The progress of my curate and myself in our study of the Greek authors is not so steady or so successful as we had anticipated. Somehow or other we drift away from the subject-matter of our evening lessons, and I am beginning to perceive that his tastes are more modern, or, to speak more correctly, they tend to less archaic and more interesting studies. Then again I have read somewhere that the Hebrew characters, with their minute vowel-points, have driven blind many an enthusiastic scholar, and I fear these black Greek letters are becoming too much for my old sight. There now, dear reader, don't rush to the conclusion that this is just what you anticipated; you knew, of course, how it would be. You never had much faith in these transcendental enterprises of reviving Greek at the age of seventy-five, and you shook your incredulous head at the thought of an Academia of two honorary members at Kilronan. Now we have done a little. If you could only see the "Dream of Atossa" done into English pentameters by my curate, and my own "Prometheus"—well, there, this won't do—Vanity of vanities, said the Preacher.
But this much I shall be pardoned. I cannot help feeling very solemn and almost sad at the approach of Christmas time. Whether it is the long, gloomy tunnel that runs through the year from November to April,—these dark, sad days are ever weeping,—or whether it is the tender associations that are linked with the hallowed time and the remembrance of the departed I know not; but some indescribable melancholy seems to hover around and hang down on my spirits at this holy season; and it is emphasized by a foreboding that somewhere in the future this great Christian festival will degenerate into a mere bank holiday, and lose its sacred and tender and thrice-sanctified associations. By the way, is it not curious that our governments are steadily increasing the number of secular holidays, whilst the hands of Pharisees are still uplifted in horror at the idleness and demoralization produced amongst Catholics by the eight or ten days that are given in the year to the honor of God's elect?
Well, we shall stand by the old traditions to the end. And one of my oldest habits has been to read up at Christmas time every scrap of literature that had any bearing whatever on the most touching and the most important event in all human history. And so, on the Sunday evening preceding the celebration of Father Letheby's first Christmas in Kilronan, I spoke to him at length on my ideas and principles in connection with this great day; and we went back, in that rambling, desultory way that conversation drifts into,—back to ancient prophecies and forecastings, down to modern times,—tales of travellers about Bethlehem, the sacrilegious possession of holy places by Moslems, etc., etc., until the eyes of my curate began to kindle, and I saw a possible Bernard or Peter in his fine, clear-cut face, and a "Deus vult" in the trembling of his lips. Ah me! what a glorious thing is this enthusiasm of the young,—this noble idealism, that spurns the thought of consequences, only sees the finger of God beckoning and cares not whither!
"Hand me down that Virgil," I said, to avert an explosion, for when he does break out on modern degeneracy he is not pleasant to hear.
"Now spare my old eyes, and read for me, with deliberation, those lines of the Fourth Eclogue which forecast the coming of our Lord!"
He read in his fine sonorous voice, and he did full justice to the noble lines:—
"Ultima Cumæi venit jam carminis ætas;
Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo.
Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna;
Jam nova progenies cælo demittitur alto,"—
down to the two lines which I repeated as a prayer:—
"O mihi tam longæ maneat pars ultima vitæ
Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta."
"No wonder," he said, at length, "that the world of the Middle Ages, which, by the way, were the ages of enlightenment, should have regarded Virgil as a magician and even as a saint."
"But," he said, after a pause, "the 'Dream of the Dead Christ' would be almost more appropriate nowadays. It is terrible to think how men are drifting away from Him. There's Ormsby now, a calm, professed infidel; and absolutely nothing in the way to prevent his marriage with Miss Campion but his faith, or want of faith."
"Ormsby!" I cried. "Infidel! Marriage with Miss Campion!—want of faith!!! What in the world is this sudden discharge of fireworks and Catherine-wheels upon your pastor? Or where has all this gunpowder been hitherto stored?"
"I thought I had told you, sir," he said, timidly, "but I have so many irons in the fire. You know that Ormsby's marriage is only a question of weeks but for one thing."
"And, if I am not trespassing too much on the secrecy of your confidential intercourse with these young people," I said (I suppose I was a little huffed), "may I ask how long is all this matrimonial enterprise in progress, and how does Campion regard it?"
"I am afraid you are offended, sir," he said, "and indeed quite naturally, because I have not spoken about this matter to you before; but really it appears so hopeless, and I hate speaking of things that are only conjectural. I suppose you had set your heart on Miss Campion's becoming a nun?"
"God forbid!" I said fervently. "We don't want to see all our best girls running into convents. I had set my heart on her being married to some good, excellent Catholic Irishman, like the Chief over at Kilkeel."
"Neil Cullen? Campion wouldn't listen to it. His name is a red rag to a bull. He never forgave Cullen for not firing on the people at that eviction over at Labbawally, some two or three years ago."
"And what does the person most interested think of the matter?" I asked.
