Moretti gave a gesture of impatience and contempt. Cyrillon noted it, and his dark eyes flashed, but he went on steadily,--
"And then I saw her die--she stretched her poor thin hard-working hands out to G.o.d, and over and over again she muttered and moaned in her fever the refrain of an old peasant song we have in Touraine, "Oh, la tristesse d"avoir aime!" If you had heard her--if you had seen her--if you had, or have a heart to feel, nerves to wrench, a brain to rack, blood to be stung to frenzy, you would,--seeing your mother perish thus,--have thought, that to kill the man who had made such a wreck of a sweet pure life, would be a just, aye even a virtuous deed! I thought so. But my intended vengeance was frustrated--whether by the act of G.o.d, who can say? But the conduct of the man whom I am now proud to call my father--"
"You have great cause for pride!" said Moretti sarcastically.
"I think I have"--said the young man, "In the close extremity of death at my hands, he won my respect. He shall keep it. It will be my glory now to show him what a son"s love and pardon may be. If it be true as I understand, that he is attacked by a disease which needs must be fatal, his last hours will not be desolate! It may be that I shall give him more comfort than Churches,--more confidence than Creeds! It may be that the clasp of my hand in his may be a better preparation for his meeting with G.o.d,--and my mother,--than the touch of the Holy Oils in Extreme Unction!"
"Like all your accursed sect, you blaspheme the Sacraments"--interrupted Moretti indignantly--"And in the very presence of one of her chiefest Cardinals, you scorn the Church!"
Cyrillon gave a quick gesture of emphatic denial.
"Monsignor, I do not scorn the Church,--but I think that honesty and fair dealing with one another is better than any Church! Christ had no Church. He built no temples, He ama.s.sed no wealth,--He preached simply to those who would hear Him under the arching sky,--in the open air! He prophesied the fall of temples; "In this place," He said, "is One greater than the temple." [Footnote: Matt. xii. v. 6.] He sought to destroy long built-up hypocrisies. "My house is called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves." Thieves, not only of gold, but of honour!--thieves of the very Gospel, which has been tampered with and twisted to suit the times, the conditions and opinions of varying phases of priestcraft. Who that has read, and thought, and travelled and studied the ma.n.u.scripts hidden away in the old monasteries of Armenia and Syria, believes that the Saviour of the world ever condescended to "pun" on the word Petrus, and say, "On this Rock (or stone) I will build my Church," when He already knew that He had to deal with a coward who would soon deny Him?"
"Enough! I will hear no further!" cried Moretti, turning livid with fury--"Cardinal Bonpre, I appeal to you . . ."
But Cyrillon went on unheedingly,--
"Beware of that symbol of your Church, Monsignor! It is a very strange one! It seems about to be expanded into a reality of dreadful earnest!
"I know not the man," said Peter. Does not the glittering of the world"s wealth piled into the Vatican,--useless wealth lying idle in the midst of hideous beggary and starvation,--proclaim with no uncertain voice, "I KNOW NOT THE MAN"? The Man of sorrows,--the Man of tender and pitying heart,--the Man who could not send the mult.i.tude away without bread, and compa.s.sed a miracle to give it to them,--the Man who wept for a friend"s death,--who took little children in His arms and blessed them,--who pardoned the unhappy outcast and said, "Sin no more,"--who was so selfless, so pure, so strong, so great, that even sceptics, while denying His Divinity, are compelled to own that His life and His actions were more Divine than those of any other creature in human shape that has ever walked the earth! Monsignor, there is no true representative of Christ in this world!"
"Not for heretics possibly," said Moretti disdainfully.
"For no one!" said Cyrillon pa.s.sionately--"For no poor sinking, seeking soul is there any such visible comforter! But there is a grand tendency in Mankind to absorb His Spirit and His teaching;--to turn from forms and shadows of faith to the Faith itself,--from descriptions of a possible heaven to the REAL Heaven, which is being disclosed to us in transcendent glimpses through the jewel-gates of science! There were twelve gates in the visioned heaven of St. John,--and each gate was composed of one pearl! Truly do the scoffers say that never did any planetary sea provide such pearls as these! No,--for they were but prophetic emblems of the then undiscovered Sciences. Ah, Monsignor!--and what of the psychic senses and forces?--forces which we are just beginning to discover and to use,--forces which enable me to read your mind at this present moment and to see how willingly you would send me to the burning, Christian as you call yourself, for my thoughts and opinions!--as your long-ago predecessors did with all men who dared to reason for themselves! But that time has pa.s.sed, Monsignor; the Spirit of Christ in the world has conquered the Church THERE!"
