CHAPTER XIX
CLOUDS DEEPENING
After the departure of her uncle to Florence, the life of Agnes wastroubled and harassed from a variety of causes.
First, her grandmother was sulky and moody, and though saying nothingdirectly on the topic nearest her heart, yet intimating by everylook and action that she considered Agnes as a most ungrateful andcontumacious child. Then there was a constant internal perplexity,--aconstant wearying course of self-interrogation and self-distrust, thepain of a sensitive spirit which doubts at every moment whether it maynot be falling into sin. The absence of her kind uncle at this timetook from her the strongest support on which she had leaned in herperplexities. Cheerful, airy, and elastic in his temperament, alwaysfull of fresh-springing and beautiful thoughts, as an Italian dell isof flowers, the charming old man seemed, while he stayed with Agnes, tobe the door of a new and fairer world, where she could walk in air andsunshine, and find utterance for a thousand thoughts and feelings whichat all other times lay in cold repression in her heart. His counselswere always so wholesome, his sympathies so quick, his devotion sofervent and cheerful, that while with him Agnes felt the burden of herlife insensibly lifted and carried for her as by some angel guide.
Now they had all come back upon her, heavier a thousand-fold thanever they had been before. Never did she so much need counsel andguidance,--never had she so much within herself to be solved and madeplain to her own comprehension; yet she thought with a strange shiverof her next visit to her confessor. That austere man, so chilling, soawful, so far above all conception of human weaknesses, how should shedare to lay before him all the secrets of her breast, especially whenshe must confess to having disobeyed his most stringent commands? Shehad had another interview with this forbidden son of perdition, buthow it was she knew not. How could such things have happened? Insteadof shutting her eyes and turning her head and saying prayers, she hadlistened to a passionate declaration of love, and his last word hadcalled her his wife. Her heart thrilled every time she thought of it;and somehow she could not feel sure that it was exactly a thrill ofpenitence. It was all like a strange dream to her; and sometimes shelooked at her little brown hands and wondered if he really had kissedthem,--he, the splendid strange vision of a man, the prince fromfairy-land! Agnes had never read romances, it is true, but she had beenbrought up on the legends of the saints, and there never was a marvelpossible to human conception that had not been told there. Princeshad come from China and Barbary and Abyssinia and every other strangeout-of-the-way place, to kneel at the feet of fair, obdurate saints whowould not even turn the head to look at them; but she had acted, shewas conscious, after a much more mortal fashion, and so made herselfwork for confession and penance. Yet certainly she had not meant to doso; the interview came on her so suddenly, so unexpectedly; and somehowhe _would_ speak, and he would not go when she asked him to; and sheremembered how he looked when he stood right before her in the door-wayand told her she _should_ hear him,--how the color flushed up in hischeeks, what a fire there was in his great dark eyes; he looked as ifhe were going to do something desperate then; it made her hold herbreath even now to think of it.
"These princes and nobles," she thought, "are so used to command, itis no wonder they make us feel as if they must have their will. I haveheard grandmother call them wolves and vultures, that are ready totear us poor folk to pieces; but I am sure he seems gentle. I'm sureit isn't wicked or cruel for him to want to make me his wife; and hecouldn't know, of course, why it wasn't right he should; and it reallyis beautiful of him to love me so. Oh, if I were only a princess, andhe loved me that way, how glad I should be to give up everything and goto him alone! And then we would pray together; and I really think thatwould be much better than praying all alone. He said men had so muchmore to tempt them. Ah, that is true! How can little moles that grub inthe ground know of the dangers of eagles that fly to the very sun? HolyMother, look mercifully upon him and save his soul!"
Such were the thoughts of Agnes the day when she was preparing forher confession; and all the way to church she found them floating anddissolving and reappearing in new forms in her mind, like the silverysmoke-clouds which were constantly veering and sailing over Vesuvius.
Only one thing was firm and never changing, and that was the purpose toreveal everything to her spiritual director. When she kneeled at theconfessional with closed eyes, and began her whispered acknowledgments,she tried to feel as if she were speaking in the ear of Godalone,--that God whose spirit she was taught to believe, for the timebeing, was present in His minister before whom her inmost heart was tobe unveiled.
