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DUST TO GLORY
PHELAN
V i
COLL CHRIST! REGIS $.i.
BIB. MAJOR
TORONTO
FROM DUST TO GLORY
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE S T R A I G II T P A T H
OR
MARKS OF THE TRUE CHURCH.
Crown 8vo.
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.,
London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras.
FROM
DUST TO GLORY
A SEQUEL TO
"THE STRAIGHT PATH"
BY THR REV.
M. J. PHELAN, S.J
AUTHOR OF "THE STRAIGHT PATH"
"THE YOUNG PUIEST'S KKEPSAKE," ETC.
COLLCHRIST1SEG1SU
B!B. V'A
TORONTO
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1020
ihil obstat.
Imprimatur.
HENRICUS DAVIS, S.J.,
Censor deputatus.
EDM. CAN. SURMONT,
Vic. gen.
\VK8TMONAC.TKRTI, die 22 JtWI/Ui H, 1920.
PREFACE.
THE reader of " The Straight Path" will re
member that in the opening pages he was intro
duced to an anxious inquirer who found himself
in an English city on a Sunday morning. There
he was led, by the varied chimes from Protestant
belfries, to reflect on the contradictory doctrines
preached from the pulpits.
He then turned to peruse the all-important
question — "Amidst these clashing creeds where
can I discover the One, True Church that Christ
established ? "
To the solution of this problem he brought
but two things — his own unbiased judgment and
his Bible. Step by step these led him to the
knowledge that the path of honest inquiry in
evitably ends at the door of the Catholic Church.
Tn the last chapter we saw him safe in a haven
Preface
of happy security; torturing doubts and anxieties
now for ever vanished.
To abandon a soul at this important point
would be to leave our task unfinished ; hence,
the present volume is placed in his hand to
guide him onward still, through the Catholic
Church, to his true home — Heaven. Here he
is instructed in the mysteries of Creation, Re
demption, and finally his share in the triumph
of Christ's Resurrection.
The title spans the book. The first chapter
deals with man's creation from dust, and the last
leaves him bathed in the glories of the risen
Christ.
People sometimes turn away from spiritual
books because of the dulness or heaviness of
the style. This should not be so ; for there is
no reason why those who consecrate their pens
to God should not press into His services the
varied gifts and graces that so often contribute
to make the secular book attractive — the clarified
thought, the brilliancy of colour, the happy
imagery, the crispness of style, the tuneful
period and the musical rhythm.
Without pretending to have accomplished all
this, or even partially succeeded in doing so,
vi
Preface
except in a very limited degree, the writer has
made his best endeavour to lift the treatment of
Sacred Truths above the region of the mono
tonous common-place, and invest them with all
the interest his limited ability could command,
in order to entice the reader on from page to
page and spare him fatigue.
It would be ungrateful to close these prefatory
remarks without a word of thanks to a public
that gave such a generous reception to the pre
vious volume — " The Straight Path ".
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S,
GARDINER STREET,
DUBLIN, 27^/7 December^ 1919.
CONTENTS
CHAP. 1'AGE
I. LIFE'S STARTING-POINT AND GOAL . . I
II. THE GLORY DUE . -15
III. How ANGELS FKLL . . -24
IV. THE FATAL FRUIT . ... 41
V. LIFE'S DREAM is O'ER . . .54
VI. THE TRUMPET-CALL . . . . • 71
VII. THE BAYONET-POINT . . . 88
VIII. EARTH'S PRICELESS TREASURE . . . 99
IX. THE GARDEN'S GLOOM . . 117
X. THE LIGHT OF VICTORY . . . 142
;x
CHAPTER I.
LIFE'S STARTING POINT AND GOAL.
Man was created to praise, reverence and serve God
our Lord, and by this means to save his soul (Spiritual
Exercises).
AT some time or another in all our lives we have
asked the question — What is my purpose in this
world r For what was I sent upon this planet ?
The answer to that momentous question heads
this chapter.
But since we live in an age when people like
to get not only medicines, but even their
thoughts in tabloid form, for the sake of brevity
and simplicity we shall compress that answer into
three words : God Made Me.
How poor our thoughts, how feeble our words, \\ho
when we attempt to answer that question. We God?
must be satisfied with an attempt — for the
human and even angelic mind must humbly
bow anci acknowledge its utter inability to shape
in thought, or trame into speech, an answer to the
i
From Dust to Glory
question — Who is God ? How could a person
describe the sun in its mid-day splendour if his
life-long knowledge of its light was limited to a
tiny thread that came through a pinhole.
We occasionally see a small ray of God's wis
dom reflected in a Shakespeare or a Napoleon, and
we hear the whisper of His power in the tempest
roar or the ocean fury. Yet, after all, our know
ledge of Him in this life must ever remain of
pinhole size.
The Psalmist says — " Thou makest the clouds
Thy chariot ; who walkest upon the wings of the
winds. He looketh upon the earth, and maketh it
tremble ; He louche th the mountains and they smoke "
(Ps. c. 3).
However, let us take a few facts that may
enable us to grasp even a glimmering notion of
who God is. The best substitute for an answer
is to be found in the preface of the Mass, where
we are told that He is the Being " which Angels
and Archangels do praise, Cherubim also, and
Seraphim ; who cease not daily to cry out with
one voice, saying Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
of Hosts ".
Why do the blessed spirits repeat the one
word Holy ? Because there is an unvarying law
Life's Starting Point and Goal
governing every heart and it is this— Whenever
you are confronted with an overpowering spec
tacle in art or nature, unconsciously you gm«
expression to your wonder or admiration by the
repetition of one word.
When you stand before Michael Angelo's Micha
picture, "The Last Judgment,'1 in the Sistine
Chapel at Rome — the most sublime creation that
ever came from an artist's brush ; when you
ponder on the vastness of the conception and the
fiery daring of the hand that flung forth that
terrific poem in colours, when you see those
black tumultuous clouds, pierced with red li.o-ht-
nmg flame and look on the despairing forms
ot the damned, blasted by the Judge's "anger ;
when you behold the tragedy of a rent world
reeling before the face of an avenging God, you
feel overpowered with awe, your feet are glued
to the ground and you discover yourself repeat
ing one word— Splendid, Splendid, Splendid !
The same thing happens when we are con
fronted by the marvellous in nature.
Those who have never seen the Alps cannot
realize the meaning of the word "majesty,1' and
the man who has not witnessed the sun rise
above them has yet to see the most wondrous
3
From Dust to Glory
picture that the vast treasure house of nature
holds.
You take your stand in the twilight of the
opening dawn, The morning star still pauses
above the head of Mont Blanc, and a bandage
of pale light is drawn across the mountain's brow.
As it grows brighter you see it lifting its awful
form to the heavens ; and now its head begins
to sparkle with red sun-fire, its white bosom is
dashed with wine, and a forest belt of dark pines
hangs like a girdle around its waist.
Let us now turn from Mont Blanc to that
interminable barrier of crystal ice that stretches
along the skyline. The light-waves of the rising
sun are breaking against it : acting as a prism,
it splits the light into the seven colours of the
spectrum and sends them sparkling and dancing
over the landscape, transforming the scene into
fairy land.
The sun at last has climbed the heavens, and
behold the cataracts, clothed in rainbow mists,
from lofty heights dash tumbling down, and the
glaciers, like huge white snakes, come creeping
on.
Now, you attempt to pierce into that limitless
world of silent whiteness and there are snow
Life's Starting Point and Goal
forms suggesting vast cities. Yes, towers and
domes, spires and walls stand sparkling in the
sunlight, while the mysterious spirit of silence
broods over all that white world of death.
You are riveted before that stupendous
panorama and find yourself instinctively re
peating the self-same word — Glorious, Glorious,
Glorious !
In like manner when the heavenly spirits gaze
on the Beatific Vision their wills are swept to
wards God ; their whole beings tremble with
adoration ; they are thrilled with ecstatic rapture,
and the heart voice of their praise finds expres
sion in the one repeated word—Holy Holy
Holy !
Who is God ? If one ray from His face fell
upon you, you would be consumed like an insect
in a furnace blast. When His presence on
Mount Sinai was made known to the children of
Israel, " They stood afar off, saying to Moses :
Speak thou to us and we will hear; but let not the
Lord spe.ik to us lest we die " (Exod. xx. 19).
When Moses came down from the mountain,
because in a mysterious manner he had conversed
with God, beams of light shone on his face ; so
dazed were the people at the sight that they
5
From Dust to Glory
would wither if He did not bide the glory of His
countenance.
When, even shrouded in human form, God
appeared to St. John, a man whose eyes above
all those of the sons of men were trained to gaze
on the supernatural, yet he tells us -" And when
I had seen Him I fell at His feet as dead"
(Apo. i. 17).
Hence the humility and reverence of the
Saints. When they come to know God they are
filled with a sense of their own lowliness and of
His Majesty.
Me. We have lifted our eyes up and tried to
realize, however faintly, the greatness of God.
Let us turn them down now and measure the
depths of our own insignificance. Let us sup
pose that, an angel is looking out from the gates
of Paradise. What does he see P Worlds of
undiscovered wonders are careering through the
ample fields of space. Bright bodies are scattered
here and there, they are suns ; but in the large
ness of his view they appear as drops of light.
He now fixes his eyes on one. Like a circle of
gems, eight glistening planets cluster around it.
He singles out one -Earth— for special observa
tion ; on that little ball he sees a number of
6
Life's Starting Point and Goal
creatures, diminutive as insects., jostlino- and
hurrying— W / am one of these. How all pride
is withered up in the thought of our insignificance.
I am of no more account than the mote in the
sunbeam, the fly on the window, the midge in
the air. A trifle such as I am comes into the
world and another leaves it at every tick of the
watch.
An infidel's view of man ends here. He is a
speck of dust made only to dissolve. But see
how on this foundation of lowliness God erects
a structure of dazzling splendour. Watch the
building rising step by step.
Looking through that dust-shell the angel
sees an immortal soul that reflects its Father's
image : a soul that will live as long as God lives.
:i Thou liast made him a little less than the
angels; Thou hast crowned him with glory and
honour. Thou hast set him above ihe works of Thy
hands n (Ps. viii.).
Not only have you an imperishable spirit, but
you are made, not through the instrumentality
of any creature, you are the immediate handwork
of God Himself.
When He called the earth and the lights
above it into being, the beasts that browse over
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From Dust to Glory
the plains or roam through the pathless woods,
He did so in each case by the mere expression of
His will—Fiat— Let there be— but when He
comes to the creation of man, mark the ritual
with which that momentous function is accom
panied. The Blessed Trinity seems to pause
before proceeding to the crowning work of
creation. The phraseology is changed. It is no
longer Fiat but Faciamus—" Let its make man
to our image and likeness " (Gen. viii. 1-26).
Pause for a moment and see what worth and
dignity is yours from the fact that God made
you Himself. The world is full of illustrations
that show what immense value comes even to
worthless trifles from their relation with an
exalted personage.
Some years ago the quill pens of Charles
Dickens were sold by auction at Four Pounds
Fifteen Shillings each. Now an old quill is
worse than useless, it is rubbish ; yet, see the
value with which it becomes invested because
it was even used -certainly not created— by a
great writer.
Let us take another example : A maid ot the
late Queen Victoria came on a holiday to an Irish
seaside town. The Queen frequently wrote to
8
Life's Starting Point and Goal
her. The hotel proprietor picked up the torn
envelopes and sold them at Five Pounds each.
Now, when paltry nothings such as old quills
and torn envelopes can become so precious be
cause being touched by the hand of royalty or
greatness, what dignity comes to creation's King
from the fact that he was not only touched but
fashioned, not by the hand of genius or royalty,
or even by the hand of an angel, but by the
Majesty of God Himself.
Well indeed might the Psalmist exclaim—
" Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou hast set him above the works of Thy hands "
(Ps. viii.).
We come now to examine a still higher degree
in the God-built dignity of man by asking—
What did He make you ?
He did not make you a Rock. Yet see how "Not
precious a mere rock can become it it could claim
even a distant relation with God.
Go back to the days of the Crusaders when
Europe was set on fire by the lava tide of
eloquence that flowed from the lips of Peter the
Hermit. See the military hosts marshalling in
every land, nobles pledging their estates, and the
clergy melting down the sacred vessels of the
9
From Dust to Glory
sanctuary to help the holy cause. There were
then no steamships, motors, or telegraphs. The
small sailing boats were tossed, scattered, or be
calmed tor months : the prospects of the dreary
march, the vile dungeon, or slavery of the galleys
had to be faced. .For what was all this sacrifice,
suffering, this out-pouring of blood and treasure ?
For the possession of n rock- -the tomb in which
the dead body of Christ lay.
Theie are in our days people who sneer at: the
Crusaders. But then, turning from Christ and
His interests to their modern divinity ----- the
golden idol — they bleach the long roads that
lead to Kimberley or Alaska with their own
whitening bones.
It is not by the standards of materialism the
Crusaders' efforts should be appraised. Their
truest measure is the judgment of their own
generation. Europe then looked through the
eyes of faith. Its impulses flowed from the
unerring instincts of Catholic belief; and their
purpose was blessed and encouraged by Christ's
vicars. So great as the Crusaders' sacrifices
were, they were only commensurate with the
exalted dignity of their aims.
We now see the sacred importance that wraps
10
Life's Starting Point and Goal
around a mere rock, though never chiselled by the
hand of Christ, hut. solely because it touched His
dead body.
Yet He did not make you a rock.
Let us turn now to organic life. The simplest "Nut a
object is perhaps a flower. If I could assure
you that angel lingers-- mind, not God's, but an
angel's fingers ---folded every leaf of that flower,
channelled its veins and wove its fibres, that all
its fair and delicate tints came from an angel's
brush, and an angel hand stored up within it
the fragrant perfume, how precious that flower
would become. If goodly sums were poured
out for torn paper and mouldering quills, what
money would not be cheerfully given tor that
flower that was not created, but folded, painted,
and perfumed, not by God but by one of His
creatures ? What chemical resources would not
be invoked to preserve it P
Yet He did not make you a flower.
One more step upwards and we find ourselves "Not a
in the animal world. We all know how precious
a fair and gracious animal can be. What prices
are not paid for great race-horses !
There is a story told of Julius Caesar. He had
a pet — a beautiful white fawn that accompanied
From Dust to Glory
him on his walks around the pleasure ground.
He petted and caressed this milk-white hind that
wore a golden collar upon her neck bearing the
words, " Touch me not ; I belong to Cassar ".
