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For God And Gold

<h3> CHAPTER XI </h3> During all this time of which I write I had said nothing to Mrs. Waldyve about religion. I had persuaded myself, and that easily enough, that I must first make her my warm friend, and gain some influence with her by my teaching, and such other ways as I could think of. She, I think, avoided all mention of it too, since she really loved learning, and feared by speaking of things deeper to ruffle the happy calm in which we sailed together. It was not till after my little godson Fulke had been born, and Frank Drake had returned from the Indies, and was gone again to complete his discovery of those regions, that we came to talk of what was next my heart. Frank had been to see us, and Mrs. Waldyve was so taken with his manly, jolly ways, that when he was gone we often talked of him. I told her of his father and brothers, and their old strange life on the hulk, till one day she said she would like to go to Mr. Drake's church and hear him preach, for he made a discourse nearly every Sunday. Harry, who of late had been made a Justice, laughingly gave us dispensation from attending our parish churches, and the next Sunday we rode over to Upchurch. Harry stayed at home, and Mrs. Waldyve rode pillion behind Culverin, thereby for the space of our ride making him the happiest man in Christendom. As we neared Upchurch we overtook a man, who seemed a preacher, riding the sorriest nag I ever beheld. In passing him I saw it was none other than Mr. Death, the same who had come with Mr. Drake for the ordering of my father's funeral. He looked less sour than formerly, and wore an aspect of smug and well-fed content; but as he knew me not I passed on without speaking. Mr. Drake greeted us very warmly, and Mrs. Waldyve with great respect. He was in the churchyard talking with the godly farmers of the parish until it was time for the service. To-day the well-worn subject of the Queen's marriage, and all the danger that came of her delays, was set aside, and they had been discussing Mr. Strickland's Bill, which he had lately moved before Parliament for the abrogation of various religious ceremonies, and how the Queen's Grace had taken it so ill that she had put him in prison. They continued their talk after our greetings were done, while Mr. Drake drew me aside to ask what I thought of the new order of the Commission against reading, praying, preaching, or administering the sacraments in any place, public or private, without license. I condemned it so warmly, as will be easily guessed, for a piece of most wanton and sinful Erastianism, that the people in the churchyard gathered round to listen. I was in the midst of proclaiming it, on the authority of Mr. Cartwright, as a thing that should not and would not be borne, when little Willie Drake cried out from the skirts of the throng: 'Father, father, there's a wolf in the fold!' A movement was made towards the church, and I could now see the Sergeant pointing out to his mistress the score of bad points of a beast tied up to the gate, which I at once recognised as Mr. Death's nag. Hoping to avert a storm, I begged them both to come with me into the church, which was now crowded; but the tempest had already burst. Mr. Death had got possession of the pulpit. It was a strong position, being only approached by the old rood-loft steps, which were cut through the solid pier of the chancel arch. The enemy was defending the narrow passage with the door, which he held tightly shut, and a smart fire of reasons, which he shot down at Mr. Drake from behind his barricada. 'You have no license, you have no license,' he was crying as we entered. 'What, no license!' said Mr. Drake. 'I who was licensed preacher to the King's navy when you were still crying for the mass!' 'Ay, but the Archbishop has revoked all licenses, and you have not renewed,' answered Mr. Death. 'The flock must be fed with the Word; you may not feed them, and I claim your pulpit.' 'O Death, Death!' cried Mr. Drake, 'is that your sting? There was a time when you would brag that no Erastian prelate of them all should be your authority, but only the voice of God, that called you to the ministry. Is this all that has come of your loud shouting for the battle? O Death, Death! where is now your victory?' 'I care not for your roaring, Fire-Drake,' cried Death. 'You are no preacher, being unlicensed; and I, being licensed, have authority in every pulpit in the diocese.' The people now began to cry out, some that they would hear him, and some that he should be plucked down and cast out of the church. Yet they all stood by, waiting to see how the two preachers would settle it; and they had not to wait long. 