The words rushed from his lips with a fervid eloquence that was absolutely startling,--his eyes were aglow with feeling--his face so animated and inspired, that it seemed as though a flame behind it illumined every feature. Abbe Vergniaud, astonished and overcome, laid a trembling hand on the arm of the pa.s.sionate speaker with a gesture more of appeal than restraint, and the young man caught that hand within his own and held it fast. Moretti for a moment fixed his eyes upon father and son with an expression of intense hatred that darkened his face with a deep shadow as of a black mask,--and then without a word deliberately turned his back upon both.
"Your Eminence has heard all this," he said coldly, addressing the Cardinal who sat rigidly in his chair, silent and very pale.
"I have," replied Bonpre in a low strained tone.
"And I presume your Eminence permits--?"
"Why talk of permission?" interrupted the Cardinal, raising his eyes with a sorrowful look, "Who is to permit or deny freedom of speech in these days? Have I--have you--the right to declare that a man shall not express his thoughts? In what way are we to act? Deny a hearing? We cannot--we dare not--not if we obey our Lord, who says, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them." If we ask for ourselves to be heard, we must also hear."
"We may hear--but in such a case as the present one must we not also condemn?" demanded Moretti, watching the venerable prelate narrowly.
"We can only condemn in the case of a great sin," replied Bonpre gently, "and even then our condemnation must be pa.s.sed with fear and trembling, and with full knowledge of all the facts pertaining to the error. "Judge not that ye be not judged." We are told plainly that our brother may sin against us not only seven times but seventy times seven, and still we are bound to forgive, to sustain, to help, and not to trample down the already fallen."
"These are your Eminence"s opinions?" said Moretti.
"Most a.s.suredly! Are they not yours?"
Moretti smiled coldly.
"No. I confess they are not! I am a faithful servant of the Church; and the Church is a system of moral government in which, if the slightest laxity be permitted, the whole fabric is in danger--"
"A house of cards then, which a breath may blow down!" interposed "Gys Grandit," otherwise Cyrillon Vergniaud, "Surely an unstable foundation for the everlasting ethics of Christ!"
"I did not speak to you, sir," said Moretti, turning upon him angrily.
"I know you did not. I spoke to you," answered the young man coolly, "I have as much right to speak to you, as you have to speak to me, or to be silent--if you choose. You say the Church is a system of moral government. Well, look back on the past, and see what it has done in the way of governing. In the very earliest days of Christianity, when men were simple and sincere, when their faith in the power of the Divine things was strong and pure, the Church was indeed a safeguard, and a powerful restraint on man"s uneducated licentiousness and inherent love of strife. But when the l.u.s.t of gain began to creep like a fever into the blood of those with whom worldly riches should be as nothing compared to the riches of the mind, the heart, and the spirit, then the dryrot of hypocrisy set in--then came craftiness, cruelty, injustice, and pitilessness, and such grossness of personal conduct as revolts even the soul of an admitted sinner. Moral government? Where is it to day? Look at France--Italy--Spain! Count up the lies told by the priests in these countries to feed the follies of the ignorant! Did Christ ever tell lies? No. Then why, if you are His follower, do you tell them?"
"I repeat, I did not speak to you," said Moretti, his eyes sparkling with fury,--"To me you are a heretic, accursed, and excommunicate!--thrust out of salvation, and beyond my province to deal with!"
"Oh, that a man should be thrust out of salvation in these Christian days!" exclaimed Cyrillon with a flashing look of scorn, "And that he should find a servant of Christ to tell him so! Accursed and excommunicate! Then I am a kind of leper in the social community! And you, as a disciple of your Master, should heal me of my infirmity--and cleanse me of my Leprosy! Loathsome as leprosy is whether of mind or body, Christ never thrust it out of salvation!"
"The leper must wish to be cleansed!" said Moretti fiercely, "If he does not himself seek to be healed of his evil, no miracle can help him."
