CHAPTER VII.
The day was bright and ardent, the grotto was cool and shady; and theMissionary felt no inclination to leave a retreat, so adapted to theseason and his tone of mind. He engaged in the perusal of theScriptures, an abridged translation of which he had made into the Hindudialect, and in devotional exercises and pious meditations: yet, for thefirst time, he found his thoughts not always obedient to his will; buthe perceived that they had not changed their character, but theirobject; and that, in reverting to the interview of the morning, theystill took into the scale of their reflection, the subject of hismission.
When he had finished the holy offices of the evening, he walked forth toenjoy its coolness and its beauty. He bent his steps involuntarilytowards the altar erected at the confluence of the streams. The wholescene had changed its aspect with the sun’s course: it was still andgloomy, and formed a strong relief to the luxuriancy of the avenue ofasoca-trees, on whose summit the western sky poured its flood of crimsonlight. He wandered through its illuminated shades, till he suddenlyfound himself in a little valley, almost surrounded by hills, andopening, by a rocky defile, towards the mountains of Sirinagur, whichformed a termination to the vista. In the centre of the valley, astream, dividing into two branches, nearly surrounded a sloping mound,which swelled from their banks. The mound was covered with floweringshrubs, through whose entwining branches the shafts of a Verandah werepartially seen, while the Pavillion to which it belonged, was whollyconcealed. The eye of the Missionary was fascinated by the romanticbeauty of this fairy scene, softened in all its lovely features by thedeclining light, which was throwing its last red beams upon the face ofthe waters. All breathed the mystery of a consecrated spot, and everytree seemed sacred to religious rites. The bilva, the shrub of thegoddess Durga[22]; the high flowering murva, whose nectarous pores emita scented beverage, and whose elastic fibres form the sacrificialthreads of the Brahmins; the bacula, the lovely tree of the Indian Eden;and the lofty cadamba, which, dedicated to the third incarnation, is atonce the most elegant and holy of Indian trees; all spoke, that theground whereon he trod was consecrated; all gave a secret intimation tohis heart, that his eyes then dwelt upon the secluded retreat of thevestal Priestess of Cashmire.
At the moment that he was struck by the conviction, a light and rustlingnoise seemed to proceed from the summit of the mound. He drew back, andcasting up his eyes, perceived Luxima descending amidst the trees. Shecame darting lightly forward, like an evening iris; no less brilliant inhue, no less rapid in descent. She passed without observing theMissionary, and her dark and flowing tresses left an odour on the air,which penetrated his senses. He had not the power to follow, nor toaddress her: he crossed himself, and prayed. He, who in the temple ofthe idol had preached against idolatry to a superstitious multitude,bold and intrepid as a self-devoted martyr, now, in a lovely solitude,where all was calculated to sooth the feelings of his mind, and toharmonize with the tender mildness of his mission, trembled to address ayoung, a solitary, and timid woman. It seemed as if Heaven had withdrawnits favour; as if the spirit of his zeal had passed away. While hehesitated, Luxima had approached the stream, and the light of thesetting sun fell warmly round her. Thrice she bowed to the earth thebrow irradiated with his beams, and then raising her hands to the west,while all the enthusiasm of a false, but ardent devotion, sparkled inher up-turned eye, and diffused itself over her seraphic countenance,she repeated the vesper worship of her religion.
It was then that a zeal no less enthusiastic, a devotion no less fervid,animated the Christian Priest. He darted forward, and seized an arm thusraised in impious homage. He discarded the usual mildness of hisevangelic feelings; with, vehemence he exclaimed, “Mistaken being! knowyou what you do? that profanely you offer to the Created, that whichbelongs to the Creator only!”
The Indian, silent from amazement, stood trembling in his grasp; but shegazed for a moment on the Missionary, and, to an evident emotion ofapprehension and astonishment, succeeded feelings still more profound. Aresentful blush crimsoned her cheek, and her dark brows knit angrilyabove the languid orbs they shaded. The touch of the stranger wassacrilege. He had seized a hand, which the royal cast of her countrywould have trembled to have approached: he had equally shocked thenational prejudice and natural delicacy of the woman, and violated thesacred character and holy office of the Priestess; she withdrew,therefore, from his clasp, shuddering and indignant, and lookingimperiously on him, exclaimed, “Depart hence:--that, by an instantablution in these consecrated waters, I may efface the pollution of thytouch; leave me, that I may expiate a crime, for which I must elseinnocently suffer.”
The Missionary, with an air of dignified meekness, letting fall hisarms, and casting down his eyes to the earth, replied: “Daughter, inapproaching thee, I obey a will higher than thy command; I obey a Power,which bids me tell thee, that the prejudice to which thy mind submits,is false alike to happiness and to reason; and that a religion whichcreates distinction between the species, cannot be the religion oftruth; for He who alike made thee and me, knows no distinction: He whodied to redeem my sins, died also for thy salvation. Children ofdifferent regions, we are yet children of the same Parent, created bythe same Hand, and inheritors of the same immortality.”
He ceased. Luxima gazed timidly on him, and expressions strongly marked,and of a varying character, diffused themselves over her countenance. Atlast she exclaimed, “Stranger, thou sayest we are of the same _cast_.Art thou, then, an irradiation of the Deity, and, like me, wilt thoufinally be absorbed in his divine effulgence? Ah, no! thou wouldstdeceive me, and cannot. Thou art _he_, the daring Infidel, who, in thetemple at Lahore, denied all faith in the triple God, the holyTreemoortee; Brahma, Vishna, and Shiven: thou art he, who boldly daredto imitate the sixth avatar, in which Brahma, as a priest, did come todestroy the religions of nations, and to diffuse his own: yes, thou arthe, who would seem a god among us, and, by seducing our minds from thetrue faith, deprive us of our _cast_ on earth, and plunge us, hereafter,into the dark Nerekah, the abode of evil spirits. I know thee well, andthy power is great and dreadful; for in the midst of the shrines of theGods I worship, thy image only fixed my eye; and when Brahma spoke bythe lips of his Guru, thy voice only left its accents on my ear. Erethou didst speak, I took thee for the tenth avatar, which is yet tocome; and when I listened to thee, I deemed thee one of the Genii of theArab’s faith, whose words are false though sweet. But they say thou arta Christian, and a sorcerer; and punishment, with a _black aspect_ and a_red eye_, waits on the souls of them who listen to, and who believethee.”
