Part 90 (1/2)

'And this was Henry the Seventh's work!' exclaimed Mr. Dallas, making an effort to see all round him at once. 'Well, I didn't know they could build so well in those old times. Let us see; when was he buried?--1509? That is pretty long ago. This is a beautiful building!

And that is his tomb, eh? I should say this is better than anything he had in his lifetime. Being king of England was not just so easy to him as his son found it. Crowns are heavy in the best of times; and his was specially.'

'It is a strange ambition, though, to be glorified so in one's funeral monument,' said Betty.

'A very common ambition,' remarked Pitt. 'But this chapel was to be much more than a monument. It was a chantry. The king ordered ten thousand ma.s.ses to be said here for the repose of his soul; and intended that the monkish establishment should remain for ever to attend to them. Here around his tomb you see the king's particular patron saints,--nine of them,--to whom he looked for help in time of need; all over the chapel you will find the four national saints, if I may so call them, of the kingdom; and at the end there is the Virgin Mary, with Peter and Paul, and other saints and angels innumerable. The whole chapel is like those touching folded hands of stone we were speaking of,--a continual appeal, through human and angelic mediation, fixed in stone; though at the beginning also living in the chants of the monks.'

'Well, I am sure that is being religious!' said Mrs. Dallas. 'If such a place as this does not honour religion, I don't know what does.'

'Mother, Christ said, ”_I_ am the door.”'

'Yes, my dear, but is not all this an appeal to Him?'

'Mother, he said, ”He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” What have saints and angels to do with it? ”He that _belieth_.”'

'Surely the builder of all this must have believed,' said Mrs. Dallas, 'or he would never have spent so much money and taken so much pains about it.'

'If he had believed on Christ, mother, he would have known he had no need. Think of those ten thousand ma.s.ses to be said for him, that his sins might be forgiven and his soul received into heaven; you see how miserably uncertain the poor king felt of ever getting there.'

'Well,' said Mrs. Dallas, 'every one must feel uncertain! He cannot _know_--how can he know?'

'How can he live and not know?' Pitt answered in a lowered tone.

'Uncertainty on that point would be enough to drive a thinking man mad.

Henry the Seventh, you see, could not bear it, and so he arranged to have ten thousand ma.s.ses said for him, and filled his chapel with intercessory saints.'

'But I do not see how any one is to have certainty, Mr. Pitt,' Betty said. 'One cannot see into the future.'

'It is only necessary to believe, in the present.'

'Believe what?'

'The word of the King, who promised,--”Whosoever liveth and believeth in me _shall never die_.” The love that came down here to die for us will never let slip any poor creature that trusts it.'

'Yes; but suppose one cannot trust _so?_' objected Betty.

'Then there is probably a reason for it. Disobedience, even partial disobedience, cannot perfectly trust.'

'How can sinful creatures do anything perfectly, Pitt?' his mother asked, almost angrily.

'Mamma,' said he gravely, 'you trust _me_ so.'

Mrs. Dallas made no reply to that; and they moved on, surveying the chapels. The good lady bowed her head in solemn approbation when shown the place whence the bodies of Cromwell and others of his family and friends were cast out after the Restoration. 'They had no business to be there,' she a.s.sented.

'Where were they removed to?' Betty asked.

'Some of them were hanged, as they deserved,' said Mr. Dallas.

'Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, at Tyburn,' Pitt added. 'The others were buried, not honourably, not far off. One of Cromwell's daughters, who was a Churchwoman and also a royalist, they allowed to remain in the Abbey. She lies in one of the other chapels, over yonder.'

'n.o.ble revenge!' said Betty quietly.