Earl Hubert's Daughter Part 16

"But what, then, have I to do?"

"What wouldst thou do for me, if I had rescued thee from a burning house, and lost my own life in the doing of it?"

"I could do nothing," said Doucebelle, feeling rather puzzled.

"Wouldst thou love or hate me?"

"O Father! can there be any question?"

"And supposing there were some thing left in the world for which thou knewest I had cared--a favourite dog or cat--wouldst thou leave it to starve, or take some care of it?"

"I think," was Doucebelle's earnest answer, "I should care for it as though it were my own child."

"Then, daughter, see thou dost that for Him who did lose His own life in rescuing thee. Love Him with every fibre of thine heart, and love what He has loved for His sake. He has left with thee those for whom on earth He cared most,--the poor, the sick, the unhappy. Be they unto thee as thy dearest, and He the dearest of all."

This was very unlike any counsel which Doucebelle had ever before received from a confessor. There was something here of which she could take hold. Not that Father Bruno had suggested a new course of action so much as that he had supplied a new motive power. To do good, to give alms, to be kind to poor and sick people, Doucebelle had been taught already: but the reason for it was either the abstract notion that it was the right thing to do, or that it would help to increase her little heap of human merit.

To all minds, but in particular to an ignorant one, there is an enormous difference between the personal and the impersonal. Tell a child that such a thing must be done because it is right, and the motive power is faint and vague, not unlikely to be overthrown by the first breath of temptation. But let the child understand that to do this thing will please or displease G.o.d, and you have supplied a far stronger energising power, in the intelligible reference to the will of a living Person.

Doucebelle felt this--as, more or less, we all do.

"Father," she said, after a momentary pause, "I want your advice."

"State thy perplexity, my daughter."

"I hope, Father, you will not be angry; but a few days ago, when you and the other priests were talking in the ante-chamber about Belasez, the door was open, and we heard every word in the bower."

"Did Belasez hear what was said?"

"Yes."

"Ha! What did she say?"

"I asked her, at night, whether what you had said had wounded her. And she said, No: but she thought there was one Christian priest who was like what the Scripture described Christ to be."

"Did she say that?" There was a tone of tender regret in the priest's voice.

"She did. But, Father, I want to know how to deal with Belasez.

Sometimes she will talk to me quite freely, and tell me all her thoughts and feelings: at other times I cannot get a word out of her."

"Let her alone at the other times. What is the state of her mind?"

"She seems to have been very much struck, Father, with a sermon from your Bishop, wherein he proved out of her own Scriptures, she says, that our Lord is the Messiah whom the Jews believe. But I do not know if she has reached any point further than that. I think she hardly knows what to believe."

"Only those sermons do good which G.o.d preaches," said Bruno. Perhaps he spoke rather to himself than to Doucebelle. "Whenever the maiden will speak to thee, do not repulse her. Lead her, to the best of thy power, to see that Christ is G.o.d's one cure for all evil. Yet He must teach it first to thyself."

"I think He has done so--a little," answered Doucebelle. "But, Father, will you not speak to her?"

"My child, we will both wait upon G.o.d, and speak the words He gives us, at the time He will. And remember,--whatever blunders men make,-- Belasez is, after the flesh, nearer akin to Him than thou art. She is the kinswoman of the Lord Jesus. Let that thought spur thee on, if thou faint by the way."

"Father! Our Lord was not a Jew?"

"He was a Jew, my daughter."

Hardly any news could more have amazed Doucebelle.

"But why then do people use them so harshly?"

"Thou hadst better ask the people," answered Bruno, drily.

"Father, is it right to use Jews so?"

"Thou hadst better ask the Lord."

"What does He say, Father?"

"He said, speaking to Abraham, the father of them all, 'I will bless him that blesseth thee, and curse him that curseth thee.'"

"Oh, I am so glad!" cried Doucebelle. "If you please, Father, I could not help loving Belasez: but I tried hard not to do so, because I thought it was wicked. It cannot be wrong to love a Jew, if Christ Himself were one."

Bruno did not reply immediately. When he did, it was with a slight quiver in his voice which surprised Doucebelle.

"It can never be wrong to love," he said. "But, daughter, let not thy love stop at liking the maid's company. Let it go on till thou canst take it into Heaven."

The strangest of all strange ideas was this to Doucebelle. She had been taught that love was always a weakness, and only too frequently a sin.

That so purely earthly a thing could be taken into Heaven astonished her beyond measure.

"Father!" she said, in a tone of mingled amazement and inquiry.

"What now, my daughter?"

"People always speak of love as weak, if not wicked."

"People often talk of what they do not understand, my child. 'G.o.d is love.' Think not, therefore, that G.o.d resembles a worldly fancy which springs to-day, and fades away to-morrow. His is the heavenly love which can never die, which is ready to sacrifice all things, which so looks to the true welfare of the beloved that it will give thee any earthly suffering rather than see thee sink into perdition by thy sins.

This is real love, daughter: and thou canst not sin in giving it to Belasez or to any other."

"Yet, Father," said Doucebelle in a puzzled tone, "the religious give up love when they go into the cloister. I do not understand. A Sister of Saint Ursula may not leave her convent, even if her own mother lies dying, and pleads hard to see her. And though some priests do wed,"-- this had not yet, in England, ceased to be the case--"yet people always seem to think the celibate priests more holy, as if that were more in accordance with the will of G.o.d. Yet G.o.d tells us to love each other.

I cannot quite understand."

If Doucebelle could have seen, as well as spoken, through the confessional grating, a.s.suredly she would have stopped sooner. For the agony that was working in every line of Father Bruno's face would have been terrible to her to see. But she only thought that it was a long while before he answered her, and she wondered at the hard, constrained tone in his voice.

"Child!" he said, "does any one but G.o.d 'quite understand'? Do we understand ourselves?--and how much less each other? It is only love that understands. He who most loves G.o.d will best understand men. And for the rest,--O Lord who hast loved us, pardon the blunders and misunderstandings of Thy people, and save Thy servants that trust in Thee!--Now go, my child,--unless thou hast more to say. _Absolvo te_."

Doucebelle rose and retired. But she did not know that Father Bruno heard no more confessions. She only heard that he was not at home when dinner was served; and when he appeared at supper, he looked very worn and white, as if after a weary journey.

CHAPTER SEVEN.