever heard anything like this in their lives. All this melody and wild beauty, which is the heritage of the country which produces the most perfect chorus singers in the world, were mingled with a spiritual fervor so intense, and a love and rapture so ecstatic, a purpose so inviolable and strong, that souls and hearts were moved as they had never been moved before.
The organ voices ceased suddenly, as a symphony played on some great orchestra ceases without a single dropping note.
Then every one saw that the Master's hand was raised in blessing. He seemed suddenly grown taller. His face shone with heavenly radiance, he was more than human in that moment, his whole body was like some thin, transparent sh.e.l.l which throbbed and pulsed with Divine fire.
”The blessing of G.o.d Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be with you and remain with you always.”
The words of blessing fell upon hearts and souls long dry and arid, atrophied by the things of this world, like the blessed rain of heaven upon the thirsting fields. Worldly ambitions, hopes, thoughts and preoccupations, shrivelled up and disappeared. A deep penitence flowed over those dry s.p.a.ces like a river. Sorrow for the past, resolution for the future, the glory and awe of wors.h.i.+p, came upon them all in the supreme moment.
While they were looking at the Teacher with rapt attention they saw him suddenly drop his arm, which fell heavily to his side like a dead thing.
The light faded from his face, the thin, blue-veined lids fell over the s.h.i.+ning eyes, the mouth dropped a little, with a long sigh, and Joseph fell backwards in a deep swoon.
The man who but a moment before realized for them the absolute visual picture of Christ Himself, as He may have looked on one of those great moments of tenderness and triumph which star the Holy Gospel with the radiance of their recital, was now, indeed, a visible picture in his own body of the ”Man of Sorrows Who was acquainted with grief,” The Redeemer Who fell by the way.
Sir Thomas and Hampson were standing by the Teacher as he fell, and it was their arms which received the swooning form, carried it into an inner room, and laid it gently upon a couch.
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