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The Dawn of All

by Robert Hugh Benson · English · Gutenberg #11626 · 524,135 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Dawn of All

Author: Robert Hugh Benson


        
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #11626]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11626


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAWN OF ALL ***

Made and Printed in Great Britain at _The Mayflower Press,
Plymouth_. William Brendan & Son, Ltd.




PREFACE

IN a former book, called _Lord of the World_, I attempted to
sketch the kind of developments a hundred years hence which, I
thought, might reasonably be expected if the present lines of
what is called "modern thought" were only prolonged far enough;
and I was informed repeatedly that the effect of the book was
exceedingly depressing and discouraging to optimistic Christians.
In the present book I am attempting--also in parable form--not in
the least to withdraw anything that I said in the former, but to
follow up the other lines instead, and to sketch--again in
parable--the kind of developments, about sixty years hence which,
I think, may reasonably be expected should the opposite process
begin, and ancient thought (which has stood the test of
centuries, and is, in a very remarkable manner, being
"rediscovered" by persons even more modern than modernists) be
prolonged instead. We are told occasionally by moralists that we
live in very critical times, by which they mean that they are not
sure whether their own side will win or not. In that sense no
times can ever be critical to Catholics, since Catholics are
never in any kind of doubt as to whether or no their side will
win. But from another point of view every period is a critical
period, since every period has within itself the conflict of two
irreconcilable forces. It has been for the sake of tracing out
the kind of effects that, it seemed to me, each side would
experience in turn, should the other, at any rate for a while,
become dominant, that I have written these two books.

Finally if I may be allowed, I should wish to draw attention to
my endeavours to treat of the subject of "religious persecution,"
since I strongly believe that in some such theory is to be found
the explanation of such phenomena as those of Mary Tudor's reign
in England, and of the Spanish Inquisition. In practically every
such case, I think, it was the State and not the Church which was
responsible for so unhappy a policy; and that the policy was
directed not against unorthodoxy, as such, but against an
unorthodoxy which, under the circumstances of those days, was
thought to threaten the civil stability of society in general,
and which was punished as amounting to treasonable, rather than
to heretical, opinions.

ROBERT HUGH BENSON.

ROME Lent 1911




THE DAWN OF ALL



PROLOGUE

Gradually memory and consciousness once more reasserted
themselves, and he became aware that he was lying in bed. But
this was a slow process of intense mental effort, and was as
laboriously and logically built up of premises and deductions as
were his theological theses learned twenty years before in his
seminary. There was the sheet below his chin; there was a red
coverlet (seen at first as a blood-coloured landscape of hills
and valleys); there was a ceiling, overhead, at first as remote
as the vault of heaven. Then, little by little, the confused
roaring in his ears sank to a murmur. It had been just now as the
sound of brazen hammers clanging in reverberating caves, the
rolling of wheels, the tramp of countless myriads of men. But it
had become now a soothing murmur, not unlike the coming in of a
tide at the foot of high cliffs--just one gentle continuous note,
overlaid with light, shrill sounds. This too required long
argument and reasoning before any conclusion could be reached;
but it was attained at last, and he became certain that he lay
somewhere within sound of busy streets. Then rashly he leapt to
the belief that he must be in his own lodgings in Bloomsbury; but
another long slow stare upwards showed him that the white ceiling
was too far away.

The effort of thought seemed too much for him; it gave him a
sense of inexplicable discomfort. He determined to think no more,
for fear that the noises should revert again to the crash of
hammers in his hollow head. . . .

He was next conscious of a pressure on his lip, and a kind of
shadow of a taste of something. But it was no more than a shadow:
it was as if he were watching some one else drink and perceiving
some one else to swallow. . . . Then with a rush the ceiling came
back into view: he was aware that he was lying in bed under a red
coverlet; that the room was large and airy about him; and that
two persons, a doctor in white and a nurse, were watching him. He
rested in that knowledge for a long time, watching memory
reassert itself. Detail after detail sprang into view: farther
and farther back into his experience, far down into the childhood
he had forgotten. He remembered now who he was, his story, his
friends, his life up to a certain blank day or set of days,
between him and which there was nothing. Then he saw the faces
again, and it occurred to him, with a flash as of illumination,
to ask. So he began to ask; and he considered carefully each
answer, turning it over and reflecting upon it with what seemed
to him an amazing degree of concentration.

". . . So I am in Westminster Hospital," he considered. "That is
extraordinarily interesting and affecting. I have often seen the
outside of it. It is of discoloured brick. And I have been
here . . . how long? how long, did they say? . . . Oh! that is a
long time. Five days! And what in the world can have happened to
my work? They will be looking out for me in the Museum. How can
Dr. Waterman's history get on without me? I must see about that
at once. He'll understand that it's not my fault. . . .

"What's that? I mustn't trouble myself about that? But--Oh! Dr.
Waterman has been here, has he? That's very kind--very kind and
thoughtful indeed. And I'm to take my time, am I? Very well.
Please thank Dr. Waterman for his kindness and his
thoughtfulness in enquiring. . . . And tell him I'll be with him
again in a day or two at any rate. . . . Oh! tell him that he'll
find the references to the thirteenth-century Popes in the black
notebook--the thick one--on the right of the fire-place. They're
all verified. Thank you, thank you very much. . . . and . . . by
the way . . . just tell him I'm not sure yet about the
Piccolomini matter. . . . What's that? I'm not to trouble
myself? . . . But . . . Oh! very well. Thank you. . . . Thank
you very much."

There followed a long pause. He was thinking still very hard
about the thirteenth-century Popes. It was really very tiresome
that he could not explain to Dr. Waterman himself. He was certain
that some of the pages in the thick black notebook were loose;
and how terrible it would be if the book were taken out
carelessly, and some of the pages fell into the fire. They easily
might! And then there'd be all the work to do again. . . . And
that would mean weeks and weeks. . . .

Then there came a grave, quiet voice of a woman speaking in his
ear; but for a long time he could not understand. He wished it
would let him alone. He wanted to think about the Popes. He tried
nodding and murmuring a general sort of assent, as if he wished
to go to sleep; but it was useless: the voice went on and on. And
then suddenly he understood, and a kind of fury seized him.

How did they know he had once been a priest? Spying and
badgering, as usual! . . . No: he did not want a priest sent for.
He was not a priest any more; not even a Catholic. It was all
lies--lies from the beginning to the end--all that they had
taught him in the seminary. It was all lies! There! Was that
plain enough? . . .

Ah! why would not the voice be quiet? . . . He was in great
danger, was he? He would be unconscious again soon, would he?
Well, he didn't know what they meant by that; but what had it to
do with him? No: he did not want a priest. Was that clear
enough? . . . He was perfectly clear-headed; he knew what he was
saying. . . . Yes; even if he were in great danger . . . even if
he were practically certain to die. (That, by the way, was
impossible; because he had to finish the notes for Dr.
Waterman's new History of the Popes; and it would take months.)
Anyhow, he didn't want a priest. He knew all about that: he had
faced it all, and he wasn't afraid. Science had knocked all that
religious nonsense on the head. There wasn't any religion. All
religions were the same. There wasn't any truth in any of them.
Physical science had settled one half of the matter, and
psychology the other half. It was all accounted for. So he
didn't want a priest anyhow. Damn priests! There! would they let
him alone after that? . . .

And now as to the Piccolomini affair. It was certain that when
Aeneas was first raised to the Sacred College. . . .

Why . . . what was happening to the ceiling? How could he attend
to Aeneas while the ceiling behaved like that? He had no idea
that ceilings in the Westminster Hospital could go up like lifts.
How very ingenious! It must be to give him more air. Certainly he
wanted more air. . . . The walls too. . . . Ought not they also
to revolve? They could change the whole air in the room in a
moment. What an extraordinarily ingenious . . . Ah! and he wanted
it. . . . He wanted more air. . . . Why don't these doctors know
their business better? . . . What was the good of catching hold
of him like that? . . . He wanted air . . . more air . . . He
must get to the window! . . . Air . . . air! . . .




PART I




CHAPTER I



(I)

The first objects of which he became aware were his own hands
clasped on his lap before him, and the cloth cuffs from which
they emerged; and it was these latter that puzzled him. So
engrossed was he that at first he could not pay attention to the
strange sounds in the air about him; for these cuffs, though
black, were marked at their upper edges with a purpled line such
as prelates wear. He mechanically turned the backs of his hands
upwards; but there was no ring on his finger. Then he lifted his
eyes and looked.

He was seated on some kind of raised chair beneath a canopy. A
carpet ran down over a couple of steps beneath his feet, and
beyond stood the backs of a company of ecclesiastics--secular
priests in cotta, cassock, and biretta, with three or four
bare-footed Franciscans and a couple of Benedictines. Ten yards
away there rose a temporary pulpit with a back and a
sounding-board beneath the open sky; and in it was the tall
figure of a young friar, preaching, it seemed, with extraordinary
fervour. Around the pulpit, beyond it, and on all sides to an
immense distance, so far as he could see, stretched the heads of
an incalculable multitude, dead silent, and beyond them again
trees, green against a blue summer sky.

He looked on all this, but it meant nothing to him. It fitted on
nowhere with his experience; he knew neither where he was, nor at
what he was assisting, nor who these people were, nor who the
friar was, nor who he was himself. He simply looked at his
surroundings, then back at his hands and down his figure.

He gained no knowledge there, for he was dressed as he had never
been dressed before. His caped cassock was black, with purple
buttons and a purple cincture. He noticed that his shoes shone
with gold buckles; he glanced at his breast, but no cross hung
there. He took off his biretta, nervously, lest some one should
notice, and perceived that it was black with a purple tassel. He
was dressed then, it seemed, in the costume of a Domestic
Prelate. He put on his biretta again.

Then he closed his eyes and tried to think; but he could remember
nothing. There was, it seemed, no continuity anywhere. But it
suddenly struck him that if he knew that he was a Domestic
Prelate, and if he could recognize a Franciscan, he must have
seen those phenomena before. Where? When?

Little pictures began to form before him as a result of his
intense mental effort, but they were far away and minute, like
figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope; and they
afforded no explanation. But, as he bent his whole mind upon it,
he remembered that he had been a priest--he had distinct memories
of saying mass. But he could not remember where or when; he could
not even remember his own name.

This last horror struck him alert again. _He did not know who he
was_. He opened his eyes widely, terrified, and caught the eye of
an old priest in cotta and cassock who was looking back at him
over his shoulder. Something in the frightened face must have
disturbed the old man, for he detached himself from the group and
came up the two steps to his side.

"What is it, Monsignor?" he whispered.

"I am ill . . . I am ill . . . father," he stammered.

The priest looked at him doubtfully for an instant.

"Can you . . . can you hold out for a little? The sermon
must be nearly---"

Then the other recovered. He understood that at whatever cost he
must not attract attention. He nodded sharply.

"Yes, I can hold out, father; if he isn't too long. But you must
take me home afterwards."

The priest still looked at him doubtfully.

"Go back to your place, father. I'm all right. Don't attract
attention. Only come to me afterwards."

The priest went back, but he still glanced at him once or twice.

Then the man who did not know himself set his teeth and resolved
to remember. The thing was too absurd. He said to himself he
would begin by identifying where he was. If he knew so much as to
his own position and the dresses of those priests, his memory
could not be wholly gone.

In front of him and to the right there were trees, beyond the
heads of the crowd. There was something vaguely familiar to him
about the arrangement of these, but not enough to tell him
anything. He craned forward and stared as far to the right as he
could. There were more trees. Then to the left; and here, for the
first time, he caught sight of buildings. But these seemed very
odd buildings--neither houses nor arches--but something between
the two. They were of the nature of an elaborate gateway.

And then in a flash he recognized where he was. He was sitting,
under this canopy, just to the right as one enters through Hyde
Park Corner; these trees were the trees of the Park; that open
space in front was the beginning of Rotten Row; and Something
Lane--Park Lane--(that was it!)--was behind him.

Impressions and questions crowded upon him quickly now--yet in
none of them was there a hint as to how he got here, nor who he
was, nor what in the world was going on. This friar! What was he
doing, preaching in Hyde Park? It was ridiculous--ridiculous and
very dangerous. It would cause trouble. . . .

He leaned forward to listen, as the friar with a wide gesture
swept his hand round the horizon. "Brethren," he cried, "Look
round you! Fifty years ago this was a Protestant country, and the
Church of God a sect among the sects. And to-day--to-day God is
vindicated and the truth is known. Fifty years ago we were but a
handful among the thousands that knew not God, and to-day we rule
the world. 'Son of man, can these dry bones live?' So cried the
voice of God to the prophet. And behold! they stood up upon their
feet, an exceeding great army. If then He has done such things
for us, what shall He not do for those for whom I speak? Yet He
works through man. 'How shall they hear without a preacher?' Do
you see to it then that there are not wanting labourers in that
vineyard of which you have heard. Already the grapes hang ready
to pluck, and it is but we that are wanting. . . . Send forth
then labourers into My vineyard, cries the Lord of all."

The words were ill-chosen and commonplace enough, and uttered in
an accent indefinably strange to the bewildered listener, but the
force of the man was tremendous, as he sent out his personality
over the enormous crowd, on that high vibrant voice that
controlled, it seemed, even those on the outskirts far up the
roads on either side. Then with a swift sign of the cross,
answered generally by those about the pulpit, he ended his sermon
and disappeared down the steps, and a great murmur of talk began.

But what in the world was it all about, wondered the man under
the canopy. What was this vineyard? and why did he appeal to
English people in such words as these? Every one knew that the
Catholic Church was but a handful still in this country.
Certainly, progress had been made, but. . . .

He broke off his meditations as he saw the group of
ecclesiastics coming towards him, and noticed that on all sides
the crowd was beginning to disperse. He gripped the arms of the
chair fiercely, trying to gain self-command. He must not make a
fool of himself before all these people; he must be discreet and
say as little as possible.

But there was no great need for caution at present. The old
priest who had spoken to him before stepped a little in advance
of the rest, and turning, said in a low sentence or two to the
Benedictines; and the group stopped, though one or two still
eyed, it seemed, with sympathy, the man who awaited him. Then the
priest came up alone and put his hand on the arm of the chair.

"Come out this way," he whispered. "There's a path behind,
Monsignor, and I've sent orders for the car to be there."

The man rose obediently (he could do nothing else), passed down
the steps and behind the canopy. A couple of police stood there
in an unfamiliar, but unmistakable uniform, and these drew
themselves up and saluted. They went on down the little pathway
and out through a side-gate. Here again the crowd was tremendous,
but barriers kept them away, and the two passed on together
across the pavement, saluted by half a dozen men who were pressed
against the barriers--(it was here, for the first time, that the
bewildered man noticed that the dresses seemed altogether
unfamiliar)--and up to a car of a peculiar and unknown shape,
that waited in the roadway, with a bare-headed servant, in some
strange purple livery, holding the door open.

"After you, Monsignor," said the old priest.

The other stepped in and sat down. The priest hesitated for an
instant, and then leaned forward into the car.

"You have an appointment in Dean's Yard, Monsignor, you remember.
It's important, you know. Are you too ill?"

"I can't. . . . I can't. . . ." stammered the man.

"Well, at least, we can go round that way. I think we ought, you
know. I can go in and see him for you, if you wish; and we can at
any rate leave the papers."

"Anything, anything. . . . Very well."

The priest got in instantly; the door closed; and the next
moment, through crowds, held back by the police, the great car,
with no driver visible in front through the clear-glass windows,
moved off southward.



(II)

It was a moment before either spoke. The old priest broke the
silence. He was a gentle-faced old man, not unlike a very shrewd
and wide-awake dormouse; and his white hair stood out in a mass
beneath his biretta. But the words he used were unintelligible,
though not altogether unfamiliar.

"I . . . I don't understand, father," stammered the man.

The priest looked at him sharply.

"I was saying," he said slowly and distinctly, "I was saying that
you looked very well, and I was asking you what was the matter."

The other was silent a moment. How, to explain the
thing! . . . Then he determined on making a clean breast of it.
This old man looked kindly and discreet. "I . . . I think it's a
lapse of memory," he said. "I've heard of such things. I . . . I
don't know where I am nor what I'm doing. Are you . . . are you
sure you're not making a mistake? Have I got any right----?"

The priest looked at him as if puzzled.

"I don't quite understand, Monsignor. What can't you remember?"

"I can't remember anything," wailed the man, suddenly broken down.
"Nothing at all. Not who I am, nor where I'm going, or where I come
from. . . . What am I? Who am I? Father, for God's sake tell me."

"Monsignor, be quiet, please. You mustn't give way. Surely----"

"I tell you I can remember nothing. . . . It's all gone. I don't
know who you are. I don't know what day it is, or what year it
is, or anything----"

He felt a hand on his arm, and his eyes met a look of a very
peculiar power and concentration. He sank back into his seat
strangely quieted and soothed.

"Now, Monsignor, listen to me. You know who I am"--(he broke
off). "I'm Father Jervis. I know about these things. I've been
through the psychological schools. You'll be all right presently,
I hope. But you must be perfectly quiet----"

"Tell me who I am," stammered the man.

"Listen then. You are Monsignor Masterman, secretary to the Cardinal.
You are going back to Westminster now, in your own car----"

"What's been going on? What was all that crowd about?"

Still the eyes were on him, compelling and penetrating.

"You have been presiding at the usual midday Saturday sermon in
Hyde Park, on behalf of the Missions to the East. Do you remember
now? No! Well, it doesn't matter in the least. That was Father
Anthony who was preaching. He was a little nervous, you noticed.
It was his first sermon in Hyde Park."

"I saw he was a friar," murmured the other.

"Oh! you recognized his habit then? There, you see; your
memory's not really gone. And . . . and what's the answer to
_Dominus vobiscum_?"

"_Et cum spiritu tuo._"

The priest smiled, and the pressure on the man's arm relaxed.

"That's excellent. It's only a partial obscurity. Why didn't you
understand me when I spoke to you in Latin then?"

"That was Latin? I thought so. But you spoke too fast; and I'm
not accustomed to speak it."

The old man looked at him with grave humour. "Not accustomed to
speak it, Monsignor! Why----" (He broke off again.) "Look out of
the window, please. Where are we?"

The other looked out. (He felt greatly elated and comforted. It
was quite true; his memory was not altogether gone then. Surely
he would soon be well again!) Out of the windows in front, but
seeming to wheel swiftly to the left as the car whisked round to
the right, was the Victoria Tower. He noticed that the hour
pointed to five minutes before one.

"Those are the Houses of Parliament," he said. "And what's that
tall pillar in the middle of Parliament Square?"

"That's the image of the Immaculate Conception. But what did you
call those buildings just now?"

"Houses of Parliament, aren't they?" faltered the man, terrified
that his brain was really going.

"Why do you call them that?"

"It is their name, isn't it?"

"It used to be; but it isn't the usual name now."

"Good God! Father, am I mad? Tell me. What year is it?"

The eyes looked again into his.

"Monsignor, think. Think hard."

"I don't know. . . . I don't know. . . . Oh, for God's sake! . . ."

"Quietly then. . . . It's the year nineteen hundred and
seventy-three."

"It can't be; it can't be," gasped the other. "Why, I remember
the beginning of the century."

"Monsignor, attend to me, please. . . . That's better. It's the
year nineteen hundred and seventy-three. You were born in the
year--in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-two. You are just
forty years old. You are secretary and chaplain to the
Cardinal--Cardinal Bellairs. Before that you were Rector of St.
Mary's in the West. . . . Do you remember now?"

"I remember nothing."

"You remember your ordination?"

"No. Once I remember saying Mass somewhere. I don't know where."

"Stay, we're just there." (The car wheeled in swiftly under an
archway, whisked to the left, and drew up before the cloister
door.) "Now, Monsignor, I'm going in to see the Prior myself and
give him the papers. You have them?"

"I. . . I don't know."

The priest dived forward and extracted a small despatch-box from
some unseen receptacle.

"Your keys, please, Monsignor."

The other felt wildly about his person. He saw the steady eyes of
the old priest upon him.

"You keep them in your left-hand breast pocket," said the priest
slowly and distinctly.

The man felt there, fetched out a bundle of thin, flat keys, and
handed them over helplessly. While the priest turned them over,
examining each, the other stared hopelessly out of the window,
past the motionless servant in purple who waited with his hand on
the car-door. Surely he knew this place. . . . Yes; it was Dean's
Yard. And this was the entrance to the cloister of the Abbey. But
who was "the Prior," and what was it all about?

He turned to the other, who by now was bending over the box and
extracting a few papers laid neatly at the top.