In public eyes that creature assumed a sacred
character. Every park and garden gate were
thrown open to her. She roamed at will. At
length the people cried, " It is a god that has
come down and assumed the form of a fawn to
inspire the great Julius ".
Now Caesar did not create a drop of its blood
or a hair of its body ; yet, because the loose
dominion ot a great man is thrown around it,
in public estimation, its dignity mounts to the
divine.
Still, God did not make you a mere animal no
matter how fair. When temptation brings you
to the verge of sin, pause and listen to the soul
within you crying, " Stab me not ; I belong to
Jesus Christ ".
God did not only touch you as His dead body
touched the rock or the angel's fingers the
o o
flower : He not only holds over you a conven
tional proprietorship such as Caesar held over
the fawn.
His relations with you are infinitely closer.
12
Life's Starting Point and Goal
See what they are.
By an act of omnipotence He called you out
of nothing. His hand fashioned the graceful
curve of your limb, built up the delicate cells of
the brain and the wondrous machinery of the
eye ; then from His own hot lips He breathed
into that body a flame from the Blessed Trinity.
Oh how essentially you belong to God ! Count
up the properties of the body with its five
senses ; reflect on the soul with its immortal
life and divine reflection.
Ponder, then, on what He did make you ;
neither rock nor flower nor fawn, however fair.
He made you a man ; and on what model did
He shape your being ? Here we reach the
highest altitude in the ascending scale of man's
dignity.
His eyes swept the globe and no exemplar
could there be found. He examined the angel
hosts, but even in the Seraph that stood before
His throne He could discover no type of life
sufficiently exalted for the dignity He wished to
confer on you. Glory's crown of glory. He
made you after His own image and likeness.
Now we see the splendid structure God erected
on the tiny dust-shell the infidel saw.
13
From Dust to Glory
j
The reader must have observed that in all the
illustrations, whether a quill, an envelope, a rock,
a flower or a fawn, their value came not from
any intrinsic worth inherent in them hut from
sources lying entirely outside themselves.
So with man : on his utter lowliness God
raised an edifice of splendour ; therefore, while
having every reason for gratitude he has no more
reason to be proud than the torn envelope or
the old quill. In himself he was just as worth
less, all his dignity came from God's right hand
alone.
The concluding links in this chain of thought
are reserved for the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
THE GLORY DUE.
THIS is perhaps the most important as well as why did
the most interesting question that could engage God 11!ake
our thoughts.
Why did God create me :
St. Thomas answers. Because " Good is of its
own nature diffusive ". God, being goodness
without limit, He naturally pours out his per-
Sections on others. We see this law operating
every day.
We call the sun " good " for the golden
treasure of light, heat, and colour with which he
blesses the earth. You could not imagine the
t
sun, like a cruel miser, locking up his riches and
allowing this little planet to freeze in darkness ;
no, with every notion we have of the sun, the
dirlusiveness of goodness is associated.
Watch the good-natured man, and when does
he wear his happiest smile P Is it not when he
From Dust to Glory
puts his hand in his pocket to relieve the sorrows
of others, or when he stoops down to lift up the
wretched. Then the imprisoned sunlight of his
heart bursts out : it radiates and sparkles on
every feature, declaring the truth of the law that
whatever is good is diffusive.
Perhaps the best illustration of this is to be
seen in the head of a good, happy family.
Look into the home when the day's toil is
over, when the lamp is lighted and the winter
fire aglow. The children cluster around that
loving father. The little ones are upon his
knees crowing, dancing; with delight The arms
of others entwine around his neck. The pat ot
his hand sends an electric thrill of pleasure
through these young hearts, and the souls of his
children dilate in the sunshine of his love.
In like manner when the hand of death draws
aside the veil and we pass into the bright pres
ence of our Father, we will cluster around His
throne and He will saturate our beings, like the
sponge in the ocean, with His own glorious
attributes— -His wisdom, His power, His splen
dour. The fountain of all goodness will diffuse
Himself and iill our beings. Does not His
apostle tell us that " Eye hath not seen nor ear
16
The Glory Due
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of
man what things God hath prepared for those, that
love Him " ( j Cor. ii. 9).
The answer is evident — To give God Glory. What is
And glory is denned by St. Thomas as Clara cum my E
laude notliia --Clear knowledge of the head with
praise of the heart. From this definition it fol
lows that man alone can give God glory, since he
of all the creatures of His hand has a head to
know and a heart to love Him.
Every portion of creation is bound to con
tribute towards his creator's glory. The Psalm
ist calls on the stars and the winds, the cedars of
the forest and the beasts of the earth to sing His
praise. They do so by showing forth His power
and splendour, by lifting up man's thoughts, by
ministering to man's wants and faithfully obey
ing the laws their creator imposed on them.
But their contribution towards His glory must
always remain indirect. Without man they are
voiceless, not having intellects to know or hearts
to love. Man alone can directly approach his
maker and ofter Him glory.
When God surveyed the works of His hands
at the close of the fifth day the scene was fair.
The sun blazed from the blue canopy. The
17 2
From Dust to Glory
streams flowed and sparkled in its light, and the
woods resounded with the fresh songs of birds.
Yet from all that young world not a syllable of
glory went up to God. Man had not as yet
come upon the scene, and that world lay like a
mute organ awaiting the master's touch. Every
element from the starry wonders that dash
along their paths of fire to the creature that
roams the tropical forest or darts through the
ocean depths must contribute towards its creator's
glory, but man alone can present their offering.
They pour incense into the benediction boat,
but it is only when the high priest — man-
swings the thurible, the cloud of glory rises.
What kind Certain it is that the praise that goes to con-
of Praise ? stitute the glory offered to God must be of a
higher order than were wonder or cold admira
tion. The warm stream of benevolent love
must form a strong constituent element.
The full meaning of this distinction will be
come evident by an illustration. A young man
wanders into a beautiful palace where the highest
artistic genius triumphs. It is surrounded by
woods and gardens of rarest blooms. The air is
laden with delicate perfumes and the ear soothed
by the playing of fountains.
18
The Glory Due
This picture of loveliness, while it excites his
admiration, causes no quickened heart beat or
heightens not the colour on his cheeks, he gives
it his admiration but as yet no glory.
Now, however, a change comes. A hand is
placed on his shoulder : he turns around and
finds himself face to face with the king.
u I see you are admiring this palace, but do
you know for whom it was built ? "
"No, your Majesty."
" It was built for you."
Ah; how changed the light in his eyes now.
He no longer looks at the palace through the
medium of cold, distant admiration. His heart
wildly beats and the rose-coloured light of love
fills his vision. His personality, in a sense, goes
out and blends itself into his surroundings.
o
The king continues — "Perhaps you do not
know that you were born in slavery and that I
ransomed you at a great price. Now I not only
make you a present of this palace but I adopt
you a prince of the royal household."
That young man pants for the day when he
may perform some signal service to show his
gratitude for such lavish generosity.
Here you have true glory — Clara cum laude
19 2»
From Dust to Glory
notitia — the mind penetrated with a deep con
viction of all he owes and the heart pouring out
waves of grateful love.
Take up that story in detail and see how it
tits into your own life.
Look around the earth when spring has
wrapped it in vernal beauty, when the flowers
are flinging perfume on the air and the wood
lands thrill with melody. And to get a larger
view turn the telescope towards the starry world
of space. See the countless suns, the fiery
meteors dashing onward and the graceful comets
with their trails of splendour. Yet all these are
but dim reflections of the beauty of our real
home — heaven : and if the outside be so beauti
ful, what must the inside be.
For what were all those wondrous worlds
fashioned, for what this earth draped in loveli
ness ? — " For us men and for our salvation "
(Nicene Creed).
Were not you, too, born in slavery ?—- Yes.
You la}" a grovelling babe upon the ground
Polluted in the blood of your first sire,
With your whole essence shattered and unsound.
And coiled around your heart a demon dire.1
1 Dream of Gerontius.
20
The Glory Due
Did He not purchase you. And at what a price ?
Has He not lifted you up and given you for
associates the royal princes of His own court ?
" Whs is as the Lord our God,
" Raising up the needy from ike earth and
lifting up the poor out of the dunghill.
" Thai He may place him with princes, with
princes of His people" (Ps. cxii.).
One of these princes He sent to take your
hand at the baptismal font, they surround you
when you kneel before the tabernacle, and when
your last hour is passed they will welcome you
and hail you as a brother in your Father's home.
How vastly greater are your obligations even
to those of that favoured young man we left
in the beautiful palace with the generous king.
Therefore, since you know God and realize the
wonderful benefits He has showered upon you,
benevolent love should pour out His glory.
The outflowing tide of glory finds three channels.
The heart, where the fountain dwells. "My Cord<
heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living
God " (Ps. Ixxxviii. 3).
By the mouth, when the triple stream of Ore.
Kaith, Hope, and Charity blend in the wave
of prayer.
21
From Dust to Glory
By work, " If you love Mey keep My com
mandments" (John xiv. 15). Not only by
holding your life free from sin, but by for
warding His interests and creating Him in the
hearts of others.
The young man surely would not be satisfied
with merely keeping the king's laws. That he
would consider a very poor return. His spirit
would yearn for conquest, he would burn with
desire to extend that king's dominions, to make
his name respected and his will obeyed.
The text placed over the first chapter tells us
that man's duty towards God is not only to
give praise and service but also reverence.
When you have acquired all contained in this
one word, the coping stone of your perfection is
set : the topmost point is reached.
Internal reverence is nothing less than living
a life of interior recollection with the light of
faith constantly upon your eyes, enabling you
to perpetually realize the presence of God and
walk in the splendour of His face.
To a man who has acquired this reverence
sin is difficult. For, when the devil tempts you,
should Christ appear before you and, pointing
to His thorn-crowned head and bleeding side.
22
The Glory Due
asking — " Will you crucify Me again ? " would
you for a moment dally with temptation ? But
the man of interior recollection lives constantly
in God's presence and sees Him as clearly with
the eyes of faith as you would with the eyes of
flesh in that hour of trial. It is this spirit of
living faith that gives holy persons such power.
A virtue goes out from them. There is an
unction in their words. Unseen waves from the
furnace chamber within are flowing out, and the
hardest hearts melt and wills the most stubborn
surrender. Quench that inner life of faith,
and, though gifted with the eloquence of De
mosthenes, you become sounding brass. Should
your achievements surpass those of Alexander, if
not vitalized by that secret fire, they will fall as
feeble monuments of sand.
But, when your life is surrounded by the light
of God's presence as the fishes are surrounded
by the sea, you will do wonders, although your
gifts are of the humblest order : for by Faith
you will see God, by Hope you will lean on
Him, and by Charity you will feed on Him.
Then you can exclaim :—
" I live, not I now, but Christ lives in me.
" iMy beloved to me and I to Him."
CHAPTER III.
HOW ANGELS FELL.
Effect to So far we have fixed our attention exclusively on
Cause. two points — God and the soul.
Now glancing along that, avenue that separates
the soul from God, we see flung across it a
monster that bristles with danger. Its name is
mortal sin.
But should the reader hope to get a complete
knowledge of mortal sin let him at the outset
dismiss that hope.
The powers of the human intelligence are
limited, and there are giant evils that stand com
pletely outside and beyond its grasp and the
greatest of these is mortal sin.
For instance, what man has ever taken a
thunderbolt in his hands and examined its parts
under the microscope, or what man has placed
his finger on the earthquake's fiery pulse and
marked its throb. When we come to deal with
evils of first magnitude we are compelled to
24
How Angels Fell
approach them indirectly, namely, from the
effects before us we reason back to the cause.
An illustration will make this clear. A few
years ago the fair city of San Francisco flourished
in pride and beauty till the earthquake fiend
stretched out its hot hands, grasped its foun
dation pillars and dashed its proudest palaces
like cardboard toys.
Direct measurement of the earthquake's de
structive energy was out of the question. No
one suggested that it should be flung on the
dissecting table or its constituent elements thrown
into the chemical retort.
No ! to get even a limited knowledge of its
power the indirect method of reasoning alone
remained. When the smiling picture that joyous
city presented was contrasted with the mournful
mass of ruins that remained after the catastrophe,
some notion of the earthquake's might was
formed.
This is the line of reasoning we brine; to
examine the angel's sin. We behold them
before sin knew them and we then see them
fallen and torn. By the contrast of these two
pictures we hope to get a partial knowledge of
the blighting power of mortal sin,
25
From Dust to Glory
Before The angels, how perfect ! Created out of
el ' pure love and after God's own image. His
eldest sons, the royal princes that clustered
around His throne, draped in the dazzling
splendours of His own perfections ; and rightly
so, for what more natural than that the sons
should bear a likeness to their Father.
Their The angel body was not made of clay like
ies' ours, a prey to disease, the plaything of every
element, shivering in the winter cold and swoon -
ing in the summer heats. No ! bodies of flaw
less spirit were given them.
Their Their intellects so illumined and enriched !
Mmds. ^^ i what is the mincj Of man in comparison
with the angelic ?
What does the tiny grub, coiled in its burrow
of clay, know of the sun's beauty compared to
the eagle that, springing from an alpine cliff,
cleaves with his strong wing the blue ether, dis
ports himself in the high fields of light and dares
to fix his fearless gaze upon the sun ? When we
gather a few stray beams of knowledge, years
are consumed and the midnight lamp burned, and
even then how feeble our grasp. We have
scarcely laid hold of them till they vanish, and
the end of the longest life how paltry our store !
26
How Angels Fell
We all feel with Sir Isaac Newton that we are
children wandering by the seashore picking
up here and there a few stray pearls of truth
while the great ocean of wisdom lies unexplored
before us.
With the angels how different. They lived
in the brightness of their Father's face, and the
floods of knowledge flowed down through the
O D
chambers of their minds without effort or labour,
like the sunshine falling through the spring
well, illumining the faintest nook, gilding the
tiniest pebble. Hence the name Cherubim,
which means -fulness of wisdom.
How the angels loved God ! If the love the Their
saints bore Him was so intense, as we see in the Hearts-
case of St. Francis Xavier and St. Philip Neri
when crying, " Hold ! enough, I can bear no
more," they feared that the tension was so
great that their hearts would burst. St. Stanis-
o
laus used to rush out into the frosty night air
and tear open his gown to cool the passionate
ardour of his breast. If these creatures, half
spirit and half clay, flung on a little ball of
earth, and far away from the splendours of their
Father's face, could so love God, what must be
the love of God's own angels who gazed on His
27
From Dust to Glory
perfections ? Hence again, the word Seraph,
which means — burning love.
o
God If God so loves us — and the crucifix and the
Loved sanctuary lamp speak that love with an eloquence
Them. 1 J . I U
that leaves human language dumb — who can
hope to tell the love He bore His own bright
angels ?
