II
And as for Himself, what had He to say to all this? A Transcendent GodWho hid Himself, a Divine Saviour Who delayed to come, a Comforter heardno longer in wind nor seen in fire!
There, in the next room, was a little wooden altar, and above it an ironbox, and within that box a silver cup, and within that cup--Something.Outside the house, a hundred yards away, lay the domes and plaster roofsof a little village called Nazareth; Carmel was on the right, a mile ortwo away, Thabor on the left, the plain of Esdraelon in front; andbehind, Cana and Galilee, and the quiet lake, and Hermon. And far awayto the south lay Jerusalem....
It was to this tiny strip of holy land that the Pope had come--the landwhere a Faith had sprouted two thousand years ago, and where, unless Godspoke in fire from heaven, it would presently be cut down as a cumbererof the ground. It was here on this material earth that One had walkedWhom all men had thought to have been He Who would redeem Israel--inthis village that He had fetched water and made boxes and chairs, onthat long lake that His Feet had walked, on that high hill that He hadflamed in glory, on that smooth, low mountain to the north that He haddeclared that the meek were blessed and should inherit the earth, thatpeacemakers were the children of God, that they who hungered andthirsted should be satisfied.
And now it was come to this. Christianity had smouldered away fromEurope like a sunset on darkening peaks; Eternal Rome was a heap ofruins; in East and West alike a man had been set upon the throne of God,had been acclaimed as divine. The world had leaped forward; socialscience was supreme; men had learned consistency; they had learned, too,the social lessons of Christianity apart from a Divine Teacher, or,rather, they said, in spite of Him. There were left, perhaps, threemillions, perhaps five, at the utmost ten millions--it was impossible toknow--throughout the entire inhabited globe who still worshipped JesusChrist as God. And the Vicar of Christ sat in a whitewashed room inNazareth, dressed as simply as His master, waiting for the end.
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He had done what He could. There had been a week five months ago whenit had been doubtful whether anything at all could be done. There wereleft three Cardinals alive, Himself, Steinmann, and the Patriarch ofJerusalem; the rest lay mangled somewhere in the ruins of Rome. Therewas no precedent to follow; so the two Europeans had made their way outto the East, and to the one town in it where quiet still reigned. Withthe disappearance of Greek Christianity there had also vanished the lastremnants of internecine war in Christendom; and by a kind of tacitconsent of the world, Christians were allowed a moderate liberty inPalestine. Russia, which now held the country as a dependency, hadsufficient sentiment left to leave it alone; it was true that the holyplaces had been desecrated, and remained now only as spots ofantiquarian interest; the altars were gone but the sites were yetmarked, and, although mass could no longer be said there, it wasunderstood that private oratories were not forbidden.
It was in this state that the two European Cardinals had found the HolyCity; it was not thought wise to wear insignia of any description inpublic; and it was practically certain even now that the civilised worldwas unaware of their existence; for within three days of their arrivalthe old Patriarch had died, yet not before Percy Franklin, surely underthe strangest circumstances since those of the first century, had beenelected to the Supreme Pontificate. It had all been done in a fewminutes by the dying man's bedside. The two old men had insisted. TheGerman had even recurred once more to the strange resemblance betweenPercy and Julian Felsenburgh, and had murmured his old half-heardremarks about the antithesis, and the Finger of God; and Percy,marvelling at his superstition, had accepted, and the election wasrecorded. He had taken the name of Silvester, the last saint in theyear, and was the third of that title. He had then retired to Nazarethwith his chaplain; Steinmann had gone back to Germany, and been hangedin a riot within a fortnight of his arrival.
The next matter was the creation of new cardinals, and to twentypersons, with infinite precautions, briefs had been conveyed. Of these,nine had declined; three more had been approached, of whom only one hadaccepted. There were therefore at this moment twelve persons in theworld who constituted the Sacred College--two Englishmen, of whomCorkran was one; two Americans, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, aSpaniard, a Pole, a Chinaman, a Greek, and a Russian. To these wereentrusted vast districts over which their control was supreme, subjectonly to the Holy Father Himself.