'Nay, if you fear not my roaring, Death,' said Mr. Drake, 'let us see what my claws will do.' With that he made a rapid escalada, and, seizing the garrison by the throat, plucked him forth by main force. Still no one interfered; so, wishing to end the scene, I whispered to Culverin to help Mr. Drake, which he did with great good-will, being, as he afterwards confessed, much taken by the valorous delivery of Mr. Drake's assault. Mr. Death cried lustily for a rescue, but all to no purpose. Between the two strong men he was helpless. In spite of his feeble struggles, they ran him right out of the church to where his horse was tied. There they set him in the saddle, face to the tail, and, giving his jade a smart cut, sent him in an ungainly canter on the road to Rochester. It pained me to think that Mrs. Waldyve should have witnessed such a scene the first time I had taken her to a Puritan church. She was looking shocked at what had occurred, and seemed in no way to share the merriment of the younger part of the congregation. 'Let us go,' she said; 'I have seen enough. It is terrible.' But I prayed her to remain, pointing out that Mr. Drake was in no way to blame, and begging her to stay and see how reverent the people would be when he began to preach. Unwillingly, I think, she consented, more for fear of hurting me than from any desire she had to stay. Meanwhile Mr. Drake, a little flushed and breathless from his victory, had taken his place in the pulpit, and was giving out a psalm to quiet the people. They sang it all together in pricksong very orderly, so that when it was done they were in a decent mood for the sermon. He preached from the words, 'The hireling fleeth,' in John x. 13, for the profit and confusion of that part of his flock which had given countenance to Mr. Death. After the manner of his kind, he rated them soundly for their treason, with text and parable and a score of quaint conceits. 'Is this your gratitude?' he cried. 'Know you not your shepherd? I will tell you, then, what he is. He is one of those who, unlike the holders of other benefices, has stood by his flock and fed them, nor given their care to a poor, dumb, hireling curate, while he himself has gone riding round to other flocks to preach vain and new doctrines to them, that he may have in return plate and hangings and napery and money. I know you, what you are. Your stomachs have grown proud and dainty against the Word. You must have choice; you must have spicery; you must have a new cook every day. You will run to every hireling who will throw you new meat, and turn from the sound old hay of your shepherd, who folds and feeds you every night. Out upon you! Is this the way to appease the wrath of God, whereby the heart, the tongue, the hand of every Englishman is bent against another? No! But you care not what divisions be made, so long as your stomachs be tickled with new and dainty sauces. Are you mad, good people? Has a devil possessed you? Look, look towards the east! See you not the great roaring bull that the vile Italian out of Rome hath loosed against you? See you not the glitter of his brazen horns; smell you not the stench of his filthy breath; hear you not the clang of his iron hoofs? Ah! but wait and you will. Wait till the bringing forth of the bull-calves that he hath gotten; wait till you see them compass you in on every side; and wait till you see them grow fat as those of Bashan, on your faith and your consciences and your purity. Then you will see; then you will smell; then you will hear. In that hour you will cry to him who folded and fed you; but the foul waters of idolatry will have passed over his head and choked him.' In such wise Mr. Drake continued very earnest for a good space, the people listening with bated breath, and from time to time a mutter of approval, ay, and here and there tears of repentance. Many have marvelled to me at Captain Drake's eloquence, but I know whence it came, and if I knew not before I should have known that day. I have tried to write down some of what his father said, but even if it were rightly done, as I doubt it is not, yet could no one tell the force of his preaching, unless he had seen him hold spell-bound that throng which so short a while ago had been laughing at a rude jest and an unseemly brawl, in which he played the chief part. I watched Mrs. Waldyve's face as he spoke on, and was, as it were, carried back to that day long ago when the Queen's grace was listening to the divinity act in Mary's Church at Cambridge. And no wonder, for never save then had I looked on a face so sweet and ever changing to new sweetness. Her brown eyes were fixed wistfully upon the preacher, and she listened so intently that I could see the fire and humour and pathos of his words reflected as in a mirror upon her upturned face. Once or twice I could see her wince, as one in pain, when some too rude conceit or figure jarred upon her delicately-nurtured sense. Then she would look round to me as though to find what I thought of it, and, seeing my eyes fixed upon her, turn quickly to the preacher again with heightened colour, more beautiful than ever. I too tried to look away, at the painting of the murder of St. Thomas, half defaced and mouldering on the wall of the Becket Chapel; at the strange chamber under the tower, where it was said a hermit nun