 | CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE TRIBUNAL OF PENITENCE. The new priest in Conception Bay |  |
38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE TRIBUNAL OF PENITENCE.
IT is a tremendous place, this Tribunal of Penitence!
Be it at St. Peter's in Rome, or in the Pope's
chapel, or in one of the deserted churches of the
Campagna, or in a little squalid chamber, any where on
earth, the walls of deal or masonwork are brushed away,
as with the back of the Almighty Hand, in preparation
for this miniature foreshaping of the Last Judgment: the
canopy of the dread deep of space is spread above; a
pavement of rare stone-work is laid down below: “a
throne is set, from which come lightnings and voices and
thunders, and around which is a rainbow, like unto an
emerald, and in sight of which is a sea of glass like to
crystal; and four and twenty ancients sit about the
throne, clothed in white garments and wearing crowns of
gold; and on the throne there sitteth One.”
Here is to be laid bare the bottom of a deep profounder
than the Mighty Depth of Waters, strewed with more
wrecks of precious things; and, in this presence, Sin
that brought Death into the world,—whose meed is
Death,—and for which everlasting Hell has been prepared,—Sin
is here pardoned, and an angel standing here
records the everlasting Act of Grace; the Divine Spirit
gives the kiss of peace to the forgiven soul, and Heaven
place! Here, and here only, is the appointed place,
where sin may be forgiven.
Or, Stay! The Throne is here, and all the dread surroundings
of the Lord God Almighty—but in the seat
of the Eternal King, Maker and Judge—a worm! perhaps,
upon God's seat, a serpent, glistening and gloating!
Suppose this seat to be usurped; suppose that God has
never given power to man to sit here and to summon
souls before him! Then—What then?
The candles burned there and the Priest sat there.
The clerk was fast asleep, apparently, with his book
between his listless hands, his head upon his breast. The
murmur of his recitation was no longer heard. Those
still hours of the night had come, in which there seems to
be less obstruction between soul and soul.
She came forward with her two hands clasped, and her
veil hanging down before her face. She came up to the
front of the table, and turning her veiled face toward the
Priest and dropping her clasped hands, stood still.
All was still; but some intelligence seemed to reach
the Priest, although he never once looked up.
A deep agitation seized his frame; but presently he
sat more erect, still looking on the floor,—very pale,—
intensely agitated.
“Waiting for me?” she asked, in a clear, low, most
mournful voice, repeating the Priest's words. There was
a pause of hesitation or of recollection, and then the
words came from her slowly; but the pause beforehand
and the deep breathing, agitated, earnest silence of the
listener were fitted to make intense the interest of the
words when she began to speak and while she spoke.
Her voice had in it that tender touch which lays itself,
home; from happy childhood, from sad friendship; from
early, unforgotten love; from reverend admonition, given
long ago; from cheering exhortation of some one that
trusted in us and hoped from us; that tender touch,
indeed, which is made up of all the pure and holy, and
deep, and true, and honest, that a voice can carry with it,
as a wind that blows over whole fields of flowers and
fruitage.
Some voices,—at some times,—are such; such hers
was.
She spoke again, slowly and sadly.
“Are you waiting? Is it not I that am waiting? Is it
not I?”
She sank slowly upon her knees, and rested her clasped
hands upon the table; but her veiled face was towards
him and not toward the crucifix. Her voice was touching
and pathetic, to the last degree. The air seemed to
pause upon her words before it hid them out of hearing.
There was a sound as of tears dropping upon the floor;
but there was no sob; there was no sigh.
There seemed a noise, as of a person moving, not far
off; she turned about, but no one could be seen except
the clerk, asleep, and breathing heavily, as before.
Oh! what a weary thing is “Waiting!” and her words
seemed to come forth out of sorrow unutterable. This
was a strange prelude to a confession; but from such a
voice, in giving forth which the whole life seemed to be
concerned, who could turn away? He had prayed, as
one might have seen; but his features still wore the look
of deep agitation which had suddenly come over them
when she first approached him, though now they showed
how strong a hold was laid upon the feeling, to keep it
down.
“Have you been waiting?” said he, with a pause
after the question.