He who sat within had just returned from his lonely retreat with hismind and nerves in a state of unnatural tension,--a sort of ecstaticclearness and calmness, which he mistook for victory and peace. Duringthose lonely days when he had wandered afar from human converse, andwas surrounded only by objects of desolation and gloom, he had passedthrough as many phases of strange, unnatural experience as there wereflitting smoke-wreaths eddying about him.
There are depths in man's nature and his possibilities which no plummethas ever sounded,--the wild, lonely joys of fanatical excitement, theperfectly ravenous appetite for self-torture, which seems able, intime, to reverse the whole human system, and make a heaven of hell.How else can we understand the facts related both in Hindoo and inChristian story, of those men and women who have found such strangeraptures in slow tortures, prolonged from year to year, till painbecame a habit of body and mind? It is said that after the tortures ofthe rack, the reaction of the overstrained nerves produces a sense ofthe most exquisite relief and repose; and so when mind and body areharrowed, harassed to the very outer verge of endurance, come wildthrobbings and transports, and strange celestial clairvoyance, whichthe mystic hails as the descent of the New Jerusalem into his soul.
It had seemed to Father Francesco, when he came down from the mountain,that he had left his body behind him,--that he had left earth andearthly things; his very feet touching the ground seemed to tread noton rough, resisting soil, but on an elastic cloud. He saw a strangeexcess of beauty in every flower, in every leaf, in the wavering blueof the sea, in the red grottoed rocks that overhung the shore, withtheir purple, green, orange, and yellow hangings of flower-and-leaftapestry. The songs of the fishermen on the beach, the peasant-girlscutting flowery fodder for the cattle, all seemed to him to have anunnatural charm. As one looking through a prism sees a fine borderingof rainbow on every object, so he beheld a glorified world. Hisformer self seemed to him something forever past and gone. He lookedat himself as at another person, who had sinned and suffered, andwas now resting in beatified repose; and he fondly thought all thiswas firm reality, and believed that he was now proof against allearthly impressions, able to hear and to judge with the dispassionatecalmness of a disembodied spirit. He did not know that this high-strungcalmness, this fine clearness, were only the most intense forms ofnervous sensibility, and as vividly susceptible to every mortalimpression as is the vitalized chemical plate to the least action ofthe sun's rays.
When Agnes began her confession, her voice seemed to him to passthrough every nerve; it seemed as if he could feel her presencethrilling through the very wood of the confessional. He was astonishedand dismayed at his own emotion. But when she began to speak ofthe interview with the cavalier, he trembled from head to footwith uncontrollable passion. Nature long repressed came back in atempestuous reaction. He crossed himself again and again, he tried topray, and blessed those protecting shadows which concealed his emotionfrom the unconscious one by his side. But he set his teeth in deadlyresolve, and his voice, as he questioned her, came forth cutting andcold as ice crystals.
"Why did you listen to a word?"
"My father, it was so sudden. He wakened me from sleep. I answered himbefore I thought."
"You should not have been sleeping. It was a sinful indolence."
"Yes, my father."
"See now to what it led. The enemy of your soul, ever watching,
seizedthis moment to tempt you."
"Yes, my father."
"Examine your soul well," said Father Francesco, in a tone of austereseverity that made Agnes tremble. "Did you not find a secret pleasurein his words?"
"My father, I fear I did," said she, with a trembling voice.
"I knew it! I knew it!" the priest muttered to himself, while the greatdrops started on his forehead, in the intensity of the conflict herepressed. Agnes thought the solemn pause that followed was caused bythe horror that had been inspired by her own sinfulness.
"You did not, then, heartily and truly wish him to go from you?"pursued the cold, severe voice.
"Yes, my father, I did. I wished him to go with all my soul."
"Yet you say you found pleasure in his being near you," said FatherFrancesco, conscious how every string of his own being, even in thisawful hour, was vibrating with a sort of desperate, miserable joy inbeing once more near to her.
"Ah," sighed Agnes, "that is true, my father,--woe is me! Please tellme how I could have helped it. I was pleased before I knew it."
"And you have been thinking of what he said to you with pleasuresince?" pursued the confessor, with an intense severity of manner,deepening as he spoke.
"I _have_ thought of it," faltered Agnes.
"Beware how you trifle with the holy sacrament! Answer frankly. Youhave thought of it _with pleasure_. Confess it."
"I do not understand myself exactly," said Agnes. "I have thought of itpartly with pleasure and partly with pain."