"Well, I think she is quite in favor of it," he said. "Her father likes him, he will live in the old house, and she likes him,—at least, she asked me to do all in my power to bring him into the Church."
"The little puss," I could not help saying. "Who would ever have thought it? And yet, would it not be best? I pity her living with that old sea-dog,—that Viking in everything but his black mane of hair. But now, look here; this matter is important; let us talk it over quietly. Who or what is Ormsby? You have met him?"
"Several times. He is a young Trinity man, good-looking, gentlemanly, correct, moral. He has a pension of two hundred a year, his salary as Inspector of Coast Guards, and great expectations. But he has no faith."
"And never had any, I suppose. That's the way with all these fellows—"
"On the contrary, he was brought up a strict Evangelical, almost a Calvinist. Then he began to read, and like so many others he has drifted into unfaith."
"Well, lend him some books. He knows nothing, of course, about us. Let him see the faith, and he'll embrace it."
"Unfortunately, there's the rub. He has read everything. He has travelled the world; and reversing the venerable maxim, Cœlum, non animum mutant, he has taken his faith from his climate. He has been a Theosophist in London, a 'New Light' in 'Frisco, as he calls it, a Moslem in Cairo (by the way, he thinks a lot of these Mussulmans,—fine, manly, dignified fellows, he says, whose eloquence would bring a blush almost to the cheek of a member of Parliament). Then he has been hand in glove with Buddhist priests in the forests of Ceylon, and has been awfully impressed with their secret power, and still more with their calm philosophy. I believe," said my curate, sinking his voice to a whisper of awe and mystery, "I believe—he has kissed—the—tooth—of—Buddha!"
"Indeed," I replied, "and what good did that operation do him?"
"Not much, I suppose, except to confirm him in that gospel of the sceptic: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy!'"
"Humph! Here, then, stands the case. Our most interesting little parishioner has set her heart on this globe-trotter. There is a big wall in the way, and it won't do to repeat the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe. Now, what is to be done to make the young fellow a Catholic? Has he any prejudices against us?"
"Not one? On the contrary, he rather likes us. He has received all kinds of hospitality from Catholic priests the wide world over, and he thinks us a right honest, jolly lot of fellows."
"H'm! I am not sure that that is exactly what St. Liguori or Charles Borromeo would fancy. But never mind! Now does he know what we hold and believe?"
"Accurately. He has read our best books."
"Has he had any intercourse with Catholics?"
"A good deal. They have not impressed him. Look at Campion now. Would any man become a Catholic with his example before him?"
"Hardly indeed, though we must speak kindly of him now, since you converted him. Had you any chat with him about his difficulties?"
"Yes, several. I walked home with him a few evenings from Campion's. You know that path over the cliff and down to the coast-guard station?"
"Well. And what is his special trouble? Does he think he has an immortal soul?"
"There you struck it. That's his trouble; and how to convince him of that beats me. I asked him again and again whether he was not self-conscious, that is, perfectly cognizant of the fact that there was a something, an Ego, outside and beyond the brain and inferior powers that commanded both? Was there not some intellectual entity that called up memory, and bade it unseal its tablets? And did he not feel and know that he could command and control the action of his brain, and even of every part of it? Now, I said, if the brain is only dumb matter, which you admit, and cannot create thought, where is this volition, or what is it? It is not cerebral, for then matter would create thought; that is, be the creator and the created at the same time."
"Well?"
"He listened attentively and then said quietly: 'Quite true. But if the Ego is different from the brain and is self-conscious, where does the self-consciousness go when the brain becomes anæmic and sleeps, or when the faculties are chloroformed?' 'Oh,' I said, 'the organ is shut down, the stops are closed.' 'Yes,' he said, 'but where goes the performer?' By Jove, I was stranded. I tell you what it is, Father Dan, though you'll call it treason, I'll pitch Æschylus to the mischief, and study what is of human and vital interest to us priests."
"That little objection needn't alarm you," I said, "you'll find the answer in every handbook of Catholic philosophy."
"What manual of Catholic philosophy in English could I get for Ormsby?" asked my curate.
"Alas! my dear young friend, I don't know. There is the great hiatus. You cannot put a folio calf-bound volume of Suarez in his hands,—he may not understand Latin. I know absolutely no book that you can put into the hands of an educated non-Catholic except Balmez's 'Letters to a Sceptic.'"
"He has read it," said my curate.
We were both silent.
"Now, you know," he continued, after a long pause, "I don't attach the least importance to these objections and arguments. I lived long enough in England to know that faith is a pure, absolutely pure gift of the Almighty, not to be acquired by learning or study, but possibly by prayer. I see, therefore, only one hope, and that is, in our Lord and His Blessed Mother."
"A profound and true remark," I replied, as he rose up to depart. "Get these mites of children to pray, and to say the Rosary for that particular purpose. I can't understand how God can refuse them anythi............