As regarded the Pope's own life very little need be said. It resembled,He thought, in its outward circumstances that of such a man as Leo theGreat, without His worldly importance or pomp. Theoretically, theChristian world was under His dominion; practically, Christian affairswere administered by local authorities. It was impossible for a hundredreasons for Him to do what He wished with regard to the exchange ofcommunications. An elaborate cypher had been designed, and a privatetelegraphic station organised on His roof communicating with another inDamascus where Cardinal Corkran had fixed his residence; and from thatcentre messages occasionally were despatched to ecclesiasticalauthorities elsewhere; but, for the most part, there was little to bedone. The Pope, however, had the satisfaction of knowing that, withincredible difficulty, a little progress had been made towards thereorganisation of the hierarchy in all countries. Bishops were beingconsecrated freely; there were not less than two thousand of them alltold, and of priests an unknown number. The Order of Christ Crucifiedwas doing excellent work, and the tales of not less than four hundredmartyrdoms had reached Nazareth during the last two months, accomplishedmostly at the hands of the mobs.
In other respects, also, as well as in the primary object of the Order'sexistence (namely, the affording of an opportunity to all who loved Godto dedicate themselves to Him more perfectly), the new Religious weredoing good work. The more perilous tasks--the work of communicationbetween prelates, missions to persons of suspected integrity--all thebusiness, in fact, which was carried on now at the vital risk of theagent were entrusted solely to members of the Order. Stringentinstructions had been issued from Nazareth that no bishop was to exposehimself unnecessarily; each was to regard himself as the heart of hisdiocese to be protected at all costs save that of Christian honour, andin consequence each had surrounded himself with a group of the newReligious--men and women--who with extraordinary and generous obedienceundertook such dangerous tasks as they were capable of performing. Itwas plain enough by now that had it not been for the Order, the Churchwould have been little better than paralysed under these new conditions.
Extraordinary facilities were being issued in all directions. Everypriest who belonged to the Order received universal jurisdiction subjectto the bishop, if any, of the diocese in which he might be; mass mightbe said on any day of the year of the Five Wounds, or the Resurrection,or Our Lady; and all had the privilege of the portable altar, nowpermitted to be wood. Further ritual requirements were relaxed; massmight be said with any decent vessels of any material capable ofdestruction, such as glass or china; bread of any description might beused; and no vestments were obligatory except the thin thread that nowrepresented the stole; lights were non-essential; none need wear theclerical habit; and rosary, even without beads, was always permissibleinstead of the Office.
In this manner priests were rendered capable of giving the sacramentsand offering the holy sacrifice at the least possible risk tothemselves; and these relaxations had already proved of enormous benefitin the European prisons, where by this time many thousands of Catholicswere undergoing the penalty of refusing public worship.
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The Pope's private life was as simple as His room. He had one Syrianpriest for His chaplain, and two Syrian servants. He said His mass eachmorning, Himself wearing vestments and His white habit beneath, andheard a mass after. He then took His coffee, after changing into thetunic and burnous of the country, and spent the morning over business.He dined at noon, slept, and rode out, for the country by reason of itsindeterminate position was still in the simplicity of a hundred yearsago. He returned at dusk, supped, and worke
d again till late into thenight.
That was all. His chaplain sent what messages were necessary toDamascus; His servants, themselves ignorant of His dignity, dealt withthe secular world so far as was required, and the utmost that seemed tobe known to His few neighbours was that there lived in the late Sheikh'slittle house on the hill an eccentric European with a telegraph office.His servants, themselves devout Catholics, knew Him for a bishop, but nomore than that. They were told only that there was yet a Pope alive, andwith that and the sacraments were content.
To sum up, therefore--the Catholic world knew that their Pope livedunder the name of Silvester; and thirteen persons of the entire humanrace knew that Franklin had been His name, and that the throne of Peterrested for the time in Nazareth.
It was, as a Frenchman had said, just a hundred years ago. Catholicismsurvived; but no more.