CHAPTER XIII
THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES
Anthony found that Mr. Buxton had seriously underestimated himself indescribing his position as that of a plain country gentleman. Stanfieldwas one of the most beautiful houses that he had ever seen. On the dayafter his arrival, his host took him all over the house, at his earnestrequest, and told him its story; and as they passed from room to room,again and again Anthony found himself involuntarily exclaiming at the newand extraordinary beauties of architecture and furniture that revealedthemselves.
The house itself had been all built in the present reign, before itsowner had got into trouble; and had been fitted throughout on the mostlavish scale, with furniture of German as well as of English manufacture.Mr. Buxton was a collector of pictures and other objects of art; and hishouse contained some of the very finest specimens of painting, bronzes,enamels, plate and woodwork procurable from the Continent.
The house was divided into two sections; the chief living rooms were in along suite looking to the south on to the gardens, with a corridor on thenorth side running the whole length of the house on the ground-floor,from which a staircase rose to a similar corridor or gallery on the firstfloor. The second section of the house was a block of some half-dozensmallish rooms, with a private staircase of their own, and a privateentrance and little walled garden as well in front. The house was mostlypanelled throughout, and here and there hung pieces of magnificenttapestry and cloth of arras. All was kept, too, with a care that wasunusual in those days--the finest woodwork was brought to a high polish,as well as all the brass utensils and steel fire-plates and dogs and suchthings. No two rooms were alike; each possessed some markedcharacteristic of its own--one bedroom, for example, was distinguished byits fourpost bed with its paintings on the canopy and head--another, byits little two-light high window with Adam and Eve in stained glass;another with a little square-window containing a crucifix, which wasgenerally concealed by a sliding panel; another by two secret cupboardsover the fire-place, and its recess fitted as an oratory; another by amagnificent piece of tapestry representing Saint Clara and Saint Thomasof Aquin, each holding a monstrance, with a third great monstrance in thecentre, supported by angels.
Downstairs the rooms were on the same scale of magnificence. Thedrawing-room had an exquisite wooden ceiling with great pendantselaborately carved; the dining-room was distinguished by its glass,containing a collection of coats-of-arms of many of Mr. Buxton's friendswho had paid him visits; the hall by its vast fire-place and thetapestries that hung round it.
The exterior premises were scarcely less remarkable; a fine row ofstables, and kennels where greyhounds were kept, stood to the north andthe east of the house; but the wonder of the country was the gardens tothe south. Anthony hardly knew what to say for admiration as he wentslowly through these with his host, on the bright spring morning, aftervisiting the house. These were elaborately laid out, and under Mr.Buxton's personal direction, for he was one of the few people in Englandat this time who really understood or cared for the art. His avenue ofsmall clipped limes running down the main walk of the garden, hisyew-hedges fashioned with battlements and towers; his great garden housewith its vane; his fantastic dial in the fashion of a tall striped polesurmounted by a dragon;--these were the astonishment of visitors; and itwas freely said that had not Mr. Buxton been exceedingly adroit he wouldhave paid the penalty of his magnificence and originality by being forcedto receive a royal visit--a favour that would have gone far toimpoverish, if not to ruin him. The chancel of the parish-churchoverlooked the west end of his lime-avenue, while the east end of thegarden terminated in a great gateway, of stone posts and wrought irongates that looked out to the meadows and farm buildings of the estate,and up to which some day no doubt a broad carriage drive would be laiddown. But at present the sweep of the meadows was unbroken.
It was to this beautiful place that Anthony found himself welcomed. Hishost took him at once on the evening of his arrival to the west block,and showed him his bedroom--that with the little cupboards and theoratory recess; and then, taking him downstairs again, showed him acharming little oak parlour, which he told him would be altogether at hisprivate service.
"And you see," added Mr. Buxton, "in this walled garden in front you canhave complete privacy, and thus can take the air without ever coming tothe rest of the house; to which there is this one entrance on the groundfloor." And then he showed him how the lower end of the long corridorcommunicated with the block.
