It was high noon in the little town
of Parbridge; the streets were bright and silent,
and the walls of the houses were hot to the touch.
The limes in the narrow avenue leading to the west
door of the great church of St. Mary stood breathless
and still. The ancient church itself looked as
if it pondered gravely on what had been and what was
to be; and the tall windows of the belfry, with their
wooden louvres, seemed to be solemn half-shut eyes.
At the south side of the church, connected with it
by a wooden cloister, stood a tall house of grey stone.
In a room looking out upon the graveyard sate two men.
The room had an austere air; its plain whitened walls
bore a single picture, so old and dark that it was
difficult to see what was represented in it.
On some shelves stood a few volumes; near the window
was a tall black crucifix of plain wood, the figure
white. There was an oak table with writing materials.
The floor was paved with squares of wood.
The two men sate close together.
One was an old and weather-worn man in a secular dress
of dark material; the other a young priest in a cassock,
whose pale face, large eyes and wasted hands betokened
illness, or the strain of some overmastering thought.
It seemed as though they had been holding a grave
conversation of strange or sad import, and had fallen
into a momentary silence.
The priest was the first to speak.
“Well, beloved physician,” he said, in
a slow and languid voice, though with a half-smile,
“I have told you my trouble; and I would have
your most frank opinion.”
“I hardly know what to say,”
said the Doctor. “I have prescribed for
many years and do not know that I ever heard the like;
I must tell you plainly that such things are not written
in our medical books.”
The priest said nothing, but looked
sadly out of the window; presently the Doctor said,
“Let me hear the tale from the first beginning,
dear Herbert; it is well to have the whole
complete. I would consult with a learned friend
of mine about this dark matter, a physician who is
more skilled than I am in maladies of the mind for
I think that more ails the mind than the body.”
“Well,” said the priest
a little wearily, “I will tell it you.
“Almost a year ago, on one of
the hottest days of the early summer, I went abroad
as usual, about noon, to visit Mistress Dennis who
was ill. I do not think I felt myself to be unwell,
and was full to the brim of little joyous businesses;
I stood for a time at the porch to speak with Master
Dennis himself, who came in just as I left the house,
and I stood uncovered at the door; suddenly the sun
stabbed and struck me, as with a scythe, and I saw
a whirling blackness before my eyes and staggered.
Master Dennis was alarmed, and would have had me go
within; but I would not, for I had other work to do;
so he led me home; that afternoon I sate over my book;
but I could neither read nor think; I was in pain,
I remember, and felt that some strange thing had happened
to me; I recall, too, rising from my chair, and I am
told I fainted and fell.
“Then I remember nothing more
but fierce and wild dreams of pain. Sometimes
I heard my own voice crying out; at last the pain died
away, and left me very weak and sad; but I was still
pent up, it seemed to me, in some dark dungeon of
the mind, and the view of the room I lay in and the
sight of those who visited me only came to me in short
glimpses. I am told I babbled strangely; then
one morning I came out suddenly, like a man rising
from a dive in a pool, and knew that I was myself
again; that day was a day of quiet joy; I was weak
and silent, but it seemed good to be alive. It
was not till the next day that I noticed the thing
that I have tried to tell you, that haunts me yet and
I can hardly put it into words.
“It seemed to me that I noticed
round about those who came to me a thin veil, as it
were of vapour, but it was not dense like smoke or
mist; I could see them as well through it as before;
it was more like a light that played about them, and
it was brightest over the heart and above the brow;
at first I thought it was some effect of my weak state,
but as I grew stronger I saw it still more clearly.
“And then comes the strangest
part of all; the light changed according to the thoughts
that were passing in the mind of the person on whom
my eyes were set the thought that it was
so came suddenly into my mind and bewildered me; but
in a little I was sure of it. I need not give
long instances but I saw, or thought I saw,
that when the mind of the man or woman was pure and
pitiful, the light was pure and clear, but that when
the thoughts were selfish, or covetous, or angry,
or unclean, there came a darkness into the light, as
when you drop a little ink into clear water.
