The Master-Christian | Page 7

mind. He was wise with the wisdom which comes of deep reading,
lonely meditation, and fervent study,--he had instructed himself in the
modern schools of thought as well as the ancient,--and though his own
soul was steadfastly set upon the faith he followed, he was
compassionately aware of a strange and growing confusion in the
world,--a combination of the elements of evil, which threatened, or
seemed to threaten, some terrible and imminent disaster. This sorrowful
foreboding had for a long time preyed upon him, physically as well as
mentally; always thin, he had grown thinner and more careworn, till at
the beginning of the year his health had threatened to break down
altogether. Whereupon those who loved him, growing alarmed,
summoned a physician, who, (with that sage experience of doctors to
whom thought-trouble is an inexplicable and incurable complication) at
once pronounced change of air to be absolutely necessary. Cardinal
Bonpre must travel, he said, and seek rest and minddistraction in the
contemplation of new and varying scenes. With smiling and resigned
patience the Cardinal obeyed not so much the command of his medical

attendant, as the anxious desire of his people,--and thereupon departed
from his own Cathedral-town on a tour of several months, during which
time he inwardly resolved to try and probe for himself the truth of how
the world was going,-- whether on the downward road to destruction
and death, or up the high ascents of progress and life. He went alone
and unattended,--he had arranged to meet his niece in Paris and
accompany her to her father's house in Rome,--and he was on his way
to Paris now. But he had purposely made a long and round-about
journey through France with the intention of studying the religious
condition of the people; and by the time he reached Rouen, the old
sickness at his heart had rather increased than diminished. The
confusion and the trouble of the world were not mere hearsay,--they in
very truth existed. And what seemed to the Cardinal to be the chief
cause of the general bewilderment of things, was the growing lack of
faith in God and a Hereafter. How came this lack of faith into the
Christian world? Sorrowfully he considered the question,--and
persistently the same answer always asserted itself--that the blame
rested principally with the Church itself, and its teachers and preachers,
and not only in one, but in all forms of Creed.
"We have erred in some vital manner," mused the Cardinal, with a
feeling of strange personal contrition, as though he were more to blame
than any of his compeers--"We have failed to follow the Master's
teaching in its true perfection. We have planted in ourselves a seed of
corruption, and we have permitted--nay, some of us have
encouraged--its poisonous growth, till it now threatens to contaminate
the whole field of labour."
And he thought of the words of St. John the Divine to the Church of
Sardis--
"I KNOW THY WORKS,--THAT THOU HAST A NAME THAT
THOU LIVEST AND ART DEAD.
"BE WATCHFUL, AND STRENGTHEN THE THINGS THAT
REMAIN, THAT ARE READY TO DIE,--FOR I HAVE NOT
FOUND THY WORKS PERFECT BEFORE GOD. REMEMBER
THEREFORE HOW THOU HAST RECEIVED AND HEARD, AND

HOLD FAST AND REPENT.
"IF, THEREFORE, THOU SHALT NOT WATCH, I WILL COME
ON THEE AS A THIEF, AND THOU SHALL NOT KNOW WHAT
HOUR I WILL COME UPON THEE.
"THOU HAST A FEW NAMES EVEN IN SARDIS, WHICH HAVE
NOT DEFILED THEIR GARMENTS, AND THEY SHALL WALK
WITH ME IN WHITE, FOR THEY ARE WORTHY.
"HE THAT OVERCOMETH, THE SAME SHALL BE CLOTHED IN
WHITE RAIMENT; AND I WILL NOT BLOT HIS NAME OUT OF
THE BOOK OF LIFE, BUT I WILL CONFESS HIS NAME BEFORE
MY FATHER AND BEFORE HIS ANGELS."
Dimmer and duskier grew the long shadows now gathering in the
Cathedral,--two of the twinkling candles near the Virgin's statue
suddenly sank in their sockets with a spluttering noise and guttered
out,--the solemn music of the organ continued, growing softer and
softer as it sounded, till it crept through the vastness of the building like
a light breeze wafted from the sea, bringing with it suggestions of far
flower-islands in the tropics, golden shores kissed by languid foam, and
sweet-throated birds singing, and still the Cardinal sat thinking of griefs
and cares and inexplicable human perplexities, which were not his own,
but which seemed to burden the greater portion of the world. He drew
no comparisons,--he never considered that, as absolutely as day is day
and night is night, his own beautiful and placid life, lived in the faith of
God and Christ, was tortured by no such storm-tossed tribulation as that
which affected the lives of many others,--and that the old trite saying,
almost despised because so commonplace, namely that "goodness
makes happiness,"