lived in solitude so long; at Mr. Drake's red face and ardent figure, but all was beyond my power. I had no eyes save to read with beating heart the living book at my side, nor ears save to hearken to the still voice which whispered in them, 'Lo, how the true spirit of the gospel is reawaking in her!' It was the Sunday set apart for the quarterly taking of the communion. When the sermon was done, and while the people sang another psalm, the wardens fetched into the nave the trestles and communion board from where it stood at the east end of the church. Then they spread upon it a fair white cloth, and Mr. Drake brought forth a loaf of bread and a skin of wine, with cups and platters. Mrs. Waldyve watched them as though bewildered or afraid, not knowing what to do. 'Jasper,' she whispered, 'we had better depart now. How can I receive the holy sacrament after this sort?' But again I exhorted her to stay, promising that all would be done most reverently, and according to the plain word of the gospel, with nothing added or taken away, so that whether or not it fell short of what her conscience would wish, yet there could be no offence in staying, as there clearly would be in going. She answered me nothing, but gave way and obeyed like a little child, leaning on me, as though for support to body and soul, as we drew near to the table. It was then I knew that I had prevailed. I knew that my will had overcome hers, and that the hour was at hand for me to set about my crowning work. The people made way for us close to where Mr. Drake was seated at the table. Mrs. Waldyve knelt down, as she had been accustomed at Court. One or two old women, when they saw that, knelt too, in the old fashion of their courting days. I stood by her side, and the people thronged round, sitting or standing, as each thought best or could get accommodated. For to most this was a thing indifferent or adiaphoristic. Mr. Drake now broke the bread and poured out the wine, and then passed the cups and platters to the people. Mrs. Waldyve looked up to me for guidance, and I bent over her to whisper what she should do. So we took and ate the supper of the Lord together, while Mr. Drake, from where he sat, read comfortable texts from the Scriptures, and now and again offered an earnest prayer of his own making. With another prayer ex tempore and a psalm the service ended, and we all went forth, leaving the wardens to set the table back again in the chancel. Mrs. Waldyve said nothing as we waited in the churchyard for Culverin to fetch the horses. So we stood in silence, side by side, under the spreading branches of the ancient yew tree, returning the greetings of the villagers as they filed out under the lych-gate, and watching the couples that broke off from the mass, the gossips in close talk over the sermon, the lovers sheepishly far apart. At last they were all dispersed amongst the trees and the black and white cottages that nestled amongst them; and we were left alone, looking out over the melancholy Medway, which seemed lost amidst the dreary Saltings and the inlets that ran up into the marshes. The Sergeant brought the horses at last, and Mr. Drake came to say 'Good-bye,' and so we went on our way. For shame I must forbear to speak of the pride that filled my heart as we rode home in silence. She was in deep thought, with eyes looking far away. Now and again she looked towards me as though to speak, but her lips only let pass a sigh. I knew well of what she thought, and did not disturb her meditation. I knew well how that strange change had come over her, which now I know not how to name. It was a thing that came, and still comes, to many, whether of high or low degree. Men such as I was then, when they see its signs so suddenly, and, as it were, miraculously appearing, say, 'Behold, another whom the Lord has called!' I say it is for very shame that I forbear, for now I know the coward that I was to play so upon a woman's passions. I see her now as some bright painted bird for which I lay in wait, spreading my nets in the way I had learnt by long and secret watching she would go, and setting gins for her, which I furnished with cunning baits, while she, trusting me, thought I did but feed her lovingly. It was not till the afternoon that we spoke of it. We had been supping in the orchard, and Harry, finding us but dull companions, had fallen asleep in his chair. 'Jasper,' said Mrs. Waldyve, 'come, let us walk together. I must have private speech with you.' We rose and wandered down our favourite walk by the park, but to-day the colts had no caresses. 'It cannot be right, Jasper, it cannot be,' she burst out, as we entered the wood. 'What cannot be right?' asked I. 'It cannot be right,' she said, 'to cast away, as you have done, all the old holy rites of the Church.' 'It is hard to part with them, I know,' I answered, 'since from your childhood you have learned to love and hold them sacred. Yet for that very cause must you cast them away. Ere we can hope to see religion purified, we must first stifle all that deafening ritual that drowns the voice of God.' 