Few came to see me; and I suppose that they were full
of pity and perhaps a little love for me in my helpless
state, so that the light about them was pure and even;
but one day the good dame Ann, who tended me, in stooping
to give me drink, thrust a dish off the table, which
broke, and spilled its contents, and a dark flush
came into the light that was round her for a moment.
“Then too as I got better, and
was able to see and speak with my people, there came
to me several in trouble of different kinds, and the
light was sullen and wavering; one, whose name I will
not tell you, came to me with a sin upon his mind,
and the vapour was all dark and stained; and so it
has been till now; and these last weeks it has been
even stranger; because by a kind of practice I have
been led to infer what the thoughts in the mind of
each person are, at first seeing them. It is
true that they have not always told me in words what
the light would seem to suggest; but I have good reason
to believe that the thoughts are there behind.
“Now,” he went on, “this
is a sad and dreadful gift, and I do not desire it.
It is horrible that the thoughts of men should be made
manifest to a man, the thoughts that should be read
only by God; and I go to and fro in the world with
this cruel horror upon me, and so I am in evil case.”
He ceased, as if tired of speaking,
and the old Doctor mused, looking on the floor then
he shook his head and said, “My dear friend,
I am powerless at present; such a thing has never
come to me before you are as it were in
a chamber of life that I have never visited, and I
can but stand on the threshold and listen at a closed
door.” Then he was silent for a little,
but presently he said, “This light that you
speak of does it envelop every one? do
you see it about me as I speak with you?”
“Yes,” said Herbert, turning his eyes upon
the Doctor, “it is round you, very pure and
clean; you are giving all your heart to my story;
and it is a good and tender heart. You have not
many sorrows except the sorrows of others,” and
then suddenly Herbert broke off with a vague gesture
of the hand and looked at the Doctor with a bewildered
look. “Finish what you were saying,”
said the Doctor with a grave look. “Nay,
nay,” said Herbert with a sad air, “you
have sorrows indeed the light changes and
darkens but they are not all for yourself.”
“This is a strange thing,”
said the Doctor very seriously “tell
me what you mean.”
“Then you must keep from thoughts
on your trouble, whatever it is,” said Herbert.
“I would read no man’s secrets; but let
this prove to you that I am not speaking of a mere
sick fancy turn not your thoughts on me.”
Then there was a pause and then Herbert said slowly,
“As far as I can read the light, you did a wrong
once, long ago, in your youth, and bear the burden
of it yet; and you have striven to amend it; and now
it is not a selfish fear;” the priest
mused a moment “How, if the deed
has borne fruit in another, for whom you sorrow, for
you think that your wrongdoing was the seed of his?”
The Doctor grew pale to the lips,
and said in a low voice, “This is a very fearful
gift, dear friend. You have indeed laid your finger
on the sore spot it is a thing I have never
spoken of to any but God.”
Then there was a silence again; and
then Herbert said, “But there is another thing
of which I have not told you; it is this; you know
what I was before my illness simple, I
think, and humble, and with a heart that for all its
faults was tender and faithful. Well, with this
gift, that has all departed from me; I seem to care
neither for man nor God; I see the trouble in another
heart, and it moves me not. I feel as if I would
not put out a finger to heal another’s grief,
except that habit has made it hard for me to do otherwise.”
And then with a sudden burst of passion, “Oh,
my heart of stone!” he said.
The Doctor looked at him very sadly
and lovingly, and then he rose. “I must
be gone,” he said, “but by your leave I
will consult, without any mention of name, an old
friend of mine, the wise physician of whom I spoke;
and meanwhile, dear friend, rest and be still.
God has sent you a very strange and terrible gift,
but He sends not His gifts in vain; and you must see
how you may use it for His service.”
“Yes, yes, I doubt not,”
said Herbert wearily “but the will
to serve is gone from me I would I were
sleeping quietly out yonder the world is
poisoned for me, and yet I loved it once.”