“Yes! Waiting for my hope to feel the sun, and
bloom,” she answered, with a voice rushing fast forth,
floated on tears, but scarcely louder than the habit of the
place permitted;—“waiting for the life that is my own!”
—and then her voice began to drop down, as it were,
from step to step,—and the steps seemed cold and damp,
as it went down them lingeringly:—“or for trial,—disappointment,—whatever
comes!” and at the last, it seemed
to have gone down into a sepulchral vault. Her head
sank upon her two hands,—still clasped,—resting upon
the edge of the table; a convulsion of feeling seemed to
be tearing her very frame, as she kneeled there, in the
garb as well as the attitude of deep sorrow; but it was
only one great struggle.
A motion of the Priest,—perhaps to speak,—and a
suppressed exclamation, recalled her, and she reared up
her woman's head again, and spoke:—
—“But I am not come to talk of sorrow,” she said,
and paused again.
“Sister!” said he, in that pause, (not `Daughter,')
(and, as he said the word and rested on it,—his voice agitated
and full of feeling, as if it had a throbbing life of
its own,—the one word expressed many sentences: an
assurance of sacredness, of love, and of authority, at
once,) “What have you come to this place for? To seek
for peace?”
“To seek you, Brother!—or, should I say Father?”
“Call me as you will,” he answered, gently and mournfully,
not hastily; “but what can you gain, in finding
me?”
“I have gained something already; I've found, within
living.”
“Sister!” said he, again, with such an emphasis and
pause upon the word, as if he meant that it should speak
its whole meaning, while his voice was agitated as before,
“what right have I here, except as a priest to hear confession
and give comfort to the penitent? and what—?”
—“What right have I here,” she said, in a voice
so low that it did not seem intended to interrupt what
he was saying, though he suffered it to interrupt him.
“Have I any right here,” she repeated, more distinctly,
when he ceased to speak,—“except to confess?”
That gentle, broken woman's voice! Oh! what a
power there is in woman's gentleness, when it pleads of
right!
The thing said, or the tone, or all, moved the Priest's
whole being, as the convulsion (slight though it was) of
his body witnessed; but he did not speak.
“Have I any right?” she said, still again, in the same
sad pleading.
He then spoke, in a voice that had little of his strength
or authority in its sound, though it appealed to what
might be, perhaps, a certain fixed principle. He also
spoke slowly and sadly.
“What can be between us, Sister,” he said, “except
this mutual Office of Priest and—?”
—“Penitent!” she said, mechanically, as he paused.
Then, with a choking voice, and with that helpless sadness
in which one might cry out, who was falling, suddenly,
hopeless, into the soft, drifted snow between the
glaciers, and whose words the cold wind behind was
whirling away, wasted in air, she gasped out:—
“`What can be between us?'—Oh!”—and tears
floor. Again, the Priest was moved; and so that tears
flowed from his eyes, also. A moment is a great thing,
when crowded full; and this lasted a moment. Of herself
she struggled forth to firm footing, and said:—
“No! I did not come here to weep;” and, gathering
strength, went on, keeping her feeling down under her
voice:—
“This Office be between us, then! It may answer my
purpose.”
Now, as she spoke, her voice had all the influence that
the deepest and strongest feeling could give to it, while it
was not so broken as to interrupt her.
“If it be any thing beside confession,” he answered,
“is this the place and time? or, if it be confession, might
you not better seek another priest? And will you not?”
“Oh! no! If I may speak, then it must be to you!”
He answered, gently and sadly, bracing himself, in his
chair, to listen:—
“I will go through it, if I must; I do not ask to be
spared my share of pain. I see a life full of it before
me; a dark ocean and a dark sky meeting: but I know
well, no good can come of this. Why may we not both
be spared?”
—“And yet it is your very part to look on the twitching
of the heart's living fibre; ay, to hold its walls open,
while you gaze in between! I would not give you pain;
but this is God's opportunity to me, and I have made my
way to this poor little place, feeling as if I were called to
it. Let me hold it with my knees, like a poor penitent
and suppliant, as I am! Give me my little right!”