It is natural that every father should love with
a special love the child most like himself. This
is strikingly illustrated in the story of the two
Pitts, Hie younger, William, being too delicate
to go to Eton, his father became responsible for
his early education.
When the marvellous powers enshrined within
that fragile frame were discovered, that father
echoed his son's thankfulness that he was not
the eldest and therefore need not go to the
House of Lords. The world at that time held
but one theatre worthy of his great gifts— the
House of Commons — then lighted by the most
brilliant galaxy of stars that perhaps ever adorned
an assembly.
In after years that father was carried to the
distinguished strangers' gallery, and when he
looked down on his son, so like himself — the
luminous mind and trumpet voice --and saw
28
How Angels Fell
him crossing swords with the first orators of
Europe, at an age when other boys were
struggling with the difficulties of Euclid, the
tears coursed down his cheeks ; for in that child
he saw his reflected self. So, how intense must
have been God's love for His own spirit sons
in whom He beheld the reflection of His own
glory.
To crown all He gave them free will as He
o
gives to us. The forced service of slaves would
be unworthy of Him and His children. Their
free will was exposed to one trial, and if they
stood firm they would be confirmed in grace and
given eternal glory.
Oil this point let us have clear ideas. It was Their
not God who made it a temptation. On His Tnal>
part it was but the announcement of a truth
that they should know. When He declares
that we should honour our fathers and mothers
we do nor complain that He is throwing
temptation in our way. What was this truth
that He revealed to the angels ? According to
O O
a fairly common opinion it was the revelation
of the mystery of the Incarnation.
See what was involved in this revelation.
Another nature was to receive the honour of
29
From Dust to Glory
being elevated to the eternal throne, and that
nature was not the angelic, but one vastly inferior.
Secondly, the angels will have to adore Christ
made man even in His darkest hour when He
lay like a crushed worm in Gethsemane.
Finally, and perhaps this was their greatest
trial, Mary, a creature entirely of the inferior
nature, was to be lifted above them and made
Queen of angels.
Pride was the root from which their ruin
sprung. Lucifer wished to be like God, and
by hypostatic union hoped to be His equal.
The Incarnation shattered his ambitious dreams ;
for now, not only will he remain inferior to
God, but to God made man.
This point is too interesting to be passed
over lightly. An illustration will drive it home
with force and clearness and enable the reader
to fully grasp the consequences involved by the
announcement of the Incarnation.
The King Some years ago there were constant rumours
of the intended marriage of the King of Spain,
and much speculation as to who his consort was
to be. Now let us suppose him summoning
the ladies of the noble families and declaring his
intention of taking a wife.
30
How Angels Fell
The announcement so far would cause flutter
ing in many a heart, and the question rising to
every lip would be — Who shall be the queen of
Spain ? 1 heir suspense is quickly relieved, for
he informs them that he has determined to take
his wife from a labourer's cottage. Their cheeks
are blanched. Their breath is taken away.
They gasp in whispers, asking, "Is he mad? "
What ! the daughters of the hidalgos passed
over, the ladies of proudest lineage, the descend
ants of heroes whose names adorn the brightest
pages of Spanish history, slighted for a work
man's daughter ! The consequences from this
announcement are natural. The first is that
those scions of the proudest nobility in Europe
will have to bend their knees before this work
man's daughter when she becomes queen, and,
horror of horrors, they will have to bow their
proud heads before the supreme lady at court
who, of course, is to be the queen's mother, the
erstwhile workman's wife. What a trial on
their humility and loyalty ! what a temptation
to shout the cry of rage— Never !
This perfectly illustrates the trial the angels
were subjected to when God announced that the
angelic nature would be passed over and one
31
From Dust to Glory
vastly inferior was to be lifted to union with
the Godhead. The person of Christ, always
remaining divine, claimed their homage even
in the hour of His lowliest abjection ; and
that Mary, being mother of God, should be
reverenced as Queen of angels. Here was their
trial, and we now see it was no small one. It
demanded humility of intellect to implicitly
believe and not dare to question the decrees of
God, and humility of will to adore the Word
made flesh.
Their They pause ; blinded by his own excellence
and forgetting that every gift he had was the
generous gift of God, Lucifer, voicing the
determination of his brother rebels, raised the
cry of rebellion : Non seruiam — " I will not
serve ". And behold a great dragon ; and his tail
drew the third part of the stars of heaven ( Apoc.
xii. 3).
Compressed within that short sentence you
will find the essence of every sin committed
since that hour. When the infidel shoots his lip
of scorn and tosses his head in fancied superiority,
asking does the world think that he, a man of
genius, will bow to the declaration of the Church
and accept a truth he cannot understand ; that
32
How Angels Fell
proud and insolent will echoes Lucifer's shout
of defiance — " I will not serve ". Oh, what
fantastic tricks before high heaven does not the
proud man play !
Poor creature ! he prefers to be guided by the
little glow-worm spark of his own intelligence
than by the light of the eternal sun. When a
man to gratify his own passions tramples on
God's law, again we hear the words that lighted
hell's fire — " I will not serve ". Proud ambition
has strewn this earth with wrecks of greatness,
Alexander, weeping because there were other
worlds that he could not conquer, and Napoleon,
like a caged eagle, eating out his heart in St.
Helena, are samples of millions. " By that sin
fell the angels ; how can man then, the image
of his maker, hope to win by it? " (Shakespeare,
"Henry VIII.").
"Depart from me." See how much that Con-
meant to the angels. Depart from whom? demned>
From God, their Father, their King, the vei
'V
centre of their existence.
In this country we are accustomed to witness
painful partings when the outgoing exiles gather
at the railway stations. The bell announces the
incoming train --what wild shrieks— -what wails
3 > :i
From Dust to Glory
of anguish rise. See the knotted arms of the
daughter clasping her sobbing father's neck.
Their very heart-strings are torn. But hope
still remains, and who knows but they may meet
again. Then they are going with the prospect
of happy homes and not into a fire-lit hell.
Who can describe the terror of these words :
Depart from me ? It is the straining of a world,
the tearing of a planet from its centre.
One sin lighted the fires of hell : eternity will
not quench them. The illusion of temptation
has now passed. THEY are stripped of every
angelic glory and reduced to the hideousness of
devils. They are not hurled over the battle
ments of heaven by God Himself, but by their
late companions whom they now see confirmed
in glory.
What a change !
O Lucifer, star of the morning, how art thou
fallen !
Tortured Their minds, once the homes of tranquil joy,
are now invaded by a thousand serpents — rage,
dejection, despair.
And remember that all this was new to the
angels. What keenness is given to the edge of
sorrowr by that fact ?
How Angels Fell
The beggar's child, who often has to crunch
the hard crust of poverty or go to bed supper-
less, feels the pinch of want very little.
But the child of the prince, around whose
cradle the proudest of the land stood uncovered,
whose delicate limbs were wrapped in purple
and fine linen, whose every want, aye every
whim was ministered to, should he find himself
cast on the roadside an object of contempt com
pelled to stretch out a craver's hand or famish.
Oh ! the sharpness of his torture. Every
instinct of his nature and every recollection of
the past rises up to tear his heart with the teeth
of rage.
Before that fatal sin their substances were, as Blasted
the princes of God's court and His own eldest Bodies,
sons should be, arrayed in dazzling splendour.
The Holy Ghost thus describes Lucifer's per
fections — " Thou wast the sea! of resemblance, full
of wisdom, and perfect in beauty ; thou wast In the
-pleasures of the -paradise of God ; precious stones
were thy covering, gold was the work of thy beauty.
I set thce on the mountain of God, and thou didst
walk in the midst of stones of fire. Thou wast
•perfect in thy ways from, the day of thy creation
until iniquity was found in thee " (Ezch. xxviii. i 2).
From Dust to Glory
The blighting breath of one mortal sin passes
over that picture of God-like splendour, and
mark the result— He, whose covering were
" precious stones " and who was " perfect in
beauty," becomes so repulsive, an object of such
terror that the very pigs of our earth rush to
commit suicide rather than keep company with
this one-time star of glory.
In the fifth chapter of St. Mark's Gospel we
read that when our Lord preached by the
seashore, a man possessed of a legion of devils
besought Him to expel them from his body.
He did so, and at the request of these fallen
angels permitted them to enter a herd of swine
grazing close by. What happened ? The filthy
gutter swine, the vilest animal in creation, rushed
and flung themselves into the devouring waves
rather than associate with the one-time " pleasures
of paradise .
No gift of pen or tongue can paint the trans
forming power of a single sin half as eloquently
as that naked fact.
Then, when I walked the streets in sin did
God tear aside the veil that hid the repulsive
hideousness of my soul and let men see it with
the lijrht of His eyes, those that would not
How Angels Fell
drop dead from fright would run stark mad
at that vision of terror. Yet the God that did
not spare His own bright angels, who committed
but one sin, spared me, perhaps guilty a
hundred times.
The fallen angels suffer without hope. When
Christ wept over Jerusalem and bled upon
Calvary not a blood drop or a tear was shed
for them.
How long must they suffer? They had
suffered for four thousand years when Christ
came on earth. They have suffered two
thousand years since, and to the howls of their
despair the caverns of hell hold but one echo
—I/or ever.
Who punishes them ? A God whose infinite
justice will not permit Him to punish the
millionth part of a hair's breadth beyond what
their crime deserves ; a God also infinite in His
mercy and goodness. So that, terrible as their
punishment is when we see mercy and goodness
restraining even justice, we are forced to con
clude that the punishment is less than what the
crime deserved.
Standing now on the brink of a fire-lit hell
and looking up I see one-third of heaven
37
From Dust to Glory
desolate ; I then turn my eyes in upon my own
heart and look down the years that have flown
and what ghastly spectres rise before me — Sin
sufficient to light a thousand hells, and though
forgiven again and again I went back to my
degradation. With head bowed down and a
o
soul weighted with shame I now climb the
slopes of Calvary to witness the murderous
power of mortal sin as in no place else it can be
seen.
Calvary. Suppose a man, swept by a tempest of passion,
should in a moment of blind fury murder his
own father. He then goes home to sleep, and
in the grey dawn awakens : the ghost recollec
tions of last night's crime begin to form on his
brain. In his half-conscious moments he flings
out his hand with a gesture to repel the hideous
image as the spectre of an ugly dream ; as he
does so he starts, for that hand bears a crimson
stain that assures him that his guilt does not
belong to the world of dreams but the world of
fact.
He rises and staggers towards the scene of his
late crime. When he reaches the spot he sees
the white dust clotted with his father's blood ;
he marks the rigid muscles of a face that speaks
38
How Angels Fell
pain from every feature ; he sees the track of his
guilty knife in the dead heart.
There is another also there : his mother.
She is speechless with sorrow. She is rocked in
the convulsive throes of grief. She is tearino-
her grey hairs and cursing the black day that she
ever gave birth to such a monster. What would
be the sentiments of that man ? Sorrow ? No !
Sorrow is too feeble a word. His soul would
be saturated with shame and confusion. He
would call on the mountains to overwhelm him
and crush him. He would beg the earth to
open its jaws and swallow him.
WE have now reached Calvary's summit. Let
us kneel down for our Father is dying. Look
at His thorn-crowned head and wounded heart ;
His flesh is hanging ljkc purple rags around
Him, and ask—
"O Christ, how does it happen that you,
being eternally happy in heaven, should come
to die on a gibbet ? "
Listen ! listen ! see ; His pale lips are moving.
He speaks. Oh ! Words of terror :_
"Mortal sin murdered me. When you com
mitted mortal sin that day you murdered your
own Father—Jesus Christ."
39
From Dust to Glory
Bowing down /before our dying Father let us
ask " O Christ, what have we done for you in
the past? What are we doing for you in the
present? What will we do for you in the
future ? "
CHAPTER IV.
THE FATAL FRUIT.
THE first thunderbolt of sin fell in the heavens.
In the previous chapter we heard its crash, but
from afar. The second burst upon our own
earth through the persons of our first parents.
To Adam's sin I now invite the reader's attention.
He was created and placed in a garden of de- Before he
lights, where there were no summer heats or Fel '
shivering winter colds. A spring — like breath
of perpetual balm tempered the genial air around
him. From the generous earth fruits and flowers
sprung in teeming abundance. It was a garden
of delights ; in a word, it was Paradise.
His own structure, how perfect ! His body,
the immediate handiwork of God : peerless in
its manly beauty, perfection without a flaw,
healthy vigour never to be shadowed by disease
or pain. Age was to leave no traces of decay,
and the flight of years could bring no wrinkles
4'
From Dust to Glory
to his brow. The energies of perpetual youth,
and the undimmed sunshine of boyhood to
remain for ever.
In mind, how happy ! Sadness or sorrow
could never blight its joys. The passions that
rend and tear us might never invade the calm
serenity of his soul. An intellect that looked
up, knew God, and was filled with knowledge,
and supremely happy. He revelled in every
joy.
The Ten- On what condition did Adam hold all this ?
Paradise ^n ^ s^mplest anc^ easiest. How happy would
you not consider a man who held an ample
estate on the condition of paying what lawyers
call a Ct pepper-corn rent " ! a farthing, a nut, an
ear of corn, some trifle merely to acknowledge
that he was not absolute owner, but held it from
the generous bounty of another.
Such was the tenure of paradise.
Now if God gave Adam the use of one tree,
amply sufficient for his needs, we should admire
His generosity. But behold His lavish liber
ality ! The full range of paradise is his. One
tree alone he may not touch. Why ? for reasons
the most salutary ; to remind Adam of his de
pendence on God ; to keep him in wholesome
.1 2
The Fatal Fruit
humility, lest pride might destroy him, as it
destroyed the angels. The first pair revelled in
every happiness ; they were constrained by one
slender silken thread, and that to save them
from themselves.
Adam rebels, and the withering blight falls on The Fail.
every portion of creation. The air above his
head becomes charged with curses. The electric
bolt that smites our proudest temples, ploughs
the earth, and blasts life on its withering path, is
the consequence of one sin. How many millions
since have not perished in the freezing grip of
winter ? See the retreat of the grand army that
Napoleon led to Moscow, the arms dropping
from the numbed hands of the soldiers, their
frost-bitten noses and ears dropping off, and
their stark bodies flung, like the links of a
frozen chain, across the snows of Europe.
