Lord of the World 7

Lord of the World 7

It was a curious life, therefore, that Percy led. He had a couple of

rooms assigned to him in Archbishop's House at Westminster, and was

attached loosely to the Cathedral staff, although with considerable

liberty. He rose early, and went to meditation for an hour, after which

he said his mass. He took his coffee soon after, said a little office,

and then settled down to map out his letter. At ten o'clock he was ready

to receive callers, and till noon he was generally busy with both those

who came to see him on their own responsibility and his staff of

half-a-dozen reporters whose business it was to bring him marked

paragraphs in the newspapers and their own comments. He then breakfasted

with the other priests in the house, and set out soon after to call on

people whose opinion was necessary, returning for a cup of tea soon

after sixteen o'clock. Then he settled down, after the rest of his

office and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, to compose his letter,

which though short, needed a great deal of care and sifting. After

dinner he made a few notes for next day, received visitors again, and

went to bed soon after twenty-two o'clock. Twice a week it was his

business to assist at Vespers in the afternoon, and he usually sang high

mass on Saturdays.

 

It was, therefore, a curiously distracting life, with peculiar dangers.

 

It was one day, a week or two after his visit to Brighton, that he was

just finishing his letter, when his servant looked in to tell him that

Father Francis was below.

 

"In ten minutes," said Percy, without looking up.

 

He snapped off his last lines, drew out the sheet, and settled down to

read it over, translating it unconsciously from Latin to English.

 

"WESTMINSTER, May 14th.

 

"EMINENCE: Since yesterday I have a little more information. It appears

certain that the Bill establishing Esperanto for all State purposes will

be brought in in June. I have had this from Johnson. This, as I have

pointed out before, is the very last stone in our consolidation with the

continent, which, at present, is to be regretted.... A great access of

Jews to Freemasonry is to be expected; hitherto they have held aloof to

some extent, but the 'abolition of the Idea of God' is tending to draw

in those Jews, now greatly on the increase once more, who repudiate all

notion of a personal Messiah. It is 'Humanity' here, too, that is at

work. To-day I heard the Rabbi Simeon speak to this effect in the City,

and was impressed by the applause he received.... Yet among others an

expectation is growing that a man will presently be found to lead the

Communist movement and unite their forces more closely. I enclose a

verbose cutting from the _New People_ to that effect; and it is echoed

everywhere. They say that the cause must give birth to one such soon;

that they have had prophets and precursors for a hundred years past, and

lately a cessation of them. It is strange how this coincides

superficially with Christian ideas. Your Eminence will observe that a

simile of the 'ninth wave' is used with some eloquence.... I hear to-day

of the secession of an old Catholic family, the Wargraves of Norfolk,

with their chaplain Micklem, who it seems has been busy in this

direction for some while. The _Epoch_ announces it with satisfaction,

owing to the peculiar circumstances; but unhappily such events are not

uncommon now.... There is much distrust among the laity. Seven priests

in Westminster diocese have left us within the last three months; on the

other hand, I have pleasure in telling your Eminence that his Grace

received into Catholic Communion this morning the ex-Anglican Bishop of

Carlisle, with half-a-dozen of his clergy. This has been expected for

some weeks past. I append also cuttings from the _Tribune_, the _London

Trumpet_, and the _Observer_, with my comments upon them. Your Eminence

will see how great the excitement is with regard to the last.

 

"_Recommendation._ That formal excommunication of the Wargraves and

these eight priests should be issued in Norfolk and Westminster

respectively, and no further notice taken."

 

Percy laid down the sheet, gathered up the half dozen other papers that

contained his extracts and running commentary, signed the last, and

slipped the whole into the printed envelope that lay ready.

 

Then he took up his biretta and went to the lift.

 

* * * * *

 

The moment he came into the glass-doored parlour he saw that the crisis

was come, if not passed already. Father Francis looked miserably ill,

but there was a curious hardness, too, about his eyes and mouth, as he

stood waiting. He shook his head abruptly.

 

"I have come to say good-bye, father. I can bear it no more."

 

Percy was careful to show no emotion at all. He made a little sign to a

chair, and himself sat down too. "It is an end of everything," said the

other again in a perfectly steady voice. "I believe nothing. I have

believed nothing for a year now."

 

"You have felt nothing, you mean," said Percy.