With these words, rapidly pronounced, blushing at her own temerity, inthus addressing a stranger of another sex, and involved in the confusionof her own new and powerful feelings, she would have glided away; butthe Missionary following, caught the drapery of her robe, and said, withimpressive dignity, “I command thee, in the name of Him who sent me, tostay and hear.”
Luxima turned round. Her cheek was pale, she trembled, and raised herhands in the attitude of supplication. Shrinking back upon herself,fear, mingled with a sense of the profanation she endured, seemed to bethe leading emotion of her soul. The Missionary, struck by the pleadingsoftness of her air, and apprehensive of forfeiting all chance ofanother interview, by a perseverance in now detaining her, drew back afew paces, and crossing his hands on his bosom, and casting his eyes toearth, he sighed, and said, “Go! thou art free; but take with thee theprayers and blessings of him, who, to procure thy eternal happiness,would joy to sacrifice his mortal life.” He spoke with enthusiasm andfeeling:--Luxima heard him in amazement and emotion. Free to go, she yetlingered for a moment; then raising her eyes to heaven, as if sheinvoked the protection of some tutelary deity, she turned abruptly away,and gliding up the mount, disappeared amidst the ombrage of its trees.
The Missionary remained motionless. The result of this interviewconvinced him, that in the same light as the infidel appeared to him, insuch had he appeared to her; alike beyond the pale of salvation,
alikedark in error. Her prejudices, indeed, extended even beyond the abstractsentiment; for his words were not only deemed sacrilegious, but his verypresence was considered as pollution: and her opinions seemed soanimated by her enthusiasm, her religious faith so blended with herhuman ambition, that he believed he might well deem the conversion ofher nation possible, could hers be once effected. But to thoseobstacles were opposed the success, which had even already crowned hisprogressive efforts: either by a fortunate chance, or by a divineprovidence, he had established himself near her residence; he wasacquainted with the places of her morning and evening worship; he hadaddressed her, and she had replied to him. She had, indeed, confessedshe feared his presence, and she had endeavoured to fly him; but had shenot also avowed the deep impressions he had made on her mind? that shehad mistaken him for an incarnation of her worshipped god; and, in theconsecrated temple of her faith, where she stood, not more adoring thanadored, that _his_ image only rested on her imagination, _his_ accentsonly dwelt upon her ear?
The Missionary moved rapidly away, as this conviction came home to hisheart. He believed he felt it all, as a religious should only feel,through the medium of his mission, and not as a man through the agencyof his feelings; and he returned thanks to Heaven, that the grace ofconversion was already working in the pure, but erring, soul of theinnocent infidel, slowly indeed, and under the influence of the senses;but the ear which had been charmed, the eye which had been fixed, wereorgans of intellect, the powerful sources of mind itself.
Another day rose on the cave of the apostolic Nuncio; but he extendednot his wanderings beyond the huts of the neighbouring Goalas; when heapproached them, he was hailed with smiles; but when he attempted topreach to them, they listened to him with indifference, or heard withincredulity. He sighed, and believing his hour was not yet come, lookedforward, with religious patience, to the moment, when he should present,to the worshippers of Brahma, a Neophyte, whose conversion would be thesole miracle which graced his mission: but what miracle could betterevince the divinity of the doctrine he advanced, than that a Priestessof Brahma, a Prophetess, a Brachmachira, should believe in, and receiveit? He beheld, therefore, from the summit of his asylum, towns andvillages, the palaces of Rajahs, and the cottages of the Ryots; but heapproached them not. The charms of a solitude, so lovely and soprofound, grew with an increasing and hourly influence on his heart andimagination. Pure light and pure air, the softest sounds and sweetestodours, skies for ever sunny, and shades for ever cool, the song ofbirds and murmur of cascades, all, in a residence so enchanting,rendered life itself an innocent enjoyment. The goalas called him “TheHermit of the Grotto of Congelations;” and believing him to be anharmless fanatic, and a holy man of some unknown faith, they respectedhis solitude, and never intruded on it, but to furnish him with thesimple necessaries his simple life required[23].
For some time he forbore approaching the consecrated grove of thePriestess: he wished to awaken confidence, and feared to banish it byimportunity. On the evening of the third day, he directed his stepstowards the pavilion of Luxima, always concealing himself amidst thetrees, lest he should be observed by any of the few attendants whoresided with her. At a little distance from the confluence of thestreams, his ear was struck by a moan of suffering. He flew to the spotwhence it proceeded, and beheld a young fawn in the fangs of a wolf; ananimal rarely seen in the innoxious shades of Cashmire, but which issometimes driven, by hunger, from the mountain wilds of Thibet into thevalley. The animal, fierce in want, now suddenly dropt his bleedingprey, and turned on the man. The bright glare of his distended eyes, thediscovery of his fang-teeth, his inclined head, the sure presages ofdestruction, all spoke the attack he meditated. The Missionary, firm andmotionless, met his advance with the spear of his crosier; and thoughthe wolf rushed upon its point, the slight wound it inflicted onlyserved to whet his rage. He gained upon his opponent. The Missionarythrew away the crosier. He had no alternative: he rushed upon theanimal; he struggled with its strength: the contest was unequal; but itwas but of a moment’s duration: the animal lay strangled at his feet,and the Missionary returned his acknowledgments to that Power, which hadthus nerved his arm, and preserved his life. He then turned to the fawn.It was but slightly wounded; and as it lay trembling on the grass, itspreserver could not but admire its singular beauty. Its form wasperfect, its velvet coat was smooth and polished, and its delicate neckwas encircled by a silver collar, clasped with the mountain gem ofCashmire. Some Shanscrit characters were engraven on this collar, butthe Missionary paused not to peruse them. The suppliant looks of thegentle and familiar fawn excited his pity: it seemed no stranger tohuman attentions, and caressed the hand of the Missionary, when he tookit in his arms to bear it to his cave; for it was unable to move, andhis benevolent nature would not permit him to leave it to perish. It wasalso evident, that it was the favourite of some person of distinction,to whom he would take pleasure in restoring it; for though he hadconquered all human affections in himself, and had lived alone forHeaven, neither loving nor beloved on earth, yet sometimes he remotelyguessed at the happiness such a feeling might bestow on others lessanxious for perfection; and a vague wish would sometimes escape hisheart, that _he_ too might love: but when that wish grew withindulgence, and extended itself to a higher object; when the possibleexistence of a dearer, warmer, feeling, filled his enthusiast soul, andvibrated through all his sensible being, then the blood flowed like aburning torrent in his veins, his heart quickened in its throb to afeverish pulsation--he trembled, he shuddered, he prayed, and wasresigned.
