Part 29 (2/2)

Maurice flushed and hesitated: yet he felt that nothing would do but absolute frankness.

”I will tell you!” he returned. ”I was to be a priest. I went into the Clergy House supposing that that was settled. I see now that I really followed a friend. If he went, I couldn't be shut out. Now I have been among men, and”--

He hesitated, but the friendly smile of the other rea.s.sured him.

”And among women,” he went on bravely; ”and--and”--

”And you have discovered the meaning of a certain text in Genesis which declares that 'male and female created He them,'” concluded Strathmore.

Wynne felt the tone like a caress. He seemed to be understood without need of more speech. His condition, which had seemed to him so intricate and so unique, began to appear possible and human. He was not so completely cut off from human sympathy as he had felt.

”Yes,” he a.s.sented; ”I will be frank about it. I did not think that Father Frontford would understand what it meant to feel that life is given to us to be glorified by the love of a woman.”

”If this is all that is troubling you,” Strathmore remarked, ”it seems to me that your position, though it may not be pleasant, is not very tragical. Our bishops are generally willing to absolve from vows of celibacy.”

”I doubt if Father Frontford would be,” Maurice commented involuntarily.

”That is perhaps one of his virtues in the eyes of his supporters,”

Strathmore suggested with a twinkle.

”I have not taken the vows, however,” Maurice responded hastily, flus.h.i.+ng, and ignoring the thrust.

”Then what is your trouble?”

”When I meant to take them, it was the same thing.”

”Do I understand you that to intend to do a thing and then to change the mind is the same as to do it?”

”Oh, no; not that; but I am not clear that it isn't my duty to take them. I'm not sure that it is right for a priest to marry--if you will pardon my saying so.”

”And you come to me to convince you? It seems to me that Providence has already done that through the agency of some young woman. If you really know what it is to love a good woman there is no real doubt in your mind as to the sacredness of marriage,--for the clergy or for anybody else. Isn't your trouble perhaps an obstinate dislike to seem to abandon a position once taken?”

The words might have sounded severe but for the tone in which they were spoken.

”But that is not the whole of the matter,” Maurice continued, feeling as if he were being carried forward by an irresistible current. ”If I have been mistaken on this point about which I have felt so sure and so strongly, what confidence can I have in my other beliefs?”

”Ah, it goes deep,” Strathmore said with emphasis. ”It is of no use to put old wine into new bottles. The effect of trying to make you young men accept mediaevalism, like clerical celibacy, is in the end to make you doubt everything. Haven't you any respect for the authority of the church?”

”Oh, implicit!” Maurice responded.

”But,” his host remarked with a smile, ”because you begin to have doubts about a thing which the church doesn't inculcate, you show an inclination to throw overboard all that she does teach.”

Maurice was silent a moment, playing with a rosary which he wore at his belt. He was surprised that he had never thought of this; and he was startled by the doubt which had arisen in his mind as soon as he had declared his implicit faith in the church. He realized in a flash that while he had spoken honestly, he had not told the truth.

”I am afraid that I'm not quite honest,” he said, ”though I meant to be. I'm afraid that after all I don't feel sure of all the church teaches.”

”My dear young man,” the other replied kindly, ”you are fighting against the age. You have been taught to believe,--if you will pardon me,--that the thing for a true man to do is to resist the light of reason. There are, for instance, a great many things which used to be received literally which we now find it necessary to interpret figuratively. It would be refusing to use the reason heaven gives us if we refused to recognize this. The teachings of the church are true and infallible, but every man must interpret them according to the light of his own conscience and reason.”

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