Then the old physician went away,
lost in thought, and Herbert made attempt to address
himself to his book, but he could not; he looked back
over his life, and saw himself a simple child, very
innocent and loving; he saw his eager and clean boyhood,
and how the thought had come into his mind to be a
priest it was not for a noble reason, Herbert
thought; he had loved the beauty of the dark rich church,
the slow and delicate music of the organ, the singing
of the choir, the faint sweetness of the incense smoke,
the solemn figures of the priests as they moved about
the altar it had been but a love of beauty
and solemnity; no desire to save others, and very little
love to the Father, though a strange uplifted desire
of heart toward the Lord Christ; but as he thought
of it now, sitting in the afternoon sunshine, it seemed
to him as though he had loved the Saviour more for
the beauty of worship which surrounded Him, throned
as it were so piteously upon the awful Cross, lifted
up, the desire of the world, in all His stainless
strength and adorable suffering, to draw souls to
Him.
Then he had gone to Oxford, and he
thought of his time there, his small bare rooms, the
punctual vivid life, so repressed, yet so full of
human movement. Herbert had won friends very easily
there, and the good fathers had loved him; but all
this love, looking back, seemed to him to have been
called out not by the lovingness of his own heart,
but by a certain unconscious charm, a sweet humility
of manner, a readiness to please and be pleased, a
desire to do what should win his companion, whoever
it might chance to be.
Then he went for a time as a young
priest to the cathedral, as a vicar, and there again
life had been easy for him; he had gained fame for
a sort of easy and pathetic eloquence, that allowed
him to make what he spoke of seem beautiful to those
who heard it, but now Herbert thought sadly that he
had not done this for love of the thoughts of which
he spoke, but for the pleasure of arraying them so
that they moved and pleased others; and yet he had
won some power over souls too, he had himself been
so courteous, so gentle, so seeming tender, that others
spoke easily to him of their troubles and seemed to
find help in his words; then had come the day when
the Bishop had sent him to St. Mary’s, and there
too everything had been as easy to him as before.
Yes, that had been the fault all through! he had won
by a certain grace what ought to have been won by
deep purity and eager desire and great striving.
And this too had at last begun to
come home to him; and then he had half despaired of
changing himself. He had been like a shallow
rippling brook, yet seemed to others like a swift and
patient river; and he had prayed very earnestly to
God to change his heart; to deepen and widen it, to
make it strong and sincere and faithful. And was
this, thought Herbert, the terrible answer? was he
who had loved ease and beauty on all sides, had loved
the surface and the seeming of things, to be thrust
violently into the deep places of the human heart,
to be shown by a dreadful clearness of vision the stain,
the horror, the shadow of the world?
But what was to him the most despairing
thought of all was this and thinking quietly
over it, it seemed to him that if this clearness of
vision had quickened his zeal to serve, if it had shown
him how true and fierce was the battle to be waged
in life, and how few men walked in the peace that
was so near them that they could have taken it by
stretching out their hand if it had taught
him this, had nerved his heart, had sent him speeding
into the throng to heal the secret sorrows that his
quickened sight could see, then the reason of the
gift would have been plain to him; but with the clearer
vision had come this deadly apathy, this strange and
bitter loathing for a world where all seemed so sweet
outwardly and was so heavy-hearted within. And
Herbert thought of how once as a child he had seen
a beautiful rose-bush just bursting into bloom; and
he had gone near to draw the sweet scent into his
nostrils, and had recognised a dreadful heavy odour
below and behind the delicate scent of the roses, and
there, when he put the bush aside, was the swollen
body of a dog that had crept into the very heart of
the bush to die, and tainted all the air with the
horror of death. He had hated roses long after,
and now it seemed to him that all the world was like
that.
He came suddenly out of his sad reverie
with a start; the bell of the church began to toll
for vespers, and he rose up wearily enough to go.
His work, he hardly dared confess to himself, was a
heavy burden to him; of old he had found great peace,
day by day, in the quiet evensong in the dark cool
church, the few worshippers, the gracious pleading
of the ancient psalms, so sweet in themselves, and
so fragrant with the incense of immemorial prayer;
and he thought that, besides the actual worshippers,
there were round him a great company of faithful souls,
unseen yet none the less present all this
had been to him a deep refreshment, a draught of the
waters of comfort; but now there was never a gathering
when the dark trouble of thought in other souls was
not visibly revealed to him.