When he had reached the grotto, he placed his helpless burden on somemoss. He bathed its wound, and applying to it some sanative herbs, wasabout to bind it with the long fibres of the cusa-grass, when the lightwhich flowed in upon his task was suddenly obscured. He was on his kneesat the moment: he turned round his head, and perceived that the shadowfell from a form which hovered at the entrance of his grotto. The formwas Luxima’s: it was the Priestess of Brahma who presented herself atthe entrance of the Christian’s cave: it was the zealous Brachmachira,who stood within a few steps of the Christian’s altar. The Missionaryremained in the motionless attitude of surprise. He could not bedeceived: it was no vision of ethereal mildness, such as descends uponthe abodes of holy men; for, all pale, and spiritual, and heaven-born asit looked, it was still all woman: it was still the Idolatress. Witheyes of languid softness, with looks so wild, so timid in their glance,as if she trembled at the shade her figure pictured on the sunny earth;before the Monk had power to rise, she advanced into the centre of thegrotto, and kneeling opposite to him, and beside the fawn, she said,“Almora, my dear and faithful animal; thou whom I have fostered, as thymother would have fostered thee; thou dost, then, still live! and theinnocent spirit thy lovely form embodies, has not yet fled to some lesspure receptacle.” At the sound of her caressing voice, the favouriteraised her languid eyes, and fawned upon her hands. “It lives!” she saidjoyfully; and turning her look upon the Missionary, added, in a softervoice, “And thou hast saved its life?”
As she spoke, her eyes fell in bashful disorder, beneath the fixed lookof the Missionary; and again gently raising their dewy light, threwaround the cavern, a glance of wonder and curiosity. The sun wassetting radiantly opposite to its entrance, and the spars of its vaultedroof shone with the hue and lustre of vivid rubies: pure rays ofrefracted light fell from the golden crucifix on the surface of themarble altar; and the figure of the Monk, habited only in a white jama,finely harmonized with the scene, and gave to the grotto that air ofenchantment, which the Indian fancy delights to dwell on. The mind ofLuxima seemed rapt in the wondrous imagery by which she was surrounded.She again turned her eyes on the Monk, and suddenly starting from herposition, the head of the fawn fell from her bosom. “Thou art wounded!”she exclaimed, with a voice of pity and of terror. The Monk perceivedthat the breast of his jama was stained with blood. “Thou wilt bleed todeath!” she continued, trembling, and approaching him: “thou, who,unlike other infidels,
art so tender towards a suffering animal, artthou to suffer unassisted?”
“My religion teaches me to assist and to relieve all who live andsuffer,” said the Missionary; “but here, who is there to assistme?”--Luxima changed colour; she flew out of the grotto, and in a momentreturned. “Here,” she said eagerly, “here is a lotos-leaf filled withwater; bathe thy wound: and here is an herb, sovereign in fresh wounds;apply it to thy bosom: and to-morrow an Arab physician from Sirinagurshall attend thee.”--“The wound lies not in my bosom,” replied the Monk:“it is my right arm which has been torn by the fangs of the wolf, and Icannot assist myself; yet I thank thee for thy charitable attentions.”
Luxima stood suspenseful and agitated. Natural benevolence, confirmedprejudice, the impulse of pity, and the restraint of religion, all wereseen to struggle in the expression of a countenance, which faithfullyindicated every movement of the soul. At last nature was victorious, andraising her eyes and hands to heaven, she exclaimed, “Praise be toVishnu! who still protects those who are pure in heart, even thoughtheir hands be polluted!” Then gently, timidly, approaching theMissionary, she knelt beside him, and raising the sleeve of his jama,she bathed the wound, which was slight, applied to it the sanativeherbs, and, tearing off part of her veil, bound his arm with theconsecrated fragment. Thus engaged, the colour frequently visited andretired from her cheek. When her hand met the Missionary’s, sheshuddered and shrank from the touch; and when his eye dwelt on hers, shesuddenly averted their glance. They fell at last upon her own fadedwreath of the buchamhaca, which was suspended from a point of the rock:she blushed, and cast them down on the rosary of the Christian Hermit,which, at that moment, encircled her own arm. She perceived that hiseyes also rested on them. “I found them,” she said, replying to hislook; “for having missed a fawn, who had followed me to the stream ofevening worship, I implored the assistance of Moodaivee, the Goddess ofMisfortune, and she conducted me to a spot, where I perceived theshining hairs of my favourite, lying scattered around the body of awolf, who lay, grim and terrific, even in death. I said, ‘Who is he,powerful as the flaming column, in which Shiven did manifest hisstrength--who is he, bold and terrible, who thus destroys thedestroyer?’ Thy beads told the tale; and the red drops which fell fromthe wound of the fawn, tracked the path to this cave of wonders, where Ihave found thee, kind infidel, acting as an Hindu would have acted; whoshudders as he moves, lest, beneath his incautious steps, some viewlessinsect bleeds. Receive, then, into thy care, this wounded animal; andwhen it can be removed, lead it, at sunrise, to the confluence of thestreams; there I will receive it.”