"What are you doing, father? Who are you going to see?"

"I am going to take these papers of yours to the Prior--the
Prior of Westminster. The Abbot isn't here yet. Only a few of
the monks have come."

"Monks! Prior! . . . Father!"

The old man looked him in the eyes again.

"Yes," he said quietly. "The Abbey was made over again to the
Benedictines last year, but they haven't yet formally taken
possession. And these papers concern business connected with the
whole affair--the relations of seculars and regulars. I'll tell
you afterwards. I must go in now, and you must just remain here
quietly. Tell me again. What is your name? Who are you?"

"I. . . I am Monsignor Masterman. . . secretary to
Cardinal Bellairs."

The priest smiled as he laid his hand on the door.

"Quite right," he said. "Now please sit here quietly, Monsignor,
till I come back."



(III)

He sat in perfect silence, waiting, leaning back in his corner
with closed eyes, compelling himself to keep his composure.

It was, at any rate, good luck that he had fallen in with such a
friend as this--Father Jervis, was it not?--who knew all about
him, and, obviously, could be trusted to be discreet. He must
just attend to his instructions quietly then, and do what he was
told. No doubt things would come back soon. But how very curious
this all was about Hyde Park and Westminster. He could have
sworn that England was a Protestant country, and the Church just
a tiny fragment of its population. Why, it was only recently
that Westminster Cathedral was built--was it not? But then this
was the year seventy-three . . . and . . . and he could not
remember in what year the Cathedral was built. Then again the
horror and bewilderment seized him. He gripped his knees with
his hands in an agony of consternation. He would go mad if he
could not remember. Or at least----Ah! here was Father Jervis
coming back again.

The two sat quite silent again for a moment, as the car moved off.

"Tell me," said the priest suddenly, "don't you remember faces,
or people's names?"

The other concentrated his mind fiercely for a moment or two.

"I remember some faces--yes," he said. "And I remember some names.
But I cannot remember which faces belong to which names. . . . I
remember . . . I remember the name Archbishop Bourne;
and . . . and a priest called Farquharson----"

"What have you been reading lately? . . . Ah! I forgot. Well; but
can't you remember the Cardinal . . . Cardinal Bellairs?"

"I've never heard of him."

"Nor what he looks like?"

"I haven't a notion."

The priest again was silent.

"Look here, Monsignor," he said suddenly, "I'd better take you
straight up to your rooms as soon as we arrive; and I'll have a
notice put up on your confessional that you are unable to attend
there to-day. You'll have the whole afternoon--after four at
least--to yourself, and the rest of the evening. We needn't tell a
soul until we're certain that it can't be helped, not even the
Cardinal. But I'm afraid you'll have to preside at lunch to-day."

"Eh?"

"Mr. Manners is coming, you know, to consult with the Cardinal;
and I think if you weren't there to entertain him----"

Monsignor nodded sharply, with compressed lips.

"I understand. But just tell me who Mr. Manners is?"

The priest answered without any sign of discomposure.

"He's a member of the Government. He's the great Political
Economist. And he's coming to consult with the Cardinal about
certain measures that affect the Church. Do you remember now?"

The other shook his head. "No."

"Well, just talk to him vaguely. I'll sit opposite and take care
that you don't make any mistakes. Just talk to him generally.
Talk about the sermon in Hyde Park, and the Abbey. He won't
expect you to talk politics publicly."

"I'll try."

The car drew up as the conversation ended; and the man who had
lost his memory glanced out. To his intense relief, he
recognized where he was. It was the door of Archbishop's House,
in Ambrosden Avenue; and beyond he perceived the long northern
side of the Cathedral.

"I know this," he said.

"Of course you do, my dear Monsignor," said the priest
reassuringly. "Now follow me: bow to any one who salutes you; but
don't speak a word."

They passed in together through the door, past a couple of
liveried servants who held it open, up the staircase and beyond
up the further flight. The old priest drew out a key and unlocked
the door before them; and together they turned to the left up the
corridor, and passed into a large, pleasant room looking out on
to the street, with a further door communicating, it seemed, with
a bedroom beyond. Fortunately they had met no one on the way.

"Here we are," said Father Jervis cheerfully. "Now, Monsignor, do
you know where you are?"

The other shook his head dolorously.

"Come, come; this is your own room. Look at your writing-table,
Monsignor; where you sit every day."

The other looked at it eagerly and yet vaguely. A half-written
letter, certainly in his own handwriting, lay there on the
blotting-pad, but the name of his correspondent meant nothing to
him; nor did the few words which he read. He looked round the
room--at the bookcases, the curtains, the _prie-Dieu_ . . . And
again terror seized him.

"I know nothing, father . . . nothing at all. It's all new! For
God's sake! . . ."

"Quietly then, Monsignor. It's all perfectly right. . . . Now I'm
going to leave you for ten minutes, to arrange about the places
at lunch. You'd better lock your door and admit no one. Just look
round the rooms when I'm gone----Ah!"

Father Jervis broke off suddenly and darted at an arm-chair, where
a book lay face downwards on the seat. He snatched up the book,
glanced at the pages, looked at the title, and laughed aloud.

"I knew it," he said; "I was certain of it. You've got hold of
Manners' History, Look! you're at the very page."

He held it up for the other to see. Monsignor looked at it, still
only half comprehending, and just noticing that the paper had a
peculiar look, and saw that the running dates at the top of the
pages contained the years 1904-1912. The priest shook the book in
gentle triumph. A sheet of paper fell out of it, which he picked
up and glanced at. Then he laughed again.

"See," he said, "you've been making notes of the very period--no
doubt in order to be able to talk to Manners. That's the time he
knows more about than any living soul. He calls it the 'crest of
the wave,' you know. Everything dated from then, in his opinion."

"I don't understand a word----"

"See here, Monsignor," interrupted the priest in mild glee,
"here's a subject to talk about at lunch. Just get Manners on to
it, and you'll have no trouble. He loves lecturing; and he talks
just like a history-book. Tell him you've been reading his
History and want a bird's-eye view."

Monsignor started.

"Why, yes," he said, "and that'll tell me the facts, too."

"Excellent. Now, Monsignor, I must go. Just look round the rooms
well, and get to know where things are kept. I'll be back in ten
minutes, and we'll have a good talk before lunch as to all who'll
be there. It'll all go perfectly smoothly, I promise you."



(IV)

When the door closed Monsignor Masterman looked round him slowly
and carefully. He had an idea that the mist must break sooner or
later and that all would become familiar once again. It was
perfectly plain, by now, to his mind, what had happened to him;
and the fact that there were certain things which he recognized,
such as the Cathedral, and Hyde Park, and a friar's habit, and
Archbishop's House--all this helped him to keep his head. If he
remembered so much, there seemed no intrinsic reason why he
should not remember more.

But his inspection was disappointing. Not only was there not one
article in the room which he knew, but he did not even understand
the use of some of the things which he saw. There was a row of
what looked like small black boxes fastened to the right-hand
wall, about the height of a man's head; and there was some kind
of a machine, all wheels and handles, in the corner by the nearer
window, which was completely mysterious to him.

He glanced through into the bedroom, and this was not much
better. Certainly there was a bed; there was no mistake about
that; and there seemed to be wardrobes sunk to the level of the
walls on all sides; but although in this room he thought he
recognized the use of everything which he saw, there was no
single thing that wore a familiar aspect.

He came back to his writing-table and sat down before it in
despair. But that did not reassure him. He took out one or two of
the books that stood there in a row--directories and
address-books they appeared chiefly to be--and found his name
written in each, with here and there a note or a correction, all
in his own handwriting. He took up the half-written letter again
and glanced through it once more, but it brought no relief. He
could not even conjecture how the interrupted sentence on the
third page ought to end.

Again and again he tried to tear up from his inner consciousness
something which he could remember, closing his eyes and sinking
his head upon his hands, but nothing except fragments and
glimpses of vision rose before him. It was now a face or a scene
to which he could give no name; now a sentence or a thought that
owned no context. There was no frame at all--no unified scheme in
which these fragments found cohesion. It was like regarding the
pieces of a shattered jar whose shape even could not be
conjectured. . . .

Then a sudden thought struck him; he sprang up quickly and ran
into his bedroom. A tall mirror, he remembered, hung between the
windows. He ran straight up to this and stood staring at his own
reflection. It was himself that he saw there--there was no doubt
of that--every line and feature of that keen, pale,
professorial-looking face was familiar, though it seemed to him
that his hair was a little greyer than it ought to be.





CHAPTER II



(I)

"I shall be delighted, Monsignor," said the thin, clever-faced
statesman, in his high, dry voice; "I shall be delighted to
sketch out what seem to me the principal points in the
century's development."

A profound silence fell upon all the table.

Really, Monsignor Masterman thought to himself, as he settled
down to listen, he had done very well so far. He had noticed the
old priest opposite smiling more than once, contentedly, as
their eyes met.

Father Jervis had come to him as he had promised, for half an
hour's good talk before lunch; and they had spent a very earnest
thirty minutes together. First they had discussed with great care
all the persons who would be present at lunch--not more than
eight, besides themselves; the priest had given him a little plan
of the table, showing where each would sit, and had described
their personal appearance and recounted a salient fact or two
about every one. These were all priests except Mr. Manners
himself and his secretary. The rest of the time had been occupied
in information being given to the man who had lost his memory,
with regard to a few very ordinary subjects of conversation--the
extraordinary fairness of the weather; a new opera produced with
unparalleled success by a "well-known" composer of whom Monsignor
had never heard; a recent Eucharistic congress in Tokio, from
which the Cardinal had just returned; and the scheme for
redecorating the interior of Archbishop's House.

There had not been time for more; but these subjects, under the
adroit handling of Father Jervis, had proved sufficient; and up
to the preconcerted moment when Monsignor had uttered the
sentence about his study of Mr. Manners' _History of Twentieth
Century Development_ which had drawn from the author the words
recorded above, all had gone perfectly smoothly.

There had been a few minor hitches; for example, the food and the
manner of serving it and the proper method of consuming it had
furnished a bad moment or two; and once Monsignor had been
obliged to feign sudden deafness on being asked a question on a
subject of which he knew nothing by a priest whose name he had
forgotten, until Father Jervis slid in adroitly and saved him.
Yet these were quite unnoticed, it appeared, and could easily be
attributed to the habit of absent-mindedness for which, Monsignor
Masterman was relieved to learn, he was almost notorious.

And now the crisis was past and Mr. Manners was launched.
Monsignor glanced almost happily round the tall dining-room, from
which the servants had already disappeared, and, with his glass
in his hand, settled himself down to listen and remember.

  *   *   *   *   *

"The crisis, to my mind, in the religious situation," began the
statesman, looking more professional than ever, with his closed
eyes, thin, wrinkled face, and high forehead--"the real crisis is
to be sought in the period from 1900 to 1920.

"This was the period, you remember, of tremendous social
agitation. There was the widespread revolution of the Latin
countries, beginning with France and Portugal, chiefly against
Authority, and most of all against Monarchy (since Monarchy is
the most vivid and the most concrete embodiment of authority);
and in Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon countries against Capital and
Aristocracy. It was in these years that Socialism came most near
to dominating the civilized world; and, indeed, you will remember
that for long after that date it did dominate civilization in
certain places.

"Now the real trouble at the bottom of all this was the state in
which Religion found itself. And you will find, gentlemen," said
the quasi-lecturer in parenthesis, glancing round the attentive
faces, "that Religion always is and always has been at the root
of every world-movement. In fact it must be so. The deepest
instinct in man is his religion, that is, his attitude to eternal
issues; and on that attitude must depend his relation to temporal
things. This is so, largely, even in the case of the individual;
it must therefore be infinitely more so in large bodies or
nations; since every crowd is moved by principles that are the
least common multiple of the principles of the units which
compose it. Of course this is universally recognized now; but it
was not always so. There was a time, particularly at this period
of which I am now speaking, when men attempted to treat Religion
as if it were one department of life, instead of being the whole
foundation of every and all life. To treat it so is, of course,
to proclaim oneself as fundamentally irreligious--and, indeed,
very ignorant and uneducated.

"To resume, however:

"Religion at this period was at a very strange crisis. That it
could possibly be treated in the way I have mentioned shows how
very deeply irreligion had spread. There is no such thing, of
course, really as Irreligion--except by a purely conventional
use of the word: the 'irreligious' man is one who has made up
his mind either that there is no future world, or that it is so
remote, as regards effectivity, as to have no bearing upon
this. And that is a religion--at least it is a dogmatic
creed--as much as any other.

"The causes of this state of affairs I take to have been as follows:

"Religion up to the Reformation had been a matter of authority,
as it is again now; but the enormous development of various
sciences and the wide spread of popular 'knowledge' had, in the
first flush, distracted attention from that which is now, in all
civilized countries, simply an axiom of thought, viz., that a
Revelation of God must be embodied in a living authority
safeguarded by God. Further, at that time science and exact
knowledge generally had not reached the point which they reached
a little later--of corroborating in particular after particular,
so far as they are capable of doing so, the Revelation of God
known as Catholicism; and of knowing their limitations where they
cannot. Many sciences, at this time, had gone no further than to
establish certain facts which appeared, to the very imperfectly
educated persons of that period, to challenge and even to refute
certain facts or deductions of Revelation. Psychology, for
example, strange as it now appears in our own day, actually
seemed to afford other explanations of the Universe than that of
Revelation. (We will discuss details presently.) Social Science,
at that time, too, moved in the direction of Democracy and even
Socialism. I know it appears monstrous, and indeed almost
incredible, that men who really had some claim to be called
educated seriously maintained that the most stable and the most
reasonable method of government lay in the extension of the
franchise--that is, in reversing the whole eternal and logical
order of things, and permitting the inexpert to rule the expert,
and the uneducated and the ill-informed to control by their
votes--that is, by sheer weight of numbers--the educated and the
well-informed. Yet such was the case. And the result was--since
all these matters act and react--that the idea of authority from
above in matters of religion was thought to be as 'undemocratic'
as in matters of government and social life. Men had learnt, that
is to say, something of the very real truth in the theory of the
Least Common Multiple, and, as in psychology and many other
sciences, had presumed that the little fragment of truth that
they had perceived was the whole truth."

Mr. Manners paused to draw breath. Obviously he was enjoying
himself enormously. He was a born lecturer, and somehow the rather
pompous sentences were strangely alive and strangely interesting.
Above all, they fascinated and amazed the prelate at the head of
the table, for they revealed to him an advance of thought, and an
assurance in the position they described, that seemed wholly
inexplicable. Such phrases as "all educated men," "the
well-informed," and the rest--these were vaguely familiar to him,
yet surely in a very different connection. He had at the back of
his mind a kind of idea that these were the phrases that the
irreligious or the agnostics applied to themselves; yet here was a
man, obviously a student, and a statesman as he knew, calmly
assuming (scarcely even giving himself the trouble to state) that
all educated and well-informed persons were Catholic Christians!

He settled himself down to listen with renewed interest as Mr.
Manners began once more.

"Well," he said, "to come more directly to our point; let us next
consider what were those steps and processes by which Catholic
truth once more became the religion of the civilized world, as it
had been five centuries earlier.

"And first we must remark that, even at the very beginning of
this century, popular thought--in England as elsewhere--had
retraced its steps so far as to acknowledge that if Christianity
were true--true, really and actually--the Catholic Church was the
only possible embodiment of it. Not only did the shrewdest
agnostic minds of the time acknowledge this--such men as Huxley
in the previous century, Sir Leslie Stephen, Mallock, and scores
of others--but even popular Christianity itself began to turn in
that direction. Of course there were survivals and reactions, as
we should expect. There was a small body of Christians in England
called Anglicans, who attempted to hold another view; there was
that short-lived movement called Modernism, that held yet a third
position. But, for the rest, it was as I say.

"It was the Catholic Church or nothing. And just for a few years
it seemed humanly possible that it might be nothing.

"And now for the causes of the revival.

"Briefly, I should say they were all included under one head--the
correlation of sciences and their coincidence into one point. Let
us take them one by one. We have only time to glance very
superficially at each.

"First there was Psychology.

"Even at the end of the nineteenth century it was beginning to be
perceived that there was an inexplicable force working behind
mere matter. This force was given a number of names--the
'subliminal consciousness,' in man, and 'Nature' in the animal,
vegetable, and even mineral creation; and it gave birth to a
series of absurd superstitions such as that now wholly extinct
sect of the 'Christian Scientists,' or the Mental Healers; and
among the less educated of the Materialists, to Pantheism. But
the force was acknowledged, and it was perceived to move along
definite lines of law. Further, in the great outburst of
Spiritualism it began gradually to be evident to the world that
this force occasionally manifested itself in a personal, though
always a malevolent manner. Now it must be remembered that even
this marked an immense advance in the circles called scientific;
since in the middle of the nineteenth century, even the phenomena
so carefully recorded by the Church were denied. These were now
no longer denied, since phenomena, at least closely resembling
them, were matters of common occurrence under the eyes of the
most sceptical. Of course, since the enquiries were made along
purely 'scientific' lines--lines which in those days were nothing
other than materialistic--an attempt was made to account for the
phenomena by new anti-spiritual theories hastily put together to
meet the emergency. But, little by little, an uneasy sense began
to manifest itself that the Church had already been familiar with
the phenomena for about two thousand years, and that a body,
which had marked and recorded facts with greater accuracy than
all the 'scientists' put together, at least had some claim to
consideration with regard to her hypothesis concerning them.
Further, it began to be seen (what is perfectly familiar to us
all now) that Religion contributed an element which nothing else
could contribute--that, for example, 'Religious Suggestion,' as
it was called in the jargon of the time, could accomplish things
that ordinary 'Suggestion' could not. Finally, the researches of
psychologists into what was then called the phenomenon of
'Alternating Personality' prepared the way for a frank acceptance
of the Catholic teaching concerning Possession and
Exorcism--teaching which half a century before would have been
laughed out of court by all who claimed the name of Scientist.
Psychology then, up to this point, had rediscovered that a Force
was working behind physical phenomena, itself not physical; that
this Force occasionally exhibited characteristics of Personality;
and finally that the despised Catholic Church had been more
scientific than scientists in her observation of facts; and that
this Force, dealt with along Christian lines, could accomplish
what it was unable to accomplish along any other.

"The next advance lay along the lines of Comparative Religion.

"The study of Comparative Religion was practically a new science
at the end of the nineteenth century, and like all new sciences,
claimed at once, before it had constructed its own, to destroy
the schemes of others. For instance, there were actually educated
persons who advanced as an argument against Christianity the fact
that many Christian dogmas and ceremonies were to be found in
other religions. It is extremely difficult for us now, even in
imagination, to sympathize with such a mentality as this; but it
must be remembered that the science was very youthful, and had
all the inexperience and the arrogance of youth. As time went on,
however, this argument began to disappear, except in very
elementary rationalistic manuals, as the fact became evident that
while this or that particular religion had one or more identities
with Christian doctrines, Christianity possessed them all; that
Christianity, in short, had all the principal doctrines of all
religions--or at least all doctrines that were of any strength to
other religions, as well as several others necessary to weld
these detached dogmas into a coherent whole; that, to use a
simple metaphor, Christianity stood in the world like a light
upon a hill, and that partial and imperfect reflections of this
light were thrown back, with more or less clearness, from the
various human systems of belief that surrounded it. And at last
it became evident, even to the most unintelligent, that the only
scientific explanation of this phenomenon lay in the theory that
Christianity was indeed unique, and, at the very least, was the
most perfect human system of faith--perfectly human, I mean, in
that it embodied and answered adequately all the religious
aspirations of the human race--the most perfect system of faith
the world had ever seen.

"A third cause was to be found in the new philosophy of evidence
that began to prevail soon after the dawn of the century.

"Up to that period, so-called Physical Science had so far
tyrannized over men's minds as to persuade them to accept her
claim that evidence that could not be reduced to her terms was
not, properly speaking, evidence at all. Men demanded that purely
spiritual matters should be, as they said, 'proved,' by which
they meant should be reduced to physical terms. Little by little,
however, the preposterous nature of this claim was understood.
People began to perceive that each order of life had evidence
proper to itself--that there were such things, for instance, as
moral proofs, artistic proofs, and philosophical proofs; and that
these proofs were not interchangeable. To demand physical proof
for every article of belief was as fantastic as to demand, let us
say, a chemical proof of the beauty of a picture, or evidence in
terms of light or sound for the moral character of a friend, or
mathematical proof for the love of a mother for her child. This
very elementary idea seems to have come like a thunderclap upon
many who claimed the name of 'thinkers'; for it entirely
destroyed a whole artillery of arguments previously employed
against Revealed Religion.

