XV
The church was full when Johannes, with the entire family, entered it. He and the others were in their best attire, and Van Lieverlee had on a very long black coat and a high hat. As he passed in he removed his hat respectfully, and his white face, now smoothly shaven, wore a serious, even stern, expression.
It was cool and dark and solemn in the building. The rays of the sun, in passing through the window-glass, were tinged with yellow and blue, and cast queer fleckings over the faces and forms of those who stood waiting or were securing seats. The fragrance of incense floated about the altar, and the organ was playing. It was not really an old church, but, with its paintings and floral adornments, was beautiful enough to move Johannes to tenderness; for he felt so sad and disheartened, listening to the solemn music in that richly-colored twilight, that he had to make an effort to keep from sobbing.
Father Canisius, smiling kindly, and with priestly seriousness in face and tread, although not yet in his robes, stopped on his way to the sacristy to speak with them. Johannes could feel his sharp, penetrating look through the thick glasses of his spectacles.
“You see, Father,” said the countess, “we have come to seek Jesus. Johannes, also.”
“He is waiting for you,” replied the priest, solemnly, pointing out the great crucifix above the altar. Then he disappeared in the sacristy.
Johannes immediately fastened his eyes upon that figure, and continued to contemplate it while the people were taking their places.
It hung in the strongest light of the shadowy church. Apparently it was of wood stained a pale rose, with peculiar blue and brown shadows. The wounds in the side and under the thorns on the forehead were distinct to exaggeration—all purple and swollen, with great streaks of blood like dark-red sealing-wax. The face, with its closed eyes, wore a look of distress, and a large circle of gold and precious stones waggishly adorned the usual russet-colored, cork-screwy, woodeny locks. The cross itself was of shining gold, and each of its four extremities was ornamented, while a nice, wavy paper above the head bore the letters I.N.R.I. One could see that it was all brand-new, and freshly gilded and painted. Wreaths and bouquets of paper flowers embellished the altar.
For a long time—perhaps a quarter of an hour—Johannes continued to look at the image. “That is Jesus,” he muttered to himself, “He of whom I have so often heard. Now I am going to learn about Him, and He is to comfort me. He it is who has redeemed the world.”
And however often he might repeat this, trying seriously to convince himself—because he would have been glad to be convinced and also to be redeemed—he could nevertheless see nothing except a repulsive, ugly, bloody, prinked-up wooden doll. And this made him feel doubly sorrowful and disheartened. Fully fifteen minutes had he sat there, looking and musing, hearing the people around him chatting—about the price they had paid for their places, about the keeping on or taking off of women’s hats, and about the reserved seats for the first families. Then the door of the sacristy opened, and the choir-boys with their swinging censers, and the sacristan, and the priests in their beautiful, gold-bordered garments, came slowly and majestically in. And as the congregation kneeled, Johannes kneeled with them.
And when Johannes, as well as all the others, looked at the incoming procession, and then again turned his eyes to the high altar, behold! there, to his amazement, kneeling before the white altar, he saw a dark form. It was in plain sight, bending forward in the twilight, the arms upon the altar, and the face hidden in the arms. A man it was, in the customary dark clothes of a laborer. No one—neither Johannes nor probably any one else in the church—had seen whence he came. But he was now in the full sight of all, and one could hear whisperings and a subdued excitement run along the rows of people and pass on to the rear, like a gust of wind over a grain-field.
As soon as the procession of choir-boys and priests came within sight of the altar, the sacristan stepped hastily out of line and went forward to the stranger, to assure him that, possibly from too deep absorption in devotion, or from lack of familiarity with ecclesiastical ceremony, he was guilty of intrusion.
He touched the man’s shoulder, but the man did not stir. In the breathless stillness that followed, while every one expectantly awaited the outcome, a deep, heart-rending sob was heard.
“A penitent!” “A drunken man!” “A convert!” were some of the whispered comments of the people.
The perplexed sacristan turned round, and beckoned Father Canisius, who, with impressive bearing, stepped up in his white, gold-threaded garb, as imposingly as a full-sailed frigate moves.
“Your place is not here,” said the priest, in his deep voice. He spoke kindly, and not particularly loudly. “Go to the back of the church.”
There was no reply, and the man did not move; yet, in the still more profound silence, his weeping was so audible that many people shuddered.
“Do you not hear me?” said the priest, raising his voice a little, and speaking with some impatience. “It is well that you are repentant, but only the consecrated belong here—not penitents.”
So saying, he grasped the shoulder of the stranger with his large, strong hand.
Then, slowly, very slowly, the kneeling man raised his head from his arms, and turned his face toward the priest.
What followed, perhaps each one of the hundreds of witnesses would tell differently; and of those who heard about it later, each had a different idea. But I am going to tell you what Johannes saw and heard—heard quite as clearly as you have seen and heard the members of your own household, to-day.