As she spoke, she advanced to the entrance of the cave, and performingthe salaam, the graceful salutation of the East, disappeared. Had acelestial visitant irradiated with its brightness the gloom of hiscavern, the Missionary would not have been more overwhelmed by emotionsof surprise and admiration; but, in recovering from his confusion, herecollected, with a strong feeling of self-reproach, that he hadsuffered her to depart, without availing himself of so singular anopportunity of increasing her confidence, and extending theirintercourse. He arose--and resuming his monkish robe, followed her witha rapid step. He perceived her, like a vapour which a sunbeam lights,floating amidst the dark shadows of the surrounding trees. The echo ofhis footsteps caught her ear: she turned round, and the flush of quicksurprise mantled even to her brow; yet a smile of bashful pleasureplayed round her lips. The Missionary turned away his eyes, and secretlywished she might not thus smile again; for the pearl, whose snowy lustrethe chunam had not yet dimmed, marked by contrast the ruby brightnessof those lips, which, when they smiled, lost all their usual characterof seraph meekness, and chased from the playful countenance of thewoman, the dignified tranquillity which sat upon the holy look of thePriestess.
The Missionary was now beside her. “The dew of evening,” he said, “fallsheavy, the sun is about to withdraw its last beam from the horizon, andthe cause which drove a ferocious animal into these harmless shades maystill exist, and send another from the heights of Thibet; therefore,daughter, have I followed thee!” The Indian looked not insensible, noryet displeased by his attention; but when he called her _daughter_, sheraised her eyes in wonder to the form of him, who thus assumed thesacred rights of paternity: but she read not there his claim, andrepeated in a low voice--“_Daughter!_”--“Yes,” he replied, as a vaguesense of pleasure thrilled through his heart, when she repeated theword; “yes, I would look upon thee as a daughter, I would be unto theeas a father, I would guide the wanderings of thy mind, as now I guidethy steps, and I would protect thee from evil and from error, as I nowprotect thee from danger and from accident.”
The countenance of Luxima softened as he spoke. He now addressedhimself, not to her prejudices, which were unvanquishable, but to herfeelings, which were susceptible: he addressed her, not as the priest ofa religion she feared, but as a man, whom it was impossible to listento, or to behold, without interest; and the Missionary, observing themeans most likely to fascinate her attention and to win her confidence,now dropt the language of his mission, and spoke to her with aneloquence, never before exerted but in the cause of religion. He spoketo her of the lovely wonders of her native region; of the impressionwhich the venerable figure of her grandsire had made on his mind, in thetemple of Lahore; and of her own story, which, he confessed, had deeplyinterested him: he spoke to her of the loss of affectionate parents, ofthe untimely fate of a youthful bridegroom, and of the nature of theaustere life she herself led; of the tender ties she had relinquished,of the precious feelings she had sacrificed. In adverting thus to herlife, he was governed by an acute consciousness of all the privations ofhis own; he spoke of the subjection of the passions, like oneconstituted to know their tyranny, and capable of opposing it; and heapplauded the fortitude of virtue, like one who estimated the difficultyof resistance by the force of the external temptation and the internalimpulse: he spoke a language not usually his own--the _language ofsentiment_: but if it wanted something of the force, it wanted nothingof the pathos which distinguished the eloquence of his religion.
Luxima heard him with emotion. Her heart was eloquent, but the nature ofher religion, and feminine reserve, alike sealed her lips. She repliedto his observation by looks, and to his questions by monosyllables. Heonly understood, from her timid and brief answers, that her grandsirewas then residing at his college at Sirinagur, and that she lived inreligious retirement, in her pavilion, with only two female attendants,wholly devoted to the discipline and exercises of her profession. Butthough her words were few, reserved, and guarded; yet the warm blush ofsudden emotion, the playful smile of unrepressed pleasure, the low sighof involuntary sadness, and all those simple and obvious expressions ofstrong and tender feelings, which, in an advanced state of society, areobscured by ceremony, or concealed by affectation, betrayed, to theMonk, a character, in which tenderness and enthusiasm, and genius andsensibility, mingled their attributes.
When she had reached the base of the mound, the Missionary sought not toproceed. “Daughter,” he said, “thou art now within the safe asylum ofthy home. Peace be unto thee! and may He, who gave us equally hearts tofeel his goodness, guard and protect thee!” As he spoke, he raised hisillumined eyes to heaven, and clasped his hands in the suppliantattitude of prayer. The dovelike eyes and innocent hands of the Indianwere raised in the same direction; for, gazing on the glories of thefirmament, a feeling of rapturous devotion, awakened and exalted by theenthusiasm of the Missionary, filled her soul.
In this sacred communion, the Christian Saint and Heathen Priestess feltin common and together; and their eyes were only withdrawn from heaven,to become fixed on each other. The beams of both were humid, and bothsecretly felt the sympathy by which they were united. Luxima withdrew insilence; and the Missionary, as he caught the last glimpse of her form,sighed, and said, “How worthy she is to be saved! how obviously does adawning grace shed its pure light over the dark prejudices of herwandering mind!” Then he recalled her looks, her blushes,
her words: allalike breathed of a soul, formed for the highest purposes of devotion;a heart endowed with the most exquisite feelings of nature: and, inmeditating on the character of his future proselyte, he remainedwandering about the shades of her dwelling, until the rays of a midnightmoon silvered their foliage; then a strain of soft and solemn musicfaintly stole on his ear, and powerfully awakened his attention. Thismysterious sound proceeded from the summit of the mound; and led bystrains which harmonized with the hour, the place, and with the peculiartone of his feelings and his mind, he ascended the acclivity; but it waswith slow and doubtful steps, as if he were impelled to act by somesecret impulse, which he did not approve, and could not resist. As hereached the summit of the mound, he perceived, by the peculiar odourswhich breathed around him, that it was planted with the rarest andrichest shrubs. A spring, gushing from its brow, shed a light dew onevery side, which bestowed an eternal freshness on the balmy air, and onthose fragrant flowers, which opened now their choicest sweets.