"The only partners of this west block," he added, "will be the twopriests--Mr. Blake, my chaplain, and Mr. Robert, who is staying with me aweek or two; and who, I hope, will conduct you through the Exercises, ashe is very familiar with them. You will meet them both at supper: ofcourse they will be both dressed as laymen. The Protestants blamed poorCampion for that, you know; but had he not gone in disguise, they wouldonly have hanged him all the sooner. I like not hypocrisy."
Anthony was greatly impressed by Father Robert when he met him at supper.He was a tall and big man, who seemed about forty years of age, with along square-jawed face, a pointed beard and moustache, and shrewdpenetrating eyes. He seemed to be a man in advance of his time; he wasfull of reforms and schemes that seemed to Anthony remarkably to thepoint; and they were reforms too quite apart from ecclesiasticism, butrather such as would be classed in our days under the title of ChristianSocialism.
For example, he showed a great sympathy for the condition of the poor andoutcast and criminals; and had a number of very practical schemes fortheir benefit.
"Two things," he said, in answer to a question of Anthony's, "I would doto-morrow if I had the power. First I would allow of long leases forfifty and a hundred years. Everywhere the soil is becoming impoverished;each man squeezes out of it as much as he can, and troubles not to feedthe land or to care for it beyond his time. Long leases, I hold, wouldremedy this. It would encourage the farmer to look before him and thinkof his sons and his sons' sons. And second, I would establish banks forpoor men. There is many a man now a-begging who would be living still inhis own house, if there had been some honest man whom he could havetrusted to keep his money for him, and, maybe, give him something for theloan of it: for in these days, when there is so much enterprise, moneyhas become, as it were, a living thing that grows; or at the least a toolthat can be used; and therefore, when it is lent, it is right that theborrower should pay a little for it. This is not the same as the usurythat Holy Church so rightly condemns: at least, I hold not, though some,I know, differ from me."
After supper the talk turned on education: here, too, the priest had hisviews.
"But you are weary of hearing me!" he said, in smiling apology. "You willthink me a schoolmaster."
"And I pray you to consider me your pupil," said Mr. Buxton. The priestmade a little deprecating gesture.
"First, then," he said, "I would have a great increase of grammarschools. It is grievous to think of England as she will be when thisgeneration grows up: the schooling was not much before; but now she haslost first the schools that were kept by Religious, and now the teachingthat the chantry-priests used to give. But this perhaps may turn toadvantage; for when the Catholic Religion is re-established in theserealms, she will find how sad her condition is; and, I hope, will remedyit by a better state of things than before--first, by a great number ofgrammar schools where the lads can be well taught for small fees, andwhere many scholarships will be endowed; and then, so great will be theincrease of learning, as I hope, that we shall need to have a thirduniversity, to which I should join a third Archbishoprick, for thegreater dignity of both; and all this I should set in the northsomewhere, Durham or Newcastle, maybe."
He spoke, too, with a good deal of shrewdness of the increase of highwayrobbery, and the remedies for it; remarking that, although in otherrespects the laws were too severe, in this matter their administrationwas too lax; since robbers of gentle birth could generally rely onpardon. He spoke of the
Holy Brotherhood in Spain (with which country heseemed familiar), and its good results in the putting down of violence.
Anthony grew more and more impressed by this man's practical sense andability; but less drawn to him in consequence as his spiritual guide. Hefancied that true spirituality could scarcely exist in this intenselypractical nature. When supper was over, and the priests had gone back totheir rooms, and his host and he were seated before a wide blazing hearthin Mr. Buxton's own little room downstairs, he hinted something of thesort. Mr. Buxton laughed outright.
"My dear friend," he said, "you do not know these Jesuits (for of courseyou have guessed that he is one); their training and efficiency is beyondall imagining. In a week from now you will be considering how ever FatherRobert can have the heart to eat his dinner or say 'good-day' with such aspiritual vision and insight as he has. You need not fear. Like the angelin the Revelation, he will call you up to heaven, hale you to the abyssand show you things to come. And, though you may not believe it, it isthe man's intense and simple piety that makes him so clear-sighted andpractical; he lives so close to God that God's works and methods, soperplexing to you and me, are plain to him."
