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The Christian, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Book 2. The Religious Life - Chapter 20 |
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_ SECOND BOOK. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE CHAPTER XX Some weeks had passed, and it was the morning of the last day of John Storm's residence at Bishopsgate Street. After calling the Brotherhood, the Father had entered John's room and was resting on the end of the bed. "You are quite determined to leave us?" "Quite determined, Father." The Father sighed deeply, and said in broken sentences: 'Our house is passing through terrible trials, my son. Perhaps we did wrong to come here. There is no cross in our foundations, and we have built on a worldly footing. 'Unless the Lord build the house--' It was good of you to delay the execution of your purpose, but now that the time has come--I had set my heart on you, my son. I am an old man now, and something of the affection of the natural father----" "Father, if you only knew----" "Yes, yes; I know, I know. You have suffered, and it is not for me to reproach you. The novitiate has its great joys, but it has its great trials also. Self has to be got rid of, faith has to be exerted, obedience has to be learned, and, above all, the heart has to be detached from its idols in the world--a devoted mother, it may be; a dear sister; perhaps a dearer one still." There was silence for a moment. John's head was down; he could not speak. "That you wish to return to the world only shows that you came before you heard the call of God. Some other voice seemed to speak to you, and you listened and thought it was God's voice. But God's voice will come to you yet, and you will hear it and answer it and not another---- Have you anywhere to go to when you leave this house?" "Yes, the home of a good woman. I have written to her--I think she will receive me." "All that you brought with you will be returned, and if you want money----" "No, I came to you as a beggar--let me leave you as a beggar too." "There is one thing more, my son." "What is it, Father?" The old man's voice was scarcely audible. "You are breaking obedience by leaving us before the end of your novitiate, and the community must separate itself from you, though you are only a novice, as from one who has violated his vow and cast himself off from grace. This will have to be done before you cross our threshold. It is our duty to the Brotherhood--it is also our duty to God. You understand that?" "Yes." "It will be in the church, a few minutes before midday service." The Father rose to go. "Then that is all?" "That is all." The Father's voice was breaking. "Good-bye, my son." "Good-bye, Father, and God forgive me!" A leather trunk which John had brought with him on the day he came to the Brotherhood was returned to his room, containing the clothes he had worn in the outer world, as well as his purse and watch and other belongings. He dressed himself in his habit as a clergyman, and put the cassock of the society over it, for he knew that to remove that must be part of the ordeal of his expulsion. Then the bell rang for breakfast, and he went down to the refectory. The brothers received him in silence, hardly looking up as he entered, though by their furtive glances he could plainly see that he was the only subject that occupied their thoughts. When the meal was over he tried to mingle among them, that he might say farewell to as many as were willing that he should do so. Some gave him their hands with prompt good will, some avoided him, some turned their backs upon him altogether. But if his reception in the refectory was chilling, his welcome in the courtyard was warm enough. At the first sound of his footsteps on the paved way the dog came from his quarters under the sycamore. One moment the creature stood and looked at him with its sad and bloodshot eyes; then, with a bound, it threw its fore paws on his breast, and then plunged around him and uttered deep bays that were like the roar of thunder. He sat on the seat and caressed the dog, and his heart grew full and happy. The morning was bright with sunshine, the air was fragrant with the leafage of spring, and birds were singing and rejoicing in the tree. Presently Brother Andrew came and sat beside him. The lay brother, like a human dog, had been following him about all the morning, and now in his feeble way he began to talk of his mother, and to wonder if John would ever see her. Her name was Pincher, and she was a good woman. She lived in Crook Lane, Crown Street, Soho, and kept house for his brother, who was a pawnbroker. But his brother, poor fellow! was much given to drink, and perhaps that had been a reason why he himself had left home. John promised to call on her, and then Brother Andrew began to cry. The sprawling features of the great fellow were almost laughable to look upon. The bell rang for Terce. While the brothers were at prayers, John took his last look over the house. With the dog at his heels--the old thing seemed determined to lose sight of him no more--he passed slowly through the hall and into the community room and up the stairs and down the top corridor. He looked again at every inscription on the walls, though he knew them all by heart and had read them a hundred times. When he came to his own cell he was touched by a strange tenderness. Place where he had thought so much, prayed so much, suffered so much--it was dear to him, after all! He went up on to the tower. How often he had been drawn there as by a devilish fascination! The great city looked innocent enough now under its mantle of sunlight, dotted over with green, but how dense, how difficult! Then the bell rang for midday service, though it was not yet noon, and he went down to the hall. The brothers were there preparing to go into the church. The order of the procession was the same as on the day of his dedication, except that Brother Paul was no longer with them--Brother Andrew going first with the cross, then the lay brothers, then the religious, then the Father, and John Storm last of all. Though the courtyard was full of sunshine, the church looked dark and gloomy. Curtains were drawn across the windows, and the altar was draped as for a funeral. As soon as the brothers had taken their places in the choir the Father stood on the altar steps and said: "If any member of this community has