"Oh but I do seek!" And young Vergniaud threw back his handsome head with a splendid gesture of appeal, "With all my soul, if I am diseased, I wish to be cleansed! Will YOU cleanse me? CAN you? I wish to stand up whole and pure, face to face with the Divine in this world, and praise Him for His goodness to me. But surely if He is to be found anywhere it is in the Spirit of Truth! Not in any sort of a lie! Now, according to His own words the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth. "When the Spirit of Truth is come He will guide you into all Truth." And what then?
Monsignor, it is somewhat dangerous to oppose the Spirit of Truth, whether that Force speak through the innocent lips of a child or the diseased ones of a leper! "For whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him, BUT WHOSOEVER SPEAKETH AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST"--or the Spirit of Truth, known sometimes as Inspiration . .
. "IT SHALL NOT BE FORGIVEN HIM in this world, neither in the world to come." That is a terrible curse, which an ocean of Holy Water could scarcely wash away!"
"Your argument is wide of the mark," said Moretti, impatiently, yet forced in spite of himself to defend his position, "the Church is not opposed to Truth but to Atheism."
"Atheism! There is no such thing as a real atheist in the world!"
declared Cyrillon pa.s.sionately, "No reasoning human being alive, that has not felt the impress of the Divine Image in himself and in all the universe around him! He may, through apathy and the falsehoods of priestcraft, have descended into callousness, indifference and egotism, but he knows well that that impress cannot be stamped out--that he will have to account for his part, however small it be, in the magnificent pageant of life and work, for he has not been sent into it "on chance."
Inasmuch as if there is chance in one thing there must be chance in another, and the solar system is too mathematically designed to be a haphazard arrangement. With all our cleverness, our logic, our geometrical skill, we can do nothing so exact! As part of the solar system, you and I have our trifling business to enact, Monsignor,--and to enact it properly, and with satisfaction to our Supreme Employer, it seems to me that if we are honest with the world and with each other, we shall be on the right road."
"For my part, I am perfectly honest with you," said Moretti smiling darkly, "I told you, and I tell you again, that to me you are a heretic, accursed and excommunicate. You will, as the democrat "Gys Grandit," no doubt feel a peculiar pleasure when your father is also declared accursed and excommunicate. I have said, and I say again, that the Church is a system of moral government, and that no laxity can be permitted. It is a system founded on the Gospel of our Lord, but to obey the commands of our Lord to the letter we should have to find another world to live in--"
"Pardon me--I ask for information," interposed Cyrillon, "You of course maintain that Christ was G.o.d in Man?"
"Most absolutely!"
"And yet you say that to obey His commands to the letter we should have to find another world to live in! Strange! Since He made the world and knows all our capabilities of progress! But have you never fancied it possible that we may be forced to obey His commands to the letter, or perish for refusing to do so?"
Moretti made as though he would have sprung forward,--his face was drawn and rigid, his lips tightly compressed, but he had no answer to this unanswerable logic. He therefore took refuge in turning brusquely away as before and was about to address himself to Bonpre, but stopped short, as he perceived Manuel, who had entered while the conversation was going on, and who now stood quietly by the Cardinal"s chair in an att.i.tude of composed attention. Moretti glanced at him with a vexed sense of irritation and reluctant wonder;--then moistening his dry lips he began,
"I am bound to regret deeply that your Eminence has allowed this painful discussion to take place in your presence without reproof. But I presume you are aware of the responsibility incurred?"
The Cardinal slowly inclined his head in grave a.s.sent.
"In relating the scene of to-day to His Holiness, I shall be compelled to mention the att.i.tude you have maintained throughout the conversation."
"You are at perfect liberty to do so, my son," said Bonpre with unruffled gentleness.
Moretti hesitated. His eyes again rested on Manuel.
"Pardon me," he said suddenly and irrelevantly, "This boy . . ."
"Is a foundling," said the Cardinal, "He stays with me till I can place him well in the world. He has no friends."
"He took some part in the affair of this morning, I believe?" queried Moretti, with a doubtful air.
"He saved my life," said Abbe Vergniaud advancing, "It was not particularly worth saving--but he did it. And I owe him much--for in saving me, he also saved Cyrillon from something worse than death."
"Naturally you must be very gratefu," retorted Moretti satirically, "The affection of a son you have denied for twenty-five years must be exceedingly gratifying to you!" He paused--then said, "Does this boy belong to the Church?"