'Yet,' she pleaded, 'why must we approach Him, as we did this day, without order, without ceremony, without any token of homage? If we offer it to the Queen, surely the more should we do so to the King of Heaven.' 'I do not deny,' said I, 'that what we saw to-day might have been done more decently. Yet remember how long popes and prelates and priests have stood between God and His people, and marvel not if, now that He has called us to the steps of His throne, we know not at first how to approach Him reverently. But He will teach us, when at last we can draw near and hear what He will whisper in our ear. But still there are many left between us and the throne, in spite of all that has been done. But the hour is coming when one I know will raise his voice like a clarion and bid them stand aside, in words they shall not dare to disobey. Then at last we shall be face to face with God, and know indeed what His will is.' This and much more of like effect I told her out of my well-learnt lesson. She struggled ever more faintly against me, but I was strongly armed against all she could say. I told her of predestination, and what she should think of works done in the days of her unbelief. All the things she loved so well—ceremonies, vestments, and every relic of the ancient mass to which she clung—I condemned mercilessly with practised argument. I showed how Rome had abused the Christian faith, and how it could not be purified till every meretricious adornment by which worship had been turned to idolatry was cleansed away. She fell at last to imploring me to leave her something, but I told her, without pity, that no good could come of any unholy union of the gospel and papacy, such alluring schemes being only thought on by their inventors as an unstable place whence it was hard not to slip back to Antichrist. It was an easy task I had. In the wilderness of doctrine, where she suddenly found herself, she seemed but to want a guide who would take her by the hand and lead her to rest. So it was but a short work to set her again on the path she once had trodden under the good Earl of Bedford's lead, and which she had deserted for the flowery mazes of the Court. It were tedious to tell step by step how we trode the sweet and dangerous way together. All will understand if they remember what we two were. I, from long sojourn at Cambridge, a monk, for with all its faults my university was then a most well-ordered monastery,—a monk who, as it were, was on a sudden released from his vows; she, a woman who, after a strictly ordered childhood, was set loose in a pleasure-loving Court, where her life was an ever-changing scene of exciting pleasure and gallantry. The change was too great for both of us. For myself I find no excuse, but for her much. Ere the first fires of her youth had burnt out she was overcome by the passionate love-making of the handsome soldier, who came covered with glory from the wars abroad to lay siege to her heart at home. What wonder if she loved before all that pattern of manhood and gentleness who so loved her, and thought she could feed on his love alone! What wonder that, when passion grew dull and she found how full of many things besides love a man's life is, and how full of things which, in spite of all her trying, proved but dull to what her life had been at Court, insensibly she was ready to open her heart to any excitement, even to me and my teaching! If I had not been blinded by my own accursed pride and self-righteousness, I should have known by many marks which we passed whither our road led. I should have known when, after that first talk, we began to be silent in Harry's presence, though we could chatter well enough when he was not by. I should have known when we ceased to speak, and moved farther from each other whenever he came where we talked. I should have known when she spoke to me of her misery in being wed to so ungodly a husband, and begged me to speak earnestly to him that he might amend his ways. It is my one comfort of all that time that I still had manliness left to defend him with all my heart to her, and that I was spared that last depth of knavery, much used by craven gallants, who, that they may win a cheap and easy favour with a woman, will make her believe with a score of cunning lies that her husband is unworthy of her. Though out of the deeps of my love for him I found a hundred excuses to offer her, yet I laboured when alone with him to turn his light heart to weightier things, well knowing it was useless, or who can tell whether I should have tried? It was as we rode home over the downs from hawking wild-fowl on the marsh-lands in the valley of the Medway that I first attacked him, and I well remember that my surprise was rather at how much he had thought than at what his thought was. It was such a glorious afternoon as now, since I have known Signor Bruno, lifts my heart to God more truly than ever did psalms and prayers, much as I loved them and do still. The wide and marshy river stretched out below us far away to the low haze-clad lands of Hoo and the misty Thames. Water and woodland and field were bathed in sunshine which seemed, as it were, to melt all Nature into such full and tender harmony with its Creator, as I think, after all my many wanderings, can nowhere be seen in truer perfection than in our own dear England. Moved by the beauty which wrapped the land, Harry fell to praising it with a score of rich conceits, and I seized the occasion to broach the cask of divinity which I had brewed for him. 