He went slowly across the little garden
in front of the house; there by the road grew a few
flowers for Herbert loved to have all things
trim and bright about him. A boy was leaning over
the rail looking at the flowers; and Herbert saw,
in the secret light that hung round the child, the
darkening flush that told of the presence of some
conscience-stricken wish. The child got hurriedly
down from the rail at the sight of Herbert, who stopped
and called him. “Little one,” he
said, “come hither.” The child stood
a moment absorbed, finger on lip, and presently came
up to Herbert, who gathered a few of the flowers and
put them into the child’s hands. “Here
is a posy for you,” he said, “but, dear
one, remember this the flowers were mine,
and you did desire them. God sends us gifts sometimes
and sometimes not; when He sends them, it is well
to take them gratefully, thus but if He
gives them not, and the voice within says, ‘Then
will I take them,’ we must fly from temptation.
Do you understand that, little one?” The child
stood considering a moment, and then shyly gave the
flowers back. “Ay, that is right,”
said Herbert, “but you may take them now God
gives them to you!” and he stooped and kissed
the child on the forehead.
A few days after the old physician
came again to see Herbert, evidently troubled.
He told Herbert that he had consulted his friend,
who could make nothing of the case. “He
said ” he added, and then stopped
short. “Nay, I will tell you,” he
went on, “for in such a matter we may not hesitate.
He said that it was a delusion of the mind, not of
the eye and that it was more a case for
a priest than for a doctor.” “He
is right,” said Herbert. “I had even
thought of that and I will do what I ought
to have done before. I will take my story to
my lord the Bishop and I will ask his advice; he is
my friend, and he has been a true father to my spirit and
he is a good and holy man as well.”
So Herbert wrote to the Bishop, and
the Bishop appointed a day to see him. The cathedral
city was but a few miles from Parbridge, and Herbert
went thither by boat because he was not strong enough
to walk. The river ran through a flat country,
with distant hills on a far horizon; the clear flowing
of the water, the cool weedy bowers and gravelled
spaces seen beneath, and the green and glistening rushes
that stood up so fresh and strong out of the ripple
pleased Herbert’s tired mind; he tried much
to think what he would say to the Bishop; but he could
frame no arguments and thought it best to leave it,
and to say what God might put in his mouth to say.
He found the Bishop writing in a little
panelled room that gave on a garden. He was in
his purple cassock; he rose at Herbert’s entrance,
and greeted him very kindly. The Bishop’s
face was smooth and fresh-coloured and lit with a
pleasant light of benevolence. He was an active
man, and loved little businesses, which he did with
all his might. He, like all that knew Herbert,
loved him and found pleasure in his company.
So Herbert took what courage he might though
he saw somewhat that he was both grieved and surprised
to see and told his story, though his heart
was heavy, and he thought somehow that the Bishop
would not understand him. While he spoke the Bishop’s
face grew very grave, for he did not love things out
of the common; but he asked him questions from time
to time and when Herbert said that the
trouble had come upon him after a stroke of the sun,
the Bishop’s face lightened a little, and he
said that the sun at its hottest had great power.
When Herbert had quite finished, the
Bishop said courteously that he thought it was a case
for a physician, and Herbert said that he had himself
thought so, but that the doctors could do nothing,
but had sent him back to the priests. Then the
Bishop made as though he would speak, and cleared
his throat, but spake nothing. At last he said,
“Dear son, this is a strange and heavy affliction;
but I think it will give way to rest and quiet and
prayer,” he added a little shamefacedly.
“These bodies of ours are delicate instruments,
and if we work them too hard as methinks
you have done they get overstrained in
the place in which we drive them; and just as a scholar
who has been disordered dreams of books, and as a doctor
thus afflicted would have grievous fancies of diseases,
so you, my dear son, who have been a very faithful
priest, are thus sadly concerned with the souls of
the flock of Christ and so my advice is
that you go and rest; and if you will, I will send
you a little priest to help you for awhile or
you may travel abroad for a time, and see fresh things;
and, dear son, if there be any narrowness of means,
I will myself supply your necessities, and deem the
money well lent to the Lord and so be comforted!” and
he put out his hand to bless him.
Herbert was moved by the Bishop’s
kindness; but he felt that the Bishop did not see
the matter aright, but thought it all a sad delusion;
and he made up his mind to speak. So he said,
“Dear father and my lord, forgive me if I speak
yet further for I am greatly moved by your
kindness, but in this case there is need of great frankness.