"Would you like to go with him and be his wife, as he said?"
"If it were right, father,--not otherwise."
"Oh, foolish child! oh, blinded soul! to think of right in connectionwith an infidel and heretic! Do you not see that all this is anartifice of Satan? He can transform himself into an angel of light.Do you suppose this heretic would be brought back to the Church by afoolish girl? Do you suppose it is your prayers he wants? Why does henot seek the prayers of the Church,--of holy men who have power withGod? He would bait his hook with this pretense that he may catch yoursoul. Do you believe me?"
"I am bound to believe you, my father."
"But you do not. Your heart is going after this wicked man."
"Oh, my father, I do not wish it should. I never wish or expect to seehim more. I only pray for him that his soul may not be lost."
"He has gone, then?"
"Yes, my father. And he went with my uncle, a most holy monk, who hasundertaken the work of his salvation. He listens to my uncle, who hashopes of restoring him to the Church."
"That is well. And now, my daughter, listen to me. You must root outof your thought every trace and remembrance of these words of sinfulearthly love which he hath spoken. Such love would burn your soul toall eternity with fire that never could be quenched. If you can tearaway all roots and traces of this from your heart, if by fasting andprayer and penance you can become worthy to be a bride of your divineLord, then your prayers will gain power, and you may prevail to securehis eternal salvation. But listen to me, daughter,--listen and tremble!If ever you should yield to his love and turn back from this heavenlymarriage to follow him, you will accomplish his damnation and your own;to all eternity he will curse you, while the fire rages and consumeshim,--he will curse the hour that he first saw you."
These words were spoken with an intense vehemence which seemed almostsupernatural. Agnes shivered and trembled; a vague feeling of guiltoverwhelmed and disheartened her; she seemed to herself the most lostand abandoned of human beings.
"My father, I shall think no penance too severe that may restore mysoul from this sin. I have already made a vow to the blessed Motherthat I will walk on foot to the Holy City, praying in every shrine andholy place; and I humbly ask your approval."
This announcement brought to the mind of the monk a sense of relief anddeliverance. He felt already, in the terrible storm of agitation whichthis confession had aroused within him, that nature was not dead, andthat he was infinitely farther from the victory of passionless calmthan he had supposed. He was still a man,--torn with human passions,with a love which he must never express, and a jealousy which burnedand writhed at every word which he had wrung from its unconsciousobject. Conscience had begun to whisper in his ear that there wouldbe no safety to him in continuing this spiritual dictatorship to onewhose every word unmanned him,--that it was laying himself open to aceaseless temptation, which in some blinded, dreary hour of evil mighthurry him into acts of horrible sacrilege; and he was once more feelingthat wild, stormy revolt of his inner nature that so distressed himbefore he left the convent.
This proposition of Agnes's struck him as a compromise. It wouldtake her from him only for a season, she would go under his careand direction, and he would gradually recover his calmness andself-possession in her absence. Her pilgrimage to the holy places wouldbe a most proper and fit preparation for the solemn marriage-ritewhich should forever sunder her from all human ties, and make herinaccessible to all solicitations of human love. Therefore, after aninterval of silence, he answered,--
"Daughter, your plan is approved. Such pilgrimages have ever been heldmeritorious works in the Church, and there is a special blessing uponthem."
"My father," said Agnes, "it has always been in my heart from mychildhood to be the bride of the Lord; but my grandmother, who broughtme up, and to whom I owe the obedience of a daughter, utterly forbidsme; she will not hear a word of it. No longer ago than last Monday shetold me I might as well put a knife into her heart as speak of this."
"And you, daughter, do you put the feelings of any earthly friendbefore the love of your Lord and Creator who laid down His life foryou? Hear what He saith: 'He that loveth father or mother more than meis not worthy of me.'"
"But my poor old grandmother has no one but me in the world, and shehas never slept a night without me; she is getting old, and she hasworked for me all her good days;--it would be very hard for her to loseme."
"Ah, false, deceitful heart! Has, then, thy Lord not labored for thee?Has He not borne thee through all the years of thy life? And wilt thouput the love of any mortal before His?"
"Yes," replied Agnes, with a sort of hardy sweetness, "but my Lord doesnot need me as grandmother does; He is in glory, and will never be oldor feeble; I cannot work for Him and tend Him as I shall her. I cannotsee my way clear at present; but when she is gone, or if the saintsmove her to consent, I shall then belong to God alone."