'Surely,' I broke in, 'surely should our lives be one long song of gratitude, set to a holy and solemn tune, to Him who made all this so fair for us.' 'Why, lad, why?' asked Harry. 'You can only conceive this of God—that He is a perfected quintessence of all that is best and fairest in us, and therefore must our love of these things, and our joy in them, be but a grain of sand beside the mountain of His. His delight in the great banquet He has spread is for all eternity, while we can but gaze upon it for a little hour. No, lad, I cannot thank Him for these things, which are but the crumbs that fall from His table; but I worship it all, and Him in it, as I was taught in Italy. When will you leave looking for Him in holes which are only full of musty quibbles and the mouldering shreds of men's quarrels? Stand up, man, and see Him in yonder sky, in yonder woods, in yonder broad flowing river.' 'But, Harry, Harry!' I cried, feeling my worst fears confirmed, 'have a care, or this Italian dreaming will run you into flat atheism.' 'Ah, Jasper,' he answered, 'I fear you are only like the rest, and will brand me atheist and epicure because my voice is not raised in any controversy. Must I rail with Baius and howl with Brentius before you grant me faith? With whom shall I be saved, and with whom damned? Show me that first, lad, for I cannot tell. When I first set out upon my travels I strove awhile to study these things for love of you and Mr. Follet, yet in every land and every city where I came I found the same angry unrest where Antinomian roared against Pelagian, and Synergists bellowed between; where Lutheran and Calvinist and Papist, and who knows what other legion of sects beside, did battle one with another, and each against all, till Europe seemed to throb and ring again with their unchristly din, and the sweet voice of God could I nowhere hear.' 'Nay, then, I fear you closed your ears in your impatience, or the true voice of our purified faith would have sounded clear enough above all the rest.' 'No, I tell you, Jasper, I opened my ears wide enough, but they were deafened with the clash of syllogism on syllogism, and lie on lie. My eyes were blinded with the glint of steel and the flash of fires. My nostrils were filled with the stench of railing breath. Then I cried, "Where, O God, shall thy spirit be found? Surely not on this earth, that men's tongues and pens have so befouled." But there was one under the sweet blue sky of Italy who whispered in my ears, "Turn thee to Nature and thou shalt find thy quest." I heard him and sought earnestly where he showed, and soon the whole world was bright with the spirit of God, and I was in the midst of it. Yes, lad, I turned from men and saw it shining in the limpid rays of the stars; I heard it in the waving grass and the laughter of the brooks; I perceived it in the sweet-smelling flowers. Will you then cry "Atheist" at me for whom God is everywhere, when for you and the like of you He lies but in a little dogma, nay, in the mangled shred of a dogma? Take it not unkindly that I speak so hot, but it makes me mad to think that men will so befoul the nest which God has given them, and think they do Him service.' 'Indeed,' I answered, wishing to follow his mood, for I knew if I broke in as I would to another with my theology that he would only call me a Puritan and crack some kindly jest, 'I do not complain of your heat. There is doubtless much truth in what you say, for Luther himself wrote, "There is nought in Nature but a certain craving for God," yet he did not hold that mere contemplation of Nature will satisfy that craving. The beauty and fulness of Nature does but create the hunger which right doctrine alone will fill.' 'Nay, if Luther is to guide us, remember who it was who taught that this very passion for God of which you speak, and which is far from what I mean, becomes the lust of the spirit. It is that which sets your wits awry. Beware of it, Jasper, as you avoid the devil. For I tell you, from the lust of the spirit to the lust of the flesh is but a little step. You shall see it shortest in a woman.' 'Jest not, Harry, on things so solemn,' said I, not thinking even then that he could mean what he said. 'I jest not,' he answered; 'it is sober truth, and if I did jest, wherefore not? Sometimes I think that jesting is your only earnest, and that there is nothing but that which is worth living for.' 'At least you jest in earnest now,' I said, thinking to weather him on another tack. 