They went on talking together for a while. Mr. Buxton said that FatherRobert had thought it best for Anthony not to enter Retreat until theMonday evening; by which time he could have sufficiently familiarisedhimself with his new surroundings, so as not to find them a distractionduring his spiritual treatment. Anthony agreed to this. Then they talkedof all kinds of things. His host told him of his neighbours; andexplained how it was that he enjoyed such liberty as he did.
"You noticed the church, Mr. Norris, did you not, at your arrival,overlooking the garden? It is a great advantage to me to have it soclose. I can sit in my own garden and hear the Genevan thunders fromwithin. He preaches so loud that I might, if I wished, hear sermons, andthus satisfy the law and his Reverence; and at the same time not goinside an heretical meeting-house, and thus satisfy my own conscience andHis Holiness. But I fear that would not have saved me, had I not the earof his Reverence. I will tell you how it was. When the laws began to beenforced hereabouts, his Reverence came to see me; and sat in that verychair that you now occupy.
"'I hear,' said he, cocking his eye at me, 'that her Grace is becomingstrict, and more careful for the souls of her subjects.'
"I agreed with him, and said I had heard as much.
"'The fine is twenty pounds a month,' says he, 'for recusancy,' and thenhe looks at me again."
"At first I did not catch his meaning; for, as you have noticed, Mr.Norris, I am but a dull man in dealing with these sharp and subtleProtestants: and then all at once it flashed across me.
"'Yes, your Reverence,' I said, 'and it will be the end of poor gentlemenlike me, unless some kind friend has pity on them. How happy I am inhaving you!' I said, 'I have never yet shown my appreciation as I should:and I propose now to give you, to be applied to what purposes you will,whether the sustenance of the minister or anything else, the sum of tenpounds a month; so long as I am not troubled by the Council. Of course,if I should be fined by the Council, I shall have to drop my appreciationfor six months or so.'
"Well, Mr. Norris, you will hardly believe it, but the old doctor openedhis mouth and gulped and rolled his eyes, like a trout taking a fly; andI was never troubled until fifteen months ago, when they got at me inspite of him. But he has lost, you see, a matter of one hundred and fiftypounds while I have been at Wisbeach; and I shall not begin to appreciatehim again for another six months; so I do not think I shall be troubledagain."
Anthony was amazed, and said so.
"Well," said the other, "I was astonished too; and should never havedreamt of appreciating him in such a manner unless he had proposed it. Ihad a little difficulty with Mr. Blake, who told me that it was a_libellum_, and that I should be ashamed to pay hush money. But I toldhim that he might call it what he pleased, but that I would sooner payten pounds a month and be in peace, than twenty pounds a month and beperpetually harassed: and Father Robert agrees with me, and so the otheris content now."
The next day, which was Sunday, passed quietly. Mass was no doubt saidsomewhere in the house; though Anthony saw no signs of it. He himselfattended the reverend doctor's ministrations in the morning; and foundhim to be what he had been led to expect.
In the afternoon he walked up and down the lime avenue with FatherRobert, while the evening prayer and sermon rumbled forth through thebroken chancel window; and they talked of the Retreat and thearrangements.
"You no doubt think, Mr. Norris," said the priest, "that I shall preachat you in this Retreat, and endeavour to force you into the CatholicChurch; but I shall do nothing of the kind. The whole object of theExercises is to clear away the false motives that darken the soul; toplace the Figure of our Redeemer before the soul as her dear and adorableLover and King; and then to kindle and inspire the soul to choose hercourse through the grace of God, for the only true final motive of allperfect action,--that is, the pure Love of God. Of course I believe, withthe consent of my whole being, that the Catholic Church is in the right;but I shall not for a moment attempt to compel you to accept her. Thefinal choice, as indeed the Retreat too, must be your free action, notmine."
They arranged too the details of the Retreat; and Anthony was shown thelittle room beyond Father Robert's bedroom, where the Exercises would begiven; and informed that another gentleman who lived in the neighbourhoodwould come in every day for them too, but that he would have his mealsseparately, and that Anthony himself would have his own room and the roombeneath entirely at his private disposal, as well as the little walledgarden to walk in.
The next day Mr. Buxton took Anthony a long ride, to invigorate him forthe Retreat that would begin after supper. Anthony learned to hisastonishment and delight that Mary Corbet was a great friend of Mr.Buxton's.