"Daughter, there is some truth in your words; and if your Lordaccepts you, He will dispose her heart. Will she go with you on thispilgrimage?"
"I have prayed that she might, father,--that her soul may be quickened;for I fear me, dear old grandmamma has found her love for me asnare,--she has thought too much of my interests and too little of herown soul, poor grandmamma!"
"Well, child, I shall enjoin this pilgrimage on her as a penance."
"I have grievously offended her lately," said Agnes, "in rejectingan offer of marriage with a man on whom she had set her heart, andtherefore she does not listen to me as she is wont to do."
"You have done right in refusing, my daughter. I will speak to her ofthis, and show her how great is the sin of opposing a holy vocationin a soul whom the Lord calls to Himself, and enjoin her to makereparation by uniting with you in this holy work."
Agnes departed from the confessional without even looking upon the faceof her director, who sat within listening to the rustle of her dress asshe rose,--listening to the soft fall of her departing footsteps, andpraying that grace might be given him not to look after her: and he didnot, though he felt as if his life were going with her.
Agnes tripped round the aisle to a little side-chapel where a lightwas always kept burning by her before a picture of Saint Agnes, and,kneeling there, waited till her grandmother should be through with herconfession.
"Ah, sweet Saint Agnes," she said, "pity me! I am a poor ignorantyoung girl, and have been led into grievous sin; but I did not meanto do wrong,--I have been tryi
ng to do right; pray for me, that I mayovercome as you did. Pray our dear Lord to send you with us on thispilgrimage, and save us from all wicked and brutal men who would do usharm. As the Lord delivered you in sorest straits, keeping soul andbody pure as a lily, ah, pray Him to keep me! I love you dearly,--watchover me and guide me."
In those days of the Church, such addresses to the glorified saintshad become common among all Christians. They were not regarded asworship, any more than a similar outpouring of confidence to a belovedand revered friend yet in the body. Among the hymns of Savonarola isone addressed to Saint Mary Magdalen, whom he regarded with an especialveneration. The great truth, that God is not the God of the dead, butof the living, that _all_ live to Him, was in those ages with the trulyreligious a part of spiritual consciousness. The saints of the ChurchTriumphant, having become one with Christ as He is one with the Father,were regarded as invested with a portion of his divinity, and as theministering agency through which his mediatorial government on earthwas conducted; and it was thought to be in the power of the sympatheticheart to attract them by the outflow of its affections, so that theirpresence often overshadowed the walks of daily life with a cloud ofhealing and protecting sweetness.
If the enthusiasm of devotion in regard to these invisible friendsbecame extravagant and took the language due to God alone, it was nomore than the fervid Italian nature was always doing with regard tovisible objects of affection. Love with an Italian always tends tobecome worship, and some of the language of the poets addressed toearthly loves rises into intensities of expression due only to the One,Sovereign, Eternal Beauty. One sees even in the writings of Cicerothat this passionate adoring kind of love is not confined to moderntimes. When he loses the daughter in whom his heart is garnered up, hefinds no comfort except in building a temple to her memory,--a blindoutreaching towards the saint-worship of modern times.
Agnes rose from her devotions, and went with downcast eyes, her lipsstill repeating prayers, to the font of holy water, which was in a dimshadowy corner, where a painted window cast a gold and violet twilight.Suddenly there was a rustle of garments in the dimness, and a jeweledhand essayed to pass holy water to her on the tip of its finger. Thismark of Christian fraternity, common in those times, Agnes almostmechanically accepted, touching her slender finger to the one extended,and making the sign of the cross, while she raised her eyes to see whostood there. Gradually the haze cleared from her mind, and she awoke tothe consciousness that it was the cavalier! He moved to come towardsher, with a bright smile on his face; but suddenly she became pale asone who has seen a spectre, and, pushing from her with both hands, shesaid faintly, "Go, go!" and turned and sped up the aisle silently as asunbeam, joining her grandmother, who was coming from the confessionalwith a gloomy and sullen brow.