It is not indeed as your goodness thinks; indeed there
is no delusion, but a real and yet grievous power
of sight which I pray God would remove
from me and that as He took the scales off
the eyes of the blessed Paul, so I pray that He would
put them back on mine. For I see the things I
would not, and to me is revealed what ought to be
hidden.”
Then the Bishop looked a little angered
by Herbert’s insistence, and said, “Dear
son, if this were a gift of God to you, it would be
more than He gave even to the blessed Apostles, for
we read of no such gift being given to man. Some
He made apostles, and some evangelists, but we hear
not that He made any to see the very secrets of the
soul such sight is given to God alone and
indeed, dear son, for I will use the same frankness
as yourself, it seems to me but a chastening from God.
He delivers even those He loves (like the blessed Paul
himself, and Austin, and others whom I need not name)
to Satan to be buffeted; and though I have myself
no fault to find with your ministration, it is plain
to me that God is not satisfied, and by His chastening
would lead you higher yet.”
“But come, for I will ask you
a question. This light that you speak of, that
plays about the heads (is it so?) of other men, is
it always there? Has it, to ask an instance,
appeared to you with me? I charge you
to speak to me with entire freedom in this matter.”
So Herbert raised his eyes, and looked the Bishop
in the face, and said very gravely, “Yes, dear
father, it doth appear.”
Then the Bishop’s face changed
a little, and Herbert saw that he was moved; then
the Bishop said with a kind of smile, as though he
forced himself, “And what is it like?”
And Herbert said, looking shamefacedly upon the ground,
“Must I answer the question truly?” And
the Bishop said, “Yes, upon your vows.”
Then Herbert said, “Dear father, it is strangely
dark and angry.” Then the Bishop, knitting
his brows, said, “Does it seem so? And
how is this a true light? My son, I speak to you
plainly; I am a sinner indeed we are all
such but my whole life is spent in labour
for God’s Church, and I can truly say that from
hour to hour I think not of carnal things, but all
my desire is to feed and keep the flock. How
dost thou interpret that?” And Herbert, very
low, said, “My lord, must I speak?” And
the Bishop said, “Yes, upon your vows.”
Then Herbert said very slowly and sadly, “My
lord, I know indeed that your heart is with the work
of the Lord, and that you labour abundantly.
But can it be I speak as a faithful son,
and sore unwilling that you have your pleasure
in this work, and think of yourself as a profitable
servant?”
Then the Bishop looked very blackly
upon him and said, “You take too much upon yourself,
my son. This is indeed the messenger of Satan
that hath you in his grip; but I will pray for you
if the Lord will heal you it may be that
there is some dark sin upon your mind; and if so pluck
it out of the heart. But we will talk no more;
I will only tell you to rest and pray, and think not
of these lights and flashes, which are never told
of in Holy Church, except in the case of those who
are held of evil.” And he rose and made
a gesture that Herbert should go; so Herbert kissed
the Bishop’s hand and went very sadly out, for
it seemed as though his burden was too great for him
to bear.
There followed very sad and weary
days when Herbert hardly knew how he could bear the
sorrow that pressed upon him. But he preached
diligently, and went in and out among his people.
And in that time he helped many sad souls and set
struggling feet upon the right road, though he knew
it not and even cared not.
One day he was walking in the street,
and came past a little mean house that lay on the
outskirts of the town. There was a small and
pitiful garden, sadly disordered, that lay in front
of the house. Here there dwelt a wretched man
named John, who had done an evil deed in his youth.
He had robbed his mother, it was said, a poor and crippled
woman, of her little savings; she had struggled hard
for her all, but he had beaten her off, and done her
violence, and she, between grief and disease, had
died. In her last hour she had told the tale;
her son had been driven from his employment, and the
hearts of all had turned against him. He had
left the place, but a few years after he had returned,
a man old before his time, with a sore disease upon
him, in which all readily saw the wise judgment of
God.
