My New Curate Part 22

"I thought I had told you, sir," he said, timidly, "but I have so many irons in the fire. You know that Ormsby's marriage is only a question of weeks but for one thing."

"And, if I am not trespa.s.sing too much on the secrecy of your confidential intercourse with these young people," I said (I suppose I was a little huffed), "may I ask how long is all this matrimonial enterprise in progress, and how does Campion regard it?"

"I am afraid you are offended, sir," he said, "and indeed quite naturally, because I have not spoken about this matter to you before; but really it appears so hopeless, and I hate speaking of things that are only conjectural. I suppose you had set your heart on Miss Campion's becoming a nun?"

"G.o.d forbid!" I said fervently. "We don't want to see all our best girls running into convents. I had set my heart on her being married to some good, excellent Catholic Irishman, like the Chief over at Kilkeel."

"Neil Cullen? Campion wouldn't listen to it. His name is a red rag to a bull. He never forgave Cullen for not firing on the people at that eviction over at Labbawally, some two or three years ago."

"And what does the person most interested think of the matter?" I asked.

"Well, I think she is quite in favor of it," he said. "Her father likes him, he will live in the old house, and she likes him,--at least, she asked me to do all in my power to bring him into the Church."

"The little puss," I could not help saying. "Who would ever have thought it? And yet, would it not be best? I pity her living with that old sea-dog,--that Viking in everything but his black mane of hair. But now, look here; this matter is important; let us talk it over quietly. Who or what is Ormsby? You have met him?"

"Several times. He is a young Trinity man, good-looking, gentlemanly, correct, moral. He has a pension of two hundred a year, his salary as Inspector of Coast Guards, and great expectations. But he has no faith."

"And never had any, I suppose. That's the way with all these fellows--"

"On the contrary, he was brought up a strict Evangelical, almost a Calvinist. Then he began to read, and like so many others he has drifted into unfaith."

"Well, lend him some books. He knows nothing, of course, about us. Let him see the faith, and he'll embrace it."

"Unfortunately, there's the rub. He has read everything. He has travelled the world; and reversing the venerable maxim, _Clum, non animum mutant_, he has taken his faith from his climate. He has been a Theosophist in London, a 'New Light' in 'Frisco, as he calls it, a Moslem in Cairo (by the way, he thinks a lot of these Mussulmans,--fine, manly, dignified fellows, he says, whose eloquence would bring a blush almost to the cheek of a member of Parliament). Then he has been hand in glove with Buddhist priests in the forests of Ceylon, and has been awfully impressed with their secret power, and still more with their calm philosophy. I believe," said my curate, sinking his voice to a whisper of awe and mystery, "_I believe--he has kissed--the--tooth--of--Buddha!_"

"Indeed," I replied, "and what good did that operation do him?"

"Not much, I suppose, except to confirm him in that gospel of the sceptic: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy!'"

"Humph! Here, then, stands the case. Our most interesting little paris.h.i.+oner has set her heart on this globe-trotter. There is a big wall in the way, and it won't do to repeat the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Now, what is to be done to make the young fellow a Catholic? Has he any prejudices against us?"

"Not one? On the contrary, he rather likes us. He has received all kinds of hospitality from Catholic priests the wide world over, and he thinks us a right honest, jolly lot of fellows."

"H'm! I am not sure that that is exactly what St. Liguori or Charles Borromeo would fancy. But never mind! Now does he know what we hold and believe?"

"Accurately. He has read our best books."

"Has he had any intercourse with Catholics?"

"A good deal. They have not impressed him. Look at Campion now. Would any man become a Catholic with his example before him?"

"Hardly indeed, though we must speak kindly of him now, since you converted him. Had you any chat with him about his difficulties?"

"Yes, several. I walked home with him a few evenings from Campion's. You know that path over the cliff and down to the coast-guard station?"

"Well. And what is his special trouble? Does he think he has an immortal soul?"

"There you struck it. That's his trouble; and how to convince him of that beats me. I asked him again and again whether he was not self-conscious, that is, perfectly cognizant of the fact that there was a something, an Ego, outside and beyond the brain and inferior powers that commanded both? Was there not some intellectual ent.i.ty that called up memory, and bade it unseal its tablets? And did he not feel and know that he could command and control the action of his brain, and even of every part of it? Now, I said, if the brain is only dumb matter, which you admit, and cannot create thought, where is this volition, or what is it? It is not cerebral, for then matter would create thought; that is, be the creator and the created at the same time."

"Well?"

"He listened attentively and then said quietly: 'Quite true. But if the Ego is different from the brain and is self-conscious, where does the self-consciousness go when the brain becomes anaemic and sleeps, or when the faculties are chloroformed?' 'Oh,' I said, 'the organ is shut down, the stops are closed.' 'Yes,' he said, 'but where goes the performer?'

By Jove, I was stranded. I tell you what it is, Father Dan, though you'll call it treason, I'll pitch aeschylus to the mischief, and study what is of human and vital interest to us priests."

"That little objection needn't alarm you," I said, "you'll find the answer in every handbook of Catholic philosophy."

"What manual of Catholic philosophy in English could I get for Ormsby?"

asked my curate.

"Alas! my dear young friend, I don't know. There is the great hiatus.

You cannot put a folio calf-bound volume of Suarez in his hands,--he may not understand Latin. I know absolutely no book that you can put into the hands of an educated non-Catholic except Balmez's 'Letters to a Sceptic.'"

"_He has read it_," said my curate.

We were both silent.

"Now, you know," he continued, after a long pause, "I don't attach the least importance to these objections and arguments. I lived long enough in England to know that faith is a pure, absolutely pure gift of the Almighty, not to be acquired by learning or study, but possibly by prayer. I see, therefore, only one hope, and that is, in our Lord and His Blessed Mother."

"A profound and true remark," I replied, as he rose up to depart. "Get these mites of children to pray, and to say the Rosary for that particular purpose. I can't understand how G.o.d can refuse them anything."

"By the way," he said, as he put on his great coat, "it is a curious fact that, with all his incredulity, he is exceedingly superst.i.tious.

You can hardly believe how troubled he is about some gibberish of that old hag that sets charms for lame horses, etc. I'm not at all sure but that she set charms in the other way for my little mare."

"Well, what has she told Ormsby?"

"Her language was slightly oracular. Out of a joke, he crossed her palm with a sixpence. She looked him all over, though she knew well what he had in his mind, examined the lines of his hand minutely, and then delivered three Sibylline sentences:--

'Set a stout heart to a steep brae.'

That did not disconcert him. Then she said:--

'He that tholes, overcomes.'

He quite agreed with her. It was a naval simile, and it pleased him.

'But a white cloth and a stain never agree.'

He was struck as if by a blow. 'Mind you,' he said,'I am very candid. I have had my own faults and human weaknesses; but I never did anything immoral or dishonorable. What did she mean?' 'She meant,' I said, to rea.s.sure him, 'that you have kept her carefully out of the coast-guard station; that you have not allowed her to interfere with the men, or their wives, or their servants; that therefore you have put many a sixpence out of her pocket; and that she must have her revenge. Dismiss her jargon from your mind as soon as you can.' 'More easily said than done, Father,' he replied, and he then began to mutter: 'A white cloth and a stain never agree.' What _does_ she mean?"

"The old story of Voltaire," I said, when my curate had finished. "Don't forget the children's prayers."

On Christmas eve he called at noonday, just as we were going out to the midday confessional. He had nothing new to tell. He was rather gloomy.

"You'll meet Miss Campion in the church," he said; "she'll tell you all."