"Why, of course I know her," he said. "I have known her since she was atiny girl, and threw her mass-book at the minister's face the first timehe read the morning prayer. God only knows why she was so wroth with theman for differing from herself on a point that has perplexed the wisestheads: but at any rate, wroth she was, and bang went her book. I had totake her out, and she was spitting like a kitten all down the aisle whenthe dog puts his head into the basket.
"'What's that man doing here?' she screamed out; 'where's the altar andthe priest?' And then at the door, as luck would have had it, she sawthat Saint Christopher was gone; and she began bewailing and bemoaninghim until you'd have thought he'd have been bound to come down fromheaven, as he did once across the dark river, and see what in the worldthe crying child wanted with him."
* * * *
They came about half-way in their ride through the village of Penshurst;and on reaching the Park turned off under the beeches towards the house.
"We have not time to go in," said Mr. Buxton, "but I hope you will seethe house sometime; it is a pattern of what a house should be; and has apattern master."
As they came up to the Edwardine Gate-house, a pleasant-faced,quietly-dressed gentleman came riding out alone.
"Why, here he is!" said Mr. Buxton, and greeted him with great warmth,and made Anthony known to him.
"I am delighted to know Mr. Norris," said Sidney, with that keen friendlylook that was so characteristic of him. "I have heard of him from manyquarters."
He entreated them to come in; but Mr. Buxton said they had not time; butwould if they might just glance into the great court. So Sidney took themthrough the gate-house and pointed out one or two things of interest fromthe entrance, the roof of the Great Hall built by Sir John de Pulteney,the rare tracery in its windows and the fine living-rooms at one side.
"I thank God for it every day," said Sidney gravely. "I cannot imaginewhy He should have given it me. I hope I am not fool enough to disparageHis gifts, and pretend they are nothing: indeed, I love it with all myheart. I would as soon think of calling my wife ugly or a shrew."
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p; "That is a good man and a gentleman," said Mr. Buxton, as they rode awayat last in the direction of Leigh after leaving Sidney to branch offtowards Charket, "and I do not know why he is not a Catholic. And he is acritic and a poet, men say, too."
"Have you read anything of his?" asked Anthony.
"Well," said the other, "to tell the truth, I have tried to read somesheets of his that he wrote for his sister, Lady Pembroke. He calls it'Arcadia'; I do not know whether it is finished or ever will be. But itseemed to me wondrous dull. It was full of shepherds and swains andnymphs, who are perpetually eating collations which Phoebus or sunburntAutumn, and the like, provides of his bounty; or any one but GodAlmighty; or else they are bathing and surprising one another all daylong. It is all very sweet and exquisite, I know; and the Greece, wherethey all live and love one another, must be a very delightful country, asunlike this world as it is possible to imagine; but it wearies me. I likeplain England and plain folk and plain religion and plain fare; but thenI am a plain man, as I tell you so often."
As the afternoon sun drew near setting, they came through Tonbridge.
"Now, what can a man ask more," said Mr. Buxton, as they rode through it,"than a good town like this? It is not a great place, I know, with solemnbuildings and wide streets; neither is it a glade or a dell; but it is agood clean English town; and I would not exchange it for Arcadia orAthens either."
Stanfield lay about two miles to the west; and on their way out, Mr.Buxton talked on about the country and its joys and its usefulness.
"Over there," he said, pointing towards Eridge, "was the first cannonmade in England. I do not know if that is altogether to its credit, butit at least shows that we are not quite idle and loutish in the country.Then all about here is the iron; the very stirrups you ride in, Mr.Norris, most likely came from the ground beneath your feet; but it is sadto see all the woods cut down for the smelting of it. All these placesfor miles about here, and about Great Keynes too, are all named after thethings of forestry and hunting. Buckhurst, Hartfield, Sevenoaks, ForestRow, and the like, all tell of the country, and will do so long after weare dead and gone."
They reached Stanfield, rode past the green and the large piece of waterthere, and up the long village street, and turned into the iron gatesbeyond the church, just as the dusk fell.
That evening after supper the Retreat began. The conduct of the SpiritualExercises had not reached the elaboration to which they have beenperfected since; nor, in Anthony's case, a layman and a young man, didFather Robert think fit to apply it even in all the details in which itwould be used for a priest or for one far advanced in the spiritual life;but it was severe enough.
