Loss and Gain Part 32

It's a mixture of the first and second courses at table. It's like the architecture of the facade at Milan, half Gothic, half Grecian."

"It's what is always used, I believe," said Charles.

"Oh yes, we must not go against the age," said Campbell; "it would be absurd to do so. I only spoke of what was right and wrong on abstract principles; and, to tell the truth, I can't help liking the mixture myself, though I can't defend it."

Bateman rang for tea; his friends wished to return home soon; it was the month of January, and no season for after-dinner strolls. "Well," he said, "Campbell, you are more lenient to the age than to me; you yield to the age when it sets a figured ba.s.s to a Gregorian tone; but you laugh at me for setting a coat upon a ca.s.sock."

"It's no honour to be the author of a mongrel type," said Campbell.

"A mongrel type?" said Bateman; "rather it is a transition state."

"What are you pa.s.sing to?" asked Charles.

"Talking of transitions," said Campbell abruptly, "do you know that your man Willis--I don't know his college, he turned Romanist--is living in my parish, and I have hopes he is making a transition back again."

"Have you seen him?" said Charles.

"No; I have called, but was unfortunate; he was out. He still goes to ma.s.s, I find."

"Why, where does he find a chapel?" asked Bateman.

"At Seaton. A good seven miles from you," said Charles.

"Yes," answered Campbell; "and he walks to and fro every Sunday."

"That is not like a transition, except a physical one," observed Reding.

"A person must go somewhere," answered Campbell; "I suppose he went to church up to the week he joined the Romanists."

"Very awful, these defections," said Bateman; "but very satisfactory, a melancholy satisfaction," with a look at Charles, "that the victims of delusions should be at length recovered."

"Yes," said Campbell; "very sad indeed. I am afraid we must expect a number more."

"Well, I don't know how to think it," said Charles; "the hold our Church has on the mind is so powerful; it is such a wrench to leave it, I cannot fancy any party-tie standing against it. Humanly speaking, there is far, far more to keep them fast than to carry them away."

"Yes, if they moved as a party," said Campbell; "but that is not the case. They don't move simply because others move, but, poor fellows, because they can't help it.--Bateman, will you let my chaise be brought round?--How _can_ they help it?" continued he, standing up over the fire; "their Catholic principles lead them on, and there's nothing to drive them back."

"Why should not their love for their own Church?" asked Bateman; "it is deplorable, unpardonable."

"They will keep going one after another, as they ripen," said Campbell.

"Did you hear the report--I did not think much of it myself," said Reding,--"that Smith was moving?"

"Not impossible," answered Campbell thoughtfully.

"Impossible, quite impossible," cried Bateman; "such a triumph to the enemy; I'll not believe it till I see it."

"_Not_ impossible," repeated Campbell, as he b.u.t.toned and fitted his great-coat about him; "he has shifted his ground." His carriage was announced. "Mr. Reding, I believe I can take you part of your way, if you will accept of a seat in my pony-chaise." Charles accepted the offer; and Bateman was soon deserted by his two guests.

CHAPTER XVII.

Campbell put Charles down about half-way between Melford and his home.

It was bright moonlight; and, after thanking his new friend for the lift, he bounded over the stile at the side of the road, and was at once buried in the shade of the copse along which his path lay. Soon he came in sight of a tall wooden Cross, which, in better days, had been a religious emblem, but had served in latter times to mark the boundary between two contiguous parishes. The moon was behind him, and the sacred symbol rose awfully in the pale sky, overhanging a pool, which was still venerated in the neighbourhood for its reported miraculous virtue.

Charles, to his surprise, saw distinctly a man kneeling on the little mound out of which the Cross grew; nay, heard him, for his shoulders were bare, and he was using the discipline upon them, while he repeated what appeared to be some form of devotion. Charles stopped, unwilling to interrupt, yet not knowing how to pa.s.s; but the stranger had caught the sound of feet, and in a few seconds vanished from his view. He was overcome with a sudden emotion, which he could not control. "O happy times," he cried, "when faith was one! O blessed penitent, whoever you are, who know what to believe, and how to gain pardon, and can begin where others end! Here am I, in my twenty-third year, uncertain about everything, because I have nothing to trust." He drew near to the Cross, took off his hat, knelt down and kissed the wood, and prayed awhile that whatever might be the consequences, whatever the trial, whatever the loss, he might have grace to follow whithersoever G.o.d should call him.

He then rose and turned to the cold well; he took some water in his palm and drank it. He felt as if he could have prayed to the Saint who owned that pool--St. Thomas the Martyr, he believed--to plead for him, and to aid him in his search after the true faith; but something whispered, "It is wrong;" and he checked the wish. So, regaining his hat, he pa.s.sed away, and pursued his homeward path at a brisk pace.

The family had retired for the night, and he went up without delay to his bedroom. Pa.s.sing through his study, he found a letter lying on his table, without post-mark, which had come for him in his absence. He broke the seal; it was an anonymous paper, and began as follows:--

"_Questions for one whom it concerns._

1. What is meant by the One Church of which the Creed speaks?"

"This is too much for to-night," thought Charles, "it is late already;"

and he folded it up again and threw it on his dressing-table. "Some well-meaning person, I dare say, who thinks he knows me." He wound up his watch, gave a yawn, and put on his slippers. "Who can there be in this neighbourhood to write it?" He opened it again. "It's certainly a Catholic's writing," he said. His mind glanced to the person whom he had seen under the Cross; perhaps it glanced further. He sat down and began reading _in extenso:_--

"_Questions for one whom it concerns._

1. What is meant by the One Church of which the Creed speaks?

2. Is it a generalization or a thing?

3. Does it belong to past history or to the present time?

4. Does not Scripture speak of it as a kingdom?

5. And a kingdom which was to last to the end?

6. What is a kingdom? and what is meant when Scripture calls the Church a kingdom?

7. Is it a visible kingdom, or an invisible?

8. Can a kingdom have two governments, and these acting in contrary directions?

9. Is ident.i.ty of inst.i.tutions, opinions, or race, sufficient to make two nations one kingdom?

10. Is the Episcopal form, the hierarchy, or the Apostles' Creed, sufficient to make the Churches of Rome and of England one?

11. Where there are parts, does not unity require union, and a visible unity require a visible union?

12. How can two religions be the same which have utterly distinct worships and ideas of worship?

13. Can two religions be one, if the most sacred and peculiar act of worship in the one is called 'a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit' in the other?

14. Has not the One Church of Christ one faith?