What dreary sorrow does not the long snowy
winter bring to the cheerless homes of our poor ?
What millions, too, have not perished in the
other extreme — heat — languishing to death in
the droughts, scourged by fevers, or dying in
the frantic agonies of thirst ?
Sin blights the earth under Adam's feet. The
soil that teemed with luxuriance, sulks, and now
43
From Dust to Glory
will produce only briars and thistles. Its meagre
fruits are gathered only in incertitude and fear,
and then only when watered with the sweat of
the toiler's brow.
The shadow of sin falls on the fairest portion
of God's creation — the human intellect, and how
dimmed its light, how crippled its powers be
come ! Bright streams of knowledge are no
longer poured in ; an eclipse has taken place.
Before the fall the lamp of reason shone
above the passions of the breast, and made clear
their path. It held them in the cords of willing
obedience, and controlled their movements. At
the command of reason they rose in strong
energy, or sank into quiet repose. But sin
struck the controlling power of reason, and
paralysed it. The passions rose in fury, tossed
aside the bridle of restraint, and bid defiance to
the once commanding reason. How many a
time since did not the voice of reason ring in
the drunkard's ear, telling him of the ruin before
him ? But the rebellious will swept him onwards
to destruction, despite that warning voice.
Behold the body ! See that pair that would
be God's, begging the leaves of the trees for
covering, and cowering before their judge to
The Fatal Fruit
hear the sentence — Cl I will multiply thy son ows
and thy conceptions ; in sorrow shall thoit bring
forth children " (Gen. iii. 16).
Take that one consequence of sin alone-— the
pangs of child-birth. What groans, tears, and
living martyrdom has it not entailed on Eve's
daughters ! This punishment stands unique.
Every other function of nature, such as sleeping,
eating, breathing, is accompanied by pleasure.
There is no exception to the rule but one.
When science is asked to give an explanation,
her lips are dumb. There is no explanation but
the words of Genesis : Tn sorrow shall thou bring
forth children.
Every day discovered to them the miseries
their crime entailed. With what anguish they The Crim-
beheld the first death, and the first guilty blood son Stain'
that stained the virgin earth !
They had two sons. God loved innocent
Abel, and hated Cain, for the only reason that
He can hate any creature — Cain sinned. In the
primitive dealings between God and the first
human family a knowledge of this was brought
to Cain. His heart was devoured by jealousy,
and the devil prompted him to an awful crime.
In the depth of the lonely woods he met and
From Dust to Glory
slew his brother. He sees that brother's blood
dyeing the green grass : his hands are crimson,
and when he looks towards heaven, a blood
stained cloud floats between him and his Father's
face. The pure angels must have looked down
with shuddering horror upon that scene, and
the devils danced and screamed in wild delight
around that guilty man. He ran in terror, "a
fugitive and a vagabond on the face of the earth ".
Adam searched long for his favourite boy.
We see him rushing through the pathless woods,
his unshorn beard sweeping his breast, his un
kempt hair floating on the wind, his pallid
cheeks, his staring eyeballs, and his quivering
lips. He throws up his hands in agony, crying,
"Abel! Abel!" and the forest echo gives
back his words, " Abel ! Abel ! "
At length he stumbles on the corpse. He
stands petrified with terror, asking, " What is
this? What is this?" The face, form, and
lineaments are those of his child indeed, but
why those rigid limbs, this motionless form, that
glassy stare ? Poor man ; he had never seen a
corpse before.
He carries the body home to Eve. They ex
amine his wounds. They call him, but' he will
The Fatal Fruit
not speak. What ! will those pallid lips never
form the sweet word — u Mother " ? Will those
glassy eyes never beam with life ? Is the throb
of that young heart stilled for ever r
They are rocked in a stupor of grief. Through
the weary hours they watch by their dead darling
boy. It was the first wake. At last the truth
breaks upon them ; for the air grows tainted, and
worms have come to claim their own. Oh, now
they realize the Master's words : In what day
soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shah die the death
(Gen. ii. 17). This is death! This is death!
Rushing through the poisoned air, they snatch
the body, and place it in the first grave, and,
as the dark mould covers their dead child,
again they recall the Master's words : "Dust
thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return "
(Gen. iii. 19). The first corpse that rested on
the earth was the corpse of a murdered man, and
the first guilty blood that stained it was drawn
by a brother's hand.
That one sin unbarred the sluice-gates of
calamities ; it has deluged the world with woe.
Not a disease that has scourged humanity but
can be traced to it.
To enable the reader to realise the greatness
47
From Dust to Glory
of the curse brought by Adam's sin, we shall
take three pictures : a plague, an hospital, and a
battlefield.
The The reader, perhaps, has heard of the terrible
plague that swept, like the wing of a destroying
angel, over the face of Europe in the latter half
of the fourteenth century. It was called the
" Black Death," and " The Plague of Florence ".
The roadside was lined with corpses, and from
the city streets loads of dead were carted and
shot into a common pit, without a breath of
prayer or the sound of a passing bell.
Men who left their homes in health, staggered,
reeled, and fell, without a hand to moisten their
parched lips, or give their bodies decent interment.
The streets, that, a month before, echoed the
tramp of the swaying throngs, or rang with the
busy sounds of life, became deserted. The grass
grew between the paving stones of the squares of
fashion ; and there was no sound to break the
mournful stillness, save the stifled groan of the
deserted victim, or the snarls of the hungry dogs
that fought over human flesh.
Strong minds gazed in stupor ; but for those
of more tender fibre the tension was too great.
They snapped and plunged into riotous excess,
The Fatal Fruit
or gave themselves up to the dismal ravings of
fanaticism,
Stand in imagination on some neighbouring
tower and look down on that charnel house
of woe. See the terror-stricken fugitives, the
tottering dying, the ghastly dead.
Listen to the roll of the corpse cart, and reflect
that all that misery flowed from one mortal sin.
Then, turning your eyes from that plague-stricken
city, back into your own life — Oh! Merciful
God ! I have been guilty of sin sufficient to deluge
a thousand worlds with ravages worse than these ;
and yet God gives me time to repent ; opens
wide His arms to receive the prodigal ; and on
His lips the whispering words of peace are
formed. Shall I hesitate, then, to fling myself
on that Father's neck, and wash with tears of
blood, it necessary, a life so leprous and so foul.
Where do we see the concrete results of The
mortal sin more strikingly than in a large city
hospital? Go into the wards from bed to bed,
Look at the hectic Hush on the wasted cheek of
the consumptive, the white lips, and the fatal
shining gloss in the eye. See the mute sorrow of
the helpless paralytic. His limbs fall lifeless, and
the tear of misery courses down his cheek.
49
HOSL
From Dust to Glory
When you enter the surgical ward you see the
tables glittering with knives and instruments.
There is a young man in the prime of life ; he has
met with an accident While under the influence
of the drugs he is dreaming of home and his
young wife, or humming his infant child to sleep.
When he awakens, the sad truth bursts upon
him. He has lost his arm. He is stunned ; his
head droops ; and from the depths of his broken
heart utters the wish that he was never born, or
that an early grave will quench his misery.
Come across to the fever department. Here
is a fair young girl ; the star of joy that lighted
up her father's home. Her innocent charms
swayed all hearts, and disarmed even the tongue
of envy. Behold her now. Her shaven head
tossing on a pillow that sleep refuses to visit ;
her reason gone ; her veins swollen with fiery
blood ; her eyes staring at some image of dis
ordered fancy. Listen to the shrieks, the sobs,
the maniac laughter. What a contrast that poor
sad wreck to the girl that a month ago was the
joy of her parents and the pride of her village.
Stand in that hospital at midnight. The
shaded lights are in the wards. Listen ! Above
the soft tread of nurses comes the laboured
The Fatal Fruit
breathing, the sharp cry of pain, the long drawn
sigh, or the death rattle. Every breath is
burdened with sorrow.
Glide softly in the curtain shadows and see
the crystal beads of anguish standing on the pale
foreheads, the damp brows, the tear-filled eyes ;
and then turn from that home of misery into
the still moonlight, and reflect that all that, and a
million times more, is the result of one mortal
sin committed six thousand years ago ; and under
the bright stars gleaming down, like the mild eyes
of God's mercy, I confess to have committed
sin sufficient to hurl this whole planet into the
living chambers of hell.
Perhaps the appalling consequences of Adam's The
sin are best seen in that deluge of loosened Battle
passions — that engine of human wreckage, called
war. What a sight ! Men and brothers, chil
dren of the same God, redeemed by the same
blood, destined for the same heaven : men who
are the stays of aged parents or the heads of
large families ; men who, in times of peace, are
models of gentle kindliness ; men who would
step aside, rather than tread upon a worm. What
horror to see such men rending and slaughter
ing each other ! When the war blast rings upon
From Dust to Glory
the air, all the passions begotten of sin are un
chained, the furies of hate and murder possess
God's children, and man becomes a tiger, with
a tiger's rage for blood,
Wellington tells us that no man that ever
o
saw a battlefield the day after action wished to
see another. Take a glance at that battlefield.
The furnace blaze from the batteries is mowing
clown the advancing columns. Listen to the
boom of cannon, the rattle of musketry, the
exploding shells, dashing fragments of broken
humanity to the winds of heaven, the shouts of
onset, the blare of trumpets and the crash of
military music. The very air is raining blood,
and the iron hooves of the charging cavalry
horses battering human skulls, and trampling
human hearts that a week before beat in love.
Return to that scene a month after. As you
approach it, you see a dark canopy hanging in
the heavens above it. Make no mistake. It is
not a rain cloud, but the tens of thousands carrion
birds that have scented rotting humanity from
afar. They are preparing to pounce down and
pick the eyes that once beamed with tenderness,
and fill their foul maws with the hearts of kingly
men.
The Fatal Fruit
Come a year after, and see the hillside bleached
white with human bones, and the plains dotted
with stacks and pyramids of human skulls ;
fitting monuments to mortal sin.
As ! ponder on that sad spectacle, I recognise
myself a criminal. Yes, in a fatal hour I com
mitted a crime that desolated heaven, lighted the
fires of hell, converted this fair earth into a
human shambles, and, worse than all, murdered
the King's only son. That crime I have repeated
again and again. Yet, the God that did not spare
His own bright angels, not only spared me, but
pursued me with His love.
Having pondered well on the dual crimes
that blighted the angels and filled this earth with
misery, we come now to gaze on the common
legacy of Adam's fall : a deathbed. Kneeling
there, before the crucifix, overwhelmed with
shame and confusion at my own baseness, and
filled with astonishment at God's wondrous
mercy and love towards me, I again ask what
have I done for Christ in the past? What am
1 doing for Christ in the present? What shall
I do for Christ in the future ?
.
CHAPTER V.
LIFE'S DREAM IS O'ER.
A MOMHNT must come to every one when the last
busy pulse-beat of life will die and the last breath
of life flutter forth — that fateful moment when
the soul passes across the threshold that separates
time from eternity.
Let us try to realize the picture.
The doctor no longer holds out hope. The
priest is summoned ; my five senses are anointed
with holy oil ; the blessed candle is lighted in my
hand, and a group of weeping friends around my
bed are answering the litany for the dying.
The framework of nature is dissolving, and I
seem to sink into an abyss — there is nothing solid
to lay hold of, and I sink, sink, sink.
A mist grows around the candle flume, and
the voices of my friends seem as if coming from
a distance that grows greater at each response,
till at length they die into faint echoes from the
54
Life's Dream is O'er
shores of a world that is swiftly passing away
from me, and the last words I hear are, " He
is gone ".
What happens at that moment ? A number The
of important changes take place. With the last ^j^/'1
heart-beat time dies, and with time the period of
merit vanishes. The imagination withers, and
o
the passions fall off like scales. The bodily case
ment of earth crumbles and falls from me, and
the liberated soul bounds into its native freedom.
Its powers, for the first time, get unfettered
play— up to this its energies have had to struggle
through the dark avenues of the senses and the
feeble organ called the brain.
When sunlight falls through a forest, a part
of it is swallowed up by the dark clumps, and a
part dashed and broken by the swaying branches.
In like manner, sleep, weariness, distraction, in
terrupted and baffled the outflow of the soul's
activities. But the sharp sword of death has
felled these impediments, and there it lies now
a living structure of palpitating energy. Calmly,
but piercingly, it surveys the multiform activities
of the world it has just left, and appraises them
at their true values.
What does the soul see ? what the
H - Soul Sees.
From Dust to Glory
It will assist the reader to grasp all involved
in the answer to that important question, if for
a few minutes he accompanies me to the scene I
once witnessed in the Australian bush.
When the sunset trembled on the forest leaves
and the warm breath was rising from the heated
earth, I rode towards the "Station" of a patri
archal squatter.
His flocks and herds were large, and those of
his sons and daughters roamed over many a
square mile.
The occasion of Mass at his house on the
following morning gathered his children and
his children's children around him.
As I approached the house I saw him sitting
in the sunset on the verandah. His white locks
fell upon his shoulders and he leaned upon a
stick watching the frolics of a dozen grand
children — one group was chasing butterflies,
another struggling for the possession of a
glass marble, and a third pursuing a painted
ball.
As I took a seat beside him, he said with a
sad smile — " It is difficult for an old man to
persuade himself that he was ever so foolish as
those children who are burning out the energies
Life's Dream is O'er
of their lives for a glass marble, a painted ball, or
a butterfly ".
Yes ! that playground was the world in minia
ture. There could be seen its passions in full
play ; its meanness, its generosity, its ambitions,
disappointments, and despairs.
Now, when my soul for the first time sees
life in its true light and reads its true value, I
shall find myself, like the bush patriarch, wonder
ing that I was ever guilty of such madness as to
burn my brain and empty out the treasures of
my heart on the trumpery baubles for whose
possession I now sec the children of God wasting
themselves.
What pictures of folly now unfold themselves
to the soul when the light of eternity falls on it.
It looks into the busy marts and sees the
human tide sweep swiftly to and fro. Men's
foreheads are wrinkled with anxious thought,
their eyes set, their lips moving in silent calcula
tions, their 1.) rains on lire, and. their hearts wildly
beating. And all for what? P'or a fe\v pounds
that must drop from their hands when the icy
finger of death touches them.
It looks into the social world to see the plots
hatched, the schemes elaborated, the influence
•
From Dust to Glory
canvassed, and the money squandered that some
man may write a few poor letters after his name.
Writers sometimes laugh at the childishness
of the American aborigine, who put on airs and
swaggered, because on a piece of string he wore
a glass bead that Columbus had given him.