Every evening Father Robert indicated the subject of the following day'smeditation; and then after private prayer Anthony retired to his room. Herose about seven o'clock in the morning, and took a little food at eight;then shortly before nine the first meditation was given elaborately. Thefirst examination of conscience was made at eleven; followed by dinner athalf-past. From half-past twelve to half-past one Anthony rested in hisroom; then until three he was encouraged to walk in the garden; at threethe meditation was to be recalled point by point in the chapel, followedby spiritual reading; at five o'clock supper was served; and at half-pastsix the meditation was repeated with tremendous emphasis and fervent actsof devotion; at half-past eight a slight collation was laid in his room;and at half-past nine the meditation for the following day was given.Father Robert in his previous talks with Anthony had given himinstructions as to how to occupy his own time, to keep his thoughts fixedand so forth. He had thought it wise too not to extend the Retreat forlonger than a fortnight; so that it was proposed to end it on PalmSunday. Two or three times in the week Anthony rode out by himself; andFather Robert was always at his service, besides himself coming sometimesto talk to him when he thought the strain or the monotony was getting tooheavy.
As for the Exercises themselves, the effect of them on Anthony was beyondall description. First the circumstances under which they were given wereof the greatest assistance to their effectiveness. There was every aidthat romance and mystery could give. Then it was in a strange andbeautiful house where everything tended to caress the mind out of allself-consciousness. The little panelled room in which the exercises weregiven looked out over the quiet garden, and no sound penetrated there butthe far-off muffled noises of the peaceful village life, the rustle ofthe wind in the evergreens, and the occasional coo or soft flappingflight of a pigeon from the cote in the garden. The room itself wasfurnished with two or three faldstools and upright wooden arm-chairs oftolerable comfort; a table was placed at the further end, on which stooda realistic Spanish crucifix with two tapers always burning before it;and a little jar of fragrant herbs. Then there was the continual sense ofslight personal danger that is such a spur to refined natures; here was aCatholic house, of which every member was strictly subject to penalties,and above all one of that mysterious Society of Jesus, the very vanguardof the Catholic army, and of which every member was a picked and trainedchampion. Then there was the amazing enthusiasm, experience, and skill ofFather Robert, as he called himself; who knew human nature as ananatomist knows the structure of the human body; to whom the bewilderingtangle of motives, good, bad and indifferent, in the soul, was as plainas paths in a garden; who knew what human nature needed, what it coulddispense with, what was its power of resistance; and who had at hisdisposal for the storming of the soul an armoury of weapons and engines,every specimen of which he had tested and wielded over and over again.Little as Anthony knew it, Father Robert, during the first two days afterhis arrival, had occupied himself with sounding and probing the lad'ssoul, trying his intellect by questions that scarcely seemed to be so,taking the temperature of his emotional nature by tales and adroitremarks, and watching the effect of them; in short, with studying thesoul who had come for his treatment as a careful doctor examines thehealth of a new patient before he issues his prescription. And then,lastly, there were the Exercises themselves, a mighty weapon in anyhands; and all but irresistible when directed by the skill, and inspiredby the enthusiasm and sincere piety of such a man as Father Robert.
The Exercises fell into three parts, each averaging in Anthony's caseabout five days. First came the Purgative Exercises: the object of thesewas to cleanse and search out the very recesses of the soul; as fireseparates gold from alloy.
As Anthony knelt in the little room before the Crucifix day by day, itseemed to him as if the old conventional limitations and motives ofaction and control were rolling back, revealing the realities of thespiritual world. The Exercises began with an elaborate exposition of theEnd of man--which may be roughly defined as the Glory of God attainedthrough the saving and sanctifying of the individual. Every creature ofGod, then, that the soul encounters must be tested by this rule, How fardoes the use of it serve for the final end? For it must be used so far,and no farther. Here then was a diagram of the Exercises, given inminiature at the beginning.