He had settled in the little house
which had been his mother’s before him, and
had stood vacant. But none would admit him to
their houses or give him work. Occasionally,
when labour was short, he had a task given him; but
he was slow and feeble, and those that worked with
him mocked and derided him. He bore all mockeries
patiently and silently, with a kind of hunted look;
but none pitied him, and the very children of the
street would point at him, call him murderer, and throw
stones at him. He would seek at times to do a
kindness to the poor and sorrowful by stealth, but
his help was often refused even with anger.
Herbert had seen a little sight a
few days before that stuck in his mind. He had
been passing along the road that led into the country,
and had seen some way ahead of him a little child,
a girl, with a heavy burden. She had put it down
by the wood to rest, when John came suddenly upon
her from a lane, where he had been wandering, as his
manner was. The girl had seemed frightened, but
Herbert, making haste to join them for
he too had a great suspicion of the man saw
him speak gently to her and lift up her burden, and
walk on with her. Herbert followed afar off,
but gained on the pair, and as he came up heard him
speaking to her, and as Herbert thought, telling her
a simple story about the birds and flowers. The
child was listening half timidly, when from a gate
beside the road, which led to the farm to which the
child was bound, came out her mother, a tall good-humoured
woman, who snatched the burden out of the hands of
John, and dusted it over with her apron, as though
his touch had polluted it. Then she scolded the
child and then fell to rating John with very cruel
words.
Herbert came up and from a distance
saw John stand very meekly with bowed head; and presently
he turned away when the angry woman departed, and
Herbert heard him sigh very heavily. He had then
half formed a purpose to speak with the man, but he
trusted him little, and the old story of his crime
chased pity out of Herbert’s mind.
Now to-day the sight of the neglected
house and wretched garden drew his mind to the outcast;
Herbert could not think how the man lived, and his
heart smote him for not having tried to comfort him.
So he turned aside and lifted the
latch, and went up under an old apple tree that hung
over the path, and knocked at the door. Presently
it was opened by John himself, who stood there, a wretched
figure of a man, bowed with disease, and his face
all ugly and scarred. Herbert, who loved things
beautiful, was strangely touched with disgust at the
sight of him, but he overcame it, and spoke gently
to him, and asked if he might come in and rest awhile.
The man, although he hardly seemed
to understand, made way for him, and Herbert entered
a room that he thought the meanest and ugliest he
had ever seen. The walls were green with mould,
and the paved floor was all sunken and cracked.
There was no table, nothing but a bench by the fireplace,
on which lay coarse roots and the leaves of some bitter
herb.
Herbert went on talking quietly about
the fine summer and the pleasant season of the year,
and sate down upon the bench. And then he had
a great surprise. All about the miserable man
who stood before him shone the clearest and purest
radiance of light he had ever beheld about a human
being, gushing in a pure fountain over his head and
heart, untouched by the least spot of darkness.
It came into Herbert’s mind that he had found
a man who was very near to God; and so he put all
other things aside, and saying that he was truly sorry
that he had not sought him out before, asked him in
gentle and loving words to tell him all the old sad
story. And there, sitting in the mean room, he
heard the tale.
John spoke slowly and haltingly, as
one who had little use of speech; and the story was
far different from what Herbert had believed.
The hoard was not that of John’s mother, but
John’s own, which he had entrusted to her.
He had asked it of her for a purpose that seemed good
enough, to buy a little garden where he thought he
could rear fruits and flowers; but she had had the
money so long that she considered it to be her own.
In telling the story, John laid no blame upon her,
but found much to say against himself, and he seemed
bowed down with utter contrition that he had ever
asked it of her. She had struck him, it seemed,
and so his wrath had overmastered him, and he had
torn the money from her hands and gone out. Then
she had fallen sick, and died before his return, and
after that no one had been willing to listen to him.
Herbert had asked him what had become of the money,
and John told him, with a sort of shame, that he had
thrust it into the church-box “I
could not touch the price of blood,” he said.
Then Herbert spoke very lovingly to
him and tried to comfort him, but John said that he
knew himself to be the most miserable of sinners,
and that he could not be forgiven, and that he deserved
his chastising every whit. And he told Herbert
a tale of secret suffering and hunger and cold and
weariness, such as had never fallen on Herbert’s
ears, but all without any thought of pity for himself indeed,
he said, God was very good to him; for He let him
live, and even allowed him to take pleasure in the
green trees, and the waving grass, and the voices
of birds. “And some day,” said John,
“when I have suffered enough, I think the Father
will forgive me, for I am sorry for my sin.”