"For a time, Pragmatism came to the rescue from the philosophical
camp; but the assault was but a very short one; since, tested by
Pragmatic methods (that is, the testing of the truth of a
religion by its appeal to human consciousness), if one fact stood
out luminous and undisputed, it was that the Catholic Religion,
with its eternal appeal in every century and to every type of
temperament, was utterly supreme.

"Let us turn to another point----"

(Mr. Manners lifted the glass he had been twirling between his
fingers, and drank it off with an appearance of great enjoyment.
Then he smacked his lips once or twice and continued.)

"Let us turn to the realm of politics--even to the realm of trade.

"Socialism, in its purely economic aspect, was a well-meant
attempt to abolish the law of competition--that is, the natural
law of the Survival of the Fittest. It was an attempt, I say; and
it ended, as we know, in disaster; for it established instead, so
far as it was successful, the law of the Survival of the
Majority, and tyrannized first over the minority and then over
the individual.

"But it was a well-meant attempt; since its instinct was
perfectly right, that competition is not the highest law of the
Universe. And there were several other ideals in Socialism that
were most commendable in theory: for example, the idea that the
Society sanctifies and safeguards the individual, not the
individual the Society; that obedience is a much-neglected
virtue, and so forth.

"Then, suddenly almost, it seems to have dawned upon the world
that all the _ideals_ of Socialism (apart from its methods and
its dogmas) had been the ideals of Christianity; and that the
Church had, in her promulgation of the Law of Love, anticipated
the Socialist's discovery by about two thousand years. Further,
that in the Religious Orders these ideals had been actually
incarnate; and that by the doctrine of Vocation--that is by the
freedom of the individual to submit himself to a superior--the
rights of the individual were respected and the rights of the
Society simultaneously vindicated.

"A very good example of all this is to be found in the
Poor-law system.

"You remember that before the Reformation, and in Catholic
countries long after, there was no Poor-law system, because the
Religious Houses looked after the sick and needy. Well, when the
Religious Houses were destroyed in England the State had to do
their work. You could not simply flog beggars out of existence,
as Elizabeth tried to do. Then the inevitable happened, and it
began to be a mark of disgrace to be helped by the State in a
workhouse: people often preferred to starve. Then at the
beginning of the twentieth century a well-meant attempt was made,
in the Old-Age Pensions and George's State Insurance Act, to
remedy this and to help the poor in a manner that would not
injure their self-respect. Of course that failed, too. It is
incredible that statesmen did not see it must be so. Old-Age
Pensions, too, and State-Insurance (so soon as it was socially
digested), began to be considered a mark of disgrace--for the
simple cause that it is not the receiving of money that is
resented, but the motive for which the money is given and the
position of the giver. The State can only give for economic
reasons, however conscientious and individually charitable
statesmen may be; while the Church gives for the Love of God, and
the Love of God never yet destroyed any man's self-respect. Well,
you know the end. The Church came forward once more and, under
certain conditions, offered to relieve the State of the entire
burden. Two results followed--first, all grievances vanished; and
secondly, the whole pauper population of England within ten years
was Catholic in sympathies. And yet all this is only a reversion
to medieval times--a reversion made absolutely necessary by the
failure of every attempt to supplant Divine methods by human.

"Now look at it all in another way--the general situation, I mean.

"The Socialist saw plainly the rights of the Society; the
Anarchist saw the rights of the Individual. How therefore were
these to be reconciled? The Church stepped in at that crucial
point and answered, By the Family--whether domestic or
Religious. For in the Family you have both claims recognized:
there is authority and yet there is liberty. For the union of
the Family lies in Love; and _Love is the only reconciliation of
authority and liberty_.

"Now, as I have put it--and as we all now see it--the argument is
simplicity itself. But it took a long time to be recognized; and
it was not until after the appalling events of the first twenty
years of the century, and the discrediting of the absurd
Socialistic attempt to preach the Law of Love by methods of Force,
that civilization as a whole saw the point. Yet for all that it
was beginning to mould popular opinion even as early as 1910.

"Turn now to a completely different plane. Turn to Art. This,
too, drove men back to the Church."

(Mr. Manners' air was becoming now less professional and more vivid.
He glanced quickly from face to face with a kind of sharp triumph;
his long, thin hands waved a slight gesture now and again.)

"Art, you remember, in the end of the Victorian era had attempted
to become realistic--had attempted, that is, the absurdly
impossible; and photography exposed the absurdity, For no man can
be truly a realist, since it is literally impossible to paint or
to describe all that the eye sees. When photography became
general, this began to be understood; since it was soon seen that
the only photographer who could lay any claim to artistic work
was the man who selected and altered and posed--arranged his
subject, that is to say, in more or less symbolic form. Then
people began to see again that Symbolism was the underlying
spirit of Art--as they had known perfectly well, of course, in
medieval days: that Art consisted in going beneath the material
surfaces that reflected light, or the material events that
happened, in painting and literature respectively, and, by a
process of selection, of symbolizing (not photographically
representing) the Ideas beneath the Things--the Substance beneath
the Accidents--the Thought beneath the Expression--(you can call
it what you like). Zola in literature, Strauss in music, the
French school of painting--these reduced Realism _ad absurdum_.
Thus once more the Catholic Church, in this as in everything
else, was discovered to have possessed the secret all along. The
Symbolic Reaction therefore began, and all our music, all our
painting, and all our literature to-day are frankly and
confessedly Symbolic--that is, Catholic. And this too, you see,
pointed to the same lesson as Psychology, that beneath phenomena
there was a Force which transcended phenomena; and that the
Church had dealt with this Force, knowing It to be Personal,
through all her history.

"Finally--and this was the crowning argument of all, that
correlated all the rest--there was the growing scientific and
popular perception of the Recuperative Power of the Church--that
which our Divine Lord Himself called the Sign of the Prophet
Jonas, or Resurrection.

"There were of course countless other lines of advance, in
practically every science, and they all pointed in the same
direction, and met, so to speak, from every quarter of the
compass the end of the tunnel which the Church had been boring
through all the heaped-up stupidities and ignorances of man.
Psychology tunnelled, and presently heard the voices of the
exorcists and the echoes of Lourdes through the darkness. Human
religions tunnelled--Hinduism with its idea of a Divine
Incarnation, Buddhism with its coarse apprehension of the Eternal
Peace of a Beatific Vision, North American Religion with its
guesses at Sacramentalism, Savage Religion with its caricature of
a Bloody Sacrifice; all from various points; and presently heard
through the tumult the historical dogma of the Incarnation of
Christ, the dogma of Eternal Life, the Sacramental System and the
Sacrifice of the Cross--all proclaimed in one coherent and
perfectly philosophical Creed. Ideals of Social Reform met with
the same experiences. The Socialist with his dream of a Divine
Society, the Anarchist with his passionate nightmare of complete
individual liberty, both ran up together, in the heart of the
black darkness, against the vast outline of a Divine Family that
was a fact and not a far-off ambition--a Family that fell in Eden
and became a competitive State; a Holy Family that redeemed
Nazareth and all the world; a Catholic Family in whom was neither
Jew nor Greek, nor masters against men--in whom the doctrine of
Vocation secured the rights and the dignities of the Society on
one side and the Individual on the other. Finally Art, wandering
hither and thither in the mazes of Realism, saw light ahead, and
found in Catholic Art and Symbolism the secret of her life.

"This, then, was the result--that the Church was found to be
eternally right in every plane. In plane after plane she had
been condemned. Pilate--the Law of Separate Nations--had found
her guilty of sedition; Herod--the miracle-monger at one instant
and the sceptic at the next--the Scientist, in fact--had
declared her guilty of fraud; Caiaphas had condemned her in the
name of National Religion. Or, again, she had been thought the
enemy of Art by the Greek-spirited; the enemy of Law by the
Latins; the enemy of Religion by the Hebraic Pharisee. She had
borne her title written in Greek and Latin and Hebrew. She had
been crucified, and taunted as she hung there; she had seemed to
die; and, to and behold! when the Third Day dawned she was alive
again for evermore. From every single point she had been
justified and vindicated. Men had thought to invent a new
religion, a new art, a new social order, a new philosophy; they
had burrowed and explored and digged in every direction; and, at
the end, when they had worked out their theories and found, as
they thought, the reward of their labours, they found themselves
looking once more into the serene, smiling face of Catholicism.
She was risen from the dead once more, and was seen to be the
Daughter of God, with Power."

There was a moment's silence.

"There, gentlemen," said Mr. Manners, dropping back again into the
quiet professor, "that, I think, in a few words, is the outline for
which Monsignor asked. I hope I have not detained you too long."



(II)

"It is the most extraordinary story I have ever heard," said
Monsignor Masterman ten minutes later, as he threw himself down
in his chair upstairs, with Father Jervis sitting opposite.

"Certainly he puts it very well," said the old priest, smiling.
"I think every one was interested. It's not often that we can
hear such a clear analysis of events. Of course Manners has it
all at his fingers' ends. It's his special subject, and----"

"But the amazing thing to me," interrupted the other, "is that this
isn't just a dream or a prophecy, but a relation of facts. . . . Do
you mean to tell me that the whole world is Christian?"

The priest looked at him doubtfully.

"Monsignor, surely your memory isn't----"

Monsignor made an impatient gesture.

"Father," he said, "it's exactly as I told you before lunch. I'll
promise to tell you if my memory comes back. At present I
remember practically nothing at all, except instinctively. All I
know is that this story we have heard simply astounds me. I had a
sort of idea that Christianity was ebbing from the world; that
most thinking men had given up all belief in it; and now I find
it's exactly the other way. Please treat me as if I had stepped
straight out of the beginning of the century. Just tell me the
facts as if for the first time. Is it really true that
practically the whole world is Christian?"

The priest hesitated.

"You mean that, Monsignor?"

"Certainly."

"Very well, then." He paused again. "But it's extraordinarily
hard to know where to begin."

"Begin anywhere. It's all new to me."

"Very good. Well, yes: roughly we may say that the world is
Christian, in the same sort of way, at least, in which Europe was
Christian, say in the twelfth century. There are survivals, of
course, particularly in the East, where large districts still
cling to their old superstitions; and there are even eminent men
here and there who are not explicitly Catholics; but, as a whole,
the world is Christian."

"Do you mean Catholic?"

The priest stared a moment.

"Why, yes. What else---?"

"All right; go on."

"Well then, to begin with England. Catholicism is not yet
established as the State Religion; but it'll only be a question
of time, and it may be said that all the laws are Christian."

"Divorce?"

"Divorce was abolished thirty years ago, and fornication was made
a felony ten years later," said the priest quietly. "Benefit of
clergy also was restored three years ago; and we have our own
courts for heresy, with power to hand over convicted criminals to
the secular arm."

"What?"

"Certainly. It has been in force now for three years."

"Then what do you mean by saying that the Church isn't established?"

"I mean that no religious test is demanded of officers of state,
and that bishops and abbots have no seat in Parliament. It was the
enfranchisement of women that turned the tide once and for all."

"Do you mean that all women have the vote?"

"They are under the same conditions as men. There's a severe
educational test now, of course. Not more than about one in
seventy adults ever get the vote at all. But the result is that
we're governed by educated persons."

"Stop. Is it a Monarchy?"

"Certainly. Edward IX--a young man--is on the throne."

"Go on."

"Christianity, then, holds the field. Of course there are
infidels left, who write letters to the newspapers sometimes, and
hold meetings, and so on. But they are practically negligible. As
regards Church property, practically everything has finally been
given back to us;--I mean in the way of buildings, and, very
largely, revenues too. All the cathedrals are ours, and all
parish churches built before the Reformation, as well as all
other churches in parishes where there was not organized
Protestant resistance."

"I thought you said there were no Protestants."

Father Jervis suddenly laughed aloud.

"Monsignor, are you really serious? Do you really mean you
wish me to go on?"

"Good God, man! I'm not playing a game. . . . Go on, please. Tell
me about the Protestants."

"Well, of course there are some Protestants left. I think they've
got four or five churches in London, and . . . and . . . yes, I'm
sure of it, they've got some kind of bishop. But really I
scarcely know. I shall have to look it up."

"Well, go on."

"Well, that's the state of England. Practically everybody is a
Catholic--from the King downwards. The last remains of Church
property was only actually given back to us last year. That's why
the monks haven't come back to Westminster yet."

"What about the rest of the world?"

"Well, first Rome. Austria drove out the House of Savoy nearly
twenty-five years ago; and the Holy Father----"

"What's his name?"

"Gregory the Nineteenth. He's a Frenchman. Well, the Holy
Father is Temporal Ruler of the whole of Italy; but the Emperor
of Austria administers it. Then France is, of course, a very
small country."

"Why small?"

"Well, you know the European War of 1914 . . .?" Monsignor
interrupted by a large sigh.

"Good heavens!" he said. "How I shall have to read. I'm sorry.
Go on, please."

"Well, France is a very small country, but intensely Catholic.
The Church is re-established there,----"

"Is it a monarchy too?"

"Certainly. The Orleans line came back after the war. Louis
XXII is king. I was saying that the Church is re-established
there, and is practically supreme. That is traceable entirely
to Pius X's policy."

"Pius X! Why----"

"Yes, Monsignor?"

"I know all about that. But I thought Pius X simply ruined everything."

"So they said at the time. His policy was to draw the lines tight
and to make no concessions. He drove out every half-hearted
Catholic by his regulations, and the result was a small but
extraordinarily pure body. The result has been that the country
was re-evangelized, and has become almost a land of saints. They
say that our Lady----"

"Well, go on with the other countries."

"Spain and Portugal are, of course, entirely Catholic, like
France. The Monarchy was re-established in both of them in about
1935. But Germany--Germany's the weak spot."

"Well?"

"You see the Emperor isn't a Christian yet; and Socialism lingers
on there with extraordinary pertinacity. Practically Berlin is
the Holy City of Freemasonry. It's all organized from there--such
as it is. And no one is quite comfortable about Germany. The
Emperor Frederick is a perfectly sincere man, but really rather
uneducated; he still holds on to some sort of materialism; and
the result is----"

"I see."

"But there are hopes of his conversion. He's to be at Versailles
next week; and that's a good sign."

"Well, what about America?"

"Oh! America's chiefly English; and very like England."

"You mean she isn't republican?"

"Of course not. My dear Monsignor----"

"Please go on, as I asked you. Tell me when she ceased to
be republican."

"Why, I scarcely know," murmured the priest. "It must have been
about 1930, I suppose. I know there was a lot of trouble before
that--civil wars and so forth. But at any rate that was the end.
Japan got a good deal of the Far West; but the Eastern States
came in with Canada and formed the American Colonies; and the
South of course became Latinized, largely through ecclesiastical
influence. Well, then America asked England----"

"Stop, please. I shall get bewildered. What about the religion?"

"Well, the Empire of Mexico----"

"Eh?"

"The Empire of Mexico."

"Who's Emperor?"

"The King of Spain, Monsignor," said the priest patiently. "Well,
that used to be called South America. It's all the Empire of
Mexico now, and belongs to Spain. That's solidly Catholic, of
course. And the American Colonies--old North America--that's like
England. It's practically Catholic, of course; but there are a
few infidels and Socialists."

"Australia?"

"Australia's entirely Irish, and Catholic."

"And Ireland itself?"

"Oh! Ireland developed enormously as soon as she had gained
independence, but emigration continued, and the Irish strength
really lies abroad. Then an odd thing happened. Ireland continued
to empty, obeying some social law we don't even yet understand
properly; and the Religious began to get possession of the
country in an extraordinary way, until they owned all the large
estates, and even most of the towns. You may say that Ireland is
practically one Religious Enclosure now. Of course, she's a part
of the British Empire; but her real social life lies in her
colonies. Australia succeeded in getting Home Rule from Ireland
about twenty-five years ago."

Monsignor pressed his hands to his head.

"It sounds like the wildest dream," he said.

"Hadn't I better---?"

"No; go on. I only want an outline. What about the East?"

"Well, old superstitions still linger on in the East,
especially in China. But the end is quite certain. It is simply
a matter of time----"

"But . . . but I don't understand. If the whole world is
practically Christian, what is there left to do?"

The priest smiled.

"Ah! but you must remember Germany. There are great forces in
Germany. It's there that the danger lies. And you must remember too
that there is no Universal Arbitrator yet. Nationalism is still
pretty strong. There might easily be another big European war."

"Then you hope----"

"Yes. We're all working for the recognition of the Pope as
Universal Arbitrator, as he was practically in Europe in the
Middle Ages. Of course, as soon as the sovereigns acknowledge
officially that they hold all their rights at the will of Rome,
the thing will be done. But it's not done yet, except----"

"Good God!"

"Look here, Monsignor, you've had enough," said the priest, rising.
"Though I must say you have followed it closely enough. Are you
certain that it is quite new to you? Don't you remember---"

"It's not only new; it's inconceivable! I understand it
perfectly; but----"

"Well, you've had enough. Now what about coming to see the
Cardinal? I feel sure he'll insist upon your taking a rest
instantly. I feel rather guilty----"

"Stop. Tell me about languages. Why did you talk to me in
Latin this morning?"

"Ecclesiastics generally do. And so do the laity a good deal.
Europe is practically bi-lingual. Each country keeps up its
own tongue, and learns Latin as well. You must rub up your
Latin, Monsignor."

"Wait a moment. What are you going to say to the Cardinal?"

"Well, hadn't I better tell him the whole thing, just as it
happened? Then you needn't explain."

The other pondered a moment.

"Thanks very much, father. . . . Stop. Do I talk English all right?"

"Perfectly."

"But----Oh well. . . . And I . . . did I do all right at lunch?
Did any one suspect anything?"

"You did perfectly. You seemed a little absent-minded once or
twice; but that was quite in keeping."

The two smiled at one another pleasantly.

"Then I'll be going," said the priest. "Will you wait here till
I come for you?"





CHAPTER III


(I)

"Just be natural," whispered Father Jervis a quarter of an hour
later, as they passed through the big ante-room. "You needn't
explain a word. I've told him everything."

He tapped; and a voice answered.

Sitting in a big arm-chair drawn up to the writing-table, the man
who had lost his memory saw a tall, thin figure, in black with
scarlet buttons, and a small scarlet skull-cap crowning his
iron-grey hair. It was a little hard to make out the face at
first, as the window was immediately beyond it; but he saw almost
immediately that, although the face smiled at him reassuringly
and welcomingly, it was entirely unfamiliar.

The Cardinal stood up as the two approached, pushing back his
chair, and held out both his hands.

"My dear Monsignor," he said, and grasped the other's hands
firmly and kindly.

"I . . . your Eminence . . ." stammered the man.

"Now, now; not one word till I've done. I've heard everything.
Come and sit down."

He led him to a chair on the hearth-rug, placed him in it,
and himself sat down in his own, facing him. The priest
remained standing.

"Now, I'm going to begin with an order, on holy obedience,"
smiled the Cardinal. "You and Father Jervis--if the doctor
approves--are to start for a little European tour by the
midnight volor."

"The . . . ?"

"The volor," said the Cardinal. "It'll do you good. Father Jervis
will undertake all responsibility, and you needn't worry yourself
at all. I shall telegraph to Versailles in my own name, and make
one or two arrangements, and a couple of my servants will attend
you. You will have nothing to do but get better. You can't be
spared. It'll all come perfectly right, I have no manner of
doubt. Father Jervis, just ask the doctor to step here."

The Cardinal talked a minute or two longer, still with that
soothing, peaceful air; and Monsignor, as he listened, watched
the priest go up to a row of black boxes, resembling those in
his own room, and take down a shutter from one of them. He then
said a rapid sentence or two in a whisper, reclosed the
shutter, and came back.

"If things don't clear themselves, you will just have to learn
your business over again, Monsignor," went on the Cardinal, still
smiling. "Father Jervis has told me how well you did at lunch;
and Mr. Manners said nothing, except that you were a very good
host and a very graceful listener. So you need not fear that any
one will notice. So please put out of your mind any thought that
any one else will take your place here. I shall expect you back
in a month or two, and not a soul will be any the wiser. I shall
just let it be known that you're gone for a holiday. You have
always worked hard enough, anyhow, to deserve one."

At that moment, somewhere out of the air, from the direction of
the boxes on the wall, a very deferential, quiet voice uttered a
few words in Latin.

The Cardinal nodded. Father Jervis went to the door and opened
it, and there came through a man in a black cloak, resembling a
gown, followed by a servant carrying a bag. The bag was set down,
the servant went out, and the doctor came forward to kiss the
Cardinal's ring.