Then the great facts that practically all men acknowledge, and upon whichso few act, were brought into play. Hell, Judgment and Death in turnbegan to work upon the lad's soul--these monstrous elemental Truths thatunderlie all things. As Father Robert's deep vibrating voice spoke, itappeared to Anthony as if the room, the walls, the house, the world, allshrank to filmy nothingness before the appalling realities of thesethings. In that strange and profound "Exercise of the senses" he heardthe moaning and the blasphemies of the damned, of those rebellious freewills that have enslaved themselves into eternal bondage by a deliberaterejection of God--he put out his finger and tasted the bitterness oftheir furious tears--the very reek of sin came to his nostrils, of thatcorruption that is in existence through sin; nay, he saw the very flaminghells red with man's wrath against his Maker.
Then he traced back, under the priest's direction, the Judgment throughwhich every soul must pass; he saw the dead, great and small, standbefore God; the books, black with blotted shame, were borne forth by therecording angels and s
pread before the tribunal. His ears tingled withthat condemning silence of the Judge beyond Whom there is no appeal, fromwhose sentence there is no respite, and from whose prison there is nodischarge; and rang with that pealing death-sentence at which the angelshide their faces, but to which the conscience of the criminal assentsthat it is just. His soul looked out at those whirling hosts on eitherside, that black cloud going down to despair, that radiant companyhastening to rise to the Uncreated Light in whom there is no darkness atall--and cried in piteous suspense to know on which side she herself oneday would be.
Then he came yet one step further back still, and told himself the storyof his death. He saw the little room where he would lie, his bed in onecorner; he saw Isabel beside the bed; he saw himself, white, gasping,convulsed, upon it--the shadows of the doctor and the priest were uponthe wall--he heard his own quick sobbing breath, he put out his fingerand touched his own forehead wet with the death-dew--he tasted and smeltthe faint sickly atmosphere that hangs about a death chamber; and hewatched the grey shadow of Azrael's wing creep across his face. Then hesaw the sheet and the stiff form beneath it; and knew that they were hisfeatures that were hidden; and that they were his feet that stood upstark below the covering. Then he visited his own grave, and saw themonth-old grass blowing upon it, and the little cross at the head; thenhe dug down through the soil, swept away the earth from his coffin-plate;drew the screws and lifted the lid....
Then he placed sin beneath the white light; dissected it, analysed it,weighed it and calculated its worth, watched its development in thecongenial surroundings of an innocent soul, that is rich in grace andleisure and gifts, and saw the astonishing reversal of God's primal lawillustrated in the process of corruption--the fair, sweet, fragrantcreature passing into foulness. He looked carefully at the stages andmodes of sin--venial sins, those tiny ulcers that weaken, poison andspoil the soul, even if they do not slay it--lukewarmness, that deathlyslumber that engulfs the living thing into gradual death--and, finally,mortal sin, that one and only wholly hideous thing. He saw theindescribable sight of a naked soul in mortal sin; he saw how the earthshrank from it, how nature grew silent at it, how the sun darkened at it,how hell yelled at it, and the Love of God sickened at it.
And so, as the purgative days went by, these tempests poured over hissoul, sifted through it, as the sea through a hanging weed, till all thatwas not organically part of his life was swept away, and he was left asimple soul alone with God. Then the second process began.
To change the metaphor, the canvas was now prepared, scoured, bleachedand stretched. What is the image to be painted upon it? It is the imageof Christ.
Now Father Robert laid aside his knives and his hammer, and took up hissoft brushes, and began stroke by stroke, with colours beyond imagining,to lay upon the eager canvas the likeness of an adorable Lover and King.Anthony watched the portrait grow day by day with increasing wonder. Wasthis indeed the Jesus of Nazareth of whom he had read in the Gospels? herubbed his eyes and looked; and yet there was no possibility ofmistake,--line for line it was the same.
But this portrait grew and breathed and moved, and passed through all thestages of man's life. First it was the Eternal Word in the bosom of theFather, the Beloved Son who looked in compassion upon the warring worldbeneath; and offered Himself to the Father who gave Him through theEnergy of the Blessed Spirit.