Has his more civilized white brother improved
in wisdom since ? What sleepless nights, what
energies wasted to-day to procure a button, a
rosette, or a garter !
It now turns to the fashionable square to see
a lady tossing her head on a sleepless pillow.
Her eyes are red and her cheeks are wet with
bitter tears, and why? Because of some trifling
social disappointment.
Let me ask — Has the world outgrown the
folly of those Australian children we saw at play?
How little of its thoughts and energies are
given to God and the eternal life before us, and
how much to the painted balls, the butterflies,
and the glass marbles ! For what did 1 rob
God of the love and service due to Him ? For
that poor corpse, that in two days will be flung
to the worms.
Even now, I can hear the hammer on the
coffin nails and the clink of the grave-diggers'
58
Life's Dream is O'er
spades preparing its last resting-place ; yet to
pamper and decorate that crumbling clay, I
neglected, perhaps insulted the God that I now
see should have been my all.
When my glance sweeps over the swarthy
millions roaming the African wilds— those dusky
children of God who never heard the sound
of their Father's name -the crushing reflection
will rise : If they got a millionth part of the
graces poured on my life, how many of them
would be uncanonized saints to-day?
This is the first pain of purgatory. My soul
has not yet gazed on God's face ; no flame
breath has touched it, yet its punishment has
already begun.
The regrets for neglected graces and squan
dered years will pierce through and through
like swords of flame.
Such is the change that must come to the in- The Will,
tcllcct immediately alter death ; but a change
vastly greater awaits the will. Here it is not a
widening nor a deepening of its powers, but the
awakening of a new passion, a passion that tran
quilly slept during life and gave no sign till
death touches and arouses it to stormy action.
Theologians assure us that deep down in the
59
From Dust to Glory
human heart, wrapped in slumber, there lies a
force which they call the radical love of the soul
for God ; but the moment the spirit shakes
itself free from that envelope of clay, that
passion will break into tempestuous fury. The
newly caught tiger does not dash itself with
wilder violence against the bars of its prison
cage than does the liberated soul struggle to
reach God.
A million years cannot weaken the energies
of this passion, and the fires of hell cannot burn
it out. This unsatisfied hunger of the soul for
God is called the " Pain of Loss," and constitutes
one of the most terrible punishments of the
damned. A few illustrations will enable us to
realize the nature of the sours root-love of God.
The Lark. You go out in early summer. The sun has
not yet risen. A light veil of darkness hangs
over the landscape and grey fogs enfold the hills.
Opal waves arc now seen to float across the
eastern horizon ; this pale light deepens into
a rosy dawn ; and now a cupola of burnished
splendour announces that the sun is at hand.
The darkness swiftly melts, and around the
mountain's shoulder, like guilty ghosts, the
vapour fogs vanish. Then, as a warm wave of
60
Life's Dream is O'er
sunshine floods the meadow, the lark, springs
from her grassy couch, the de\v-drops hilling
like crystal beads from her quivering wings.
The sunlight has broken upon her and the
passion of song that slumbered through the
hours of darkness awakens.
Higher she mounts and more rapturous her
strains become. The pent up stream of music
is set free and every note trembles with intensity.
Higher still she rises, thrilling as she pierces the
ocean of light, and it seems as if her little heart
is bursting in her throat. Now she has become
a mere speck. It looks as if she was hurrying
to join the angel choir and sing the praises of
God, but, pausing at the gate of Paradise, she
flings back on a lonesome world a farewell wreath
of song.
At last she is lost to sight and the only assur
ance we have that she has, as yet, not darted
into the heart of the sun or passed to join the
spirit choir, is that down through the cool blue
morning air a shower of silver melody is falling.
Throughout the hours of darkness the song
passion slept within that little bird, and stirred
not a fibre of her heart, but the moment the
curtain of darkness was swept aside and the sun
61
From Dust to Glory
blazed out, it awakened and thrilled her being to
the wing-tips ; it swept her from the earth and
sent her shooting through the skies on her
sunward journey.
So with us, at present the mists of time and
the shadows of earth swathe us round, but the
instant the soul springs into the sunlight of God's
presence, the love-tempest that now slumbers
within our hearts will burst forth and send the
soul surging towards God.
The star. Let us take another illustration from nature's
book. The reader must have often observed
the course of a falling star. At first it appeared
a silver speck ; then it would seem as if the
glance of your eye set it in motion, and lo ! it
gracefully curves, but so far, it moves apparently
indifferent to the earth's existence. Then a
change is noticeable in its motion. It moves
earthwards, but at the beginning on a slanting
path. Now, however, the angle continues to
grow acute till finally it heads perpendicularly
towards our planet. It rushes to hurl and bury
itself into the heart of the earth. The body
that begun its journey in graceful ease is now
tearing through the sky, lighting the ether and
leaving in its wake a trail of splendour.
62
Life's Dream is O'er
In our present condition we are like that star
before it was set in motion. We are tied to the
earth, but when the shears of death liberate us
and we set out on our homeward journey we
will discover that God is our gravitating centre ;
our very hearts will be sucked towards Him,
and with all the fiery energy of our beings we will
dash upwards and God- wards.
Finally, to bring home to the reader what is The
meant by the " radical love of the soul for God " Kuttcrfly-
—let us take the life-history of the butterfly.
She begins life as a caterpillar ; she then reaches
the cocoon stage, shrivels up and builds a pro
tecting rampart around herself, and rests, per
haps, in the recess of a loose wall till the final
butterfly period is reached ; the down covers her ;
her antenna? are formed ; her wings free ; the
o
walls of her prison house are about to crumble,
and she, a fully developed butterfly, is about to
flutter forth into a new and strange world. In
that world what surprises await her !
In the blue dome above there hangs a ball of
fire called the sun, and the strangest wonder in
store for the butterfly will be that sun's influence
on her future life. Up to this her acquaintance
with the sun was next to nothing. The caterpillar
63
From Dust to Glory
stage is long since passed, and in the cocoon
stage the sun lay so much outside that, tiny life
that its existence would have almost to be taken
on faith — but now it is to become the very
breath of her life. It will lend its own colours
to her wings ; and when it shines she will flutter
up, feel a quickened energy and disport herself in
its beams. Should a cloud sail between her and
its brightness her life becomes darkened, her
energies languish and she drops — a powerless
trifle— into the heart of the opening rose.
At present we are in the cocoon stage, but
when the soul bursts the frail casket of earth and
springs into the sunlight of God's face, with a
rush it will be borne in upon it how7 much God
is to it, and it will bound upwards to Him with
all the strength of its being.
These pictures from nature enable us to under
stand how that passion called the " radical love of
the soul for God," while it lies quiescent during
life, breaks out into fierce activity after death in
its efforts to reach and cling to its first beginning
and last end — God.
Alone Let us now accompany the soul to the judg-
withGod. ment seat — j am standing alone 'With God!
What terror does not that thought bring to
64
Life's Dream is O'er
even the holiest ! How our whole nature
shrinks from it !
There are times in all our lives when we realize
God's presence with a vividness that quickens
the heart-beat and sends the blood rushing hot.
It may be that, after a sultry day's walking in the
the busy streets, you turn for prayer and rest Cathedral-
into a great cathedral.
The curtain of evening is drawing its noise
less folds. The shadows of the great pillars are
lengthening, and on the stained windows the
rosy blush of sunset is fading. As you pass up
the aisle no sound breaks the solemn silence but
the echo of your own footfall.
You take out your beads, forgetting that time
is passing, the shades deepening, and the dark
ness closing around, till looking up you start,
for like a purple star, the reflection of the
Sanctuary lamp, grown large in the darkness,
trembles on the Tabernacle door. Suddenly a
vivid sense of God's presence is flashed upon
you. You become conscious of those eyes
that are looking out and searching through the
chambers of your soul and counting the ugly
defilements that meet His purest gaze. Your
heart throbs and the shame spot burns.
fiS 5
From Dust to Glor
.v
You rise and hasten to the door, that the roll
of the tramcars, the newsboys' cries, and the
sound of the city traffic may tear from your
mind that thought that stabbed and became an
agony, namely, that you were alone with God.
Then with hot breath you thanked Him that
time was still yours to redeem the past.
The Or it may come this way.
You are lying awake and no sound breaks the
Crucifix. J
midnight silence. The full moon is pouring in
its chaste splendours and its white glory is
lighting up the crucifix on your prie-Dieu.
The lips of the dead Christ seem to move
and the blood-drops stand out, and the thorns
around His brow shine like tiny sprays of
That picture awakens your faith ; its flame
lights up your mind. I am alone with God,
and my unfolded past stands before Him !
Again you clutch at the one consolation :
Time is still mine to atone for that sorry past
and carve a future path that will be strewn with
jewels of rarest merit.
The Mid- These moments of vivid faith may come with
out any external help.
Storm, J . .
There are times in all our lives when a faith -
66
Life's Dream is O'er
flame is flashed upon us, and, a second after, all
is dark again.
When the searchlight is turned on, what does
it reveal ? Something like this :
You stand on a bridge on a night of angry
storm. The waters are gurgling, moaning like
the choked voices of human despair. Then a
blaze of sheet-lightning lights up the scene and
shows you the turbid waters lashed to foam,
coming rushing on. Down the river the mists
have formed into spectral ghosts, wrapped in
shrouds of grey, while the trees, bending under
the storm, labour and toss their arms above the
flood like anguished creatures.
In like manner, when the sheet-lightning of
faith sweeps down the river of our lives, the
moans of voices we thought long since dead
return, and the ghosts long since laid stand out
to confront us.
In these moments we are not only alone with
God, but with God and our own past. What
awe that thought inspires !
But all the while the grand fact still remains-
Time is still ours. If the damned got five minutes
of that time to repent, they would weep tears of
blood and every chamber of hell would be empty.
67
From Dust to Glory
At the Particular Judgment time has already
passed. The awful silence of eternity swathes
me around, and I am standing alone with God,
and with the worth or worthlessness of a life
that for me has passed for ever.
The At the Bar with the works of my life, no
Verdict. }awver to plead. By these deeds my fate must
be decided, and how miserable they now appear !
Yet in God's infinite pity, He picks out the few
golden threads that run through the woof of
even the most worthless life, and He actually
thanks me ! Oh ! the thought of those thanks
and the pain.
Purgatory's cleansing fires hold many a sorrow,
but none so keen as that rising from those re
flections : How grand is the God I now know-
How much I might have done — How little I
have accomplished. A trinity of agonies.
I now see that in the splendours of His face
there is something intolerable in a stain. It is
a relief to fly from His presence, to hate and
loathe myself for ever, for having turned from
a God so gracious and so tender.
I now recall the richness of His bounty to me,
and the miserable return I gave. The sensual
indulgence, the animal standards, the mumbled
68
Life's Dream is O'er
rosaries, the distracted Masses, the frozen prayers ;
life's rarest treasures emptied on foam-bubbles,
now burst for ever.
But a pain more subtle still remains.
When the glance of His eyes lights on a soul
it pierces it to the quick. " Thou hast wounded
My heart with one of thine eyes " (Cant. iv. 9).
The soul sickens, swoons, languishes, and
aches to fly to God's embrace. Thus, like St.
Francis while he bled the wounds of Christ and
shuddered with His anguish, at the same moment
his spirit quivered to fly upward and clasp Him
in the fiery embrace of love.
In like manner, my soul, wounded by a double
sword, shrinking from God for my worthlessness,
will pant and strain towards God for love.
I will then cry to my guardian angel to come
and take me to the prison-house, where I will
sing the lonely song of desire, and languish
through the night watch, till purged of every
stain I will fly to my Father's arms.
The angel that first took my hand at the
baptismal font, whose lips have often whispered
many a holy thought, and whose wings have
sheltered me from many a wound, now softly
enfolds me and poises me above the cleansing
69
From Dust to Glory
flood. Pointing to the red star of hope that
hangs above my home of patient suffering, he
whispers : " Be brave ; be calm ; the night will
soon pass, then, for the last time, I will take
your hand and lead you to the splendours of our
Father's court ".
Pondering on the drama in which I one day
must play the principal part, I resolve that every
day 1 rise I will determine to love and work and
suffer, as if at the sound of the evening Angelus
I were to stand trembling in the white light of
the Particular Judgment.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRUMPET-CALL.
STANDING up from beside the death-bed where
the reader just now watched the soul wing its
flight to the judgment seat ; and pondering on
the great truths these chapters have so far
unfolded, he resolves to rise to higher levels
and tread the lofty path of perfection under the
sunlight of God's love.
But a man is seldom benefited by general
resolutions. It is only when they are translated
into hard fact that his task is completed. To
enable the reader to do this, he is presented in
this chapter with pictures of the sacrifices men
are capable of making when enthralled by the
spell of a great personality.
Then, while his brain still throbs with the
visions of self-denial and his will braced to do
and to dare, he is asked to open the seventh
chapter and behold Christ in, perhaps to him,
From Dust to Glory
an entirely new character — Christ, his Captain,
holding the banner " Excelsior " pointing up
wards and crying, (( Arise and follow Me".
The first portion of St. Ignatius' celebrated
meditation on "The Kingdom of Christ" may
be paraphrased into one sentence — 'There is a
universal law deep-seated in the human heart that
underlies all heroism, compelling us to trample on
our most selfish interests whenever a man who
towers above his generation demands our service.
The proposition, so startling at first sight, will
be found quite commonplace when we have
examined history and observed the influence of
great men over their fellows. Show me any
man, who, by the commanding power of his
intellect or the generosity of his heart, surpassed
his own generation and did not hold the people's
lives and fortunes in the hollow of his hand, at
whose feet they were not prepared to pour out
their dearest treasures.
To illustrate how universal this law is, we
shall not confine ourselves to one nation or
period, but cull examples at random from vari
ous countries and times.
Napoleon. As a first example let us take Napoleon.
Here was a man who towered, not only above
72
The Trumpet-Call
the greatest men of his own day, but above the
great men of all time ; and, as a result, see what
treasures of life, blood, and money were poured
out in his service.
For twenty years he kept France at war.
Not a day passed that did not bring a fresh
demand for men and money. The nation's
life-blood flowed like water, and a stream of
gold followed him through Italy, Austria, Spain,
and Holland. France was in arms against all
Europe at the same time. Her commerce was
shut out from every harbour, and foreign war
ships blocked her own ports. Her fields were
untilled, for the strong arms that should be
engaged in cultivating the soil were dragging
cannon over the Alps, or carrying muskets
through the snows of Poland.