He saw his Brother’s face, pale and illumined, as if his head were shone upon by beams of clearest sunlight. And the sadness of that face was so deep and unutterable, so bitter and yet so gentle, that Johannes felt forced, through pain, to press both hands upon his heart, and to set his teeth, while he gazed with wide, tear-filled eyes, forgetting everything save that shining face so full of grief.
For a time it was as still as death, while man and priest regarded each other. At last the man spoke, and said:
“Who are you, and in whose name are you here?”
When two men stand thus, face to face, and address each other with all earnestness in the hearing of many others, one of them is always immediately recognized to be the superior—even if the listeners are unable to gauge the force of the argument. Every one feels that superiority, although later many forget or deny it. If that dominance is not very great, it arouses spitefulness and fury; but if it is indeed great, it brings, betimes, repose and submissiveness.
In this case the ascendancy was so great that the priest lost even the air of authority and assurance with which he had come forward, and did that for which, later, he reproached himself—he stopped to explain:
“I am a consecrated priest of the Triune God, and I speak in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—our Saviour and Redeemer.”
There ensued a long silence, and Johannes saw nothing but the shining, human face and the eyes, which, full of sorrow and compassion, continued to regard the richly robed priest with a bitter smile. The priest stood motionless, with hanging hands and staring eves, as if uncertain what next to say or do; but he listened silently for what was coming, as did Johannes and all the others in the church—as if under an overpowering spell.
Then came the following words, and so long as they sounded no one could think of anything else—neither of the humble garb of him who spoke, nor of the incomprehensible subjection of his gorgeously arrayed listener:
“But you are not yet a man! Would you be a priest of the Most High?
“You are not yet redeemed, nor are these others with you redeemed, although you make bold to say so in the name of the Redeemer.
“Did your Saviour when upon earth wear cloth of silver and of gold?
“There is no redemption yet—neither for you nor for any of yours. The time is not come for the wearing of garments of gold.
“Mock not, nor slander. Your ostentation is a travesty of the Most High, and a defamation of your Saviour.
“Do you esteem the kingdom of God a trifle, that you array yourself and rejoice, while the world still lies in despair and in shackles?
“So plays a little girl with a doll, and calls herself a mother. She tosses and pets and prinks her little one, but it is all wood and paint and bran. And the real mother smiles—she who knows the anguish and the gladness.
“But you abandon the naked, living child for the bedizened doll. And the mother sheds tears of blood.
“Like peacocks, you strut through your marble churches, glittering in tinsel; but you let the kingdom of God lie like an uncleansed babe upon unclean linen—naked and languishing.
“And the Devil delights in your churches, your masses, and prayers and psalms—your treasure and fine linen; for the child lies naked at your back door, with the dogs, and it wails for its mother.
“Weep—as do I! Weep bitter tears—for that child is two thousand years old. And still it lies, unwashed and uncherished.
“Why do you vaunt your consecration, and prate of your Redeemer? Your Holy One still toils beneath His grievous cross, yet all your splendid churches have you built upon that heavy cross.
“You bear the mitre of Persians, and Egyptians, and the tabard of the Jews. And you also make use of the scourge wherewith the Jews did scourge Him.
“They bound and spat upon—they scourged and crucified and speared Him; but for two thousand years you have been roasting Him before a slow fire—before the fire of your lies and misrepresentations; of your treachery and arrogance; of your cruelties and perversions; of your pomp and oblations; of your transgressions, and of your attacks upon and strivings against the God who is Truth.
“You are commanded to serve your Father in spirit and in truth, and you have served Him with the letter and with lies.
“His prophets, who loved the truth better than their lives, you have burned at the stake, and have made them martyrs.
“Yet you have bent your proud neck to the world which you affect to despise. In the name of the Father you have burned and imprisoned sages; but at last you were forced to eat the bread of their wisdom, for the knife of the scornful was at your throat.
“The world you have disdained and denounced is wiser than you—more beautiful and even more holy.
“Black as the raven—black as the beetles, the moles, the creatures that live in the slime—black and vile, you burrow your secret way through the clear, bright world. But in your churches you enthrone yourselves and parade like kings—in violet and yellow and purple, and gold brocade.
“You were not commanded to found a kingdom solely for yourselves—a kingdom of the sacred and the elect in a world of the unholy and immature.
“You were commanded to spread abroad the kingdom of God over the whole earth—over all that weep and are oppressed.
“You were not commanded to despise the world and to forsake it, but you were commanded to hallow the world.
“You rend the world in twain, speaking of the sanctified and the unsanctified. Your Saviour lived among thieves, and died between murderers, nevertheless he promised them Paradise.
“Not until every man is sanctified, until every day is a holy day, and every house a House of God—-not until then may you speak of redemption, and array yourself in white and gold.
“Woe unto you, forsakers of the world! Was not the world bestowed upon you by the Father as the noblest and most precious gift of the dearest of friends?
“How dare you despise it?
“Will you openly preserve the penny of your enemy, and reject the noblest gift of the Most High?
“Do you speak in the name of the Triune God? But you have smitten the Father’s face—you have martyred the Son, and the Holy Ghost have you violated.