Then it was a silent Maid that he saw waiting upon God, offering herselfwith her lily beside her; and in answer on a sudden came the lightning ofGabriel's appearing, and, lo! the Eternal Word stole upon her down a rayof glory. And then at last he saw the dear Child born; and as he lookedhe was invited to enter the stable; and again he put out his hand andtouched the coarse straw that lay in the manger, and fingered the roughbrown cord that hung from Mary's waist, and smelled the sweet breath ofthe cattle, and the burning oil of Joseph's lantern hung against thewall, and shivered as the night wind shrilled under the ill-fitting doorand awoke the tender Child.
Then he watched Him grow to boyhood, increasing in wisdom and stature,Him who was uncreated Wisdom, and in whose Hands are the worlds--followedHim, loving Him more at every step, to and from the well at Nazareth withthe pitcher on His head: saw Him with blistered hands and aching back inthe carpenter's shop; then at last went south with Him to Jordan;listened with Him, hungering, to the jackals in the wilderness; rockedwith Him on the high Temple spire; stared with Him at the Empires of alltime, and refused them as a gift. Then he went with Him from miracle tomiracle, laughed with joy at the leper's new skin; wept in sorrow and joywith the mother at Nain, and the two sisters at Bethany; knelt with Maryand kissed His feet; went home with Matthew and Zaccheus, and sat at meatwith the merry sinners; and at last began to follow silent and amazedwith face set towards Jerusalem, up the long lonely road from Jericho.
Then, with love that almost burned his heart, he crouched at the moonlitdoor outside and watched the Supper begin. Judas pushed by him,muttering, and vanished in the shadows of the street. He heard the hushfall as the Bread was broken and the Red Wine uplifted; and he hid hisface, for he dared not yet look with John upon a glory whose veils wereso thin. Then he followed the silent company through the overhung streetsto the Temple Courts, and down across the white bridge to the gardendoor. Then, bolder, he drew near, left the eight and the three and kneltclose to the single Figure, who sobbed and trembled and sweated blood.Then he heard the clash of weapons and saw the glare of the torches, andlonged to warn Him but could not; saw the bitter shame of the kiss andthe arrest and the flight; and followed to Caiaphas' house; heard thestinging slap; ran to Pilate's house; saw that polished gentleman yawnand sneer; saw the clinging thongs and the splashed floor when thescourging was over; followed on to Calvary; saw the great Cross rise upat last over the heads of the crowd, and heard the storm of hoots andlaughter and the dry sobs of the few women. Then over his head the sungrew dull, and the earth rocked and split, as the crosses reeled withtheir swinging burdens. Then, as the light came back, and the earth endedher long shudder, he saw in the evening glow that his Lord was dead. Thenhe followed to the tomb; saw the stone set and sealed and the watchappointed; and went home with Mary and John, and waited.
Then on Easter morning, wherever his Lord was, he was there too; withMary in that unrecorded visit; with the women, with the Apostles; on theroad to Emmaus; on the lake of Galilee; and his heart burned with Christat his side, on lake and road and mountain.
Then at last he stood with the Twelve and saw that end that was soglorious a beginning; saw that tender sky overhead generate its strangecloud that was the door of heaven; heard far away the trumpets cry, andthe harps begin to ripple for the new song that the harpers had learnedat last; and then followed with his eyes the Lord whom he had now learnedto know and love as never before, as He passed smiling and blessing intothe heaven from which one day He will return....
* * * *
There, then, as Anthony looked on the canvas, was that living, movingface and figure. What more could He have done that He did not do? Whatperfection could be dreamed of that was not already a thousand times His?
And when the likeness was finished, and Father Robert stepped aside fromthe portrait that he had painted with such tender skill and love, it islittle wonder that this lad threw himself down before that eloquentvision and cried with Thomas, My Lord and my God!
* * * *
Then, very gently, Father Robert led him through those last steps; upfrom the Illuminative to the Unitive; from the Incarnate Life with itswarm human interests to that Ineffable Light that seems so chill andunreal to those who only see it through the clouds of earth, into thatkeen icy stillness, where only favoured and long-trained souls canbreathe, up the piercing air of the slopes that lead to the Throne, andthere in the listening silence of heaven, where the voice of adorationitself is silent through sheer intensity, where all colours return towhiteness and all sounds to stillness, all forms t
o essence and allcreation to the Creator, there he let him fall in self-forgetting loveand wonder, breathe out his soul in one ardent all-containing act, andmake his choice.