"I want you just to examine Monsignor Masterman," said the
Cardinal. "And, doctor, please observe absolute silence
afterwards. Just say that you have found him a little run down."

Monsignor made a movement to stand up, but the Cardinal
restrained him.

"Do you remember this gentleman?" he asked.

Monsignor stared blankly at the doctor.

"I have never seen him in my life," he said.

The doctor smiled, simply and frankly.

"Well, well, Monsignor," he said.

"It seems just a loss of memory," went on the Cardinal. "Just
tell the doctor how it happened."

The invalid made an effort; he shut his eyes for an instant to
recover himself; and then he related at length his first apparent
consciousness in Hyde Park, and all that had followed. Father
Jervis put a question from time to time, which he answered quite
rationally; and at the close the doctor, who was sitting opposite,
watching every movement of his face, leaned back, smiling.

"Well, Monsignor," he said, "it seems to me that your memory is
sufficiently good. Just put another question, father--a really
difficult one--about something that has happened since noon."

"Can you remember the points of Mr. Manners' speech?" asked the
priest doubtfully.

The other paused for a moment.

"Psychology, Comparative Religion, the Philosophy of
Evidence, Pragmatism, Art, Politics, and finally
Recuperation. These were the----"

"Now that's astonishing!" said the priest. "I could only
remember four myself."

"When did you see the Cardinal last?" asked the doctor suddenly.

"I have never seen him before, to my knowledge," faltered the sick man.

The Cardinal leaned forward and patted him gently on the knee.

"Never mind," he said. "Then, doctor----"

"Would your Eminence put a question to him on some very important
matter? Something that would have made a deep impression."

The Cardinal considered.

"Well," he said, "yes. Do you remember the message brought by
special messenger from Windsor yesterday evening?"

Monsignor shook his head.

"That'll do," said the doctor. "Don't attempt to force yourself."

He rose from his chair, fetched his bag and opened it. Out of it
he took an instrument rather resembling a small camera, but with
a bundle of minute wires of some very pliable material, each
ending in a tiny disc.

"Do you know what this is, Monsignor?" asked the doctor, busying
himself with the wires.

"I have no idea."

"Well, well. . . . Now, Monsignor, kindly loosen your waistcoat,
so that I can get at your breast and back."

"Is it a stethoscope?"

"Something like it," smiled the doctor. "But how did you know
that name? Never mind. Now then, please."

He placed the camera affair on the corner of the table near the
arm-chair; and then, very rapidly, began to affix the discs--it
seemed by some process of air-exhaustion--all over the head,
breast, and back of the amazed man. No sensation followed this at
all, except the very faint feeling of skin-contraction at each
point of contact.

"May I have that blind down, your Eminence? . . . Ah! that's
better. Now then."

He bent closely over the square box on the table, and seemed to
peer at something inside. The others kept silence.

"Well?" asked the Cardinal at last.

"Perfectly satisfactory, your Eminence. There is a very faint
discoloration, but no more than is usual in a man of Monsignor's
temperament at any excitement. There is absolutely nothing wrong,
and--Monsignor," he continued, looking straight at the
wire-bedecked invalid, "not the very faintest indication of
anything even approaching insanity or imbecility."

The man who had lost his memory drew a swift breath.

"May I see, doctor?" asked the Cardinal suavely.

"Certainly, your Eminence; and Monsignor can look
himself, if he likes."

When the other two had looked, the sick man himself was given the box.

"(Carefully with that wire, please.) There!" said the doctor.
"Look down there."

In the centre of the box, shielded by a little plate of glass,
there appeared a small semi-luminous globe. This globe seemed
tinted with slightly wavering colours, in which a greyish blue
predominated; but, almost like a pulse, there moved across it
from time to time a very pale red tint, suffusing it, and then
dying away again.

"What is it?" asked the man in the chair hoarsely, lifting his head.

"That, my dear Monsignor," explained the doctor carefully, "is a
reflection of your physical condition. It is an exceedingly
simple, though of course very delicate instrument. The method
was discovered---"

"Is it anything to do with magnetism?"

"They used to call it that, I think. It's got several names now.
All mental disturbance has, of course, a physical side to it, and
that is how we are able to record it physically. It was
discovered by a monk, of course."

"But . . . but it's marvellous."

"Everything is marvellous, Monsignor. Certainly this, however,
caused a revolution. It became the symbol of the whole modern
method of medicine."

"What's that?" The doctor laughed.

"That's a large question," he said.

"But . . ."

"Well, in a word, it's the old system turned upside down. A
century ago when a man was ill they began by doctoring his body.
Now, when a man's ill, they begin by doctoring his mind. You see
the mind is much more the man than the body is, as Theology
always taught us. Therefore by dealing with the mind----"

"But that's Christian Science!"

The doctor looked bewildered.

"It was an old heresy, doctor," put in the Cardinal, smiling,
"that denied the reality of matter. No, Monsignor, we don't deny
the reality of matter. It's perfectly real. Only, as the doctor
says, we prefer to attack the real root of the disease, rather
than its physical results. We still use drugs; but only to remove
painful symptoms."

"That . . . that sounds all right," stammered the man, bewildered
by the simplicity of it. "Then . . . then do you mean, your
Eminence, that physical diseases are treated---?"

"There are no physical diseases left," put in the doctor. "Of
course there are accidents and external physical injuries; but
practically all the rest have disappeared. Very nearly all of
them were carried by the blood, and, by dealing with this, the
tissues are made immune. Our discoveries also in the region of
innervation----"

"But . . . but . . . are there no diseases then?"

"Why, yes, Monsignor," interrupted the Cardinal, with the patient
air of one talking to a child, "there are hundreds of those; and
they are very real indeed; but they are almost entirely
mental--or psychical, as some call them. And there are
specialists on all of these. Bad habits of thought, for example,
always set up some kind of disease; and there are hospitals for
these; and even isolation homes."

"Forgive me, your Eminence," put in the doctor, with a certain
imperiousness, "but I think we ought not to talk to Monsignor too
much on this subject. May I put a question or two?"

"I beg your pardon, doctor. Certainly. Put any question you wish."

The doctor sat down again.

"Have you been in the habit of saying Mass every day, Monsignor?"

"I . . . I don't know," said the invalid.

"Yes, doctor," put in Father Jervis.

"And confession once a week?"

"Twice a week," said Father Jervis. "I am Monsignor's confessor."

"Very good," said the doctor. "For the present, as far as I am
concerned, I should recommend confession only once a fortnight as
a general rule. Mass can be as before. Then Monsignor may say
half of his office every day, or the rosary; but not both. And no
other devotions of any kind, except the particular Examen. If
Monsignor and Father Jervis both consent, I should like the
Examen to be forwarded to a priest-doctor for a few weeks."

An exclamation broke from the invalid.

"Well, Monsignor?"

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

The Cardinal leaned forward.

"Monsignor, listen to me. In these cases the doctor always gives
his advice. You see even the sacraments have their mental side;
and on this mental side the doctor speaks. But the whole decision
rests entirely with the patient and his confessor; or they can
call in an expert priest-doctor. Only a priest can possibly
decide finally the relations between the grace of the sacraments
and their reactionary effect upon the mind. A lay doctor only
recommends. Are you satisfied?"

The man nodded. It seemed very simple, so stated.

"For the rest," continued the doctor, with a certain
stateliness of manner, "I order a complete change of scene.
This must be for a fortnight at least, if not longer. If the
priest-doctor's report--to whom the Examen may be sent--is
not satisfactory, it will have to be for longer. The patient
must engage in no business that does not honestly interest him."

"May he travel to-night?" asked the Cardinal.

"The sooner the better," said the doctor, rising.

"What is the matter with me?" asked the invalid hoarsely.

"It is a small mental explosion, but it has not affected the
mechanism of the brain. There is not, as I have said, a trace of
insanity or of loss of balance. I cannot promise that the injury
will be repaired; but defects that may follow from this can
easily be remedied by study. It simply depends upon yourself,
Monsignor, as to in how long you can be at your post again here.
As soon as you have learned the threads of business, you will be
able to apply yourself as before. I shall look for a report in a
fortnight's time at the latest. Good day, your Eminence."



(II)

The clocks of London were all striking the single stroke of
midnight as the two priests stood on the wind-sheltered platform
of the volor, waiting for the start.

To Monsignor Masterman the scene was simply overwhelming. There
was hardly a detail that was not new and unfamiliar. From where
he stood on the upper deck, grasping the rail before him, his
eyes looked out over a luminous city as lovely as fairyland.
There were no chimneys, of course (these, he had just learnt,
had altogether disappeared more than fifty years ago), but
spires and towers and pinnacles rose before him like a dream,
glowing against the dark sky, lit by the soft radiance of the
streets beneath. To the right, not a hundred yards away, rose
Saint Edward's tower, mellowed now to clear orange by the lapse
of three-quarters of a century; to the left a flight of
buildings, of an architectural design which he did not
understand, but which gave him a sense of extreme satisfaction;
in front towered the masses of Buckingham Palace as he seemed
always to have known it.

The platform of the flying ship on which he stood hung in dock at
least three hundred feet high above the roads beneath. He had
examined the whole vessel just now from stem to stern, and had
found it vaguely familiar; he determined to examine it again
presently. There was no gas-bag to sustain it--so much he had
noticed--though he could not say whence he had the idea that
gas-bags were usual. But it seemed to him as if the notion of
airships did carry some faint association to his mind, although
far less distinct than that of motor-cars and even trains. He had
enquired of his companion an hour or two earlier as they had
discussed their journey as to whether they would not go by train
and steamer, and had received the answer that these were never
used except for very short journeys.

Here, then, he stood and stared.

It was very quiet up here; but he listened with considerable
curiosity to the strange humming sound that filled the air,
rising and falling, as of a beehive. At first he thought it was
the working of engines in the ship; but he presently perceived it
to be the noise of the streets rising from below; and it was then
that he saw for the first time that foot-passengers were almost
entirely absent, and that practically the whole roadway, so far
as he could make out from the high elevation at which he stood,
was occupied by cars of all descriptions going this way and that.
They sounded soft horns as they went, but they bore no lights,
for the streets were as light as day with a radiance that seemed
to fall from beneath the eaves of all the buildings that lined
them. This effect of lighting had a curious result of making the
city look as if it were seen through glass or water--a
beautifully finished, clean picture, moving within itself like
some precise and elaborate mechanism.

He turned round at a touch on his arm.

"You would like to see the start, perhaps," said the old priest.
"We are a little late to-night. The country mails have only just
arrived. But we shall be off directly now. Come this way."

The upper deck, as the two turned inwards, presented an extremely
pleasant and reassuring picture. From stem to stern it ran clear,
set out, however, with groups of tables and chairs clamped to the
floor, at which sat a dozen parties or so, settling themselves
down comfortably. There were no funnels, no bridge, no break at
all to the delightful vista. The whole was lighted by the same
device as were the streets, for round the upper edges of the
transparent walls that held out the wind shone a steady, even
glow from invisible lights.

In the very centre of the deck, however, was a low railing
that protected the head of a staircase, and down this well
the two looked.

"Shall I explain?" asked the old priest, smiling. "This is
the latest model, you know. It has not been in use for more
than a few months."

The other nodded.

"Tell me everything, please."

"Well, look right down there, below the second flight. The first
flight leads to the second-class deck, and the flight below to the
working parts of the ship. Now do you see that man's head, straight
in the middle, in the bright light?--yes, immediately under. Well,
that's the first engineer. He's in a glass compartment, you see,
and can look down passages in every direction. The gas arrangements
are all in front of him, and the----"

"Stop, please. What power is it that drives the ship? Is it
lighter than air, or what?"

"Well, you see the entire framework of the ship is hollow. Every
single thing you see--even the chairs and tables--they're all
made of the metal _aerolite_ (as it's generally called). It's
almost as thin as paper, and it's far stronger than any steel.
Now it's the framework of the ship that takes the place of the
old balloon. It's infinitely safer, too, for it's divided by
automatically closing stops into tens of thousands of
compartments, so a leak here and there makes practically no
difference. Well, when the ship's at rest, as it is now, there's
simply air in all these tubes; but when it's going to start,
there is forced into these tubes, from the magazine below, the
most volatile gas that has been discovered----"

"What's it called?"

"I forget the real name. It's generally called _aeroline_. Well,
this is forced in, until the specific gravity of the whole
affair, passengers and all, is as nearly as possible the same as
the specific gravity of the air."

"I see. Good Lord, how simple!"

"And the rest is done with planes and screws, driven by
electricity. The tail of the boat is a recent development.
(You'll see it when we're once started.) It's exactly like the
tail of a bird, and contracts and expands in every direction.
Then besides that there are two wings, one on each side, and
these can be used, if necessary, in case the screws go wrong, as
propellers. But usually they are simply for balancing and
gliding. You see, barring collisions, there's hardly the
possibility of an accident. If one set of things fails, there's
always something else to take its place. At the very worst, we
can but be blown about a bit."

"But it's exactly like a bird, then."

"Of course, Monsignor," said the priest, with twinkling eyes,
"it isn't likely that we could improve upon Almighty God's
design. We're very simple, you know. . . . Look, he's
signalling. We're going to start. Come to the prow. We shall see
better from there."

The upper deck ended in a railing, below which protruded, from
the level of the lower deck, the prow proper of the boat. Upon
this prow, in a small compartment of which the roof, as well as
the walls, was of hardened glass, stood the steersman amid his
wheels. But the wheels were unlike anything that the bewildered
man who looked down had ever dreamed of. First, they were not
more than six inches in diameter; and next, they were arranged,
like notes on a keyboard, with their edges towards him, with the
whole set curved round him in a semicircle.

"Those to right and left," explained the priest, "control the
planes on either side; those in front, on the left, control the
engines and the gas supply; and on the right, the tail of the
boat. Watch him, and you'll see. We're just starting."

As he spoke three bells sounded from below, followed, after a
pause, by a fourth. The steersman straightened himself as the
first rang out and glanced round him; and upon the fourth, bent
himself suddenly over the key board, like a musician addressing
himself to a piano.

For the first instant Monsignor was conscious of a slight swaying
motion, which resolved itself presently into a faint sensation of
constriction on his temples, but no more. Then this passed, and
as he glanced away again from the steersman, who was erect once
more, his look happened to fall over the edge of the boat. He
grasped his friend convulsively.

"Look," he said, "what's happened?"

"Yes, we're off," said the priest sedately.

Beneath them, on either side, there now stretched itself an
almost illimitable and amazingly beautiful bird's-eye view of a
lighted city, separated from them by what seemed an immeasurable
gulf. From the enormous height up to which they had soared the
city looked like a complicated flat map, of which the patches
were dark and the dividing lines rivers of soft fire. This
stretched practically to the horizon on all sides; the light
toned down at the edges into a misty luminosity, but as the
bewildered watcher stared in front of him, he saw how directly in
their course there slid toward them two great patches of dark,
divided by a luminous stream in the middle.

"What is it? What is it?" he stammered.

The priest seemed not to notice his agitation; he just passed his
hand quietly into the trembling man's elbow.

"Yes," he said, "there are houses all the way to Brighton now, of
course, and we go straight down the track. We shall take in
passengers at Brighton, I think."

There was a step behind them.

"Good evening, Monsignor," said a voice. "It's a lovely night."

The prelate turned round, covered with confusion, and saw a man
in uniform saluting him deferentially.

"Ah! captain," slipped in the priest. "So we're crossing with
you, are we?"

"That's it, father. The _Michael_ line's running this week."

"It's a wonderful thing to me----" began Monsignor, but a sharp
pressure on his arm checked him--"how you keep the whole
organization going," he ended lamely.

The captain smiled.

"It's pretty straightforward," he said. "The _Michael_ line runs the
first week of every month; the _Gabriel_ the second, and so on."

"Then----"

"Yes," put in Father Jervis. "Whose idea was it to dedicate the
lines to the archangels? I forget."

"Ah! that's ancient history to me, father. . . . Excuse me,
Monsignor; I think I hear my bell." he wheeled, saluting
again, and was off.

"Do you mean---?" began Monsignor.

"Of course," said Father Jervis, "everything runs on those lines
now. You see we're matter-of-fact, and it's really rather
obvious, when you think of it, to dedicate the volor lines to
the angels. We've been becoming more and more obvious for the
last fifty years. . . . By the way, Monsignor, you must take
care not to give yourself away. You'd better not ask many
questions except of me."

Monsignor changed the subject.

"When shall we get to Paris?" he asked.

"We shall be a little late, I think, unless they make up time.
We're due at three. I hope there won't be any delay at Brighton.
Sometimes on windy nights----"

"I suppose the descending and the starting again takes some time."

The priest laughed.

"We don't descend at places _en route_," he said. "The tender
comes up to us. It'll probably be in its place by now. We aren't
ten minutes away."

The other compressed his lips and was silent.

Presently, far away to the southward beneath the soft starlit sky,
the luminous road down which they travelled seemed to expand once
more almost abruptly into another vast spread of lights. But as
they approached this did not extend any farther, but lay cut off
sharp by a long, curving line of almost complete darkness.

"Brighton . . . the sea . . . And there's the tender waiting."

At first the prelate could not make it out against the radiance
below, but an instant later, as they rushed on, it loomed up,
sudden and enormous, itself blazing with lights against the dark
sea. It looked to him something like a floating stage, outlined
with fire; and there were glimmering, perpendicular lines beneath
it which he could not understand, running down to lose themselves
in the misty glow three hundred feet beneath.

"How's it done?" he asked.

"It's a platform, charged of course with _aeroline_. It runs on
lines straight up from the stage beneath, and keeps itself steady
with screws. You'll see it go down after we've left again. Come
to the stern, we shall see better from there."

By the time that they had reached the other end of the ship, the
pace had rapidly diminished almost to motionlessness; and as soon
as Monsignor could attend again, he perceived that there was
sliding at a footpace past their starboard side the edge of the
huge platform that he had seen just now half a mile away. For a
moment or two it swayed up and down; there was a slight vibration;
and then he heard voices and the trampling of footsteps.

"The bridges are fixed," remarked the priest. "They're on the
lower deck, of course. Pretty prompt, aren't they?"

The prelate stood, staring with all his eyes; now at the
motionless platform that hung alongside, now at the gulf below
with the fairy lights strewed like stars and _nebulae_ at its
bottom. It seemed impossible to realize that this station in the
air was not the normal level, and the earth not a strange foreign
body that attended on it. There came up on deck presently a dozen
figures or so, carrying wraps, and talking. It was amazing to him
that they could behave with such composure. Two were even
quarrelling in subdued voices. . . .

It was hardly five minutes before the three bells rang again; and
before the fourth sounded, suddenly he saw drop beneath, like a
stone into a pit, the huge immovable platform that just now he
had conceived of as solid as the earth from which it had risen.
Down and down it went, swaying ever so slightly from side to
side, diminishing as it went; but before the motion had ceased
the fourth bell rang, and he clutched the rail to steady himself
as the ship he was on soared again with a strange intoxicating
motion. The next instant, as he glanced over the edge, he saw
that they were far out over the blackness of the sea.

"I think we might go below for a bit," said the priest in his ear.

There was no kind of difficulty in descending the stairs; there
was practically no oscillation of any kind in this still and
windless summer night, and the two came down easily and looked
round the lower deck.

This was far more crowded with figures: there were padded seats
fully occupied running round all the sides, beneath the enormous
continuous windows. In the centre, sternwards, ran a narrow
refreshment bar, where a score of men were standing to refresh
themselves. Forward of the farther stairs (down the well of which
they had seen the engineer's head), by which they were standing,
the deck was closed in, as with cabins.

"Like to see the oratory?" asked Father Jervis.

"The what?"

"Oratory. The long-journey boats, that have chaplains, carry the
Blessed Sacrament, of course; but there is only a little oratory
on these continental lines."

Monsignor followed him, unable to speak, up the central passage
running forwards; through a pair of heavy curtains; and there, to
his amazed eyes, appeared a small altar, a hanging lamp, and an
image of St. Michael.

"But it's astounding!" whispered the prelate, watching a man and
a woman at their prayers.

"It's common sense, isn't it?" smiled the priest. "Why, the
custom began a hundred years ago."

"No!"

"Indeed it did! I learnt it from one of the little guide-books
they give one on these boats. A company called the Great Western
had mosaic pictures of the patron saint of each boat in the
saloon. And their locomotives, too, were called after saints'
names. It's only plain common sense, if you come to think of it."

"Are lines like this--and railways, and so on--owned by the State
now? I suppose so."

The other shook his head.

