The Book of Missionary Heroes Part 4

IV

_The Preparation of Courage_

So Raymund Lull (at home and in Rome and Paris) set himself afresh to his task of preparing. At last he felt that he was ready. From Paris he rode south-east through forest and across plain, over mountain and pa.s.s, till the gorgeous palaces and the thousand masts of Genoa came in sight.

He went down to the harbour and found a ship that was sailing across the Mediterranean to Africa. He booked his pa.s.sage and sent his goods with all his precious ma.n.u.scripts aboard. The day for sailing came.

His friends came to cheer him. But Lull sat in his room trembling.

As he covered his eyes with his hands in shame, he saw the fiery, persecuting Saracens of Tunis, whom he was sailing to meet. He knew they were glowing with pride because of their triumphs over the Crusaders in Palestine. He knew they were blazing with anger because their brother Moors had been slaughtered and tortured in Spain. He saw ahead of him the rack, the thumb-screw, and the boot; the long years in a slimy dungeon--at the best the executioner's scimitar. He simply dared not go.

The books were brought ash.o.r.e again. The ship sailed without Lull.

"The ship has gone," said a friend to Lull. He quivered under a torture of shame greater than the agony of the rack. He was wrung with bitter shame that he who had for all these years prepared for this Crusade should now have shown the white feather. He was, indeed, a craven knight of Christ.

His agony of spirit threw him into a high fever that kept him in his bed.

Soon after he heard that another ship was sailing for Africa.

In spite of the protestations of his friends Lull insisted that they should carry him to the ship. They did so; but as the hour of sailing drew on his friends were sure that he was so weak that he would die on the sea before he could reach Africa. So--this time in spite of all his pleading--they carried him ash.o.r.e again. But he could not rest and his agony of mind made his fever worse.

Soon, however, a third ship was making ready to sail. This time Lull was carried on board and refused to return.

The ship cast off and threaded its way through the shipping of the harbour out into the open sea.

"From this moment," said Lull, "I was a new man. All fever left me almost before we were out of sight of land."

V

_The First Battle_

Pa.s.sing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward till at last she made the yellow coast of Africa, broken by the glorious Gulf of Tunis. She dropped sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of Goletta. Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short ancient ca.n.a.l to Tunis, the mighty city which was head of all the Western Mohammedan world.

He landed and found the place beside the great mosque where the grey-bearded scholars bowed over their Korans and spoke to one another about the law of Mohammed.

They looked at him with amazement as he boldly came up to them and said, "I have come to talk with you about Christ and His Way of Life, and Mohammed and his teaching. If you can prove to me that Mohammed is indeed _the_ Prophet, I will myself become a follower of him."

The Moslems, sure of their case, called together their wisest men and together they declaimed to Lull what he already knew very well--the watchword that rang out from minaret to minaret across the roofs of the vast city as the first flush of dawn came up from the East across the Gulf. "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d; Mohammed is the Prophet of G.o.d."

"Yes," he replied, "the Allah of Mohammed is one and is great, but He does not love as does the Father of Jesus Christ. He is wise, but He does not do good to men like our G.o.d who so loved the world that He gave His Son Jesus Christ."

To and fro the argument swung till, after many days, to their dismay and amazement the Moslems saw some of their number waver and at last actually beginning to go over to the side of Lull. To forsake the Faith of Mohammed is--by their own law--to be worthy of death. A Moslem leader hurried to the Sultan of Tunis.

"See," he said, "this learned teacher, Lull, is declaring the errors of the Faith. He is dangerous. Let us take him and put him to death."

The Sultan gave the word of command. A body of soldiers went out, seized Lull, dragged him through the streets, and threw him into a dark dungeon to wait the death sentence.

But another Moslem who had been deeply touched by Lull's teaching craved audience with the Sultan.

"See," he said, "this learned man Lull--if he were a Moslem--would be held in high honour, being so brave and fearless in defence of his Faith. Do not slay him. Banish him from Tunis."

So when Lull in his dungeon saw the door flung open and waited to be taken to his death he found to his surprise that he was led from the dungeon through the streets of Tunis, taken along the ca.n.a.l, thrust into the hold of a ship, and told that he must go in that ship to Genoa and never return. But the man who had before been afraid to sail from Genoa to Tunis, now escaped unseen from the ship that would have taken him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. He said to himself the motto he had written:

+--------------------------------------+ | "HE WHO LOVES NOT, LIVES NOT! HE WHO | | LIVES BY THE LIFE CANNOT DIE." | +--------------------------------------+

He was not afraid now even of martyrdom. He hid among the wharves and gathered his converts about him to teach them more and more about Christ.

VI

_The Last Fight_

At last, however, seeing that he could do little in hiding, Lull took ship to Naples. After many adventures during a number of years, in a score of cities and on the seas, the now white-haired Lull sailed into the curved bay of Bugia farther westward along the African coast. In the bay behind the frowning walls the city with its glittering mosques climbed the hill. Behind rose two glorious mountains crowned with the dark green of the cedar. And, far off, like giant Moors wearing white turbans, rose the distant mountain peaks crowned with snow.

Lull pa.s.sed quietly through the arch of the city gateway which he knew so well, for among other adventures he had once been imprisoned in this very city. He climbed the steep street and found a friend who hid him away. There for a year Lull taught in secret till he felt that the time had come for him to go out boldly and dare death itself.

One day the people in the market-place of Bugia heard a voice ring out that seemed to some of them strangely familiar. They hurried toward the sound. There stood the old hero with arm uplifted declaring, in the full blaze of the North African day, the Love of G.o.d shown in Jesus Christ His Son.

The Saracens murmured. They could not answer his arguments. They cried to him to stop, but his voice rose ever fuller and bolder. They rushed on him, dragged him by the cloak out of the market-place, down the streets, under the archway to a place beyond the city walls. There they threw back their sleeves, took up great jagged stones and hurled these grim messengers of hate at the Apostle of Love, till he sank senseless to the ground.[9]

It was word for word over again the story of Stephen; the speech, the wild cries of the mob, the rush to the place beyond the city wall, the stoning.[10]

Did Lull accomplish anything? He was dead; but he had conquered. He had conquered his old self. For the Lull who had, in a fit of temper, smitten his Saracen slave now smiled on the men who stoned him; and the Lull who had showed the white feather of fear at Genoa, now defied death in the market-place of Bugia. And in that love and heroism, in face of hate and death, he had shown men the only way to conquer the scimitar of Mohammed, "the way in which Christ and His Apostles achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears and blood."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: June 30. 1315.]

[Footnote 10: Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.]

CHAPTER IV

FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION

(_St. Francis of a.s.sisi_) A.D. 1181-1226 (Date of Incident, 1219)

I

The dark blue sky of an Italian night was studded with sparkling stars that seemed to be twinkling with laughter at the pranks of a lively group of gay young fellows as they came out from a house half-way up the steep street of the little city of a.s.sisi.

As they strayed together down the street they sang the love-songs of their country and then a rich, strong voice rang out singing a song in French.

"That is Francis Bernardone," one neighbour would say to another, nodding his head, for Francis could sing, not only in his native Italian, but also in French.