'Even you must grant that there are other things but that worth the life-search—exempli gratia, Fame.' 'How do I know that?' he answered; 'for how shall Fame satisfy a man when he has got it? Why, look you, Fame is a thing begets hunger for itself faster than a dead dog breeds maggots. There was never a fame-glutton yet but went to his grave fasting.' ''Tis because they hunger after earthly fame,' said I. 'Seek something higher. If you cannot pursue God, yet at least you may search out wisdom. That is earnest enough.' 'Wisdom! wisdom!' cried Harry. 'Why, what is that? In truth, I think that Folly is the only Wisdom, and there's no such profitable travelling as a voyage in the Ship of Fools. In a thousand times to one he who pursues Wisdom shall find he has no quarry but Folly, while he that runs merrily after Folly shall find on a sudden that he is carrying Wisdom in his hand. Who shall say, amidst the ruins of these broken times, where Folly shall be sought and where Wisdom shall be found?' 'I know there is great confusion in the times,' said I, 'but still there is at least sure ground left for a scholar who will pursue diligently the arts and sciences.' 'Who can tell even that?' answered Harry. 'Read Cornelius Agrippa, if you know him not. Read his Vanity and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences, and you shall find wisdom there that will prove you, by most nice argument and sharp reasons, that knowledge is the very pestilence that puts all mankind to ruin, that chases away all innocence, condemns all truth, and places errors on the highest thrones.' 'Oh, Harry, Harry!' I cried in despair, 'you are Italianate past all praying for.' 'Well, then, if you cannot pray with me, laugh with me, jest with me,' he answered. 'Are we not all the puppets and playthings that God has made for His laughter, while He sits at His feast. Let him who would be wise make haste to laugh at himself with God, and at all men with their little humours. Hola! Quester! Monk! hola, hola!' he shouted then to his hounds that stayed behind, and bringing his hand with a ringing clap upon his gelding's shoulder, broke gaily into a canter across the stretch of sheep-cropped turf that lay before us. What could I do with such a man? To me he was all and more than I had dreaded he would become when he travelled into Italy. In my eyes he was but one more added to the long list of atheists and epicures which that wicked and beautiful land has filled. Still, I would not desist from my efforts to win him back to what I deemed the only true path. Amidst the ruins of his faith I searched for some unbroken stones, wherewith I might lay the foundations of a new sanctuary for his soul. I tried to make him see the horrors and dangers of the Popish religion, and so teach him to love and cling to our Christian faith as its most stalwart opponent. The last time that ever I attacked him was when I thought by dwelling on the idolatry of Rome to gain my end, seeing how wholly opposed it was to his own wide and spiritual conceptions. But it was all to little purpose. 'In so far,' he answered me, 'as Rome is the enemy of the Queen and of England, she is also my enemy. Since the bull of deposition was nailed on the gate of Lambeth Palace I have been her foe, ready to do all in my power to strike and thwart and humble her as I may find occasion, or the Queen's Grace bids me. Yet for Rome's faith I hate her not, though I may smile at it sometimes, as I do at others.' 'But surely, Harry,' I said, 'you must detest their damnable, idolatrous doctrines of the mass and saints and images. Even for your love of mankind you must loathe these chains, by which they drag men down into the dark pits of superstition.' 'Rail not at idolatry, lad,' he answered. 'We are all idolaters. All men worship the idol which each sets up for himself in such manner as his mind, clogged with an imperfect shape, and, as it were, fettered and imprisoned in his visible body, can fashion it. Each has his own graven image, to which he bows. He thinks it is God, ay, and sometimes will almost persuade others so; yet it is nought but a little unshapely bit, that he laboriously has hewn from the great soul that dwells in his mind. There is but one escape from idolatry. We must worship the one universal God, who is formless and yet of every form, who is everywhere and in everything, who, as I say, is a spirit that breathes in the sweet scents of the flowers, in the sighing of the summer wind, in the twittering songs of the birds, in the kisses of lovers' lips.' Such was the mangled philosophy he brought home from Padua, that lodestone of wit, to which then gathered all that was bold and learned and polished in thought throughout the length and breadth of Europe. What wonder that I, being untravelled, had no skill to win him from his opinions, and drew each day closer to the gentle spirit of her who so trustingly took me for her guide! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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