"That was tried under Socialism," he said. "It was one of their
smaller failures. You see, when competition ceases, effort
ceases. Human nature is human nature, after all. The Socialists
forgot that. No; we encourage private enterprise as much as
possible, under State restrictions."

They paused as they came out again.

"Care to lie down for a bit? We shan't be in till three. The
Cardinal engaged a room for us."

He indicated a small cabin that bore his own name on a card.

Monsignor paused.

"Yes, I will, I think. I've a lot to think about."

But he could not sleep. The priest promised to awaken him
in plenty of time, and he slipped off his buckled shoes and
tried  to compose his mind. But it was useless. His mind
whirled with wonder.

Once he slipped to a sitting position, drew back the little
curtain over the porthole, and stared out. There was little to be
seen; but by the sight of a lake of soft light that slid past at
some incalculable depth a dozen miles away, he perceived that
they had left the sea far behind and were spinning over the land
of France. He looked out long, revolving thoughts and
conjectures, striving to find some glimmer of memory by which he
might adjust these new experiences; but there was none. He was
like a child, with the brain of a man, plunged into a new mode of
existence, where everything seemed reversed, and yet
astonishingly obvious; it was the very simplicity that baffled
him. The Christian religion was true down (or up) even to the
Archangels that stand before God and control the powers of the
air. The priesthood was the priesthood; the Blessed Sacrament was
the God-Man tabernacling with men. Then where was the cause for
amazement that the world recognized these facts and acted upon
them; that men should salute the priest of God as His
representative and agent on earth; that air-ships (themselves
constructed on the model of the sea-gull--hollow feathers and
all) should carry the Blessed Sacrament on long journeys, that
communicants might not be deprived of their Daily Bread, and even
raise altars on board to the honour of those Powers under whose
protection they placed themselves. It was curious, too, he
reflected, that those who insist most upon the claims of Divinity
insist also upon the claims of humanity. It seemed suggestive
that it was the Catholics who were most aware of the competitive
passions of men and reckoned with them, while the Socialists
ignored them and failed.

So he sat--this poor man bewildered by simplicity and almost
shocked by the obvious--listening with unheeding ears to the
steady rush of air past the ship, voices talking naturally and
easily, heard through the roof above his head, an occasional
footstep, and once or twice a bell as the steersman communicated
some message to one of his subordinates. Here he sat--John
Masterman, Domestic Prelate to His Holiness Gregory XIX,
Secretary to His Eminence Gabriel Cardinal Bellairs, and priest
of the Holy Roman Church, trying to assimilate the fact that he
was on an air-ship, bound to the court of the Catholic French
King, and that practically the whole civilized world believed and
acted on the belief which he, as a priest, naturally also held
and was accustomed to teach.

A tap on his door roused him at last.

"It's time to be moving, Monsignor," said Father Jervis through
the half-open door. "We're in communication with St. Germains."




CHAPTER IV



(I)

"Tell me a little about the costumes," said Monsignor, as the two
set out on foot from their lodgings in Versailles after breakfast
next morning, to present their letters of introduction. "They
seem to me rather fantastic, somehow."

Their lodgings were situated in one of the great palaces on the
vast road that runs straight from the gates of the royal palace
itself into Paris. They had come straight on by car from St.
Germains, had been received with immense respect by the
proprietor, who, it appeared, had received very particular
instructions from the English Cardinal; and had been conducted
straight upstairs to a little suite of rooms, decorated in
eighteenth-century fashion, and consisting of a couple of
bedrooms for themselves, opening to a central sitting-room and
oratory; the two men-servants they had brought with them were
lodged immediately across the landing outside.

"Fantastic?" asked Father Jervis, smiling. "Don't you think
they're attractive?"

"Oh yes; but----"

"Remember human nature, Monsignor. After all, it was only intense
self-importance that used to make men say that they were
independent of exterior beauty. It's far more natural and simple
to like beauty. Every child does, after all."

"Yes, yes; I see that, I suppose. But I didn't mean only that. I
was on the point of asking you yesterday, again and again, but
something marvellous distracted me each time," said the prelate,
smiling. "They're extraordinarily picturesque, of course; but I
can't help thinking that they must all mean something."

"Of course they do. And I never can imagine how people ever got
on without the system. Why, even less than a hundred years ago, I
understand that every one dressed, or tried to dress alike. How
in the world could they tell who they were talking to?"

"I . . . I expect that was deliberate," faltered the other. "You
see, I think people used to be ashamed of their trades sometimes,
and wanted to be thought gentlemen."

Father Jervis shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, I don't understand it," he said. "If a man was ashamed of
his trade, why did he follow it?"

"I've been thinking," said Monsignor animatedly, "that perhaps
it's the new teaching on Vocation that has made the difference.
Once a man understands that his Vocation is the most honourable
thing he can do, I suppose----There! who's that man," he
interrupted suddenly, "in blue with the badge?"

A tremendous figure was crossing the road just in front of them.
He wore a short, full blue cloak, with a silver badge on the left
breast, a tight-fitting cap of the same colour repeating the same
badge, and from beneath his cloak in front hung a tunic, with
enormous legs in tight blue hose and shoes moving underneath.

"Ah! that's a great man," said the priest. "He's a
Butcher, of course----"

"A butcher!"

"Yes; that's obvious--it's the blue, for one thing, and the cut,
for another. Wait an instant. I shall see his badge directly."

As the great man came past them he saluted deferentially. The
priests bowed with equal deference, lifting their hands to their
broad-leaved hats.

"Yes: he's very high up," said the priest quietly. "A member of
the Council of the National Guild, at least."

"Do you mean that man kills oxen?"

"Not now, of course; he's worked his way up. He probably
represents the Guild in the Assembly."

"Do all the trades have guilds, and are they all represented
in the Assembly?"

"Why, of course! How else could you be certain that the trade
was treated fairly? If all the citizens voted as citizens,
there'd simply be no fair representation at all. Look; there's
a goldsmith--he has probably been to the King; that's a
journeyman with him."

An open car sped past them. Two men were seated in it; both in
clothes of some really beautiful metallic colour; but the cap of
one was plain, while the cap of the other blazed with some device.

"And the women? I can't see any system among them."

"Ah! but there is, though it's harder to detect. They have much more
liberty than the men; but, as a rule, each woman has a predominating
colour, the colour of the head of her family, and all, of course,
wear badges. There are sumptuary laws, I needn't say."

"I shouldn't have guessed it!"

"Well, not as regards price or material, certainly--only size.
There are certain absolute limits on both sides; and fashions
have to manage between the two. You see it's the same thing as in
trades and professions, as I told you yesterday. We encourage the
individual to be as individualistic as possible, and draw the
limits very widely, beyond which he mustn't go. But those limits
are imperative. We try to develop both extremes at once--liberty
and law. We had enough of the _via media_--the mediocrity of the
average--under Socialism."

"But do you mean to say that people submit to all this?"

"Submit! Why it's perfectly obvious to every one that it's simply
human--besides being very convenient practically. Of course in
Germany they still go in for what they call Liberty; and the
result is simple chaos."

"Do you mean to say there's no envy or jealousy between the trades?"

"Not in the social sense, in the very least, though there's
tremendous competition. Why, every one under Royalty has to be a
member of some trade. Of course only those who practise the trade
wear the full costume; but even the dukes have to wear the
badges. It's perfectly simple, you know."

"Tell me an English duke who's a butcher,"

"Butcher? . . . I can't think of one this minute. Southminster's
a baker, though."

Monsignor was silent. But it certainly seemed simple.

They were passing up now between the sentry-guarded gates of the
enormous and exquisite palace of Versailles; and, beyond the great
expanse of gravel on which they had just set foot, rose up the
myriad windows, pinnacles, and walls where the Kings of France
lived again as they had lived two hundred years before. Far up,
against the tender summer sky, flapped the Royal Standard; and the
lilies of France, once more on their blue ground, indicated that
the King was in residence. Even as they looked, however, the
banner seemed to waver a little; and simultaneously a sudden
ringing sound from a shadowed portico a couple of hundred yards
away brought Father Jervis to a sudden stop.

"We'd better step aside," he said. "We're right in the way."

"What's the matter?"

"Some one's coming out. . . . Look."

From out of the shadow into the full sunlight with a flash of
silver lightning whirled a body of cuirassiers, wheeled into
line, and came on, reforming as they came, at a canter.

A couple of heralds rode in front; and a long trumpet-cry
pealed out, was caught, echoed, and thrown back by the crowding
walls of the palace.

Behind, as Father Jervis drew him to one side, Monsignor caught
a glimpse of white horses and a gleam of gold. He glanced
hastily back at the gates through which they had just come,
and, as if sprung out of the ground, there was the crowd
standing respectfully on either side of the avenue to see its
Sovereign. (It was up this avenue to Paris, Monsignor
reflected, that the women had come on their appalling march to
the Queen who ruled them then.)

As he glanced back again the heralds were upon them, and the thunder
of hoofs followed close behind. But beyond the line of galloping
guards, in the midst, drawn by white horses, ran the great gilded
coach with glass windows, and the crown of France atop.

Two men were seated in the coach, bowing mechanically as they
came--one a small, young, vivacious-looking man with a pointed
dark beard; the other a heavy, fair-haired, sanguine-featured,
clean-shaven man. Both alike were in robes in which red and
gold predominated; and both wore broad feathered hats, shaped
like a priest's.

Then the coach was gone through the tall gilded gates, and a
cloud of dust, beaten up by the galloping hoofs on all sides, hid
even the cuirassiers who closed the company. And as the two
turned the banner sank on the tall pole.

"The King and the German Emperor," observed Father Jervis, replacing
his hat. "Now there's the other side of the picture for you."

"I don't understand."

"Why, we treat our kings like kings," smiled the other. "And, at
the same time, we encourage our butchers to be really butchers
and to glory in it. Law _and_ liberty, you see. Absolute discipline
and the cultivation of individualism. No republican stew-pot, you
see, in which everything tastes alike."



(II)

They had to wait a few minutes in an ante-room before presenting
their letters, as the official was engaged, and Father Jervis
occupied the time in running over again the names and histories
of three or four important personages to whom they would perhaps
have to speak. He had given an outline of these at breakfast.

There were three in particular about whom Monsignor must be informed.

First, the King; and Monsignor learned again thoroughly of the
sensational reaction which, after the humiliation of France in
the war of 1914--the logical result of a conflict between a
republicanism worked out to mediocrity and a real and vivid
monarchy--had placed this man's father--the undoubted legitimate
heir--upon the throne. He had died only two years ago, when the
Dauphin, who had ascended the throne, was just eighteen years
old. The present King was not yet married, but there were rumours
of a love-match with a Spanish princess. He was a boyish king, it
seemed, but he played his royal part with intense enjoyment and
dignity, and had restored, to the delight of this essentially
romantic and imaginative people, most of the glories of the
eighteenth-century court, without its scandals. Certainly France
was returning to its old chivalry, and thence to its old power.

Next there was the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal
Guinet, a very old ecclesiastic, very high in the counsels of
the Church, who would almost certainly have been elected Pope at
the last vacancy if it had not been for his age. He was an
"intellectual," it seemed, and, among other things, was one of
the first physicists of Europe. He had been ordained
comparatively late in life.

Thirdly there was the Archbishop's secretary--Monsignor Allet--a
rising man and an excellent diplomatist.

There were two or three more, but Father Jervis was content with
scarcely more than recounting their names. The King's brother,
and the heir-presumptive, was something of a recluse and seldom
appeared at court. Of the German Emperor, Monsignor had already
learned, it seemed, sufficient.

In the middle of these instructions, the door suddenly opened,
and an ecclesiastic hurried in with outstretched hands, and
apologies in a torrent of Latin.

("Monsignor Allet," whispered Father Jervis, as he appeared.)

Monsignor Masterman stood bewildered. The dilemma had not
occurred to him; but Father Jervis, it seemed, was prepared. He
said a rapid sentence to the secretary, who turned, bowing, and
immediately began in English without the trace of any accent.

"I perfectly understand--perfectly indeed. These doctors rule
us with a rod of iron, don't they? It'll be arranged directly.
We all talk English here; and I'll say a word to His Eminence.
The very same thing happened to himself a year or two back. He
was forbidden to talk in French. It is astonishing, is it not?
the subtlety of these doctors! And yet how natural. No two
languages have the same mental reaction, after all. They're
perfectly right."

Monsignor caught a glimmering of what he was at. But he thought
he had better be cautious.

"I'm afraid I shall give a lot of trouble," he murmured, looking
doubtfully at this sparkling-eyed, blue-chinned young man, who
spoke with such rapidity.

"Not in the least, I assure you." He turned to the older priest.
"The Cardinal left here only half an hour ago. How unfortunate!
He came over to arrange the final details of the disputation.
You've heard of that?"

"Not a word."

The young prelate beamed.

"Well, you'll hear the finest wit in France! It's for this
afternoon." (His face fell.) "But it's Latin. Perhaps
Monsignor ought not----"

"Ah! so long as he doesn't talk---!" (Father Jervis turned to his
friend.) "I was telling Monsignor here that the doctor ordered
you to engage in no business that did not interest you; and that
Latin was rather a strain to you just now----"

This seemed adroit enough. But Monsignor was determined to miss
no new experience.

"It will simply delight me," he said. "And what is the subject?"

"Well," said the Frenchman, "it's for the benefit of the
Emperor. Two of the Parisian theologians are disputing _De
Ecclesia_. The thesis of the adversary, who opens, is that the
Church is merely the representative of God on earth--a Society
that must, of course, be obeyed; but that Infallibility is not
necessary to her efficiency."

Father Jervis' eyes twinkled.

"Isn't that a little too pointed? Why, that's the Emperor's one
difficulty! I understand that he allows, politically speaking,
the need for the Church, but denies her divinity."

"I assure you," said the French priest solemnly, "that the thesis
is his own selection. You see, he's sick of these Socialists. He
understands perfectly that the one sanction of human authority
must come from God, or from the people; and he's entirely on
God's side! But he cannot see the infallibility, and therefore,
as he's a sincere man---!" he ended with an eloquent shrug.

"Well," said Father Jervis, "if the Cardinal's not here----"

"Alas! He is back in Paris by now. But give me your letters! I'll
see that they are presented properly; and you shall receive a
royal command for the disputation in plenty of time."

They handed over their letters; they exchanged compliments once
more; they were escorted as far as the door of the room by the
prelate, across the next ante-chamber by an imposing man in black
velvet with a chain, across the third by a cuirassier, and across
the hall to the bottom of the steps by two tremendous footmen in
the ancient royal livery.

Monsignor was silent for a few yards.

"Aren't you afraid of an anti-clerical reaction?" he asked suddenly.

"How do you mean? I don't understand."

Then Monsignor launched out. He had accepted by now the theory
that he had had a lapse of memory, and that so far as his
intellect was concerned, he was practically a man of a century
ago, owing to the history he had happened to be reading shortly
before his collapse; and he talked therefore from that standpoint.

He produced, that is to say, with astonishing fluency all those
arguments that were common in the mouths of the more serious
anti-clericals of the beginning of the century--the increase of
Religious Orders, the domineering tendency of all ecclesiastics
in the enjoyment of temporal power, the impossibility of
combating supernatural arguments, the hostility of the Church to
education--down even to the celibacy of the clergy. He paused for
breath as they turned out of the great gateway.

Father Jervis laughed aloud and patted him on the arm.

"My dear Monsignor, I can't compete with you. You're too
eloquent. Of course, I remember from reading history that those
things used to be said, and I suppose Socialists say them now.
But, you know, no educated man ever dreams of such arguments; nor
indeed do the uneducated! It's the half-educated, as usual, who's
the enemy. He always is. The Wise Men and the shepherds both
knelt in Bethlehem. It was the bourgeois who stood apart."

"That's no answer," persisted the other.

"Well, let's see," said the priest good-humouredly. "We'll begin
with celibacy. Now it's perfectly true that it's thought almost a
disgrace for a man not to have a large family. The average is
certainly not less than ten in civilized nations. But for all
that a priest is looked upon without any contempt at all. Why?
Because he's a spiritual father; because he begets spiritual
children to God, and feeds and nourishes them. Of course to an
atheist this is nonsense; and even to an agnostic it's a very
doubtful benefit. But, my dear Monsignor, you must remember that
these hardly exist amongst us. The entire civilized world of
to-day is as absolutely convinced of Heaven and Grace and the
Church, and the havoc that Sin makes not only as regards the next
world but in this--so absolutely convinced that he understands
perfectly that a priest is far more productive of general good
than a physical father possibly can be. It's the priest who keeps
the whole thing going. Don't you see? And then, in a Catholic
world, the instinct that the man who serves the altar should be
without physical ties--well, that's simply natural."

"Go on. What about education?"

"My dear friend," said Father Jervis. "The Church controls the
whole of education, as she did, in fact, up to the very time when
the State first took it away from her and then abused her for
neglecting it. Practically all the scientists; all the
specialists in medicine, chemistry, and mental health;
nine-tenths of the musicians; three-quarters of the
artists--practically all those are Religious. It's only the
active trades, which are incompatible with Religion, that are in
the hands of the laity. It's been found by experience that no
really fine work can be done except by those who are familiar
with divine things; because it's only those who see things all
round, who have, that is to say, a really comprehensive
intuition. Take history. Unless you have a really close grasp of
what Providence means--of not only the End, but the Means by
which God works; unless you can see right through things to their
Intention, how in the world can you interpret the past? Don't you
remember what Manners said about Realism? We don't want
misleading photographs of externals any more. We want Ideas. And
how can you correlate Ideas, unless you have a real grasp of the
Central Idea? It's nonsense."

"Go on with the other things."

"There's a lot more about education. There's the graduated
education we have now (entirely an ecclesiastical notion, by the
way). We don't try to teach everybody everything. We teach a
certain foundation to every one--the Catechism, of course, two
languages perfectly, the elements of physical science, and a
great deal of history. (You can't understand the Catechism
without history, and _vice-versa_); but after that we specialize.
Well, the world understands now----"

"That's enough, thank you. Go on with the other things."

Father Jervis laughed again.

"We're nearly home. Let's turn in here, and get into the gardens
for a bit. . . . Well, I think you'll find that the root of all
your difficulties is that you seem not to be able to get into
your head that the world is really and intelligently Christian.
There are the Religious Orders you spoke of. Well, aren't the
active Religious Orders the very finest form of association ever
invented? Aren't they exactly what Socialists have always been
crying for, with the blunders left out and the gaps filled in? As
soon as the world understood finally that the active Religious
Orders could beat all other forms of association at their own
game--that they could teach and work more cheaply and
effectively, and so on--well, the most foolish Political
Economist had to confess that the Religious Orders made for the
country's welfare. And as for the Contemplative Orders----"

Father Jervis' face grew grave and tender.

"Yes?"

"Why, they're the princes of the world! They are models of the
Crucified. So long as there is Sin in the world, so long must
there be Penance. The instant Christianity was accepted, the
Cross stood up dominant once more. . . . And then . . . then
people understood. Why, they're the Holy Ones of the
universe--higher than angels; for they suffer. . . ."

There was a moment's silence.

"Yes?" said Monsignor softly.

"My dear Monsignor, just force upon your mind the fact that the
world is really and intelligently Christian. I think it'll all
be plain then. You seem to me, if I may say so, to be falling
into the old-fashioned way of looking at 'Clericalism,' as it
used to be called, as a kind of department of life, like Art or
Law. No wonder men resented its intrusion when they conceived of
it like that. Well, there is no 'Clericalism' now, and therefore
there is no anti-Clericalism. There's just religion--as a fact.
Do you see? ... Shall we sit down for a few minutes? Aren't the
gardens exquisite?"



(III)

Monsignor Masterman sat that night at his window, looking out at
the stars and the night and the blotted glimmering gardens
beneath; and it seemed to him as if the Dream deepened every day.
Things grew more, not less marvellous, with his appreciation of
the simplicity of it all.