A pavilion, surrounded by a light and elegant verandah, rose, like afairy structure, from the midst of the surrounding shades; and, from oneof the lattices, proceeded those aërial sounds, which,
“Sweet as from blest voices uttering joy,”
had first allured his attention. It seemed to inclose a particularapartment. Its lattices were composed of the aromatic verani, whoseproperty it is, to allay a feverish heat; and which, by being dashed bythe waters of an artificial fountain, bestowed a fragrant coolness onthe air. A light gleamed through one of the lattices, and the Missionaryfound no difficulty in penetrating, with his eye, into the interior ofthe room. He perceived that the light proceeded from a lamp, suspendedfrom the centre of the ceiling, which was painted with figures takenfrom the Indian mythology. Beneath the lamp stood a small altar, whoseivory steps were strewed with flowers and with odours.
The idol, to whom the offerings were made, wore the form and air of achild: by his cany bow, his arrows tipt with Indian blossoms, theMissionary recognised him as the lovely twin of the Grecian Cupid;while, before her tutelar deity, knelt Luxima, playing on the Indianlyre, which she accompanied with a hymn to Camdeo. The sounds, wild andtender, died upon her lips, and she seemed to
“Feed on thoughts, Which voluntary mov’d harmonious numbers.”
She then arose, and poured incense into a small vase, in which theleaves of the sacred sami-tree burnt with a blue phosphoric light: thenbowing to the altar, she said, “Glory be to Camdeo; him by whom Brahmaand Vishnu are filled with rapturous delight; for the true object ofglory is an union with our beloved: that object really exists; but,without it, both heart and soul would have no existence.”
As she pronounced this impassioned invocation, a tender and ardententhusiasm diffused itself over her countenance: her eyelids gentlyclosed, and soft and delightful visions seemed to absorb her soul andfeelings.
The Missionary hastened away, and rapidly descended the mound. He hadseen, he had heard, too much: even the very air he breathed communicatedits fatal softness to his imagination, and tended to enervate his mind.A short time back, and the Indian had shared with him a feeling as pureand as devotional as it was sublime and awful: he found her now involvedin idolatrous worship. Hitherto a chaste and vestal reserve hadconsecrated her look, and guarded her words; now a tender andimpassioned languor was distinguished in both: and the virgin priestess,the widowed bride, who had hitherto appeared exclusively consecrated tothe service of that Heaven she imaged upon earth, seemed now only aliveto the existence of feelings in which Heaven could have no share.
For whose sake was this tender invocation made? lived there an objectworthy to steal between the vestal Prophetess and her paradise ofIndra? He recalled her look and air, and thought that as he had lastbeheld her in all the grace and blandishment of beauty and emotion, sheresembled less the future foundress of a religious order, than one ofthe lovely Rajini, or female Passions, which, in the poetical mythologyof her religion, were supposed to preside over the harmony of thespheres, and to steal their power over the hearts of men by sounds whichbreathed of heaven. But he discarded the seducing image, as littleconsonant to the tone of his mind, while he involuntarily repeated, “Thetrue object of soul and mind is the glory of a union with our beloved;”until, suddenly recollecting the doctrines of mystic love, and that,even in his own pure faith, there were sects who addressed their homageto Heaven in terms of human passion[24], Luxima stood redeemed in hismind: for, whatever glow of imagination warms the worship of colderregions, he was aware that, in India, the ardent gratitude of createdspirits was wont to ascend to the Creator in expressions of the mostfervid devotion; that the tender eloquence of mystic piety toofrequently assumed the character of human feelings; and that the faintline, which sometimes separated the language of love from that ofreligion, was too delicate to be perceptible but to the pure in spiritand devout in mind. He was himself of a rigid principle and a stoicalorder, and the language of his piety, like its sentiment, was lofty andsublime. Yet he was not intolerant towards the soft and pious weaknessesof others; and he now believed that the ardent enthusiasm of the lovelyHeathen was a sure presage of the zeal and faith of the futureChristian.
The little hills which encircled the vale where chance had fixed theresidence of the Nuncio, seemed now to him as a magic boundary, whoseline it was impossible to pass; and during the day which succeeded tothat of Luxima’s visit, he wandered near the path which led to herpavilion, or returned to his grotto, to caress the fawn she hadcommitted to his care; but always with a feeling of doubt and anxiety,as if expectation and disappointment divided his mind; for he thought itprobable, that the humanity of Luxima might lead her, now her firstprejudices were vanquished, again to visit him, to inquire into thestate of his own slight wound, or to see her convalescent favourite.Once he believed he heard her voice: he flew to the mouth of the grotto,but it was only the sweet soft whistle of the packimar, the Indianbird-catcher, as he hung, almost suspended, from the projection of aneighbouring rock, pointing his long and slender lines tipped with limeto the gaudy plumage of the pungola, who builds her nest in the recessesof the highest cliffs; or lured to his nets, with imitative note, thelovely and social magana, the red-breast of the East. Again he heard alight and feathery foot-fall: he thought it must be Luxima’s, but heonly perceived at a distance, a slender youth bending his rapid way,assisted by a slight and brilliant spear; and by his jama of snowywhite, and crimson sash and turban, he recognised the useful and swiftHircarah, the faithful courier of some Indian rajah or Mogul omrah.