“You have been told that God is Truth. Yet you have striven against the truth with torture-tongs, with dungeons, and with burnings at the stake.
“You have made the Son of man an object of ridicule—a shield for lying and violence, a pretext for strife and bloodshed, a monstrous idol.
“And of all sins, the worst is the sin against the Holy Ghost—which is the bread that you eat, and the water wherein you swim.
“You shackle and restrain the Spirit. This is of all sins the worst, and this you know.
“Where God alone may reign—in the free human heart—there you establish yourselves with your laws and dogmas, your writings and your imageries.
“Think you, madman, that the wisdom of the Eternal can be comprised within the limits of written or printed pages?
“To Him your sacred books are as cobwebs and sweepings; for He lives and moves eternally, and book nor brain can compass Him. Like to flowing water, you are told, is the wisdom of God. Forever changing, forever the same, no finite word can picture His progressive wisdom.
“There is more of the Father’s wisdom in the shy, faltering whisper of a poor heathen child, than in all your bulls and councils and decretals.
“Would you put a tube to the lips of the Father, that He may speak at your pleasure? Yet will He speak as seems best to Himself.
“Would you point with the finger and say to Him: ‘Here! These shall speak in thy name, and to these shalt thou give wisdom, and these shalt thou inspire with understanding, and these shalt thou save, and these condemn!’
“But He will reply: ‘There!’ and will regard your pointings even as the lava of a volcano regards the guide-posts and little crosses on the slopes.
“But your opinions and your pride are avenged, for the world commands you as the hunter his hound, as the show-man his monkey. You pull the carriage of prince and monied man, and make grimaces before the powerful.
“They build you churches, and you say masses for them, although they be Satan himself.
“The world is sanctified without you, and you sanctify yourselves because of the world.
“That your Popes are not more dissolute, your prelates more prodigal, and your friars more slothful, is because the world has constrained you. But you have constrained the world to no purpose.
“You have set yourself against the usurer, but the world will practise usury, and you practise usury with the world. Thus are you the ape and the servant of the world.
“Where you have rivals, you show yourself discreet; but where you are without competitors, there as ever you corrupt the land.
“You follow after the world, as a captive shark follows a sailing ship. You turn and twist, but the world points out the way—not you.
“Like a kettle tied by mischievous boys to the tail of a dog, so do you rattle with hollow menaces behind the course of the world. You scare, but do not guide.
“Yes, you strive against the sanctifying of the world, for with your hands you would conceal the godlike fire of knowledge; but the flame bursts through your fingers, and consumes you.
“What have you done for the sheep committed to your care—for the poor and bereaved—for the oppressed and the disinherited?
“Submission you have taught them—ay—submission to Mammon. You have taught them to bow meekly to Satan.
“God’s light—the light of knowledge—you have withheld from them. Woe be to you!
“You have taught them to beg, and to kiss the rod that smote them. You have cloaked the shame of alms-receiving, and have prated of honor in servitude.
“Thus have you humbled man, and disfigured the human soul.
“With the fruit of their hands you have decorated your churches and adorned your unworthy bodies.
“You have aroused the devil in the heart—the devil of fear—fear of hell and everlasting punishment. The aspiration of the free heart toward God you have deadened; and with indulgences and the confessional have you lulled the waking conscience.
“Of the love of the Father you have made commerce—a sinful merchandise. Not because you love virtue do you preach it, but because of the sweet profit. You promise deliverance to all who follow your counsel; but as well can you make a present of moon and stars.
“Are you not told to recompense evil with good? And is God less than man that He should do otherwise?
“It is well for you that He does not do otherwise, for where then were your salvation?
“For you, and you only, are the brood of vipers against whom is kindled the wrath of Him who was gentle with adulterers and murderers.”
While speaking, the man had risen to his full height, and he now appeared, to all there assembled, impressively tall.
When he had spoken, reaching his right hand backward he grasped the foot of the great golden crucifix. It snapped off like glass, and he threw it on the marble floor at the feet of the priest. The fragment broke into many bits. It was apparently not wood, but plaster.
“Sacrilege!” cried the priest, in a stifled voice, as if the sound were wrung from his throat. His eyes seemed to be starting out of his great purple face.
The man quietly replied:
“No, but my right; for you are the sacrilegist and the blasphemer who makes of the Son of man a hideous caricature.”
Then the priest stepped forward, and gripped Markus by the wrist. The latter made no resistance, but cried in a loud voice that reverberated through the church:
“Do your work, Caiaphas!”
After that he suffered himself to be led away to the sacristy.
While the congregation still sat, spellbound and motionless, Johannes hastily writhed his way out between the benches and the throngs of people.
Father Canisius returned, now quite calm and far less red. And while the sacristan with broom and dust-pan swept up the fragments and put them into a basket, the priest turned toward the audience and said:
“Have sympathy with the poor maniac. We will pray for him.”
After that, the service proceeded without further disturbance.