From three to seven he had sat in one of the seats on the right
of the royal dais, reserved for prelates, almost immediately
opposite the double-pulpited platform, itself set in the midst of
the long outer side of the great gallery of Versailles, through
which access was to be had to the little old private rooms of
Marie Antoinette, and had listened spell-bound to two of the
greatest wits of France, respectively attacking and defending,
with extraordinary subtlety and fire, the claim of the Church to
Infallibility. The disputation had been conducted on scholastic
lines, all verbal etiquette being carefully observed; again and
again he had heard, first on one side a string of arguments
adduced against the doctrine, then on the other a torrent of
answers, with the old half-remembered words "Distinguo," "Nego,"
"Concedo"; and the reasoning on both sides had appeared to him
astonishingly brilliant. And all this before two sovereigns:
the one keen, vivacious, and appreciative; the other heavy,
patient, considerate--two sovereigns, treated, as the elaborate
etiquette of the whole affair showed plainly enough, as kings
indeed--men who stood for authority, and the grades and the
differentiation of functions, as emphatically as the old
democratic hand-shaking statesmen, dressed like their own
servants, stood for the other complementary principle of the
equality of men. For alongside of all this tremendous pomp there
was a very practical recognition of the "People"; since the whole
disputation was conducted in the presence of a crowd drawn, it
seemed, from almost every class, who pressed behind the barriers,
murmured, laughed gleefully, and now and again broke out into
low thunders of applause, as the Catholic champion drove logic
home, or turned aside the infidel shaft.

The very thesis amazed the man, for the absolute necessity of an
authoritative supra-national Church, with supernatural sanctions,
seemed assumed as an axiom of thought, not merely by these
Catholics, but by the entire world, Christian and un-Christian
alike. More than once the phrase "It is conceded by all men"
flashed out, and passed unrebuked, in support of this claim. The
only point of dispute between reasoning beings seemed to be not
as to whether or no the Church must be treated practically as
infallible, but whether dogmatically and actually she were so!

As he sat here now at his window, Father Jervis' words began to
come back with new force. Was it indeed true that the only reason
why he found these things strange was that he could not yet quite
bring home to his imagination the fact that the world now was
convincedly Christian as a whole? It began to appear so.

For somewhere in the back of his mind (why, he knew not) there
lurked a sort of only half-perceived assumption that the
Catholic religion was but one aspect of truth--one point of view
from which, with sufficient though not absolute truth, facts
could be discerned. He could not understand this; yet there it
was. And he understood, at any rate intellectually, that if he
could once realize that the dogmas of the Church were the dogmas
of the universe; and not only that, but that the world
convincedly realized it too;--why then, the fact that the
civilization of to-day was actually moulded upon it would no
longer bewilder him.



(IV)

It was on the following morning that he spoke with the King.

The two priests had said Mass in their oratory, and an hour later
were walking in the park beneath the palace windows.

It was one more of that string of golden days, of which they had
already enjoyed so many, and the splendour of that amazing
landscape was complete.

They had passed below the enclosure known as the "King's Garden,"
and were going in the direction of the Trianon, which Monsignor
had expressed a desire to see, and had just emerged into the
immense central avenue which runs straight from the palace to the
lake. Above them rose the forest trees, enormous now, yet tamed
by Lenotre's marvellous art, resembling a regiment of giants
perfectly drilled; the grass was like carpets on all sides; the
sky blazed like a blue jewel overhead; the noise of singing birds
and falling water was in the air. But above all there towered on
their right, beyond the almost endless terraces, the splendid
palace of the kings of France, royal at last once more. And
there, as symbol of the Restoration, there hung round the
flagstaff as he had seen it yesterday the blue folds and the
lilies of the monarchy.

It was no good trying to frame words as to what he felt. He had
said all he could, and it was useless. Father Jervis seemed
unable to understand the fierce enthusiasm of a man who now
experienced all this, as it appeared, for the first time. He
walked silently--exulting.

There seemed not many people abroad this morning. The two had
presented an order, obtained through Monsignor Allet, at the gates
below the Orange Gardens, and had learned from the sentry that
until the afternoon this part of the park was closed to the public.
Here and there, however, in the distance a single figure made its
appearance, walking in the shade or hurrying on some errand.

The priests had just come out from the line of trees and had
set foot in the avenue itself, when, twenty yards farther up,
from the entrance to some other path parallel to their own, a
group came out, and an instant later they heard themselves
hailed and saw Monsignor Allet himself, in all his purple,
hurrying towards them.

"You are the very men," he cried, again stretching out his
hands in a welcoming French gesture. "His Majesty was speaking
of you not five minutes ago. He is here, in the garden. Shall I
present you now?"

Father Jervis glanced at his friend.

"His Majesty is very kind----" he began.

"Not a word more! If you will follow me and wait an instant at
the entrance, I will speak with His Majesty and bring you in."

"I have not my ferraiuola---" began Monsignor.

"The King will excuse travellers," smiled the Frenchman.

The entrance to the "King's Garden" on this side passes beneath an
arch of yew, and here the two waited.

Somewhere beyond the green walls they could hear talking, and now
and again a burst of laughter. Then the talking ceased, and they
heard a single voice.

"In what language----" began Monsignor Masterman nervously.

"Oh! English, no doubt. You can't talk French?"

Monsignor shook his head.

"Not a hundred words," he said.

Again came the quick footstep, and the French priest appeared,
still gay, but with a certain solemnity. "Come this way,
gentlemen," he said. "The King will see you." (He glanced at the
prelate.) "You won't forget to kneel, Monsignor."

To the English prelate the scene that he saw, on emerging at last
into the open space in the middle, protected by the ancient
yews--even though he should have been prepared for it by all that
he had already seen--simply once more dazed and stupefied him.

The centre of the space was occupied by a round pond, perhaps
thirty yards across, of absolutely still water, and in this
mirror, shaded by the masses of foliage overhead, was reflected a
picture that might have been taken straight from some painting
two hundred years old. For, on the semicircle of marble seats
that stood beyond the water, sat a company of figures dressed
once more in all the bravery of real colour and splendour, as
from days when men were not ashamed to use publicly and commonly
these glittering gifts of God.

Monsignor hardly noticed the rest (there were perhaps twelve or
fifteen all told, with half a dozen women amongst them); he
looked only, as he came round the pond, at the central figure
that advanced to meet him. Twice he had seen him yesterday--yet
those occasions had been public. But to see the King now, at ease
amongst his friends, yet still royally dressed in his brilliant
blue suit and feathered hat, with his tall cane--to see the whole
company, gay and brilliant, talking and laughing, taking their
pleasure in the air before breakfast--the whole thing somehow
brought home to him the reality of what appeared to him as a
change, more than had all the pomps and glories of the day
before. Splendour no longer seemed ceremonial, but natural.

Monsignor Allet was explaining something in rapid French in the
King's ear, and as the two came up, the face that listened smiled
suddenly with intelligence.

"I give you welcome," he said in excellent English. "Come,
gentlemen" (he turned to the others, who had risen to their feet
as he rose), "we must be getting homewards. Monsignor!" (and he
beckoned to the two English priests to walk with him.)

That walk seemed like a dream.

They went leisurely upwards towards the palace, through yew alley
after yew alley, French chattering sounding behind them as they
went; and the King, still in fluent English, though with an
accent that increased as he talked, questioned them courteously
as to England, spoke of the disputation of yesterday, discussed
frankly enough the situation in Germany, and listened with
attention to the remarks of Father Jervis; for Monsignor
Masterman was discreetly silent for the most part.

It was not until the great doors of the palace flew open at last,
and the rows of liveried men showed within, that the King dismissed
them. He turned on the steps and gave them his hand to kiss. Then
he raised them from their knees with a courteous gesture.

"And you go to Rome, you say?"

"Almost immediately, sire. We shall be there for SS. Peter and Paul."

"Present my homage at the feet of the Holy Father," smiled the
King. "You are fortunate indeed. I have not seen His Holiness for
three months. Good day--gentlemen."

The two passed again in silence down the terraces on their way
to the Trianon.

"It is amazing," burst out Monsignor suddenly. "And the people.
What of them? Is there no resentment?"

"Why should there be?" asked the other.

"But they are excluded from the palace and the park. It was not
so a hundred years ago."

"Do you think they are any the less happy?" asked Father Jervis.
"My dear Monsignor, surely you know human nature better than
that! They have lost the vulgarity of Versailles, and they have
regained its royalty. Don't you see that?"

"Well!"--Monsignor paused. "It's simply medievalism back again,
it seems to me."

"Exactly!" said the other. "You have hit it at last. It is
medievalism--that is to say, human nature with faith and
reverence, and without cant."

He paused again, and his eyes twinkled.

"You know honours and privileges are worth nothing if every one
has them. If we all wore crowns, the kings would go bareheaded."




CHAPTER V



(I)

He awoke suddenly, at some movement, and for an instant did not
remember where he was.

For nearly a week they had stayed on at Versailles; and each day
that had passed had done its share in making this fairyland seem
more like a reality. But that strange subconscious self of his,
for which even now there seemed no accounting, was still
obstinate; it still assured him that the world ought not to be
like this, that religion ought not to be so concrete and
effective--that he would awake soon and find himself in some
desolate state of affairs where Faith, hemmed in by enemies,
still fought for very life against irresistible odds. It was at
night and at morning that the mood came on him most forcibly;
when instinct, free from facts, and ranging clear of the will's
dominion, asserted itself most strongly, and as he awoke this
night it was on him again.

He looked round the dark little room with bewildered eyes; then
he fumbled with a button, and all was flooded with light.

He was lying in a little spring-bed, set within two padded sides,
like a berth in a steamship. And beside him was the closed bureau
which he perceived to be washing arrangements in disguise;
overhead protruded a broad shelf; on the wall, above a little
couch, hung silk curtains over a window; and, as they swayed
slightly with some movement he caught sight of glass beyond. On
the door, at the foot of his bed, hung his cassock, and the
purple cincture that lay across it recalled him to at least a
part of the facts. The cabin was upholstered and painted in clean
white, and an electric globe emerged from the ceiling.

He was next conscious of cold, and instinctively leaned forward to
draw the quilt farther over his knees. Then, with a flash, he
remembered, and, in spite of the cold, was out of bed in a moment,
kneeling on the couch and peering out through the curtains.

At first he could see nothing at all. There was but an
unfathomable gulf beyond the glass. He stood up on the couch, and
drawing the curtains behind his head to shut out the light, he
once more stared out. Then he began to see.

At first he could see nothing at all. There was but an unfathomable
gulf beyond the glass. He stood up on the couch, and drawing the
curtains behind his head to shut out the light, he once more stared
out. Then he began to see.

Immediately opposite him glimmered a huge white outline--in the
incalculable night it might be a hundred yards or a mile away. It
was of irregular outline, for the star-strewn sky showed in patches
and rifts above it. And this white mass curved away beneath, under
the ship in which he travelled, till it met, at a point which he
could but just discern, a blackness that rose to meet it.

Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he began to see
that the huge whiteness was flitting past, steadily and
leisurely, from right to left; that it was streaked with shadows
or clefts; and that following it, as in a sliding procession,
came another, like it, yet (it seemed) more distant.

All this time, too, the silence was profound. There was but a
soft humming note somewhere in the air, and the faintest sense of
vibration in the metal-work on which his hands were pressed. Once
too he heard a footstep pass softly and rhythmically overhead, as
if some watcher moved up and down the length of the upper deck.

The man dropped the curtains and sat back on his heels, trying
to force into his imagination the facts that he now perceived
and remembered.

They had left St. Germains last night, after dining at
Versailles. They were now crossing the Alps. They would be in
Rome for Mass and breakfast. . . . They were traversing at this
moment, no doubt, only a thousand feet high, one of those passes
up which (he thought he remembered from history) the old
railway-trains had been accustomed to climb, yard by yard and
spiral by spiral, a hundred years before . . .

In a minute or two he leaned forward and stared again, once more
closing the curtains behind his head.

The sky seemed a little brighter, he thought, than when he had
looked just now. Perhaps the moon was hiding somewhere. And
certainly the sky was more in evidence. Far away to the left
behind, passing even as he looked, moved those gigantic horns
of white, as if the ship stood still and the earth turned
beneath; and below now, sloping to the right, lay long lines of
darkness, jutting here and there with a sudden crag against the
blaze of stars. It was marvellous, he thought, how still all
lay; there was a steady hiss, now heard for the first time, as
the air tore past the glassy sides of the bird-shaped ship, as
thin as the cry of a bat.

He shifted on his knees a little, and staring forwards, saw far
ahead and at what seemed an incalculable distance something that
baffled him entirely, for it changed its aspect every instant
that he watched.

At first it was no more than a patch of luminosity; and he thought
it to be, perhaps, a lighted town. But the character of it was
changed as he formulated his thought and three brilliant spots
like blue stars broke out on a sudden, and these three stars
shifted their positions. He kept his eyes on these, marvelling;
and, with something very like fear, saw that they were approaching
upwards and onwards with the swiftness of thought.

Up and on they came. He shrank back a little, instinctively; and
then, as he leaned forward once more, determined to understand,
shrank back with a sharp indrawing of breath, as there whirled
past, it appeared only a few yards away, a flare of brilliant
blue lines, in the midst of which passed a phantom-like body in a
mist and accompanied by a musical sound (it seemed) of
extraordinary clarity and beauty, that rose from a deep
organ-note to the shrill of a flute, and down again Into a bass
and a silence. . . .

He smiled to himself as he climbed back into bed a minute or two
later, when he had reconstructed the phenomena and interpreted
them. It was but another volor, bound northwards, and it had
probably passed at least half a mile away.

Well, he must sleep again if he could. They would be in
Rome by morning.

   *   *   *   *   *

They had delayed their departure from Versailles to the last
possible moment, since France was, after all, under the
circumstances, one of the best places in the world for Monsignor
to pick up again the threads of life. For one thing, it was near
to England--English was spoken there amongst the educated almost
as frequently as French; yet it was not England, and Monsignor's
plight would not cause him any great inconvenience. Further,
France was at present the theatre of the world's interest, since
the Emperor was there, and on the Emperor's future depended
largely the destinies of Europe: his conversion, it was thought,
might be the final death-blow to Socialism in his dominions.

Monsignor had employed his time well. Not only had he learned
accurately the general state of the world, but morning by morning
he had familiarized himself with his own work, and felt, by now,
very nearly competent to finish his lessons in England. Cardinal
Bellairs communicated with him almost every day, and professed
himself delighted with the progress made. Finally he had talked
Latin continually with Father Jervis in preparation for Rome, and
would have passed muster, at least, in general conversation.

   *   *   *   *   *

The two motored into the city from the volor-station outside, and
everywhere as they went through the streets and crossed the Tiber
on their way to the Leonine City, where they were to lodge, were
evidences of the feast.

For the whole route from Vatican to Lateran, which they crossed
more than once, was one continual triumphal way. Masts had been
erected, swathed in the Papal colours and crowned with garlands;
barriers ran from mast to mast, behind which already the crowds
were beginning to gather, though it was hardly past six o'clock
in the morning; and from every window hung carpets, banners, and
tapestries. The motor was stopped at least half a dozen times;
but the prelate's insignia passed them through quickly; and it
was just half-past six as they drew up before an old palace
situated on the right in the road leading from the Tiber to the
Vatican, and scarcely a quarter of a mile away from St. Peter's.

Monsignor glanced up at the carved and painted arms above the
doorway and smiled.

"I did not know you were bringing me here," he said.

"You know it?"

"Why, it's the old palace where the kings of England
lodged, isn't it?"

Father Jervis smiled.

"Your memory's improving," he said.

Then a magnificent servant came out, bowed profoundly, and opened
the door of the car.

"By the way," said Father Jervis as they went in, "I'd better go and
enquire the details at the Vatican. You might give me your card.
I'll go at once, and then come back and join you at breakfast."

It was a pleasant little suite of rooms, not unlike in
arrangements to those of Versailles. The windows looked out on
the central court, where a fountain played, and the rooms
themselves were furnished in the usual Roman fashion--painted
ceilings, stone floors, and a few damask hangings.

Monsignor turned to the servant who was superintending the two
Englishmen they had brought.

"I've not been in Rome for some time," he said in Latin. "Tell me
what this house is now?"

"Monsignor, it is the English palace. Monsignor is in the
apartment of His Eminence Cardinal Bellairs."

"The King himself stays here?"

"It is His Majesty's palace," said the man. "The Prince George
arrived two days ago. His Highness is in the apartment below."

Monsignor smiled. He understood now Father Jervis' evasions as to
where they were to stay in Rome. Plainly it was determined that
he should have a front seat at all ceremonies.

Ten minutes later, as he came out of his bedroom, Father Jervis
himself came in.

"You have your choice, Monsignor," he said. "As a Domestic
Prelate you have the right to walk in the procession (here is the
permit), or as occupying rooms here we can, if you prefer, see
the procession from the front windows."

"Tell me what the programme is."

"At nine the procession leaves St. Peter's to go to the
Lateran--at least they call it nine. There the Holy Father sings
Mass, as bishop in his own cathedral. On the return of the
procession, I suppose about midday, the Holy Father visits the
tomb of St. Peter. Then this afternoon he is present at Vespers
in St. Peter's; and afterwards gives the blessing _Urbi et Orbi_
from the window as usual."

"What would you advise?"

"Well, I should advise your remaining here till mid-day.
There's no use in overdoing it. We can see everything
admirably. Then we can go into St. Peter's for the visit to the
tomb, and come back here to dejeuner. After that we can arrange
about the rest of the day."

"Very good. Then let us have something to eat at once."

"Who's Prince George of England?" demanded Monsignor presently as
they sat over coffee.

Father Jervis laughed.

"You've found that out, have you? Yes, he's here, of course.
Well, he's the second son: he's only a boy. He's over here to
represent the King. Every sovereign sends a prince of the
blood-royal for to-day. Even the German Emperor."

"Do you mean from Europe?"

"I mean from the whole world. You see the East is scarcely three
days away by the fast volors; so even the Chinese----"

"Do you mean that China and Japan send representatives?"

"Certainly. Japan is Christian of course, anyhow; and China has
at least one or two Christian princes of the blood."

"By the way, what about Russia?"

"Well, what about it?"

"Is it Catholic?"

"My dear Monsignor, it's been Catholic for thirty years."

"Oh dear me! You must lend me some more histories. . . . What
made it Catholic?"

"Common sense, I suppose. How they could have stood out for so
long is the only thing that puzzles me."

"But the Petrine claims----"

"Why, the Petrine claims were the very point. Facts were too
strong. If you look back over history you can't help seeing that
the only Christian body that was ever able to resist Erastianism
on the one side and endless division on the other has been the
Church built on Peter. They began to see it nearly a hundred
years ago in Russia and Greece. Then the Emperor of Russia was
secretly reconciled in 1930; and ten or twelve years later his
people followed him."

"Then there's no more dispute? What about the _Filioque_ clause?"

"Why, when Peter is accepted, the rest follows."

"Then you may say that the entire civilized world is represented
in Rome to-day?"

"Certainly. You'll see the princes in the procession."



(II)

An hour later they took their places at the central window of the
long sala on the third floor, looking out immediately upon the
narrow street, which, opposite, fell back into a tiny square, and
further up to the right, upon the enormous piazza of St. Peter's
and the basilica itself behind.

It was a real Roman day--not yet at its full heat, but intensely
clear and bright; and Monsignor congratulated himself on having
elected to remain as a spectator. The return journey from the
Lateran about noon would be something of an ordeal.

The street and the piazza presented an astonishingly brilliant
appearance. Beneath, the roadway was now one sheet of
greenery--box, myrtle, and bay. The houses opposite, as well as
within the little square, of which every window was packed with
heads, were almost completely hidden under the tapestries, the
carpets, the banners. Behind the barriers on either side of the
garlanded masts was one mass of heads resembling a cobbled
pavement. So much for sight. For sound, the air was filled with
one steady low roar of voices; for down to where the street opened
far away to the left into the space above the river, the same
vista presented itself. The Campagna since twenty-four hours
before had been emptying every living inhabitant into Rome; and
there was not a town in Italy, and scarcely in Europe, whence
special volors and trains had not carried the fervent to the Feast
of the Apostles in Holy Rome. And, for scent, the air was sweet
and fragrant with the aromatic herbs of the roadway, already
bruised a little by the feet of the galloping horses of those that
went up and down to guard the route or to carry messages.

It was a little hard to make out the arrangements of the vast
circular piazza in front of St. Peter's. The front of the
basilica was hung, in usual Roman fashion, with gigantic garlands
and red cloth; and the carpet of greenery lined with troops ran
straight up the centre of the space, rippled over the steps, and
ceased only beneath the towering portico of the church. But on
either side of this, with spaces between, stood enormous groups
of men and horses, marshalled, no doubt, in order to take their
places at the proper moment in the procession.

At the right, immovable and tremendous, rose up the great palace
of the Vatican itself, unadorned except where a glint of some
colour showed itself at the Bronze Doors; and above all, like a
benediction in stone, against the vivid blue of the sky, hung the
dome of the basilica.

Monsignor Masterman made a long, keen survey of all this. Then he
leaned back and sighed.

"What was the first year that the Pope came out of the
Vatican like this?"