The sun, as it faded from the horizon, withdrew with it, hopes scarcelyunderstood by him who indulged them. Hitherto his mind had receivedevery impression, and combined every idea, through a religiousinfluence; and even the Indian, in all the splendour of her beauty, heryouth, and her enthusiasm, had stolen on his imagination solely throughthe medium of his zeal. Until this moment, woman was to him a thingunguessed at and unthought of. In Europe and in India, the few who hadmet his eye were of that class in society to whom delicacy of form wasso seldom given, by whom the graces of the mind were so seldompossessed. Hitherto he had only stood between them and Heaven: they hadapproached him penitent and contrite, faded by time, or chilled byremorse; and he had felt towards them as saints are supposed to feel,who see the errors from which they are themselves exempt. Hisexperience, therefore, afforded him no parallel for the character andform of the Priestess. A rapturous vision had, indeed, given him suchforms of heaven to gaze on; but on earth he had seen nothing to which hecould assimilate, or by which compare her.
Yet, in reflecting on her charms, he only considered them as renderingher more worthy to be converted, and more capable of converting. Heremembered that the pure light of Christianity owed its first diffusionto the influence of woman; and that the blood of martyred vestals hadflowed to attest their zeal and faith, with no inadequate effect. Thisconsideration, therefore, sanctified the solicitude which Luximaawakened in his mind; and anxiously
to expect her presence, andprofoundly to feel her absence, were, he believed, sentiments whichemanated from his religious zeal, and not emotions belonging to hisselfish feeling.
On the evening of the following day, he repaired to the altar at theconfluence of the streams, accompanied by the fawn, which was nowsufficiently recovered to be restored to its mistress. His heartthrobbed with a violence new to its sober pulse, when he perceivedLuxima standing beneath the shadowy branches of a cannella-alba, orcinnamon-tree, looking like the deity of the stream, in whose lucid waveher elegant and picturesque form was reflected. The bright buds of thewater-loving lotos were twined round her arms and bosom: she seemedfresh from her morning worship, and the enthusiasm of devotion stillthrew its light upon her features; but when the Missionary stood beforeher, this devotional expression was lost in the splendour of herilluminated countenance. The pure blood mantling to her cheek graduallysuffused her whole face with radiant blushes: a tender shyness hung uponher downcast eyes; and a smiling softness, a bashful pleasure, finelyblended with a religious dignity, involved her whole person. There wasso much of the lustre of beauty, the freshness of youth, the charm ofsentiment, the mystery of devotion, and the spell of grace, in herlook, her air, her attitude, that the Missionary stood rapt in silentcontemplation of her person, and wondering that one so fit for heavenshould yet remain on earth.
The fawn, which had burst from the string of twisted grass by which theMissionary led it, now sprung to the feet of her mistress, who lavishedon her favourite the most infantile caresses; and this little scene ofre-union gave time to the Missionary to recover the reserved, dignity ofthe apostolic Nuncio, which the abruptly awakened feelings of the manhad put to flight. “Daughter,” he said, “health and peace to thee andthine! May the light of the true religion effuse its lustre o’er thysoul, as the light of the sun now irradiates thy form!”
As he spoke a language so similar to that in which the devotions of theheathen were wont to flow, he touched, by a natural association ofideas, on the chord of her enthusiasm; and thrice bowing to the sun, shereplied, “I adore that effulgent power, in whose lustre I now shine, andof which I am myself an irradiated manifestation.”
The Missionary started; his blood ran cold as he thus found himself sointimately associated in the worship of an infidel; while, as ifsuddenly inspired, he raised his hands and eyes to heaven, and,prostrate on the earth, prayed aloud, and with the eloquence of angels,for her conversion.
Luxima, gazing and listening, stood rapt in wonder and amazement, in aweand admiration. She heard her name tenderly pronounced, and inseparablyconnected with supplication to Heaven in her behalf: she beheld tears,and listened to sighs, of which she alone was the object, and which weremade as offerings to the suppliant’s God, that she might embrace a modeof belief, to whose existence, until now, she was almost a stranger.Professing, herself, a religion which unites the most boundlesstoleration to the most obstinate faith; the most perfect indifference toproselytism, to the most unvanquishable conviction of its own supremeexcellence; she could not, even remotely, comprehend the pioussolicitude for her conversion, which the words and emotion of theChristian betrayed; but from his prayer, and the exhortations headdressed to her, she understood, that she had been the principal objectof his visiting Cashmire, and that her happiness, temporal and eternal,was the subject of his ardent hopes and eloquent supplications.
This conviction sunk deep into her sensible and grateful heart, whichwas formed for the exercise of all those feelings which raise and purifyhumanity; and it softened, without conquering, the profound andfirm-rooted prejudices of her mind; and when the Monk arose, she seatedherself on a shelving bank, and motioned to him to place himself besideher. He obeyed, and a short pause ensued, which the eloquent and fixedlooks of the Indian alone filled up; at last, she said, in accent ofemotion, “Christian, thou hast named me an idolatress; what means thatterm, which must sure be evil, since, when thou speakest it, methinksthou dost almost seem to shudder.”
“I call thee idolatress,” he returned, “because, even now, thou didstoffer to the sun that worship, which belongs alone to Him who said, ‘Letthere be light; and there was light.’”--“I adore the sun,” said Luxima,with enthusiasm, “as the great visible luminary; the emblem of thatincomparably greater Light, which can alone illumine our souls.”--“Ah!”he replied, “at least encourage this first principle of true faith, thispure idea of an essential Cause, this sentiment of the existence of aGod, which is the sole idea innate to the mind of man.”--“I would adoreHim in his works,” replied the Priestess; “but when I would contemplatehim in his essence, I am dazzled; I am overwhelmed; my soul shrinksback, affrighted at its own presumption. I feel only the mighty intervalwhich separates us from the Deity; overpowered, I sink to the earth,abashed and humbled in my conscious insignificance.”
“Such,” said the Missionary, “are the timid feelings of a soul,struggling with error, and lost in darkness. It is by the operation ofdivine grace only, that we are enabled to contemplate the Creator inhimself; it is by becoming a Christian that that divine grace only canbe obtained!”
Luxima shuddered as he spoke. “No,” she said; “the feeling which wouldprompt me to meet the presence of my Creator; to image his nature to mymind; to form a distinct idea of his being, power, and attributes, wouldoverpower me with fear and with confusion.”