Before Napoleon's historic march on Moscow,
the bones of three million Frenchmen were
bleaching on the battlefields that stretched from
Naples to Russia ; yet, when he demanded five
hundred thousand — half a million — of men, be
sides the vast supplies of clothes, food, and
ammunition requisite for that great army in a
hostile country, without a murmur the nation
answered to his trumpet-call, and he set out at
73
From Dust to Glory
the head of the grandest army that, up to that
time, ever took the field.
On to The history of that campaign is well known
MOSCOW. to faQ reader ; how the Russians laid waste their
country before him ; how every sheaf of corn
and pound of food was swept from his path ;
how the Northern winter began to close upon
him, and it seemed as if earth and heaven began
to scourge him. Fighting for days for the shelter
of a town to protect his men from the blinding
blizzards, when the town at last was gained it
was only to see it in flames. Lashed by frozen
storms ; confronted by deserts, ashes, and starva
tion as they were, yet such was his influence over
these soldiers that, though their feet were bleed
ing, their clothes in rags, and their stomachs
without food, they marched through the snow
drifts madly cheering when Napoleon cried :
"On to Moscow".
Moscow at length. But horror of horrors !
the city is in flames ! Over the same awful
ground the French Army has to retreat. They
have to skin their horses and wrap themselves in
the hides to save their very blood from being-
frozen. No sleep — for the terrible Cossacks
are plunging on them night and day- and the
74
The Trumpet-Call
Emperor, who set out at the head of half a million,
stole into Paris at midnight with a solitary
attendant — the faithful mameluke.
Oh, what sufferings were not endured for that
man ! what torrents of blood and treasure were
not poured out for his sake !
Now, you will say, the French people will
surely pause. Their sacrifices must have some
limit ; for a sound of mourning is rising from
the land. Few are the homes unvisited by
sorrow. Mothers have their sons torn from
their arms. Widows are wringing their hands in
anguish over orphan children whose fathers lie
in the snows of Russia; yet such was their frantic
love for Napoleon, so great his sway over their
hearts and imaginations, that when he asked for
another army, three hundred and eighty thousand
answered his call to arms and took the field again.
Now, however, the eclipse of his glory is at
hand.
Almost a dozen nations have declared war
against him, and a ring of steel encircles France.
After prodigies of valour against overwhelming
odds, he is compelled to abdicate, and retire to
the island of Elba.
The French people at last have time to pause
75
From Dust to Glory
and let the fever that burned in their blood
cool.
They look around and see their fields untilled
and their harbours deserted ; there is scarcely a
horse left to draw the plough. As they pondered
on that picture of desolation, one would think
that they would curse the very name of Napoleon.
No, after eleven months he escapes from
Elba, and the last act in the dazzling drama of
his life has come.
It seemed as if the very touch of his feet on
French soil sent an electric thrill through the
nation's heart. The sufferings endured, the
blood and treasure poured out in his cause are
all forgotten, and the old frenzy of devotion to
him bursts into flame.
When marching at the head of his few fol
lowers, he found his way barred by an army,
sent from Paris to arrest him. He watched the
soldiers kneel and level their muskets at him.
He stepped in front, threw open the breast of his
overcoat crying: "Soldiers of France, now fire
upon your Emperor ! " The spell of his voice
is upon them ; they dropped their rifles, sobbed,
and leaping into the air shouted for the man whose
name flung a deathless glory on their country.
The Trumpet-Call
In the garrison towns the soldiers' hearts
melted at the thought that once more he was
amongst them ; and, despite the very tears of
their generals, they flung themselves in thousands
behind him.
He entered Paris and reviewed the Old Guard
at Versailles. That day was perhaps one of the
proudest of his life. As he galloped down the
lines of these grey and grizzled veterans who had
followed his eagles for twenty years, and on
whose bodies were carved the scars of a hundred
battlefields, and as the recollections of his great
victories came thronging back— Marengo, Jena,
Austerlitz — was it any wonder that they became
delirious with joy, and frantically waving their
sabres above their helmets they cheered with all
the passionate ardour of their souls.
The reign of a hundred days, not one of
which did not witness some new sacrifice, and
then — Waterloo !
The manhood of the nation had perished ;
boys and soldiers whose wounds were healed
alone remained ; yet the very children broke
from the schools crying for muskets to die as
their fathers died.
Ligny was fought two days before Waterloo.
77
From Dust to Glory
That night he visited the wounded on the
battlefield. Forgetting the very agonies of
death when they saw him, they grasped their
own limbs just cut oft, waved them above their
heads and cried, " Long live the Emperor ".
An English surgeon said to a dying soldier, " I
have never seen your Emperor ". The dying
man smiled and said, <{ Cut out my heart and
you will find his image there ".
The last hour of Waterloo is now at hand.
Wellington, protected by hedges, roads, and
cornfields, was stubbornly holding his ground
against charge after charge, and fervently pray
ing for Blucher or the night to come and save
him. An army was seen in the distance, and
Napoleon, thinking it was his own General,
Grouchy, gleefully rubbed his hands and told
his staff that the battle was now his. The blue
coats of the Prussian artillery soon showed him
his mistake. It was Blucher.
There is no time now to be lost. His fortune
is staked on one last charge. He orders the
Old Guard to charge. Oh, the heroism that
rose in answer to that trumpet-call ! It was the
parting flash of the setting sun of his glory.
And as they rode furiously to certain death,
7S
The Trumpet-Call
saluting the Emperor with waving sabres, they
shouted the proud determination of heroes :
"The Guards know how to die ! " — " The Guards
know how to die ! "
Here we have seen at every stage of Napoleon's
life that deep-seated law which governs human
hearts, break out ; the law that impels us to
spare no sacrifice in the service of a man who
towers above his generation by reason of the
greatness of his head or heart.
D
We now go back to a different scene and Caesar.
different actors, and witness this universal law
moving human hearts to pour out their dearest
treasures to men of greatness.
In Shakespeare's admirable play — "Julius
Crcsar " —there is a remarkable speech put into
the mouth of Mark Antony after Caesar's
death.
lie rebutted the charges made by the
murderers against the dead man. He then
o
recalls to the people's memories the proud re
collections of the great Julius' victories ; and
when their hearts were softened, he made the
final appeal, by holding up the dead man's
mantle, and saying : —
79
From Dust to Glory
" You all do know this mantle ; I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on ;
'Tvvas on a summer's evening, in his tent ;
That day he overcame the Nervii."
(Act III., Scene 2.)
His reference to this victory touched the
tenderest fibre in Roman hearts and swept their
sympathies to the speaker. It reminded them
how Caesar had saved the republic at a critical
juncture.
The Nervii were wild Gallic tribes that broke
loose during the absence of the troops and
slaughtered the Roman colony.
At the news, Caesar hurried from Italy with
an army, small indeed, but an army that included
the redoubtable Tenth Legion. The Tenth
Legion was to Caesar what the Old Guard was
to Napoleon — his personal bodyguard, the
sharer of his fortunes.
The titles « Tenth Legion " and « Old Guard "
symbolized all that was devoted, fearless, and
brave.
When Caesar arrived in Gaul he found these
hardy tribesmen awaiting him in solid battle
phalanx. He ordered his legions to charge, but
So
The Trumpet- Call
the forest of Nervian spears was not to be
shaken. Again and again the Roman ranks
rolled back in broken waves. Panic began to
seize them, and as a last resource he ordered the
immortal Tenth Legion to charge.
Can he believe his eyes ? The Tenth falter
and turn their backs on the foe. Then with
that lightning intuition sometimes given to
genius, he saw that the decisive moment had
come, and he alone could turn the tide of defeat
into victory.
Throwing aside his mantle of state, and
appearing now as a soldier only, he galloped
after the fleeing standard-bearer, clutched the
Imperial Eagles, and shouted to the panic-stricken
soldiers : — -
:c Will the Tenth Legion follow Gesar? "
Here was the trumpet-call. They pause ;
they are maddened by the thought of the'
momentary weakness.
At the sight of the Great Julius grasping the
sacred standard of Rome, the fire of their pas
sionate devotion is ablaze.
Follow Czesar and the Eagles of Rome ! Aye,
to the death ! With wild fury they hurl them
selves on the Nervii, whose ranks they shattered ;
81
From Dust to Glory
for what power could withstand the Old Tenth
with Cnesar at the head.
Here again we see the universal law breaking
out in the devotion of these men, who would
bear to be cut in pieces rather than swerve from
the path where Caesar and the Roman Eagles led.
The In the war between Russia and Japan a striking
;se' example of the universality of this law was seen.
The Mikado is more than a king in Japanese
eyes ; he is divine ; they uncover and bow
when his name is mentioned. The onset is
terrific when soldiers rush to battle invoking a
name so sacred. In the late war a line of
Russian bayonets glistened in front of the
charging Japanese. What was the order of that
charge ?
" Front rank, fling yourselves upon the bay
onets ; rear rank, jump from their bodies and
capture the position."
What heroism did not that trumpet-call de
mand ! Yet, did they flinch ? With one wild
cheer for the Mikado they rushed to fling them
selves on that line of steel, that their bodies
might serve as spring-boards for their comrades.
Look on that row of quivering hearts upon
the bayonets and there read the sacrifices men
82
The Trumpet-Call
can make, and how little self counts when the
trumpet summons us to the service of those
whose greatness towers above us.
Once more we return to French soil. Conde.
Two centuries before Napoleon, France had
a general that in many points resembled the
great captain. He obtained the rank of Marshal
in his twenty-fourth year. He met the Spanish
army at the battle of Rocroy. Two great facts
confronted him. Spain then had an infantry whose
record of heroism was without parallel. Its bugles
never sounded "Retreat" or " Surrender " for
over two hundred years ; and the Spanish
general had secured an ideal base — the Bridge
of Rocroy, holding the key of position.
It was evident that whoever seized the bridge
controlled the fortunes of the day ; but it bristled
with Spanish bayonets, and was flanked by the
Spanish artillery. Five times Conde sent his
bravest troops to take the bridge, and five times
he saw their broken ranks tossed like foam
before the wind.
His position was becoming desperate ; he
galloped amidst a shower of bullets to the bank
of the river and flung his marshal's baton into
the midst of the Spanish soldiery, and turning
83 6-
From Dust to Glory
to his own army shouted, "Soldiers of France,
will you allow your field-marshal's baton to lie
in the hands of the enemy r '
Here was their trumpet-call to heroism.
This appeal fired them to madness. They
formed line, and with one wild dash, leaping
over the bodies of those who fell in front,
captured the bridge, forced the Spaniards to
retire, and gained the most memorable victory
in the life of Conde.
Here again we see the law of self-sacrifice
breaking out when the trumpet-call sounds.
Such was their devotion to their general that
they rush madly to death to possess even the
stick he held in his hand.
O'Conneii. The last example we shall take is selected
from our own history.
I wonder can we ever measure the large place
that O'Conneii held in our fathers' hearts. He
was the pillar of light that marched before them
in the dark night of their slavery. He was
the Moses that led them from worse than an
Egyptian bondage. He stood forth as the liv
ing embodiment of their hopes, their loves, and
their dreams.
The nation's heart seemed fused into his own.
84
The Trumpet-Call
When he spoke it was Ireland spoke ; her
passions rocked his soul ; her humour gleamed
in his eyes ; her scorn flashed from his glance,
and her sorrows choked his sobs.
Was it any wonder that he was the nation's
idol r Me had sacrificed his long life and great
talents to his country. Single-handed he fought
her battles against the world. The people saw
the ranks of their enemies shattered before him,
and citadel after citadel captured. He exercised
a sway over nine millions and commanded a
devotion that no emperor could hope for.
It was this mastery over the service and affec
tions of the people that won emancipation. The
king had sworn to abdicate rather than emancipate
Catholics. O'Connell ordered all the young
men to assemble at a number of monster meet
ings on a given Sunday. Two hundred thou
sand stalwart specimens of manhood marched in
military order. It was a sight to make even a
bigot king pause.
Wellington well knew that had these two
hundred thousand arms in their hands, and
should O'Connell sound the trumpet-call, they
would ask leave of no king ; they would eman
cipate themselves. He saw the Irish regiments
From Dust to Glory
in Dublin break loose from their officers, and
waving their bayonets over their heads cheer
O'Connell as he passed.
He also knew that behind these were nine
millions prepared to spare no sacrifice should
O'Connell sound the call.
These were the real forces that won eman
cipation.
When he held his monster meetings at Tara,
five hundred thousand human beings surged
around him. There were no railways ; the
modes of conveyance were most primitive ; yet
whole families travelled five days, many sleeping
out by night. For what purpose ? To gaze
upon the Liberator ; to hold up their children in
their arms and bid them fix their young eyes
upon the giant who struck the fetters from their
fathers' limbs and made them free.
Here was a man who towered above his
generation as a pyramid above the desert, and as
a result, the whole nation was prepared to root
through the Alps, or march through a wall
of flame.
I think that the reader by this time is per
fectly convinced of the truth of the proposition
with which we started, namely : There is a
86
The Trumpet-Call
universal law deep-seated in the human heart
that compels men to trample on their most
selfish interests when a man lifted above his
generation demands their service. A firm con-
o
viction ot this all-pervading law will be necessary
when, in the next chapter, the bayonet-point of
practical resolution touches our own breast.
In this conviction the reader will then dis
cover the motor force with which to drive that
resolution home.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BAYONET-POINT.
The IN the second part of the meditation on "The
Kingly Ex- T^ • -, r /-<i • ?> r< T • 1 /-
ceiience. Kingdom of Christ, bt. Ignatius puts before us
the picture of an ideal king. Ideal indeed is
the character here portrayed ; so much so that
did we not know the author to be the thoroughly
practical man he was, we should be tempted to
say that this picture of kingly excellence bordered
on the extravagant ; for his history records the
character of no such monarch that even in a
single point is comparable to him.
First he is called to rule directly by God
Himself. Heaven puts the seal of approval on
his wars. Of what commander can this be said ?
Was it not the voice of greed, ambition, or
lust of power that summoned most of them to
the field of battle ? Outside the crusades, few
wars have been sanctified in the motives from
which they sprang.
The Bayonet-Point
Secondly, this ideal conqueror will share the
labour, fatigue, clothes, and food of the common
soldier. The spade will be found in his hand
in the trenches, and the knapsack on his back on
the march. The dry crust or the sentinel duty
he will not shirk.
What a generous heart ! Who would dare to
propose these terms to a Comic or a Napoleon?
See how this pictured king eclipses all we know.