"The year after the conquest of United Italy. It was Austria that----"

"I know all that. And you mean he never came out so long as the
old state of affairs continued?"

"How could he? Don't you see that the one thing, humanly
speaking, absolutely necessary if the world was to have
confidence in the Church, was that the Pope should be really
supra-national? Of course, for many years he had to be an
Italian--that's obvious, since he was at the mercy of Italy, and
the Romans would never have stood a foreigner; and that made it
all the more essential that he should be cut clean off, in
everything else, from Italian sympathies. He had to be two
things simultaneously, so to speak--emphatically an Italian for
the sake of Italy and indeed his own existence in Rome; and
emphatically not an Italian for the sake of the rest of
Christendom. And can you suggest any other way of accomplishing
this paradox? I can't."

Monsignor sighed again and began to meditate.

For somewhere at the back of his mind there ran an undercurrent
of thought, or as of some one talking, to the effect that the
Pope's old method of remaining as a prisoner in the Vatican was a
foolish and unhumble pose. (He supposed he must have read it all
somewhere in history.) Surely even Catholics used to talk like
that! They used to say how much more spiritual and Christian it
would have been, had the Vicar of Christ acquiesced and been
content to live as a simple Italian subject, neither claiming nor
desiring a position such as Peter had never enjoyed. Why all this
fuss, it used to be asked, about a Temporal Power on behalf of a
"Kingdom that was not of this world"?

Yet, somehow, now as he looked back on it all, with his friend's
comment in his mind, he began to see, not how clever or
diplomatic had been the old attitude, but how absolutely and
obviously essential. It was possible indeed for Peter to be a
subject of Nero in things pertaining to Caesar; but how could
that be possible to Peter's successor when the Kingdom of Christ
which he ruled on earth had become a Supra-national Society to
which the nations of the earth looked for guidance?

The phrase he had just heard ran in his mind.

"An Italian for the sake of Italy and his own existence in Rome.
Not an Italian for the sake of the rest of Christendom."

It seemed simple, somehow, just like that.

He was roused by a touch on his knee, and simultaneously was
aware of a new sound from the piazza.

"Look," said the old priest sharply. "They're beginning to move."



(III)

A curious seething movement had broken out in the piazza,
resembling the stir of a troubled ant-hill, on either side of the
broad green way down which the Pope would come; and already into
the head of the street up which the priests looked figures were
emerging. Simultaneously a crash of brazen music had filled the
air. A movement of attention, exactly like the lift of a swell
along the foot of a cliff, passed down the crowded street to the
left and lost itself round the corner towards S. Angelo.

Then they began to come, swinging over from the piazza to the
street as if from a pool into a narrow channel. Troops came
first--company after company--each with a band leading. First
the Austrian guard in white and gold on white chargers--passing
from the flash and dazzle their uniforms threw back in the
sunlight into the glow of the shadowed street. And then, by the
time that the Austrians were passing below the window, came
troop after troop down from the piazza in all the uniforms of
the civilized world.

At first Father Jervis murmured a name or two; he even laid his
hand upon his friend's arm as the Life-guards of England came
clashing by with their imperturbable faces above their silver
splendour; but presently the amazing spectacle forming in the
piazza, and, above all, on the steps of St. Peter's, silenced
them both. Monsignor Masterman gave scarcely a glance even to the
monstrous figures of the Chinese imperial guard, who went by
presently in black armour and vizarded helmets, like old Oriental
gods. For in the piazza itself the procession of princes was
forming; and the steps of the basilica already began to burn with
purple and scarlet where the Cardinals and the Papal Court were
making ready for the coming of the Lord of them all.

And then, at last, he came. . . .

Monsignor Masterman had begun to stare, almost with unintelligent
eyes, at the thronged street, beneath, watching the great
carriages come past, each surmounted by a crown with its proper
supporters, each surrounded by a small guard drawn from the
troops that had ridden by just now. He identified a few here and
there; and his heart gave a strange leap as the Imperial Crown of
England came in sight, held up by the Lion and the Unicorn, and
beneath it, within the gilded coach, the face of a boy capped and
robed in scarlet. And then he looked up again, startled by a
silence broken only by the footsteps of the horses and the wheels
over the matted roadway, and the murmur of talking.

The piazza was now one sea of white and purple, with emblems, gold
and silver and jewelled, shining here and there; the green strip
was gone; for the Papal procession was begun; and then, on the
instant, as he looked, there was a new group standing beneath the
giant columns of the portico, and the cry of the silver trumpets
told to the thousands that waited that the Vicar of Christ had
come out into this city that was again the City of God.

Very slowly he came down the steps, a tiny white and gemmed
figure, yet perfectly visible on the high throne on which he was
borne, his hand swaying as he came, and the huge fans moving
behind him like protecting deities. Down and down he came, while
the trumpets cried, and the waves of colour followed him, and
then vanished for a time among the crowd beneath, as he reached
the level ground.

Monsignor Masterman leaned back and closed his eyes. . . .

He was disturbed by another touch on his arm; and, looking up,
perceived that his friend was attracting his attention almost
mechanically, and without looking at him.

"Look," murmured Father Jervis--"it's the white jennet."

Beneath, the street was now as wholly ecclesiastical as it had
been military just before, except that the Papal zouaves marched
in single file on either side of the procession. But within there
was just one packed army, going eight abreast, of seminarians and
clerics. These were just passing as the priest looked again, and
close on their heels came the Court and the Cardinals; the latter
an indescribable glory of scarlet, riding four abreast in broad
hats and ample cloaks. But he gave scarcely more than a glance at
these; for, full in sight for at least half a minute, advancing
straight towards him down the roaring street, moved a canopy held
by figures he could not clearly make out, and beneath it,
detached and perfectly visible, on a white horse, a white figure,
its shoulders just draped in scarlet and its head shadowed by a
great scarlet hat, came slowly towards him.



(IV)

And so the day went by like a dream; and the man who still seemed
to himself as one risen from the dead into a new and wholly
bewildering world, watched and gathered impressions and
assimilated them. Once or twice during the day he found himself
at meals with Father Jervis; he asked questions now and then and
scarcely heard the answers; he talked with ecclesiastics a little
who came and went; but, for the most part almost unknown to
himself, he worked interiorly, busy as a bee, building up, not so
much facts as realizations, into the new and strange
world-edifice that was gradually forming about him. He was
present at the visit of the Pope to the tomb of the Apostle, and
watched from a tribune, even then so concentrated on observation
that he was hardly conscious of connected thought, as the vast
doors rolled back and a vision as of such a celestial troop as
was dreamed of by the old Italian painters came up out of the
vivid sunlight into the cool darkness of the basilica, as the
roofs gave back the roaring of the fervent thousands and the
clear cry of the silver trumpets; watched as the army of
ecclesiastics deployed this way and that, and the Father of
Princes and Kings came on between his royal children to the gates
of the Confession ringed by the golden lamps, and went down to
kneel by the body of the first Fisherman-King.

And again at Vespers, from the same tribune, he heard the peal of
the new great organs in the dome, and the psalm-melodies rocking
from side to side between the massed choirs; he glanced now and
again at the royal tribune opposite, where, each beneath a
canopy, the rulers of the earth sat together to do honour to the
Lord and His Anointed. And, above all, he watched, still with
that steady set face that made Father Jervis look at him once or
twice, the central figure of all, now on his throne, with his
assistants beside him, now passing up to the altar to incense it,
and finally passing out again on the _sedia gestatoria_ to the
palace where at last he ruled indeed.

Last of all, as the sun began to sink behind the monstrous dome,
and Rome stood out like an Oriental city of dreams, and the
purple lights came out on the low-lying hills, and the
illuminations glowed from every window, and blazed beneath the
feet and round the heads of the gigantic apostolic figures
gathered round their Lord--there, watching again from his window,
he saw, in a sudden hush over the heads of the countless crowds
the tiny white figure standing above the tapestries with the
Papal triple cross glinting beside him like a thread, and heard
the thin voice, gnat-like and clear, declare the "help of the
Lord who," as the thunder of the square answered him, "hath made
heaven and earth," and then invoke upon the city and the world,
before the tremendous _Amen_, the blessing of God Almighty,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.




CHAPTER VI



(I)

It was a few minutes after they had finished their almost silent
meal that evening, that Monsignor suddenly leaned forward from his
chair in the great cool loggia and passed his hands over his eyes
like a sleepy man. From the streets outside still came the murmur
of innumerable footsteps and voices and snatches of music.

"Tired?" asked the other gently. (He had not spoken for some
minutes, and remembering the long silence, had wondered if, after
all, it had been wise to bring a man with such an experience
behind him to such a rush and excitement as that through which
they had passed to-day.)

Monsignor said nothing for an instant. He looked round the room,
opened and closed his lips, and then, leaning back again,
suddenly smiled. Then he took up the pipe he had laid aside just
now and blew through it.

"No," he said. "Exactly the opposite. I feel awake at last."

"Eh?"

"It seems to have got into me at last. All this . . . all this
very odd world. I have begun to see."

"Please explain."

Monsignor began to fill his pipe slowly.

"Well, Versailles, even, didn't quite do it," he said. "It
seemed to me a kind of game--certainly a very pleasant one;
but----" (He broke off.) "But what we've seen to-day seems
somehow the real thing."

"I don't quite understand."

"Well, I can see for myself now that all that you've told me is
real--that the world's really Christian, and so on. It was those
Chinese guards, I think, which as much as anything----"

"Chinese? . . . I don't remember them."

The prelate smiled again.

"Well, I scarcely noticed them at the time, either. But I've been
thinking about them. And then all the rest of it . . . and the
Pope. . . . By the way, I couldn't make out his face very well.
Is that a picture of him?"

He stood up suddenly and stepped across to where the portrait
hung. There was nothing very startling about the picture. It
showed just a very ordinary face with straight closed lips, of a
man seated in an embossed chair, with the familiar white cap,
cassock, and embroidered stole with spade-ends.

"He looks quite ordinary," mused Monsignor aloud. "It's . . .
it's like the face of a business man."

"Oh yes, he's ordinary. He's an extremely good man and quite
intelligent. He's never had any very great crisis to face, you know.
They say he's a good financier. . . . You look disappointed."

"I hadn't expected him to look like that," said the prelate, musing.

"Why not?"

"Well, he seems to have an extraordinary position in the world. I
should have expected more of a----"

"More of a great man? Monsignor, don't you think that the Average
Man makes the best ruler?"

"But that's rank Democracy!"

"Not at all. Democracy doesn't give the Average Man any real
power at all. It swamps him among his fellows--that is to say, it
kills his individuality; and his individuality is the one thing
he has which is worth anything."

Monsignor sat down again, sighing.

"Well, I think it's got into me at last," he repeated. "I mean, I
think I really realize what the world's like now. But I want to
see a great deal more, you know."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, I don't quite know. . . . You might call it the waterline
between Faith and Science. I see the Faith side. I understand
that the life of the world moves on Catholicism now; but I don't
quite realize yet how all that joins on to Science. In my day----"
(he broke off) "I mean I had a kind of idea that there was a gap
between Faith and Science--if not actual contradictions. How do
they join on to one another? What's the average scientific
attitude towards religion? Do people on both sides just say that
each must pursue its own line, even if they never meet?"

Father Jervis looked puzzled.

"I don't quite understand. There's no conflict between Faith and
Science. A large proportion of the scientists are
ecclesiastics."

"But what's the meeting-point? That's what I don't see."

The priest shook his head, smiling.

"I simply don't know what you mean, Monsignor. Give me an example."

"Well . . . er . . . what about Faith-healing? The dispute used
to be, I think, as to the explanation of certain cures. (Mr.
Manners spoke of it, you know.) Psychologists used to say that
the cures happened by suggestion; and Catholics used to say that
they were supernatural. How have they become reconciled?"

Father Jervis considered a moment.

"I don't think I've ever thought of it like that," he said. "I
think I should say--" (he hesitated) "I think I should say that
everybody believes now that the power of God does everything;
and that in some cases He works through suggestion, and in some
through supernatural forces about which we don't know very
much. But I don't think it matters much (does it?), if you
believe in God."

"That doesn't explain what I mean."

The door opened abruptly and a servant came in. He bowed.

"The Bishop of Sebaste enquires whether you are at home, Monsignor?"

Monsignor glanced at Father Jervis.

"He's come out as chaplain to Prince George," explained the
priest in rapid Latin. "We'd better see him."

"Very good. . . . Yes," said Monsignor.

He turned to the priest again.

"Hadn't you better tell him about me?"

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not."

Father Jervis got up and slipped quickly out of the room.

"I'm delighted to see you again, Monsignor," began the Bishop,
coming in, followed by Father Jervis three minutes later.

Monsignor straightened himself after the kissing of the ring.

"You're very kind, my lord," he said.

As the Bishop sat down, he examined him carefully, noticing that
there was nothing noticeable about him. He seemed a
characteristic prelate--large, genial, ruddy and smiling, with
bright eyes and well-cut mouth. He was in his purple and
ferraiuola, and carried himself briskly and cheerfully.

"I came to see if you were going to the reception to-night. If
so, we might go together. But it's rather late!"

"We haven't heard about that."

"Oh! it's purely informal. The Holy Father probably won't appear
himself, except perhaps for a moment."

"Oh! At the Vatican?"

"Yes. There will be an enormous crowd, of course. . . . The Prince
has gone to bed, poor little chap! He's done up altogether; and I
thought of slipping over for a half-hour or so."

Monsignor glanced at his friend.

"I think it would be an excellent thing," observed the old priest.

"Well, there's a carriage waiting," said the Bishop, rising.
"I think we'd better go, if we're going. We shall be back
within the hour."



(II)

It was within ten minutes of the time that the three had arranged
to meet again at the foot of the Scala Regia that Monsignor
suddenly realized that he had lost himself.

He had wandered for half an hour, after making his salutations to
the Master of the Apostolic Palace, who, in the Pope's absence,
was receiving the visitors; and, at first with Father Jervis and
the Bishop, who had pointed out to him the notabilities, and
presently drifting from them in the crowds, by himself, had gone
up and down and in and out through endless corridors, courts,
loggie, and great reception-rooms of the enormous place, watching
the amazing crowds, and exchanging bows and nods with persons who
bowed and nodded to him.

The whole system of the thing seemed new to him. He had imagined
(he scarcely knew why) the Vatican to be a place of silence and
solemn dignity and darkness, with a few sentries here and there,
a few prelates, a cardinal or two--with occasionally a group of
very particular visitors, or, on still rarer occasions, a troop
of pilgrims being escorted to some sight or some audience.

Certainly it was not at all like this to-night.

First, the whole place was illuminated in nearly every window.
Huge electric lights blazed behind screens in all the courts;
bands of music were stationed at discreet intervals one from
another; and through every section that he went, through
corridors, reception-rooms, up and down stairways, seething in
every court, streaming through every passage and thoroughfare,
moved a multitude of persons--largely ecclesiastics, but also
very largely otherwise (though there were no ladies
present)--talking, questioning, laughing, wholly, it seemed, at
their ease, and appearing to find nothing unusual in the entire
affair. Here and there in some of the great rooms small courts
seemed to be in process--a company of perhaps thirty or forty
would be standing round two or three notabilities who sat. There
was usually a cardinal here, sometimes two or three; and on three
or four occasions he saw what he imagined must be royalty of some
kind, seated with a cardinal, while the rest stood.

It was to him a very extraordinary spectacle, in spite of his
further initiation that day into this new world, so utterly
unfamiliar to him; and it seemed once more to drive home to his
consciousness this strange state of affairs of which his friend
had tried to persuade him, but which he yet found difficult
wholly to take in. Certainly the world and the Church seemed on
very cordial terms. . . .

But now he had lost himself altogether. He had wandered up a long
corridor, thinking that it would lead him back to the Court of St.
Damasus, whence he knew his way well enough; and he now paused,
hesitating. For it seemed to him that every step he was taking led
him farther from the lights and the din of voices and music.

He could see behind him, framed in a huge open doorway, as on an
illuminated disc, a kaleidoscope of figures moving; and in front,
as he stood, the corridor, although here the lights burned as
brilliantly as elsewhere, seemed to lead away into comparative
darkness. Yet he felt certain of his direction.

Then, as he stood, a door opened somewhere in front, and he thought
he heard voices talking again. It reassured him, and he went on.

It was not until he found himself in a small lobby (comparatively
small that is, for it was not less than forty feet square, and
the painted coffered ceiling was twenty feet above his head),
that he stopped again, completely bewildered. There was no longer
any sound to guide him, for he had closed a couple of
passage-doors behind him as he came; and he noticed that
practically complete silence was on all sides; a single
illuminated half-globe shone gently from the ceiling overhead.

He stood some time considering and listening to the silence, till
he became aware that it was not silence. There was a very faint
murmur of a voice behind one of the four doors that opened on
this lobby; and beside the door there rested (he now noticed for
the first time) the halberd of a Swiss, as if the soldier had
just been called within. This decided him; he went to the door,
laid his hand upon the handle, and immediately the murmur ceased.
He pushed down the handle and opened the door.

For a moment as he stared within he could not understand: he had
expected a passage--a guard-room--at least something secular. Yet
it was some kind of a chapel or sacristy into which he was
looking: he observed the outline of an altar with its crucifix;
and two figures.

Then one of the figures--in the habit of a Franciscan,
barefooted, with a purple stole across its shoulders--had sprung
towards him, and half pushed, half waved him backwards again.

"What are you doing here? How dare you----I beg pardon,
Monsignor, but----"

"I beg pardon, father; I had lost my way. . . . I am a stranger."

"Back--back that way, Monsignor," stammered the friar. "The guard
should have told you."

The truth was dawning on the prelate little by little, helped by
the flash of the other kneeling white figure he had seen within.

"Yes," stammered the friar again. "The Holy Father. Back that
way, Monsignor. Yes, yes--that door straight opposite."

It was over; the two doors had closed almost simultaneously, behind
the friar as he had gone back to his duty, and behind the priest
who now stood again at the end of the long corridor down which he
had come. He stood here now, strangely moved and affected.

He had seen nothing remarkable in itself--the Pope at confession.
And yet in some manner, beyond the startling fact that he had
groped his way, all unknowing, to the Pope's private apartments,
and at such a moment, the dramatic contrast between the glare and
noise of the reception outside--itself the climax of a series of
brilliant external splendours--and the silent half-lighted chapel
where the Lord of All kneeled to confess his sins, caused a
surprising disturbance in his soul.

Up to now he had been introduced step by step into a new set of
experiences, Christian indeed, yet amazingly worldly in their
aspect; he had begun to learn that religion could transform the
outer world, and affect and use for its own purposes all the
pomps and glories of outward existence; he had begun to realize
that there was nothing alien to God--no line of division between
the Creator and the creature; and now, in one instant, he had
been brought face to face again with inner realities, and had
seen, as it were, a glimpse of the secret core of all the
splendour. The Pope attended by princes--the Pope on his knees
before a barefooted friar. These were the two magnetic points
between which blazed Religion.

He stood there, trembling a little, trying to steady his bewildered
brain--even now, in spite of his years, not unlike the brain of a
child. He passed his tongue over his suddenly dry lips. Then he
began to move down the passage again, to find his friends.




CHAPTER VII



(I)

"What I can't yet quite understand," said Monsignor, "is that
point I mentioned the other day about Faith and Science. I don't
see where one ends and the other begins. It seems to me that the
controversy must be unending. The materialist says that since
Nature does all things, even the most amazing things must be done
by her--that we shall be able to explain them all some day, when
Science has got a little farther. And the theologian says that
some things are so evidently out of the reach of Nature that they
must be done by a supernatural power. Well, where's the point of
reconciliation?"

Father Jervis was silent for a while.

   *   *   *   *   *

The two were sitting on the upper deck of an air-ship towards
evening, travelling straight towards the setting sun.

He had grown almost accustomed to such views by now; and yet the
sight that had been unrolling itself gradually during the last
half-hour had held him fascinated for minute after minute. They
had taken ship in Rome after a day or two more of sight-seeing,
and had moved up the peninsula by stages, changing boats soon
after crossing the frontier, for one of the high-flying, more
leisurely and more luxurious vessels on which the more wealthy
classes travelled. They were due in Lourdes that evening; and,
ever since the higher peaks of the Pyrenees had come into sight,
had moved over a vision of bewildering beauty. To their left rose
the mountains, forming, it seemed to them at the height at which
they travelled, an enormous jagged and gigantic pile, hard-lined
as steel, yet irradiated with long rays, patches, and pools of
golden sunset-light alternated by amazing depths of the shadow
whose tones ran from peacock to indigo. Then from the feet of the
tumbled pile there ran out what appeared a loosely flung carpet
vivid and yet a soft green, patched here and there with white
towns, embroideries of woodland, lines of silver water. Yet this
too was changing as they watched the shadows grow longer with
almost visible movement. New and strange colours, varying about a
fixed note of blue according to the nature of that with which the
earth was covered, slowly came into being. Here, in front, now
and again a patch of water glowed suddenly, three thousand feet
beneath, as it met the shifting angle between the eye and the
sun; and beyond, far out across the darkening plain, shone the
remote line of the sea, itself ablaze with gold, and above and
about in every quarter burned the enormous luminous dome of sky.