As she spoke, a religious awe seemed to take possession of her soul.She trembled; her countenance was agitated; and she repeated rapidly thecreed of the faith she professed, prostrating herself on the earth, insign of the profound submission and humility of her heart. TheMissionary was touched by a devotion so pure and so ardent; and, whenshe had ceased to pray, he would have raised her from the earth; but,warm in all the revived feelings of her religion, her prejudicesrekindled with her zeal; she shrunk from an assistance she would havenow deemed it sacrilegious to accept, and, with a crimson blush, shehaughtily exclaimed, “As the shadow of the pariah defiles the bosom ofthe stream over which it hangs its gloom, so is the descendant of Brahmaprofaned by the touch of one who is neither of the same cast nor of thesame sex.”
The Missionary stood confused and overwhelmed by sentiments soincongruous, and by principles so discordant, as those which seemed toblend and to unite themselves in the character and mind of thisextraordinary enthusiast. At one moment, the purest adoration of theSupreme Being, and the most sublime conceptions of his attributes,betrayed themselves in her eloquent words; in the next, she appearedwholly involved in the wildest superstitions of her idolatrous nation.Now she hung upon his words with an obvious delight, which seemedmingled with conviction; and now she shrunk from his approach, as if hebelonged to some species condemned of Heaven. To argue with her wasimpossible; for there was an incoherence in her ideas, which was not tobe reconciled, or replied to. To listen to her was dangerous; for theeloquence of genius and feeling, and the peculiar tenets of her sect,gave a force to her errors, and a charm to her look, which weakened eventhe zeal of conversion in the priest, in proportion as it excited theadmiration of the man. Determined, therefore, no longer to confide inhimself, nor to trust to human influence on a soul so bewildered, sodeep in error, the Missionary drew from his bosom the scriptural volume,translated into the dialect of the country, and, presenting it to her,said, “Daughter, thou seest before thee a man, who has subdued thepassions incidental to his nature; a man, who has trampled beneath hisfeet the joys of youth, of rank, of wealth; who has abandoned hiscountry and his friends, his ease and his pleasure, and crossed perilousseas, and visited distant regions, and endured pain, and vanquishedobstacles, that others might share with him that bright futurity,reserved for those who believe, and follow the divine precepts whichthis sacred volume contains. Judge, then, of its purity and influence,by the sacrifices it enables man to make. Take it; and may Heaven pourinto thy heart its celestial grace, that, as thou readest, thou maystedify and believe!”
Luxima took the book, gazing silently on him who presented it. Hisco
untenance, the tone of his voice, seemed no less to affect her senses,than the solemnity of his address to impress and touch her mind. TheMissionary moved slowly away; he had restored his mind to its wontedholy calm; he wished not again to encounter the eyes, or listen to theaccents of the Indian. If she were not influenced by the inspiredwritings he had put into her hand, “neither would she by one who shoulddescend from heaven.”
He proceeded on, nor glanced one look behind him; and, though he heard alight foot-fall near him, yet his eyes were still fixed upon his rosary.At last a sweet and low voice pronounced the name of “Father!” Thetender epithet sunk to his heart: he paused, and Luxima stood besidehim. He turned his eyes on her for a moment, but suddenly withdrawingthem, he fastened their glances on the earth. “Daughter,” he said, “whatwouldst thou?”--“Thy forgiveness!” she replied timidly: “I shrunk fromthy approach, and therefore I fear to have offended thee; for haply thewomen of thy nation offend not their gods, when men of other castsapproach them, and they forbid it not.”
“The God whom they adore,” he said, “judges not by the act alone, but bythe motive. The pure in heart commit no evil deeds; and, perhaps, thereare women, even of thy nation, daughter, who would deem the presence ofa Christian minister no profanation to their purity.”
“But I,” she returned, with majesty, “I am a sacerdotal woman! aconsecrated vestal, and a guarded Priestess! And know, Christian, thatthe life of a vestal should resemble the snow-buds of the ipomea, when,hid in their virgin calix, the sun’s ray has never kissed their leaves.Yet, lest thou part from me in anger, accept this sacrifice.”
As she spoke, she averted her eyes. A deep blush coloured her cheek;and, trembling between an habitual prejudice and a natural feeling, sheextended to the Missionary hands of a pure and exquisite beauty, whichnever before had known a human pressure. The Missionary took them insilence. He believed that the rapid pulsation of his heart arose fromthe triumphant feeling excited by the conquest of a fatal prejudice; butwhen he recollected also, that this was the first time the hands of awoman were ever folded in his own, he started, and suddenly dropt them;while Luxima, animated by a devotional fervour, clasped them on herbosom, and said, in a low and tender voice, “Father, thou who artthyself pure, and holy as a Brahmin’s thought, pray for me to thy gods;I will pray for thee to mine!” Then turning her eyes for a moment onhim, she pronounced the Indian salaam, and, with a soft sigh andpensive look, moved slowly away.
The Missionary pursued her with his glance, until the thickening shadeof a group of mangoostan-trees concealed her from his view. Her sighseemed still to breathe on his ear, with a deathless echo: at last, heabruptly started, and walked rapidly away, as if, in leaving a spotwhere all breathed of her, he should leave the idea of her beauty andher softness behind him. He endeavoured to form an abstract idea of hercharacter, independent of her person; to consider the mind distinct fromthe woman; to remember only the prejudice he had vanquished, and not thehands he had touched; but still he felt them in his own, soft andtrembling; and still he sought to lose, in the subject of his mission,the object of his imagination. He endeavoured to banish her look and hersigh from his memory; and to recall the last short, but extraordinaryconversation he had held with her. He perceived that a pure system ofnatural religion was innate in her sublime and contemplative mind; butthe images which personified the attributes of Deity, in her nationalfaith, had powerfully fastened on her ardent imagination, and blendedtheir influence with all the habits, the feelings, and the expressionsof her life. The splendid mythology of the Brahminical religion waseminently calculated to seduce a fancy so warm; and the tenets of hersect, to harmonize with the tenderness of a heart so sensible. But alife so innocent as that she led, and a mind so pure as that shepossessed, rendered her equally capable to feel and to cherish thatabstract and awful sense of a First Cause, without which all religionmust be cold and baseless.