Thirdly, he is assured by Heaven of victory,
and no man who follows him shall lay down his
life on the field. Here is a condition that makes
him unique.
The fame of all the conquerors with which we
are acquainted was fed on blood ; their thrones
were built on dead men's bones, and even then,
victory wras not an assurance, but a chance ; but
here is a king to whose soldiers Heaven not
only guarantees victory, but life.
Fourthly, think of the conquered lands he
will parcel out among his followers. To this
royal generosity we find no parallel.
The poor common soldier, whose blood and
toil purchased kingdoms for sovereigns, is told
to be very grateful for a medal and a shilling a
day,
89
From Dust to Glory
Here, then, is the argument definite and clear
—if millions lavishly poured out their blood and
treasure for such imperfect men as Caesar and
Napoleon, who could limit the sacrifices that
would be placed at the feet of a king such as we
have described, were he to appear on earth. So
great of mind, so large of heart ! Called by
Heaven, assured of victory, sharing the common
toils and distributing the conquered lands.
Would not men rush to his standard in thou
sands? Would not the eartli rock with the
tramp of the eager millions behind him ?
The reader may here object that this king is
not a real but an imaginary one. The lights
and colours of his character are not drawn from
fact ; fancy's fingers have woven the brilliant
garment flung around him.
Not only is all this admitted, but the reader
himself is now invited to add the wealth of
his own imagination. In portraying this ideal
let him lay the colours on the canvas with a
Rembrandt richness, till each princely quality
of intellect and heart stands out with dazzling
splendour.
A Real When his last effort is exhausted we will bring
forth a real king whose name is Christ^ and
90
The Bayonet-Point
placed side by side the ideal paragon of royal
perfection, though draped in the richest colours
that the imagination can suggest, shrivels and
grows dwarfed by the contrast. The virtues that
made our pictured hero transcend all that history
showed us, reach their highest altitude in Christ.
Is He not called by Heaven ?
Listen to the thunder voice that broke on the
ears of His dazed Apostles on Mount Tabor :
"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased : hear ye Him " (Matt. xvii. 5).
Does He give an assurance of safety to His
followers ? He tells them that any man who
lays down his life for Him shall find it. Does
He share the food and toil of those who follow
Him ? The poorest among them will never be
called upon to bear His privations.
He was born in a stable, His dead body was
laid in a grave of charity, and while the foxes
had holes and the birds of the air nests, He
had not whereon to lay His head.
Does He divide the spoils of victory P Listen
to Him — " I will not now call you servants,
but I have called you friends" (John xv. 15).
" There are many mansions in My Father's
house."
From Dust to Glory
" You shall sit on twelve seats judging the
twelve tribes of Israel " (Matt. xix. 28).
" Every one that hath left house, or father or
mother for My name's sake shall receive a hun
dred fold and shall possess life everlasting "
(Matt. xix. 29).
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
hath it entered into the heart of man what things
God hath prepared for them that love Him "
(i Cor. ii. 9).
Here we have compared point by point the
perfections of our true King, Christ, not only
with the highest types of the world's heroes —
with these He should not be mentioned in the
same breath — but with a man around whose
character we lavishly flung the richest splendours
that even fancy could suggest, and still Christ
towers above him as the Alps above a mole
hill.
So far the reader has viewed the question as
one lying completely outside himself; as a sub
ject that for him had no personal concern. Yet
all the while, unsuspected by him, the argument
was growing and converging with the directness
of a bayonet-point which we shall see just now
touching his own breast.
92
-stness.
The Bayonet-Point
When we lift that picture out of the frame
work now, he will discover that it tits into every
detail of his own life, and its lessons play around
his heart-strings.
The day you were baptized Christ became The Test
your Father. The morning on which the seven- °^
fold splendours of Confirmation were poured
upon your soul, Christ became your General,
and you became His soldier.
Now, when your Leader stands before you
and turns His flashing eyes upon your face, and
bares His sacred heart and shows it to you,
throbbing, aglow for conquest, panting for
victory ; and He asks you to follow Him, will
you begin to bargain and count the cost ? Will
you be outdone by those millions who poured
out not only their wealth, but their life-blood,
and writhed in agony for such selfish creatures
as Conde and Napoleon, when the grand Christ,
whose perfections surpass even the highest
limit of fancy, sounds the trumpet-call and cries
" Follow Me " ?
Look out and see the world's battlefields
strewn with monuments of devotion, and look
to whom you have sworn allegiance.
Will you be deaf to IT is call? Eternal
93
From Dust to Glory
shame if you were ! Before marching, however,
to external conquest, He bids you pause and
carefully search your own heart, and there you
will discover lurking in its recess, a household
traitor whose name is sensuality — the love of
self, the love of friends, the love of your own
ease, the love of money, the shrinking from the
cross, even when made of straws.
This domestic foe will hamstring you in the
o /
hour of battle ; he will paralyse your arm when
raised to strike. Then smite and give no
quarter to such an enemy.
You ask, what is my weapon ?
Listen to your General— "He that would be
My disciple, let him deny himself, take up his
cross and follow Me ".
The cross is your sword and the only weapon
that can carve the royal path to victory.
See now how this works out in practice and
how the bayonet-point touches the very core of
your heart.
Traitor or When in the morning the Mass bell rings, it
Trumpet. js the trumpet-call of Christ— Arise, take up
your cross. And what better guarantee for the
sanctiiication of the day could you have than
that your first act was to embrace the cross ?
94
The Bayonet-Point
Does not the incense of that act float down
and perfume the remaining hours?
But the household traitor lurking in the fold
ings of your soft heart whispers a plea for self-
indulgence.
Which will you obey, the traitor or the
trumpet-call? Ah, look at the French soldiers
marching to Austerlitz gathering stones on
which to lie so that the snow water might flow
under their bodies. They sleep on the rough
rocks in the snow-covered fields to serve a petty
tyrant, while you cherish your sensual flesh by
soft indulgence and refuse to obey the trumpet-
call of the grand Christ.
The chains of drunkenness or impure slavery
weigh you down. The call of Christ has per
haps sounded many times within your ears, and
the Holy Spirit has poured light upon your eyes
and pointed to the General marching before you.
He wears a crown of thorns ; no soft indulg
ence for Him ; His path is traced by blood.
He calls on you, it may be for the last time,
and says, " Arise, deny yourself, burst these
degrading fetters ". But the traitor sensuality
puts his soft lips upon your ear and whispers,
" You are not equal to these demands ". Here
95
From Dust to Gloi
V
again is the question-— Which will you obey?
'I" he traitor or the trumpet-call P
Look at the Hashing eyes and the waving
sabres of the Old Guard charging the cannons1
mouth shouting, "The Guards know how to
die ! " Their flesh is torn by ball and bayonet,
still they cheer and ride to death for their
general, while you refuse to take a tiny pin
prick for the grand Christ though your sal
vation depends upon it.
Souls are bleeding to death, perishing under
your roof; the pens of evil writers are stabbing
your children's virtue, a deadly miasma exhales
from the books in their hands ; or it may be
that your servants' virtue is blasted on the mid
night streets.
From the high sanctuary of Heaven Christ
cries to you, " Save, O save them ! " But this
would mean arousing yourself to the duties of
a Christian parent, or looking into the one place
in God's creation where you hate to look — your
own conscience.
Ah ! see the soldiers of Conde rushing to
slaughter for the capture of a stick, because it
belonged to their general.
What efforts are you making to rescue those
96
The Bayonet-Point
living souls, sprinkled with the blood of Christ,
on whom the devil is daily tightening his grasp ?
The day comes when you have to bear a toy
mortification, abstain for one or at most two days
in the week from meat, deny yourself some
pleasure to attend to your religious obligations.
Sensuality whispers, " Don't ; you might injure
your health or get a headache ". Which will
you obey ?
Look at the soldiers of Napoleon in the
Russian snows ; their feet are bleeding, their
stomachs famished, their clothes fallen to rags,
yet when he leads and cries, " On to Moscow ! "
they follow, cheering madly, through the blind
ing drifts.
Oh, what wretched service Christ gets com
pared with the splendid devotion poured out at
the teet of the world's pigmy heroes !
When our hearts are drained empty of every
poison-drop of sensuality, then the liquid fire of
the Holy Ghost will come down and fill them.
Then the career of the true soldier of Christ
begins.
But no matter how intellectually convinced of
the necessity of self-denial or how braced our
will may be to-day to cut a path of perfection,
1>1 7
From Dust to Glory
even though the sword-edge should fall on the
tenderest heart-strings, when we honestly look
back into our own past and see the human
weakness and unstable wills, we are almost
tempted to cry in despair : " Where, O Lord !
shall we find strength to carry out the purpose
these pages have inspired ".
Turn to the two fountains all divine that
Christ opened on Holy Thursday and Good
Friday.
98
CHAPTER VIII.
EARTH'S PRICELESS TREASURE.
HOLY THURSDAY.
FOR an ideal picture of contented happiness Mothered
this world holds few more interesting than a and
Mother-
brood of chickens clustered under a mother s less>
wing.
o
Our Lord has made this picture sacred. He
used it to illustrate His own yearning affection
for the city of His love. It is not, however,
with the solicitude of the mother, but the satisfied
restfulness of her offspring we are here con
cerned. Look at her and her tranquil family
on the roadside. A half-dozen tiny heads are
peering out through the sheltering wings blink
ing in the sunlight or occasionally snapping at
a stray fly that incautiously wanders across the
danger zone. Another group is nestling in the
downy warmth of their mother's breast, mutter
ing their contentment in broken, drowsy under-
99 7 *
COLL. CHRIST! REGIS SJ.
BIS. MA.
TORONTO
From Dust to Glory
tones preparatory to sleep. And one, more
venturous than the rest, has contrived to climb
upon her back and settles to slumber in the
friendly comfort of that ample couch.
What a complete picture of happy content !
Now, from that, turn towards the door of an
incubating house. The sound of your approach
ing footsteps awakens a chorus of expectant
chirrups. When you open the door, orphan
birds run from every side towards you, stretching
out their necks and peering into your face,
uttering a cry that cannot be mistaken : it is the
O J
cry of some hungry want.
W7hat a contrast to the reposeful family we saw
hiding behind their mother's wings, dreaming
in the sunshine.
Some acute craving is felt by those incubated
birds, otherwise why the eager running towards
the sound of approaching footsteps, the craning
of necks and the piteous cry of need.
Your first thought is to suggest — food. No !
there is abundance. Well, perhaps, heat is what
they want. No ! For though the spirit-lamp is
a poor substitute for a mother's body, it diffuses
sufficient warmth to make them tolerably comfort
able. They have food and heat and shelter, but
IOO
Earth's Priceless Treasure
they are craving for love and the personal -presence
of a -parent.
Their crops are full, but their hearts are empty.
Their natures are starved and cheated out of
a mysterious something for which neither food
nor heat nor shelter can compensate. And so
their life is an agony, while for their little
cousins on the roadside it is a dream of un
ruffled bliss.
These discontented birds of the incubator,
clamouring for a parent's wings to enfold them
and a parent's love to feed them, perfectly typify
the conditions of the human family before the
first Mass was said and the first Holy Com
munion came to still the passionate cry breaking
from the heart of man for a closer union and a
more affectionate intimacy between His Father
and His Father's children.
Go back to the four thousand years that in
tervened between Adam and Christ. Though
religious beliefs and rites varied and multiplied
beyond number, behind this diversity you will
discover one strong note common to all— a
yearning desire rising up with a strong voice to
God, imploring Him to come down and satisfy
the aching hunger of His children who were
From Dust to Glory
wailing through these four thousand years for
His personal presence and warming love.
The poor artificial heat of the spirit-lamp
symbols and shadowy sacrifices, was no substitute
for the passionate glowing Heart that now burns
behind our tabernacle doors, or the heat-waves of
fiery love that overflow the Chalice -lips to feed
the clustering souls around.
That crying desire for a personal union with
our Father received its appeasement on the first
Holy Thursday night when the great High
Priest celebrated the first Mass and distributed
the first Holy Communion. On that night
this earth ceased to be an incubator— -henceforth
man was no longer an orphan.
Mass and Before proceeding further let me point out
incama- tke striking resemblance between the Mass and
t\f\r> D
tion.
the Incarnation.
The leading note in the Incarnation is —
humility.
God stoops down, and the lower He stoops
the more evident his love becomes.
An illustration will enable the reader to grasp
the fulness of this truth.
Should a titled lady fling aside the trappings
of her state, her table delicacies, her refined
102
Earth's Priceless Treasure
companions, her ease and comfort, to become
a farmer's wife, to share the rough toil of
' O
his kitchen, and associate with people that a
week before she could not know ; and if she did
this through no caprice or passion or from a
selfish motive, but solely to serve a friend, men
would marvel at this exhibition of self-sacrifice.
But should that same lady do all this not only
to become the wife of a farmer but of a farm
labourer, language would fail us to express
admiration for that royal-hearted woman.
Now mark how every grade downward is a
fresh proof of the intensity of her love.
The meaning of the sentence heading this
O O
paragraph is now growing clearer : " God stoops
down, and the lower He stoops the more evident
His love becomes ".
But another example will afford us still fuller
light.
Should a king, while still retaining his king
ship, throw aside his purple, dismiss his servants,
sell his carnages, abandon his palace, and stand
in workman's clothes on the market-place to be
hired, should he toil in the summer sun and
through the winter rains and share the lowly
condition — the hard crust and the poor cottage
10
From Dust to Glory
j
— while all the time retaining his title as king ;
and should he do all this not through a selfish
motive but to serve a man and that man his
enemy and a rebel, people would rush in
thousands to see this prodigy of generous love
and self-sacrifice. They would cry, "Surely the
age of wonders and of heroes has not passed".
Now, did all this happen when God left the
splendour of His throne, the homage of angels,
and the glory of Paradise, to come down on
this little ball of clay and assume the nature of
His own creature — man, a rebel P
So stupendous a humiliation was involved in
that action that when it was announced to the
angels one third of them flew into rebellion
rather than serve a God who would so lower
the dignity of His state.
No wonder they were astonished, for St. Paul
says, "He emptied Himself out".
Is this a rhetorical exaggeration ?
See : He was omnipotent, yet He became a
helpless babe.
He was Lord of all things, yet Pie begged a
crust.
He was king and He became an outcast.
Surely, you will say, the deepest depths of
icj
Earth's Priceless Treasure
humiliation were sounded when the God of
splendour shivered in a stable, toiled as a village
carpenter, lay like a crushed worm in Gethsemane,
or hung wrapped in the torn rags of His own
flesh upon Calvary.