Old Elsie had been enjoined to unite with her grandchild in thisscheme of a pilgrimage, and received the direction with as muchinternal contumacy as would a thriving church-member of Wall Streeta proposition to attend a protracted meeting in the height of thebusiness season. Not but that pilgrimages were holy and graciousworks,--she was too good a Christian not to admit that,--but why mustholy and gracious works be thrust on her in particular? There weresaints enough who liked such things; and people _could_ get to heavenwithout,--if not with a very abundant entrance, still in a modestway,--and Elsie's ambition for position and treasure in the spiritualworld was of a very moderate cast.
"Well, now, I hope you are satisfied," she said to Agnes, as shepulled her along with no very gentle hand; "you've got me sent off ona pilgrimage,--and my old bones must be rattling up and down all thehills between here and Rome,--and who's to see to the oranges?--they'llall be stolen, every one."
"Grandmother"--began Agnes in a pleading voice.
"Oh, you hush up! I know what you're going to say. 'The good Lord willtake care of them.' I wish He may. He has his hands full, with all thepeople that go cawing and psalm-singing like so many crows, and leaveall their affairs to Him!"
Agnes walked along disconsolate, with her eyes full of tears, whichcoursed one another down her pale cheeks.
"There's Antonio," pursued Elsie, "would perhaps look after thingsa little. He is a good fellow, and only yesterday was asking if hecouldn't do something for us. It's you he does it for,--but little youcare who loves you, or what they do for you!"
At this moment they met old Jocunda, whom we have before introducedto the reader as portress of the Convent. She had on her arm a largesquare basket, which she was storing for its practical uses.
"Well, well, Saint Agnes be praised, I have found you at last," shesaid. "I was wanting to speak about some of your blood-oranges forconserving. An order has come down from our dear gracious lady, theQueen, to prepare a lot for her own blessed eating, and you may be sureI would get none of anybody but you. But what's this, my little heart,my little lamb?--crying?--tears in those sweet eyes? What's the matternow?"
"Matter enough for me!" said Elsie. "It's a weary world we live in. Abody can't turn any way and not meet with trouble. If a body bringsup a girl one way, why, every fellow is after her, and one has nopeace; and if a body brings her up another way, she gets her head inthe clouds, and there's no good of her in this world. Now look atthat girl,--doesn't everybody say it's time she were married?--butno marrying for her! Nothing will do but we must off to Rome on apilgrimage,--and what's the good of that, I want to know? If it'spraying that's to be done, the dear saints know she's at it frommorning till night,--and lately she's up and down three or four times anight with some prayer or other."
"Well, well," said Jocunda, "who started this idea?"
"Oh, Father Francesco and she got it up between them, and nothing willdo but I must go, too."
"Well, now, after all, my dear," said Jocunda, "do you know, I made apilgrimage once, and it isn't so bad. One gets a good deal by it, firstand last. Everybody drops something into your hand as you go, and onegets treated as if one were somebody a little above the common; andthen in Rome one has a princess or a duchess or some noble lady whowashes one's feet, and gives one a good supper, and perhaps a new suitof clothes, and all that,--and ten to one there comes a pretty littlesum of money to boot, if one plays one's cards well. A pilgrimage isn'tbad, after all; one sees a world of fine things, and something newevery day."
"But who is to look after our garden and dress our trees?"
"Ah, now, there's Antonio, and old Meta his mother," said Jocunda,with a knowing wink at Agnes. "I fancy there are friends there thatwould lend a hand to keep things together against the little one comeshome. If one is going to be married, a pilgrimage brings good luck inthe family. All the saints take it kindly that one comes so far to seethem, and are more ready to do a good turn for one when one needs it.The blessed saints are like other folks, they like to be treated withproper attention."
This view of pilgrimages from the material standpoint had more effecton the mind of Elsie than the most elaborate appeals of FatherFrancesco. She began to acquiesce, though with a reluctant air.
Jocunda, seeing her words had made some impression, pursued heradvantage on the spiritual ground.
"To be sure," she added, "I don't know how it is with you; but I knowthat _I_ have, one way and another, rolled up quite an account of sinsin my life. When I was tramping up and down with my old man through thecountry,--now in this castle and then in that camp, and now and thenin at the sacking of a city or village, or something of the kind,--thesaints forgive us!--it does seem as if one got into things that werenot of the best sort, in such times. It's true, it's been wiped outover and over by the priest; but then a pilgrimage is a good thing tomake all sure, in case one's good works should fall short of one's sinsat last. I can tell you, a pilgrimage is a good round weight to throwinto the scale; and when it comes to heaven and hell, you know, mydear, why, one cannot be too careful."