   *   *   *   *   *

"I can't put it all accurately," said Father Jervis at last. "I
mean I can't tell you off-hand all the tests that are exactly
applied to every case. But it's something like this. . . ."

He paused.

"Yes, tell me," said the other, still staring out at the softly
rolling landscape.

"Well, first," began the old priest slowly, "in the last fifty
years we've classified almost exhaustively everything that nature
can do. We know, for instance, for certain, that in certain kinds
of temperaments body and mind are in far greater sympathy than in
others; and that if, in such a temperament as this, the mind can
be fully persuaded that such and such a thing is going to
happen--a thing within the range of natural possibility, of
course--it will happen, merely through the action of the mind
upon the body."

"Give me an instance."

"Well" (he hesitated again) . . . "well, I'm not a physician, and
cannot define accurately; but there are certain nervous
diseases--hysterical simulation, nervous affections such as St.
Vitus' dance--as well, of course, as purely mental diseases, such
as certain kinds of insanity---"

"Oh, those," said the other contemptuously.

"Wait a minute. These, I say, given the right temperament and
receptiveness to suggestion, can be cured _instantaneously_."

"Instantaneously?"

"Certainly--given those conditions. Then there are certain other
diseases, very closely related to the nervous system, in which
there have been changes of tissue, not only in the brain, but in
the organs or the limbs. And these, too, can be cured by mere
natural suggestion; but--and this is the point--not
instantaneously. In cases of this kind, cured in this way, there
is always needed a period, I won't say as long as, but
proportionate to, the period during which the disease had been
developing and advancing. I forget the exact proportions now, but
I think, so far as I remember, that at least two-thirds of the
time is required for recovery by suggestion as was occupied by
the growth of the disease. Take _lupus_. That certainly belongs to
the class I'm speaking of. Well, lupus has been cured in mental
laboratories, but never instantaneously or anything like
instantaneously."

"Go on, father."

"Finally, there are those physical states that have practically
nothing to do directly with the nervous system at all. Take a
broken leg. Of course the cure of a broken leg is affected by
the state of the nervous system, since it depends upon the
amount of vital energy, the state of the blood, and so on. But
there are distinct processes of change of tissue that are bound
to take a certain fixed period. You may--as has been proved over
and over again in the mental laboratories--hasten and direct the
action of the nervous energy, so that a man under hypnotic
suggestion will improve more rapidly than a man who is not. But
no amount of suggestion can possibly effect a cure
instantaneously. Tuberculosis is another such thing; certain
diseases of the heart---"

"I see. Go on."

"Well, then, science has fixed certain periods in all these
various matters which simply cannot be lessened beyond a certain
point. And miracle does not begin--authorized miracle, I
mean--unless these periods are markedly shortened. Mere mental
cures, therefore, do not come under the range of authorized
miracle at all--though, of course, in many cases where there has
been little or no suggestion, or where the temperament is not
receptive, practically speaking, the miraculous element is most
probably present. In the second class--organic nervous
diseases--no miracle is proclaimed unless the cure is
instantaneous, or very nearly so. In the third class, again, no
miracle is proclaimed unless the cure is either instantaneous, or
the period of it very considerably shortened beyond all known
examples of natural cure by suggestion."

"And you mean to say that such cures are frequent?"

The old priest smiled.

"Why, of course. There is an accumulation of evidence from the
past hundred years which----"

"Broken limbs?"

"Oh yes; there's the case of Pierre de Rudder, at Oostacker, in
the nineteenth century. That's the first of the series--the
first, I mean, that has been scientifically examined. It's in all
the old books."

"What was the matter with him?"

"Leg broken below the knee for eight years."

"And how long did the cure take?"

"Instantaneous."

There was silence again.

Monsignor was staring out and downwards at the flitting
meadow-land far below. A flock of white birds moved across the
darkening grey, like flying specks seen in the eye, yet it seemed
with extraordinary slowness and deliberation, so great was the
distance at which they flew. He sighed.

"You can examine the records," said the priest presently; "and,
better than that, you can examine some of the cases for yourself,
and the certificates. They follow still the old system which Dr.
Boissarie began nearly a century ago."

"What about Zola?" demanded Monsignor abruptly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Zola, the great French writer. I thought he had . . . had
advanced some very sharp criticisms of Lourdes."

"Er--when did he live?"

"Why, not long ago; nineteenth century, at the end."

Father Jervis shook his head, smiling.

"I've never heard of him," he said, "and I thought I knew Lourdes
literature pretty well. I'll enquire."

"Look," said the prelate suddenly; "what's that place
we're coming to?"

He nodded forward with his head to where vast white lines and
patches began to be visible on the lower slopes and at the foot of
long spurs that had suddenly come into sight against the sunset.

"Why, that's Lourdes."



(II)

As the two priests came out next morning from the west doors of the
tall church where they had said their masses, Monsignor stopped.

"Let me try to take it in a moment," he said.

   *   *   *   *   *

They were standing on the highest platform of the pile of three
churches that had been raised over a hundred years ago, now in the
very centre of the enormous city that had grown little by little
around the sacred place. Beneath them, straight in front,
approached from where they stood by two vast sweeps of balustraded
steps, lay the _Place_, perhaps sixty feet beneath, of the shape of
an elongated oval, bounded on this side and that by the old
buildings where the doctors used to have their examination rooms,
now used for a hundred minor purposes connected with the churches
and the grotto. At the farther end of the Place, behind the old
bronze statue of Mary, rose up the comparatively new _Bureau de
Constatations_--a great hall (as the two had seen last night),
communicating with countless consulting- and examination-rooms,
where the army of State-paid doctors carried on their work. The
whole of the open Place between these buildings crawled with
humanity--not yet packed as it would be by evening--yet already
sufficiently filled by the two ever-flowing streams--the one
passing downwards to where the grotto lay out of sight on the
left, the other passing up towards the lower entrance of the great
hall. It resembled an amphitheatre, and the more so, since the
roofs of the buildings on every side, as well as the slope up
which the steps rose to the churches, adapted now as they were to
accommodate at least three hundred thousand spectators, were
already beginning to show groups and strings of onlookers who came
up here to survey the city.

On the right, beyond the Place, lay the old town, sloping up now,
up even to the medieval castle, which fifty years ago had stood
in lonely detachment, but now was faced on hill-top after
hill-top, at its own level, by the enormous nursing homes and
hostels, which under the direction of the Religious Orders had
gradually grown up about this shrine of healing, until now, up to
a height of at least five hundred feet, the city of Mary stood on
bastion after bastion of the lower slopes of the hills, like some
huge auditorium of white stone, facing down towards the river and
the Holy Place.

Finally, on the left, immediately to the left of the two
priests who stood silently looking, fifty feet below, ran the
sweep of the Gave, crossed by innumerable bridges which gave
access to the crowding town beyond the water, where once had
been nothing but meadowland and the beginning of the great
southern plain of France.

There was an air of extraordinary peace and purity about this
place, thought Monsignor. Whiteness was the predominating
colour--whiteness beneath, and whiteness running up high on the
right on to the hills--and above the amazing blue of the southern
sky. It was high and glorious summer about them, with a breeze as
intoxicating as wine and as fresh as water. From across the Place
they could hear the quick flapping of the huge Mary banner that
flew above the hall, for there were no wheels or motors here to
crush out the acuteness of the ear. The transference of the sick
from the hostels above the town was carried out by
aeroplanes--great winged decks, with awnings above and at the
sides, that slid down as if on invisible lines, to the entrance
of the other side of the hall, whence after a daily examination
by the doctors they were taken on by hand-litters to the grotto
or the bathing-pools.

   *    *   *   *   *

Monsignor heard a step behind him as he stood and looked, still
pathetically bewildered by all that he saw, and still struggling,
in spite of himself, with a new upbreak of scepticism; and
turning, saw Father Jervis in the act of greeting a young monk in
the Benedictine habit.

"I knew we should meet. I heard you were here," the old man was
exclaiming. "You remember Monsignor Masterman?"

They shook hands, and Monsignor was not disappointed in
his friend's tact.

"Father Adrian absolutely haunts Lourdes nowadays," went on
Father Jervis. "I wonder his superiors allow him. And how's the
book getting on?"

The monk smiled. He was an exceedingly pleasant person to look
upon, with a thin, refined face and large, startlingly blue eyes.
He shook his head as he smiled.

"I'm getting frightened," he said. "I cannot see with the theologians
in all points. Well, the least said, the soonest mended."

Father Jervis' face had fallen a little. There was distinct
anxiety in his eyes.

"When will the book be out?" he asked quickly.

"I'm revising for the last time," said the other shortly. "And
you, Monsignor? . . . I had heard of your illness."

"Oh, Monsignor's nearly himself again. And will you take us into
the Bureau?" asked the old priest.

The young monk nodded.

"I shall be there all day," he said. "Ask for me at any time."

"Monsignor wants to see for himself. He wants to see a case
straight through. Is there anything----"

"Why, there's the very thing," interrupted the monk. (He fumbled
in his pocket a moment.) "Yes, here's the leaflet that was issued
last night." (He held out a printed piece of paper to Monsignor.)
"Read that through."

The prelate took it.

"What's the case?" he asked.

"The leaflet will give you the details. It's decay of the optic
nerve--a Russian from St. Petersburg. Both eyes completely blind,
the nerves destroyed, and he saw light yesterday for the first
time. He'll be down from the Russian hospice about eleven. We
expect a cure to-day or to-morrow."

"Well," said Father Jervis, "we mustn't detain you. Then, if we
look in about eleven?"

The monk nodded and smiled as he moved off.

"Certainly," he said. "At eleven then."

Monsignor turned to his friend.

"Well?"

Father Jervis shook his head.

"It's a sad business," he said. "That's Dom Adrian Bennett. He's
very daring. He's had one warning from Rome; but he's so
extraordinarily clever that it's very hard to silence him. He's
not exactly heretical; but he will work along lines that have
already been decided."

"Dear me! He seems very charming."

"Certainly. He is most charming, and utterly sincere. He's got the
entree everywhere here. He is a first-rate scientist, by the way.
But, Monsignor, I'd sooner not talk about him. Do you mind?"

"But what's his subject? Tell me that."

"It's the miraculous element in religion," said the priest
shortly. "Come, we must go to our coffee."



(III)

The hall was already crowded in every part as the two priests
looked in at the lower end a few minutes before eleven o'clock.
It was arranged more or less like a theatre, with a broad gangway
running straight up from the doors at one end to the foot of the
stage at the other. The stage itself, with a statue of Mary
towering at the back, communicated with the examination-rooms
behind the two doors, one on either side of the image.

"What's going on?" whispered Monsignor, as he glanced up first on
this side and that, at the array of heads that listened, and then
at the two figures that occupied the stage.

"It's a doctor lecturing on a cure. This goes on nearly all day.
We must get round to the back somehow."

As they passed in at last from the outside through the private
door through which the doctors and privileged persons had access
behind the stage, they heard a storm of clapping and voices from
the direction of the public hall on their right.

"That's finished then. Follow me, Monsignor."

They went through a passage or two, after their guide--a young
man in uniform--seeing as they went, through half-open doors here
and there, quite white rooms, glimpses of men in white, and once
at least a litter being set down; and came at last into what
looked like some kind of committee-room, lighted by tall windows
on the left, with a wide horseshoe table behind which sat perhaps
a dozen men, each wearing on his left breast the red and white
cross which marked them as experts. Opposite the examiners, but
half hidden from the two priests by the back of his tall chair,
sat the figure of a man.

Their guide went up to the end of the table, and almost
immediately they saw Father Adrian stand up and beckon to them.

"I've kept you two chairs," he whispered when they came up. "And
you'd better wear these crosses. They'll admit you anywhere." (He
pointed to the two red and white badges that hung over the backs
of their chairs.)

"Are we in time?"

"You're a little late," whispered the monk. Then he turned again
towards the patient, a typical fair-haired, bearded Russian with
closed eyes, who at that moment was answering some question put
to him by the presiding doctor in the centre.

The monk turned again.

"Can you understand Russian?"

Monsignor shook his head.

"Well, I'll tell you afterwards," said the other.

   *   *   *   *   *

It seemed very strange to be sitting here, in this quiet room,
after the rush and push of the enormous crowds through which they
had made their way this morning. The air of the room was
exceedingly business-like, and not in the least even suggestive
of religion, except in the matter of a single statue of Our Lady
of Lourdes on a bracket on the wall above the President's head.
And these dozen men who sat here seemed quietly business-like
too. They sat here, men of various ages and nationalities, all in
the thin white doctor's dress, with papers spread before them,
and a few strange instruments scattered here and there, leaning
forward or leaning back, but all intently listening to and
watching the Russian, who, still with closed eyes, answered the
short questions put to him continuously by the President. There
seemed no religious excitement even in the air; the atmosphere
was one, rather, of simple science.

There seemed something faintly familiar in all this to the man
who had lost his memory. . . . Certainly he had known of Lourdes
as soon as it was mentioned to him, and he seemed now to
remember that some such claim to be perfectly scientific had
always been made by the authorities of the place. But he had
supposed, somehow, that the claim was a false one. . . .

The Russian suddenly rose.

"Well!" whispered Monsignor sharply as the doctors began to talk.

The monk smiled.

"He's just said an interesting thing. The President asked him
just now whether he had seen anything of the crowds as he came
down this morning."

"Yes?"

"He said that people looked like trees moving about. . . . Oh no!
he didn't know he was making a quotation. Look! he's going down
to the grotto. He'll be back in half an hour to report."

Monsignor leaned back in his chair.

"And you tell me that the optic nerves were destroyed?"

The monk looked at him in wide-eyed wonder.

"Certainly. He was examined on Tuesday, when he came.
To-day's Friday."

"And you believe he'll be cured?"

"I shall be very much surprised if he's not."

There was a stir by the door as the Russian disappeared. A young,
bright-eyed doctor looked in and nodded, and the next instant a
brancardier appeared, followed by a litter.

"But how have you time to examine all these thousands of cases?"
asked the prelate, watching the litter advance.

"Oh, not one in a hundred comes through to us here. Besides,
this is only one of a dozen committee-rooms. It's only the most
sensational cases--where there's real organic injury of a
really serious kind--that ever come at all before the highest
courts. Cases, I mean, where, if there's a cure, the
publication of the miracle follows as a matter of course. . . .
What's this case, I wonder?" he ended sharply, glancing down at
the printed paper before him, and then up again at the litter
that was being arranged.

Monsignor looked too at the paper that lay before him. Some
thirty paragraphs, carefully numbered, dated, and signed, gave,
as it seemed, a list of the cases to be examined.

"Number fourteen," murmured the monk.

Number fourteen, it appeared, was a case of fractured spine--a
young girl, aged sixteen; a German. The accident had happened
four months before. The notes, signed by half a dozen names,
described the complete paralysis below the waist, with a few
other medical details.

Monsignor looked again at the girl on the other side of the
table, guarded by the brancardiers and a couple of doctors, while
the monk talked to him rapidly in Latin. He saw her closed eyes
and colourless lips.

"This case has attracted a good deal of attention," whispered
the monk. "The Emperor's said to be interested in it, through
one of the ladies of the Court, whose servant the girl was. It's
interesting for two or three reasons. First, the fracture is
complete, and it's marvellous she hasn't died. Then it's been
taken up as a kind of test case by a group of materialists in
Berlin. They've taken it up, because the girl has declared again
and again that she is perfectly certain she will be cured at
Lourdes. She claims to have had a vision of Our Lady, who told
her so. Her father's a freethinker, by the way, and has only
finally allowed her to come so that he can use her as an
argument afterwards."

"Who has examined her?" asked Monsignor sharply.

"She was examined last night on her arrival, and again this
morning. Dr. Meurot, the President here" (he indicated with his
head the doctor who sat three places off, who was putting his
questions rapidly to the two attending physicians)--"Dr. Meurot
examined her himself early this morning. This is just the formal
process before she goes to the grotto. The fracture is complete.
It's between the eleventh and twelfth dorsal vertebrae."

"And you think she'll be cured?" The monk smiled.

"Who can tell?" he said. "We've only had one case before, and the
papers on that are not quite in order, though it's commonly
believed to be genuine."

"But it's possible?"

"Oh, certainly. And her own conviction is absolute. It'll
be interesting."

"You seem to take it pretty easily," murmured the prelate.

"Oh, the facts are established a hundred times over--the facts, I
mean, that cures take place here which are not even approached in
mental laboratories. But---"

He was interrupted by a sudden movement of the brancardiers.

"See, they're removing her," he said. "Now, what'll you do,
Monsignor? Will you go down to the grotto, or would you sooner
watch a few more cases?"

"I think I'd sooner stay here," said the other, "at least for
an hour or two."



(IV)

It was the hour of the evening procession and of the
Benediction of the Sick.

All day long the man who had lost his memory had gone to and fro
with his companions, each wearing the little badge that gave them
entrance everywhere; they had lunched with Dr. Meurot himself.

If Monsignor Masterman had been impressed by the social power of
Catholicism at Versailles, and by its religious reality in Rome,
he was ten thousand times more impressed by its scientific
courage here in Lourdes. For here religion seemed to have
stepped down into an arena hitherto (as he fancied) restricted
to the play of physical forces. She had laid aside her oracular
claims, her comparatively unsupported assertions of her own
divinity; had flung off her robes of state and authority and was
competing here on equal terms with the masters of natural
law--more, she was accepted by them as their mistress. For there
seemed nothing from which she shrank. She accepted all who came
to her desiring her help; she made no arbitrary distinctions to
cover her own incapacities. Her one practical desire was to heal
the sick; her one theoretical interest to fix more and more
precisely, little by little, the exact line at which nature
ended and supernature began. And, if human evidence went for
anything--if the volumes of radiophotography and sworn testimony
went for anything, she had established a thousand times over
during the preceding, half-century that under her aegis, and
hers alone, healing and reconstituting forces were at work to
which no merely natural mental science could furnish any
parallels. All the old quarrels of a century ago seemed at an
end. There was no longer any dispute as to the larger facts. All
that now remained to be done by this huge organization of
international experts was to define more and more closely and
precisely where the line lay between the two worlds. All cures
that could be even remotely paralleled in the mental
laboratories were dismissed as not evidently supernatural; all
those which could not be so paralleled were recorded, with the
most minute detail, under the sworn testimonies of doctors who
had examined the patients immediately before and immediately
after the cure itself. In a series of libraries that abutted on
to the Place, Monsignor Masterman, under the guidance of Dom
Adrian Bennett, had spent a couple of hours this afternoon in
examining the most striking of the records and photographs
preserved there. He was amazed to find that even by the end of
the nineteenth century cures had taken place for which the most
modern scientists could find no natural explanation.

Ten minutes ago he had taken his place in the procession of the
Blessed Sacrament, with the monk's last word still in his head.

"It is during the procession itself," he had said, "that the work
is done. We lay aside all deliberate knowledge as the Angelus
rings, and give ourselves up to faith."

   *   *   *   *   *

And now the procession had started, and already, it seemed to
him, he had begun to understand. It was as he himself emerged, a
few paces in front of the Blessed Sacrament Itself, walking with
the prelates, that that understanding reached its climax. He
paused at the head of the steps, to wait for the canopy to come
through, and his heart rose within him so mightily that it was
all he could do not to cry out.

Beneath him, seen now from the opposite end from which he had
looked this morning, lay the Place, under a wholly different
appearance. The centre of the great oval was cleared, with the
exception of a huge pulpit, surmounted by a circular
sounding-board, that stood in the middle. But round this empty
space rose, in tier after tier, masses of humanity beyond all
reckoning, up and up, as on the sides of an enormous
amphitheatre, as far as the highest roofs of the highest
buildings that looked on to the space. Before him rose the pile
of churches, and here too, on every platform roof and stair,
swarmed the spectators. The doors of the three churches were
flung wide, and far within, in the lighted interiors, lay the
heads of co

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