Part 42 (2/2)
”Not exactly that dream.” And so the story was gradually unfolded to the priest.
”What you tell me is very serious. The holy hours which should be devoted to meditation of the Cross wasted in dreams of counterparts!
A strange name they have given these visitations, some might have given them a harsher name.” Father Daly's thoughts went to certain literature of the Middle Ages. ”The matter is, of course, one that is not entirely unknown to me; it is one of the traditional sins of the convent, one of the plagues of the Middle Ages. The early Fathers suffered from the visits of Succubi. What you tell me is very alarming. Would it not be well for me to speak to the Prioress on the subject?”
”No, on no account.”
”But she must be exceedingly anxious to put a stop to such a pollution of the meditation?”
”Yes, indeed, I will say that n.o.body is more opposed to it; but she is one of these women who, though she sees that something is wrong, will not go to the root of the wrong at once. The tendency of her mind is towards the contemplative, and not towards the active orders, and she will not give way to the relaxation of the rule. You had better just take the matter into your hands, feeling sure she will approve of the action in the end. A word or two on the subject in your sermon on Sunday would be very timely.”
Father Daly promised to think the matter over, and Sister Winifred said:
”But you must know we shall have much opposition?”
”But who will oppose us?”
”Those who have succeeded in getting counterparts will not surrender them easily.” And Sister Winifred was persuaded to mention the names of the nuns incriminated in this traffic with the spirits of the children who had been drowned in Noah's flood.
”Beings from the other world!” Father Daly cried, alarmed that not one of the nuns had spoken on this subject to him in the convent.
”This is the first time a nun has spoken to me--”
”All will speak to you on this matter when you explain to them the danger they are incurring--when you tell them in your sermon. There is the bell; now I must fly. I will tell you more when I come to confession this afternoon.” As she went up the path she resolved to remain ten minutes in the confessional at least, for such a breach of the rule would challenge the Prioress's spiritual authority, and in return for this Father Daly would use his influence with the Bishop to induce the Prioress to relax the rule of the community. To make her disobedience more remarkable, she loitered before slipping into the confessional, and the Prioress, who had just come into the chapel, noticed her. But without giving it another thought the Prioress began her prayers. At the end of five minutes, however, she began to grow impatient, and at the end of ten minutes to feel that her authority had been set aside.
”You've been at least ten minutes in the confessional, Sister Winifred.”
”It is hard, indeed, dear Mother, if one isn't allowed to confess in peace,” Sister Winifred answered. And she tossed her head somewhat defiantly.
”All the hopes of my life are at an end,” the Prioress said to Mother Hilda.” Every one is in rebellion against me; and this branch of our Order is about to disappear. I feel sure the Bishop will decide against us, and what can we do with the school? Sister Winifred will have to manage it herself. I will resign. It is hard indeed that this should happen after so many years of struggle; and, after redeeming the convent from its debts, to be divided in the end.”
x.x.xII
Next Sunday Father Daly took for his text, ”And all nations shall turn and fear the Lord truly, and shall bury their idols” (Toby xiv.
6).
”Yes, indeed, we should bury our idols.” And then Father Daly asked if our idols were always external things, made of bra.s.s and gold, or if they were not very often cherished in our hearts--the desires of the flesh to which we give gracious forms, and which we supply with specious words; ”we think,” he said, ”to deceive ourselves with those fair images born of our desires; and we give them names, and attribute to them the perfections of angels, believing that our visitations are angels, but are we sure they are not devils?”
The Prioress raised her eyes, and looked at him long and steadily, asking herself what he was going to say next.
He went on to tell how one of the chief difficulties of monastic life was to distinguish between the good and the evil visitant, between the angel and the demon; for permission was often given to the demon to disguise himself as an angel, in order that the nun and the monk might be approved. Returning then to the text, he told the story of Tobit and Tobias's son, and how Tobias had to have resort to burning perfumes in order to save himself from death from the evil spirit, who, when he smelt the perfume, fled into Egypt and was bound by an angel. ”We, too, must strive to bind the evil spirit, and we can do so with prayer. We must have recourse to prayer in order to put the evil spirit to flight. Prayer is a perfume, and it ascends sweeter than the scent of roses and lilies, greeting G.o.d's nostrils, which are in heaven.”
The Prioress thought this expression somewhat crude, and she again looked at the preacher long and steadfastly, asking herself if the text and Father Daly's interpretation of it were merely coincidences, or if he were speaking from knowledge of the condition of convents...
Cecilia, had she told him everything? The Prioress frowned. Sister Winifred was careful not to raise her eyes to the preacher, for she was regretting his words, foreseeing the difficulties they would lead her into, knowing well that the Prioress would resent this interference with her authority, and she would have given much to stop Father Daly; but that, of course, was impossible now, and she heard him say that the angel who bound the evil spirit in Egypt four thousand years ago is to-day the symbol of the priest in the confessional, and it was only by availing themselves of that Sacrament, not in any invidious sense, but in the fullest possible sense, confiding their entire souls to the care of their spiritual adviser, that they could escape from the evil spirits which penetrated into monasteries to-day no less than before, as they had always done, from the earliest times; for the more pious men and women are, the more they retire from the world, the more delicate are the temptations which the devil invents. Convents dedicate to the Adoration of the Sacrament, to meditation on the Cross, convents in which active work is eschewed are especially sought by the evil spirits, ”the larvae of monasticism,” he called them. An abundance of leisure is favourable to the hatching of these; and he drew a picture of how the grub first appears, and then the winged moth, sometimes brown and repellant, sometimes dressed in attractive colours like the b.u.t.terfly. The soul follows as a child follows the b.u.t.terfly, from flower to flower through the suns.h.i.+ne, led on out of the suns.h.i.+ne into dark alleys, at the end of which are dangerous places, from whence the soul may never return again.
”Nuns and monks of the Middle Ages, those who knew monasticism better than it ever could be known in these modern days, dreaded these larvae more than anything else, and they had methods of destroying them and repelling the beguilements of evil spirits better than we have, for the contemplative orders were more kindred to those earlier times than to-day. Monasticism of today takes another turn. Love of G.o.d is eternal, but we must love G.o.d in the idiom and spirit of our time.”
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