"Well, that may be true enough," said Elsie, "though as to my sins, Ihave tried to keep them regularly squared up and balanced as I wentalong. I have always bee
n regular at confession, and never failed a jotor tittle in what the holy father told me. But there may be somethingin what you say; one can't be too sure; and so I'll e'en school my oldbones into taking this tramp."
That evening, as Agnes was sitting in the garden at sunset, hergrandmother bustling in and out, talking, groaning, and hurrying inher preparations for the anticipated undertaking, suddenly there was arustling in the branches overhead, and a bouquet of rosebuds fell ather feet. Agnes picked it up, and saw a scrip of paper coiled among theflowers. In a moment, remembering the apparition of the cavalier in thechurch in the morning, she doubted not from whom it came. So dreadfulhad been the effect of the scene at the confessional, that the thoughtof the near presence of her lover brought only terror. She turned pale;her hands shook. She shut her eyes, and prayed that she might not beleft to read the paper; and then, summoning all her resolution, shethrew the bouquet with force over the wall. It dropped down, down, downthe gloomy, shadowy abyss, and was lost in the damp caverns below.
The cavalier stood without the wall, waiting for some responsivesignal in reply to his missive. It had never occurred to him that Agneswould not even read it, and he stood confounded when he saw it thrownback with such apparent rudeness. He remembered her pale, terrifiedlook on seeing him in the morning. It was not indifference or dislike,but mortal fear, that had been shown in that pale face.
"These wretches are practicing on her," he said, in wrath, "filling herhead with frightful images, and torturing her sensitive conscience tillshe sees sin in the most natural and innocent feelings."
He had learned from Father Antonio the intention of Agnes to go on apilgrimage, and he longed to see and talk with her, that he might offerher his protection against dangers which he understood far better thanshe. It had never even occurred to him that the door for all possiblecommunication would be thus suddenly barred in his face.
"Very well," he said to himself, with a darkening brow, "let them haveit their own way here. She must pass through my dominions before shecan reach Rome, and I will find a place where I _can_ be heard, withoutpriest or grandmother to let or hinder. She is mine, and I will carefor her."
But poor Agnes had the woman's share of the misery to bear, in thefear and self-reproach and distress which every movement of this kindcost her. The involuntary thrill at seeing her lover, at hearing fromhim, the conscious struggle which it cost her to throw back his gift,were all noted by her accusing conscience as so many sins. The nextday she sought again her confessor, and began an entrance on thosedarker and more chilly paths of penance, by which, according to theopinion of her times, the peculiarly elect of the Lord were supposedto be best trained. Hitherto her religion had been the cheerful andnatural expression of her tender and devout nature, according to themore beautiful and engaging devotional forms of her Church. During theyear when her confessor had been, unconsciously to himself, led by herinstead of leading, her spiritual food had been its beautiful old hymnsand prayers, which she found no weariness in often repeating. But nowan unnatural conflict was begun in her mind, directed by a spiritualguide in whom every natural and normal movement of the soul had givenway before a succession of morbid and unhealthful experiences. Fromthat day Agnes wore upon her heart one of those sharp instruments oftorture which in those items were supposed to be a means of inwardgrace,--a cross with seven steel points for the seven sorrows of Mary.She fasted with a severity which alarmed her grandmother, who in herinmost heart cursed the day that ever she had placed her in the way ofsaintship.
"All this will just end in spoiling her beauty,--making her as thin asa shadow," said Elsie; "and she was good enough before."
But it did not spoil her beauty, it only changed its character. Theroundness and bloom melted away, but there came in their stead thatsolemn, transparent clearness of countenance, that spiritual light andradiance, which the old Florentine painters gave to their Madonnas.
It is singular how all religious exercises and appliances take thecharacter of the nature that uses them. The pain and penance, which somany in her day bore as a cowardly expedient for averting divine wrath,seemed, as she viewed them, a humble way of becoming associated in thesufferings of her Redeemer. "_Jesu dulcis memoria_," was the thoughtthat carried a redeeming sweetness with every pain. Could she thus, bysuffering with her Lord, gain power like Him to save,--a power whichshould save that soul so dear and so endangered! "Ah," she thought, "Iwould give my life-blood, drop by drop, if only it might avail for hissalvation!"