He answered, still more sadly than before, though that
was very sadly:—
“You shall have all your right, my Sister.” Then, as
if there were more in the words than he had felt till he
had uttered them, or more pain in the prospect than in what
was past, he bent his head lower, and clasped his hands.
“You would not seek to send me to another to confession,
if you knew of the confessional what I know of it,
by my own experience,” she said.
The Priest started suddenly, as if these earnest, bitter
words were burning coals. He lifted up his face (though
with the eyes fast-closed). It was paler than ever; his
lips were pale and slightly trembling, and his forehead
moist. His agitation was extreme. Again she leaned
her forehead on her hands upon the table, while he
seemed to pray inwardly. Presently, he had mastered
himself enough to speak:—
“Oh! Sister,” he said, “will you not go to some other
with your burden?” And then, as if meeting an objection,
added—“Not to a priest; go to the bishop, or to
Father Terence, at Bay-Harbor.”
“Why should I go to them? I know them not, and
have no business with them. I am willing to confess my
own sin; but it must be here.”
The Priest started, as if recalling himself; his whole
frame heaved, and the momentary ghastliness of his
face was like a phosphorescent light, almost, that flashed
faintly.
“You spoke of the confessional,” said he; “it is common
for enemies to charge it.”
—“But what I know of it is not a scandal, caught
from others' lips; it is no horrible suspicion. It is a
frightful fact!”
Father Ignatius, with a hand upon each knee, sat like
a man balancing himself in a skiff, and intent, as if for
he was whirling. She went on, after a pause:—
“I came here, not to speak of that. It never harmed
me. It came not near me. Let me confess my sin.
Once, I consented,—I will not say on what inducement,—
to force a doubt into my mind, where there was none,
about a sacred bond between me and another.—” (The
Priest lifted up his eyes to heaven, and moved his lips.)
“There was no doubt before; there was none since.—
Again I suffered myself,—I will not speak of my inducements,—to
draw aside into a convent, to weigh and settle
questions, where no question was, about my Faith, about
my Church, about my Bible. I went to services; I kept
the Hours: I read books!—went to confession.—Oh!
that dreadful time! My eyes burned: my brain burned:
my heart burned: all seemed drying up within me. It
was a wilderness and a Devil tempting!—I heard, and
read, and confessed, as one in agony may pour down one
draught after another.—Is there a greater sin? To take
in doubt, where there is no doubt?—Of a plain thing?
To suffer question where there is no question, and where
none ought to be, because the thing is plain as God's
great sun?—I went no farther; but I went too far!
—I broke forth into fresh air, and already I had
lost all! Yes, I have suffered something for my sin;
—and God has since taken away my beautiful boy!
but I stand strongly now; I closed his eyes in a sure
faith.”
A mighty feeling seemed to occupy Father Ignatius;
not rending like the earthquake, or sweeping over, like
the hurricane; but rising, rather, like the strong, black
flood, eddying and whirling and swelling up within.
“The faith of a child came back to my heart,” she
spring that had been dry.
“There! I have yielded so far to the customs of this
place; and have laid down, at the door of this church, the
sin that was put into my hands at its door; but now I
must break through, cost what it will. I have no power
or skill to carry out a part, and, in pretending to confess,
insinuate what I have to speak. I am a woman, and
must go straight to my object.—It was not to say what
I have said.
“Nor have I any claim to urge for myself, now that I
have made my way to this place, except to speak. I ask
back nothing that has been taken from me; I have
counted it all lost.”—(Her voice trembled, as she spoke
that short, sad word; but in a moment she went on, and
her voice was steady.) “I am still ready to count it lost;
and ask nothing for it but the leave to plead,—(not for
myself, either, but for another,)—against this church and
priesthood that have robbed me.”
(Poor woman! is that what she has come for?)
“It may seem a frenzy that I should come here,—a
weak woman,—into the very citadel of this Church, to
speak against it; and into the confessional, to accuse the
priest. I have come upon a woman's errand; but with
no bitter words to utter; no reproaches; no upbraidings.
My whole purpose is to plead; and I have little time.”
(The candles flared; the clerk breathed hard, in sleep.)