one unfaithful thought of going back to the outer world, I charge him to come to this altar now. But woe to him through whom the offence cometh! Woe to him who turns back after taking up the golden plough!" John was kneeling in his place in the second row of the choir. The eyes of the community were upon him. He hesitated a moment, then rose and stepped up to the altar. "My son," said the Father, "it is not yet too late. I see your fate as plainly as I see you now. Shall I tell you what it is? Can you bear to hear it? I see you going out into a world which has nothing to satisfy the cravings of your soul. I see you foredoomed to failure and suffering and despair. I see you coming back to us within a year with a broken and bleeding heart. I see you taking the vows of lifelong consecration. Can you face that future?" "I must." The Father drew a long breath. "It is inevitable," he said; and, taking a book from the altar, he read the awful service of the degradation: _"By the authority of God Almighty, Father [Symbol: Patee], Son, and Holy Ghost, and by our own authority, we, the members of the Society of the Holy Gethsemane, do take away from thee the habit of our Order, and depose and degrade and deprive thee of all rights and privileges in the spiritual goods and prayers which, by the grace of God, are done among us."_ "Amen! Amen!" said the brothers. During the reading of the service John had been kneeling. The Father motioned to him to rise, and proceeded to remove the cord with which he had bound him at his consecration. When this was done, he signalled to Brother Andrew to take off the cassock. The bell was tolled. The Father dropped on his knees. The brothers, hoarse and husky, began to sing _In exitu Israel de Aegypto_. Their heads were down, their voices seemed to come up out of the earth. It was all over now. John Storm turned about, hardly able to see his way. Brother Andrew went before him to open the door of the sacristy. The lay brother was crying audibly. The sun was still shining in the courtyard, and the birds were still singing and rejoicing. The first thing of which John was conscious was that the dog was licking his rigid fingers. A moment later he was in the little covered passage to the street, and Brother Andrew was opening the iron gate. "Good-bye, my lad!" He stretched out his hand, then remembered that he was an excommunicated man, and tried to draw it back; but the lay brother had snatched at it and lifted it to his lips. The dog was following him into the street. "Go back, old friend." He patted the old creature on the head, and Brother Andrew laid hold of it by the loose skin at its neck. A hansom was waiting for him with his trunk on the top. "Victoria Square, Westminster," he called. The cab was moving off, when there was a growl and a lurch--the dog had broken away and was running after it. How crowded the streets were! How deafening was the traffic! The church bell was ringing for midday service. What a thin tinkle it made out there, yet how deep was its boom within! Stock Exchange men with their leisurely activity were going in by their seven doorways to their great market place in Capel Court. He began to feel a boundless relief. How his heart was beating! With what a strange and deep emotion he found himself once more in the world! Driving in the dense and devious thoroughfares was like sailing on a cross sea outside a difficult headland. He could smell the brine and feel the flick of the foam on his lips and cheeks. It was liberty, it was life! Feeling anxious about the dog, he drew up the cab for a moment. The faithful creature was running under the driver's seat. Before the cab could start again a line of sandwich men had passed in front of it. Their boards contained a single word. The word was "GLORIA." He saw it, yet it barely arrested his consciousness. Somehow it seemed like an echo from the existence he had left behind. The noises of life were as wine in his veins now. He was burning with impatience to overtake his arrears of knowledge, to see what the world had gone through in his absence. Leaning over the door of the hansom, he read the names of the streets and the signs over the shops, and tried to identify the houses which had been rebuilt and the thoroughfares which had been altered. But the past was the past, and the clock would turn back for no man. These men and women in the streets knew all that had happened. The poorest beggar on the pavement knew more than he did. Nearly a year of his life was gone--in prayer, in penance, in fasting, in visions, in dreams--dropped out, left behind, and lost forever. Going by the Bank, the cab drew up again to allow a line of omnibuses to pass into Cheapside. Every omnibus had its board for advertisements, and nearly every board contained the word he had seen before--"GLORIA." "Only the name of some music-hall singer," he told himself. But the name had begun to trouble him. It had stirred the fibres of memory, and made him think of the past--of his yacht, of Peel, of his father, and finally of Glory--and again of Glory--and yet again of Glory. He saw that flags were flying on the Mansion House and on the Bank, and, pushing up the trap of the hansom, he asked if anything unusual was going on. "Lawd, down't ye know what day it is terday, sir? It's the dear ole laidy's birthday. That's why all the wimming's going abart in their penny carridges. Been through a hillness, sir?" "Yes, something of that sort." "Thort so, sir." When the cab started afresh he began to tell himself what he was going to do in the future. He was going to work among the poor and the outcast, the oppressed and the fallen. He was going to search for them and find them in their haunts of sin and misery. Nothing was to be too mean for him. Nothing was to be common or unclean. No matter about his own good name! No matter if he was only one man in a million! The kingdom of heaven was like a grain of mustard seed. When he came within sight of St. Paul's the golden cross on the dome was flashing like a fiery finger in the blaze of the midday sun. That was the true ensign! It was a monstrous and wicked fallacy, a gloomy and narrow formula, that religion had to do with the affairs of the other world only. Work was religion! Work was prayer! Work was praise! Work was the love of man and the glory of God! Glorious gospel! Great and deathless symbol! _ |
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