This consciousness of a predisposition to truth on her part, with thedaily conquest of those prejudices which might prevent its promulgationon his, gave new vigour to his hopes, and, in the anticipation of soillustrious a convert, he already found the sacrifices and labours ofhis enterprise repaid.
THE END OF VOL. I.
S. GOSNELL, Printer, Little Queen Street, London.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Jesuits, being charged with fraudulent practices, inendeavouring to persuade the Indians that the Brahminical and Christiandoctrines differed not essentially, were openly condemned by theFranciscans; which laid the foundation of those long and violentcontests, decided by Innocent the Tenth, in favour of the Franciscans.
[2] The misfortune of Portugal being united to the kingdom of Spainafter the death of Cardinal Henry, uncle to the King Sebastian, gave aterrible blow to the Portuguese power in the Indies.--GUZON, Histoiredes Indes Orientales.
[3] The power of that formidable ecclesiastic, the Inquisitor General,is very terrible; and extends to persons of all ranks--the Viceroy,Archbishop, and his vicar, excepted.--See HAMILTON’S New Account of theEast Indies.
[4] Dara having advanced beyond the river Bea, took possession ofLahore; giving his army time to breathe; in that city, he employedhimself in levying troops and in collecting the imperial revenue--Dow’sHistory of Hindostan, vol. iii. p. 274.
[5] “Autre fois les Jesuites avoient un établissement dans cette ville,et remplissoient leurs fonctions sacrés, et offroient aux yeux desMahometans et des Gentiles, la pomp de leurs fêtes.”--BERNIER.
[6] Monsieur de Thevenot speaks of a convent of religious Hindus, atLahore: they have a general, provincial, and other superiors; they makevows of obedience, chastity, and poverty; they live on alms, and havelay brothers to beg for them; they eat but once a day; the chief tenetof their order is, to avoid doing to others, what they would notthemselves wish to endure; they suffer injuries with patience and do notreturn a blow; and they are forbidden even to _look_ on women.
[7] A Hindu considers all the distinctions and privileges of his cast,as belonging to him by an incommunicable right; and to convert, or beconverted, are ideas equally repugnant to the principles, most deeplyrooted in his mind; nor can either the Catholic or ProtestantMissionaries in India, boast of having overcome those prejudices, exceptamong a few of the lower casts, or of such as have lost their castealtogether.--Voyages aux Indes par M. SONNEBAT, tom. i. p. 58.
[8] Gazettes de la cour de Delhi, des nouvelles publiques qui marquent,jour par jour, et non dans ce stile ampoullé qu’on reproche auxOrientaux, ce qui se passe d’importante à la cour et dans lesprovinces--ces sont de gazettes repandues dans toute l’empire.--ANQUETILDU PERRON, p. 47.
[9] A ceremony similar to that of confirmation in the Catholic church.
[10] From the time that they assume the dsandam, they are called theBrahmasaris, or children of Brahma.
[11] The “Raga Mala,” or Necklace of Melody, contains a highly poeticaldescription of the Ragas and their attendant nymphs.
[12] See “Duties of a faithful Widow,” translated from the Shanscrit, byH. Colebrook, Esq.
[13] “Certainly,” says De Bernier, “if one may judge of the beauty ofthe sacred women by that of the common people, met with in the streets,they must be very beautiful.” P. 96
“The beauties of Cashmire, being born in a more northern climate, and ina purer air, retain their charms as long, at least, as any Europeanwomen.”--GROSSE, p. 239.
[14] The women are so sacred in India, that even the common soldieryleave them unmolested in the midst of slaughter and desolation.--Dow,History of Hindoostan, vol. iii. p. 10.
[15] “The process of the saint’s canonization,” says the biographer ofXavier, “makes mention of four dead persons, to whom God restored lifeat this time by the ministry of his servant.”
[16] “Cet excès de chaleur vient de la situation de ces hautes montagnesqui se trouvent au nord de la route, arrêtent les vents frais,reflechissent les rayons du soleil sur les voyageurs, et laiss
ent dansla campagne un ardeur brulante.”--BERNIER.
[17] “Il (Bernier) n’eut plutôt monté ce qu’il nomme l’affreuse murailledu monde (parce-qu’il regard Cashmire un paradis terrestre), c’est àdire une haute montagne noire et pelée, qu’en descendant sur l’autreface il sentoit un air plus frais et plus temperé: mais rien ne sesurprise tant, dans ces montagnes, que de se trouvir, tout d’un coup,transporté des Indes en Europe.”--Histoire Generale des Voyages, livreii. p. 301.
[18] According to Forster, the utmost extent of this delicious vale fromS.E. to N.W. is scarcely 90 miles; other travellers assert, it to be but40 miles from east to west and 25 from north to south.
[19] So called by the Hindus and by the ancient annals of India; butBernier and Forster denominate the capital and its district by the samename as the kingdom or province.
[20] The confluence of streams is sacred to the followers of Brahma.
[21] “L’Eternel, absorbé dans la contemplation de son essence, resolutdans la plenitude des tems de former des êtres participants de sonessence et de sa beatitude.”--SHASTAR, traduit en François.
[22] The Goddess of Nature in the Indian mythology.
[23] “Il ne faut à ces nations que des nourritures rafraichissantes etpures; la nature leur a prodigue des forêts de citroniers, d’oranges, defiguiers, de palmiers, de cocotiers, et des campagnes couvertes deriz.”--Essai sur les Mœ et l’Esprit des Nations. VOLTAIRE.
[24] It is unnecessary to mention the well-known doctrine of quietism,embraced by the Archbishop of Cambray.
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