The water stood in Herbert’s
eyes, but he found some words of comfort, and knelt
and prayed with the outcast, telling him that indeed
he was forgiven. And he saw a look of joy strike
like sunlight across the poor face, when he said that
he would not fail to visit him. And he further
told him that he should come to the Parsonage next
day, and he would give him work to do; and then he
shook his hand and departed, a little gladder than
he had been for a month.
But on the next day he was bidden
early to the cottage; John had been found sitting
on the little bench outside his door, cold and dead,
with a strange and upturned look almost as though he
had seen the heaven opened.
He was buried a few days after; none
were found to stand at the grave but Herbert, and
the clerk who came unwillingly.
Then, on the next Sunday, Herbert
made a little sermon at Evensong and told them all
the story of John’s life, and his atonement.
“My brothers and sisters,” he said very
softly, making a pause, the silence in the church
being breathless below him, “here was a true
saint of God among us, and we knew it not. He
sinned, though not so grievously as we thought, he
suffered grievously, and he took his suffering as
meekly as the little child of whom the dear Lord said
that of such was the Kingdom. Dear friends, I
tell you a truth from my heart; that in the day when
we stand, if we are given to stand, beneath the Throne
of God, this our poor brother will be nearer to the
Throne than any of us, in robes of light, and very
close to the Father’s heart. May the Father
forgive us all, and let us be pitiful and merciful,
if by any means we may obtain mercy.”
That night, in a dream, it seemed
as if some one came suddenly out of a dark place like
a grave, and stood before Herbert, exceedingly glorious
to behold. How the change had passed upon him
Herbert could not tell, for it was John himself, the
same, yet transformed into a spirit of purest light.
And he smiled upon Herbert and said, “It is
even so, dear brother; and now am I comforted in glory and
now that you have seen the truth, the Father would
have me visit you to tell you that the trouble laid
upon you is departed. Only be true and faithful,
and lead souls the nearest way.” And in
a moment he was gone, but seemed to leave a shining
track upon the darkness.
The next morning Herbert awoke with
a strange stirring of the heart. He looked abroad
from his window, and saw the dew upon the grass, and
the quiet trees awakening. And he could hardly
contain himself for gladness. When he went to
the church, he knew all at once that his sorrow had
departed from him, and that he saw no deeper into the
heart than other men. The lights that had seemed
to shine round others were gone, and his heart was
full of love and pity again.
His first visit was to the house of
the old physician, who greeted him very kindly; and
Herbert with a kind of happy radiance told him that
the trouble was departed from him as suddenly as it
came; “and,” he added, “dear friend,
God has shown me marvellous things I have
seen a soul in glory.” The old physician’s
eyes filled with tears and he said, “This is
very wonderful and gracious.”
The same day came a carriage from
the Bishop to fetch Herbert, for the Bishop desired
to see him. He went in haste, and was amazed to
see that when the carriage came to the door of the
Bishop’s house, the Bishop himself came out
to receive him as though he had waited for him.
The Bishop greeted him very lovingly
and took him into his room, and when the door was
shut, he said, “Dear son, I sent you from me
the other day in bitterness of heart; for you had
spoken the truth to me, and I could not bear it; and
now I ask your forgiveness; you found as it were the
key to my spirit, and flung the door open; and God
has shown me that you were right, and that the most
secret shrine of my heart, where the fire should burn
clearest, was dark and bare. I gave not God the
glory, but laid violent hands upon it for myself; and
now, if God will, all shall be changed, and I will
do my work for God and not for myself, and strive
to be humble of heart,” and the Bishop’s
eyes were full of tears. And he held out his hand
to Herbert, who took it; and so they sate for a while.
Then Herbert said, “Dear father, I will also
tell you something. God has taken away from me
the terrible gift; also He has shown me the sight
of a human spirit, made perfect in suffering and patience;
and I am very joyful thereat.” So they held
sweet converse together, and were very glad at heart.