“You are a priest; but whoever,—man or woman,—
has the truth of God, is so far a minister of God, as to
have right and power with it, in His name.”
Her voice had risen, as she spoke, (such was its energy
of conviction and purpose,) above its former level; the
clerk started, and ere he was awake, said, in the church
him, and recovered himself, turned again to his book, and
his low reading, as before. The Priest did not move,
but sat in perfect silence, with a face intensely agitated.
Once more, at this interruption, she bowed her head
upon the table, and was still. Again the clerk's reading
ceased; again the deep breathing of sleep followed, and
again she spoke:—
“I will not plead your loss of all dear memories of the
first things that we hold sacred: child's prayers; the
catechism; Sunday-lessons; holy books given and treasured;
the awfulness and beauty of God's House and
Service; the kneeling-place beside Father and Mother;
Confirmation; Holy Communion;—I do not mean to
appeal to feelings, though I am a woman;—that argument
can be used on either side;—but I confront that
priesthood that you wear, and ask, Do you feel safe,—can
you feel safe,—giving up such convictions and such obligations
as were upon you, for a religion and a priesthood
that must go over or outside of God's Written Word for
every thing that is their own?—(Let me speak freely this
once! I speak weeping.”) As she said this, the weeping,
for a moment, overcame the speaking.—She struggled
on:—“When there is no Pope, no Queen of Heaven, no
Sacrament of Penance, no Purgatory and pardons out
of it, none of the superstition, (let me speak it!) and idolatry,
and absolute dominion over soul and body, which
this cruel, dreadful priesthood brings with it, like a car
of Juggernaut, no dreadful, dangerous intimacy of men
with wicked women; nor subjection of innocent, trusting
women to false ministers of God;—none of this in all the
written Word of God. Preaching of the Gospel comes
in, hundreds of times; and faith, and love, and fellowship;
is the holy gathering of believers!
“Father Ignatius Debree! — once Minister of the
Church of England!—You have taken to your heart,
and confess with your lips,—(I speak in tears,)—a worship
corrupted, a faith perverted, sacraments changed, a
ministry altered in form and spirit! Yet whatever authority
any one of these has, it cannot turn for witness to
the Bible! Not one of them is in it; and the others
are!
“Can you dare to break down, and tear asunder, and
trample under foot, what is in the Bible, and what was
in the hearts and on the lips of Apostles and Martyrs,
(as it is in our poor hearts and on our lips,) for those
uncertain things?—You cannot!
“For a while, when you are with other priests, or very
busy, you may not tremble or falter; but when you are
alone, or when you are among Protestants, as you must
be often, the thoughts of what you have abandoned and
what you have chosen,—of what you have lost, and what
you have gained, will come; and then the memories of
childhood will stretch out their little hands to you; the
faces of other forsaken memories will come gently and
mournfully up to you; you will hear old voices, and see
old scenes.—You cannot help it!—You have known the
truth, and had it. Your mind will never satisfy itself
with this; your heart can never really set its love here!
Never! never! And when you feel what it must be,
being false!”—
Again there was a slight noise, as of some one moving,
not far off; but, beside the Priest, only the sleeping clerk
was to be seen. She had been kneeling, and she rose
slowly. There was silence.
“Is it finished?” asked the Priest, master of his voice,
though ghastly pale.
She stood still before him; and then, with a voice
partly breaking, again said, “Yes!” Then again she
said, “I have thought and prayed, for years,—and have
spoken! Thank God for this chance! Thank you for
hearing!”
“Are you satisfied, now?” asked the Priest.
There was no answer, but a convulsion of the woman's
frame as if her heart were breaking before this impassive
strength of the man.—She rallied herself, as she had
rallied herself before, and answered:—
“No! no! but neither am I wearied. When I am
gone, I shall still plead, elsewhere,—for one thing,—for
one thing! Farewell, Father Ignatius! Will you say,
`God be with you?'”
“Oh! yes, indeed! God be with you, forever!”
Suddenly she passed out;—disturbing, as she went, a
woman who seemed sleeping by the doorway.
Father Ignatius fell down heavily, on his knees, before
the table.
| CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE TRIBUNAL OF PENITENCE. The new priest in Conception Bay | |