 

"That won't do, father," went on the other. "I tell you there is nothing

left. I can't even argue now. It is just good-bye."

 

Percy had nothing to say. He had talked to this man during a period of

over eight months, ever since Father Francis had first confided in him

that his faith was going. He understood perfectly what a strain it had

been; he felt bitterly compassionate towards this poor creature who had

become caught up somehow into the dizzy triumphant whirl of the New

Humanity. External facts were horribly strong just now; and faith,

except to one who had learned that Will and Grace were all and emotion

nothing, was as a child crawling about in the midst of some huge

machinery: it might survive or it might not; but it required nerves of

steel to keep steady. It was hard to know where blame could be assigned;

yet Percy's faith told him that there was blame due. In the ages of

faith a very inadequate grasp of religion would pass muster; in these

searching days none but the humble and the pure could stand the test for

long, unless indeed they were protected by a miracle of ignorance. The

alliance of Psychology and Materialism did indeed seem, looked at from

one angle, to account for everything; it needed a robust supernatural

perception to understand their practical inadequacy. And as regards

Father Francis's personal responsibility, he could not help feeling that

the other had allowed ceremonial to play too great a part in his

religion, and prayer too little. In him the external had absorbed the

internal.

 

So he did not allow his sympathy to show itself in his bright eyes.

 

"You think it my fault, of course," said the other sharply.

 

"My dear father," said Percy, motionless in his chair, "I know it is

your fault. Listen to me. You say Christianity is absurd and impossible.

Now, you know, it cannot be that! It may be untrue--I am not speaking of

that now, even though I am perfectly certain that it is absolutely

true--but it cannot be absurd so long as educated and virtuous people

continue to hold it. To say that it is absurd is simple pride; it is to

dismiss all who believe in it as not merely mistaken, but unintelligent

as well---"

 

"Very well, then," interrupted the other; "then suppose I withdraw that,

and simply say that I do not believe it to be true."

 

"You do not withdraw it," continued Percy serenely; "you still really

believe it to be absurd: you have told me so a dozen times. Well, I

repeat, that is pride, and quite sufficient to account for it all. It is

the moral attitude that matters. There may be other things too---"

 

Father Francis looked up sharply.

 

"Oh! the old story!" he said sneeringly.

 

"If you tell me on your word of honour that there is no woman in the

case, or no particular programme of sin you propose to work out, I shall

believe you. But it is an old story, as you say."

 

"I swear to you there is not," cried the other.

 

"Thank God then!" said Percy. "There are fewer obstacles to a return of

faith."

 

There was silence for a moment after that. Percy had really no more to

say. He had talked to him of the inner life again and again, in which

verities are seen to be true, and acts of faith are ratified; he had

urged prayer and humility till he was almost weary of the names; and had

been met by the retort that this was to advise sheer self-hypnotism; and

he had despaired of making clear to one who did not see it for himself

that while Love and Faith may be called self-hypnotism from one angle,

yet from another they are as much realities as, for example, artistic

faculties, and need similar cultivation; that they produce a conviction

that they are convictions, that they handle and taste things which when

handled and tasted are overwhelmingly more real and objective than the

things of sense. Evidences seemed to mean nothing to this man.

 

So he was silent now, chilled himself by the presence of this crisis,

looking unseeingly out upon the plain, little old-world parlour, its

tall window, its strip of matting, conscious chiefly of the dreary

hopelessness of this human brother of his who had eyes but did not see,

ears and was deaf. He wished he would say good-bye, and go. There was no

more to be done.

 

Father Francis, who had been sitting in a lax kind of huddle, seemed to

know his thoughts, and sat up suddenly.

 

"You are tired of me," he said. "I will go."

 

"I am not tired of you, my dear father," said Percy simply. "I am only

terribly sorry. You see I know that it is all true."

 

The other looked at him heavily.

 

"And I know that it is not," he said. "It is very beautiful; I wish I

could believe it. I don't think I shall be ever happy again--but--but

there it is."

 

Percy sighed. He had told him so often that the heart is as divine a

gift as the mind, and that to neglect it in the search for God is to

seek ruin, but this priest had scarcely seen the application to himself.

He had answered with the old psychological arguments that the

suggestions of education accounted for everything.

 

"I suppose you will cast me off," said the other.

 

"It is you who are leaving me," said Percy. "I cannot follow, if you

mean that."