No : a deeper depth still is reached when
Christ becomes incarnate in the hands of the
priest at Mass. For, though on the Cross or
in the workshop His divinity was shrouded His
humanity remained ; but in the Host both
humanity and divinity disappear from human
vision.
And for what purpose? That Christ might
sink to a state when, in full personality, He
could march into the heart of His once rebel
creature — man.
Humility is the keynote of the Incarnation
and the Mass, and our Lord never more
emphatically proclaims Himself meek and
humble of heart than when He speaks from the
altar-stone.
This interesting resemblance between the The
Incarnation and the Mass is brought out in Silence
of the In-
man7 Wa7S« carnation.
Go back in fancy to the first twenty-fifth of
March.
From Dust to Glory
Mary is locked in the silence of a humble
chamber. Her head is bent in prayer, her
thoughts are fixed on God, and the waves of hot
love rising from her heart are flowing across her
lips.
A light more dazzling than the noonday sun
fills the chamber. The angel announces God's
will, and Mary, bowing to the decree of Heaven,
says — " Be it done unto me according to Thy word"
(Lukei. 38).
What happened at that moment ?
The most wondrous event that was ever
witnessed in earth or heaven. More wondrous
than when darkness resting on the face of the
deep, God said, " Let there be light," and in
stantly the curtain of darkness was swept aside ;
and from the blue canopy the sun blazed out in
his new-born glory ; and the stars took up their
place in the firmament. More wondrous than
when on that day Mount Sinai rocked and
the thunder rolled and the lightning danced in
terror amidst the clouds as God gave Moses the
tables of the law. More wfondrous than when
the rivers of Egypt turned into blood and the
waves of the Red Sea paused and became as dry
land.
106
Earth's Priceless Treasure
What is this stupendous event that has taken
place ? Just this : A moment before and Mary's
blood coursed through her veins, every drop of
it her own ; another moment and the Holy
Ghost has formed from that blood a body most
perfect, united it to a soul ; and quicker than
the lightning flash the divine personality is
joined to the newly created Man.
" And the Word was made flesh and dive It
amongst us" (John i. 14).
As the glass globe clasps within itself the
brilliance of the electric flame, the body of that
Virgin Mother tabernacled the awful splendours
of the Divine.
Now when all the momentous action took
place the world paid no heed.
Silence and sleep settled down on the drowsy
village of Nazareth. One by one the window
lights went out. The stars in silence marched
across the midnight skies. The lily had folded
its leaves and drooped its head, and now and
again the shepherd's watch-dog broke the stillness
of the night. The morning sun rose red in the
cold vernal sky, and the villagers went about
their usual occupations, and all the while the
greatest event that earth or heaven ever witnessed
roy
From Dust to Glory
has taken place, and no one knew of it but
Mary.
Now, change the scene.
A priest in a remote country church goes to
the altar. The quiet stillness of the fields hangs
over the landscape, the falling rain is pattering
on the window panes, and a few poor worshippers
are silently telling their beads. Bread is on the
altar and wine is in the chalice.
At one moment the Son of God is at His
Father's right hand. The blaze of His splen
dour ravishes the angels who fall in prostrate
adoration. Then a few trembling words are
spoken by the priest, and that same body that
was fashioned from Mary's blood and that same
divinity that stands beside His Father's throne,
the King of angels, the Creator of worlds, the
victim and propitiation for our sins, lies within
that Host and in that Chalice.
Again, " The Word was made flesh and dwelt
amongst us ".
What a striking resemblance. The only
difference being that, while the Incarnation took
place but once, Mass is offered every hour of
the day and in every land from the fringes of
108
Earth's Priceless Treasure
the northern snows to the islands washed by
the warm water of the South Pacific.1
Let us now try and realize what takes place Sun in the
at the Consecration. Should God give power Coin<
to the sun to gather up its beams and compress
all its splendours within the small dimensions of
a gold coin while at the same time it hung
undisturbed in the heavens ; that is — it was
enabled to live simultaneously in the coin and
in the sky, this would give us some notion
of what takes place at Mass.
See what this would mean to the sun.
Look for a moment at the sun in the blue
dome above, in all its power and brilliancy. A
group of eight planets, of which our earth is
a small one, are swung around it by the mere
force of attraction.
From that central sun these planets draw
light and heat and colour. The green mantle
that wraps the earth in spring, the gold and
purple of the opening tulip, the bars of beauty
on the wings of the bird, and the brilliant
1 For this beautiful thought on the resemblance between
the Mass and the Incarnation, the author is indebted to
Father Faber's work, "The Blessed Sacrament".
109
From Dust to Glory
colours of the butterfly are all borrowed from
the sun.
Should it withdraw its beams to-morrow and
refuse to shine upon us, this world would lie
stark and lifeless in the iron grasp of frost.
When we look at the sun in Ireland, we are
apt to fall into the delusion that at that moment
in shines in Ireland only. No, just then it has
left its hot breath steaming up through the
cinnamon groves of Persia, drawing out the
perfume of the spices and sending them floating
on the scented air.
On the western side it is warming the chill
coasts of Labrador, or sparkling on the placid
waters of the Pacific.
Life and But its influence is not confined to heat and
colour and air, life is notably affected by it
too.
When you visit those tracts of the earth
where there is little sunshine, animal and vege
table life almost disappears, but when you turn
to those belts of the globe over which it pours
its richer beams, you find life in teeming abund
ance. Down through the tropical forest the
sunlight falls and lo ! the cedar springs up in
graceful majesty and waves its plumed head to
Earth's Priceless Treasure
the skies, the creepers, the shrubs, and giant
ferns are here in prodigal luxuriance ; while the
air resounds with the buzz of a thousand insects,
and the jungle palpitates with multitudinous
life.
Now that we have some idea of its power, let its
us attend to its beauty. How often have you
not watched with rapture the sunset in a July
sky.
It flings a mantle of molten gold around the
woods that hang on the bosom of the western
hill. Broken spears of light quiver along the
sky line, and waves of splendour are floating
out, painting the flowers and enriching them
with perfume.
Now imagine the sun, with all its power and
beauty, clasped within the rim of a small gold
coin while still continuing to hang in the heavens,
and you will have some notion of what takes
place at Mass when the words of Consecration
are pronounced.
The power and majesty of God are held within
the small circuit of the Host, while at the same
time He is visible to the adoring angels of
Heaven.
But the comparison does not end here.
in
From Dust to Glory
The As the eight planets that revolve around the
sun depend upon it for light and life and beauty,
Sacra- so the other sacraments cluster around the sacred
menis. Host, draw from it power to give life to souls
that are dead, vigour to faith that was languishing,
to generate virtue and drape with beauty souls
that lay hideous in darkness and sin. The other
six sacraments are the channels conveying the
Precious Blood on its way to irrigate and fertilize
human souls, but within the Sacred Host is the
grand fountain from which they are fed, the source
from which they derive their power. So the Host
is the sun of the 'spiritual world.
Mass in a Now that we have some notion of what takes
ury' place when the priest goes to the altar, let me
ask : " If only once in a hundred years the Sacred
Host was elevated above this earth, what pre
paration would not be made for that Mass ? "
To begin with, the priest so privileged \vould,
like the Baptist, be set aside from infancy lest
a speck of the world's soilment should stain his
soul. A long life would be spent in the com
munion with God, like Moses on the mountain,
till sanctity had rendered his soul as bright as a
crystal vase filled with purest water. An angel,
taking a live coal from the altar, should purify
Earth's Priceless Treasure
the lips over which the words of Consecration
were to flow. Purer than the solar ray should he
the hand destined to divide the body of Christ,
and fire-flame alone could cleanse the mouth
that was to be purpled with the Precious Blood.
As the day for the Mass drew near, millions
from every clime would march in procession ;
and those who beheld the uplifted Host and
Chalice would leave the recollection of that
vision as an heirloom, and their children in after
years would boast : "Our father assisted at the
Holy Mass ; in the golden casket we hold a
precious relic — a silk handkerchief with which
he touched the altar — and it seems to us that
the fragrance of the incense and the perfume of
the altar flowers still linger in its folds ".
Now, all this and a million times more would
not be adequate preparation for one Mass.
Why, then, is it that Mass is celebrated not
once in a hundred years but daily and at our doors?
In the grand cathedral, in the mountain church,
under the canvas tent on the gold field, and in
the shade of the forest primeval. Like a rain
bow, holding the jewels of the Precious Blood,
it stretches from pole to pole and flings a robe
of splendour across the world.
From Dust to Glory
Because God consults not what is due to His
own dignity but the wants of His poor children
—that their hungry souls ma}7 have daily bread,
their sick souls daily medicine, and their weak
souls daily strength.
The Near- How near does not Mass bring God to us?
nessoi j_je no ]onger ^£^5 frOm a cloud, a high
mountain, or a burning bush. He is Immanuel
—God with us. He walked beside the disciples
on their road to Emmaus, but He does not walk
beside us but in the Communion ; He walks into
the inmost chambers of our hearts.
The events of Holy Thursday and Good
Friday do not belong to the domain of history ;
through the Mass they become the living actu
alities of our daily lives. We do not look on
them through the telescope of two thousand
years ; we hourly touch them and breathe in
their midst, since Mass is the Calvary of the
new law.
Now suppose you stood on that hill on that
day when the earth rocked and the lightning
flashed, and looking down on your own soul
you saw it stained with guilt. What would you
have done ? When the purple tide broke from
the wounded side of Christ, you would rush to
114
Earth's Priceless Treasure
catch it in the hot chalice of your heart and offer
it to the Eternal Father in atonement for that sin
ful life ; you would send its waves floating down
the past to purify those years of shame. And
when the awful tragedy ended, you would come
down the hill striking your breast, indeed, with
sorrow, but your joy would know no bounds.
You would walk as in a dream. Oh, the
privilege of kneeling before the dying Christ
and offering His Blood for my guilt !
Now that privilege can be yours, not once in
a lifetime, but every morning you attend Mass.
The same Victim lies on the altar-stone that
hung on the Cross, and the same blood that
sprung from His side grows ruddy in the chalice.
HOAV precious is the time we spend at Mass ! How to
Those thirty minutes are by fir and away the Hear
most important in the twenty-four hours. Mint Mass'
them into thirty beads of gold ; coin them into
thirty pearls of great price.
From the time the priest comes to the foot
of the altar our fervour should increase, till, by
the time the Sanctus bell rings, the light of faith
growing brighter should enable us to see, with St.
Louis, the heavens opening and trooping angels
descending to do homage to their coming King.
From Dust to Glory
Before the Elevation plunge your heart into
the chalice that the words of Consecration may
flutter over and sanctify it, that the hot waves
of the Precious Blood may cleanse its every
chamber, and the fire of the Sacred Heart burn
out every stain.
Let the altar be your Thabor, Christ is here !
Christ is here ! and His sacramental garments
are as white as snow, and the fragrance of the
Precious Blood is floating around, and censers
are swung by angel hands, and seraphs are
singing songs not given to mortal lips to utter ;
and the Eternal Father, looking down from the
cloud of glory that rests over every altar before
which a sanctuary lamp burns, cries to you as
He did to the chosen three, This is My beloved
Son in whom I am well -phased, hear ye Him.
116
CHAPTER IX.
TOE GARDEN'S GLOOM.
GOOD FRIDAY.
I.
THK memorable drama of the Last Supper is The
drawing to a close. The first Mass is said, the Paschal
,, . Picture.
first twelve priests ordained, and in the deep
recess of that holy house, the first sanctuary
lamp is lighted ; it flings a trembling veil of
purple over the first tabernacle that sheltered
the Sacred Host. Christ, with His disciples,
rises to sing the hymn before parting.
As the lamplight falls fully on the Master's
face, the Apostles notice how it beams ; joy
radiates from every look and feature. There is
a thrill of satisfied love in His voice. As the
hymn proceeds, however, a shadow steals across
His face, and a suggestion of sorrow breaks
through His tones ; it deepens into pathos till
the last verse sobs with wailing sadness. But
117
From Dust to Glory
a strange energy returns to His words when
He says, "Arise, let us go hence". It is the
trumpet-call to battle.
'The door of the cenacle has closed behind
them. Christ and His Apostles are in the
chill streets. 'The thoroughfares are quiet,
there are few abroad ; each family is gathering
around the supper table to celebrate the victori
ous passover of their fathers. In the aristocratic
quarters, and the neighbourhood of the temple,
lights of hurrying messengers are to be seen
passing to and fro. The Sanhedrim is sum
moned ; Judas and his new masters are driving
their blood bargain.
One by one, through the blue curtain of the
skies, the silent stars are breaking. The rising
moon is silvering the summit of Olivet, and
whitening the roofs of Jerusalem. It suggests
a scene of tranquil repose ; yet, before its pale
splendours wither in to-morrow's sunrise, it will
witness the most dreadful conflict ever raged on
earth, when the Son of God shall wrestle with
the powers of darkness. Gethsemane is to be
the battlefield.
Christ, with His Apostles, glides through the
dimly lighted streets ; a mile and a half lies
iiS
The Garden's Gloom
between them and the olive garden. In turning
the road that winds around the base of Mount
Moriah, the moonlight falls on the face of
Christ. What a change from the Christ who
beamed and glowed over the chalice in His
hands ! The Apostles gasp ; they do not dare
to speak ; they clutch each other's arms and
whisper, " Look ! What ails Him ? " And
now a moan breaks from His heart. Why, His
strength is failing ; see how heavily He dnio-s
His footsteps.
They reach a bower in Gethsemane, where
He halts. Eight of His disciples are feeble.
Their eyes had not seen Him speak with the
law-giver and the prophet, when His face shone
as the sun and His garments became as white as
snow on Mount Thabor. Their faith was not
strengthened by the vision of His transfigured
glory. Their ears did not hear His Father's
voice ring from the clouds. So, in pity, lest
their faith should fail, He compassionately spares
them the sight of His agony. " Sit you here,
till I go yonder and pray" (Matt. xxvi. 36).
Three who had recollections of Thabor to lean
on for support, these alone He took. Yonder
lies the garden of olives, with its high walls.
From Dust to Glory
It is a sacred spot ; small wonder He was ac
customed to come here to pray !
The ashes of Mary's parents rested there, and
close beside the tomb of Joachim and Anne is
the grotto where the first pair found shelter
when they fled from Paradise. Here they
bitterly wept their fatal sin ; to this grotto now
comes the second Adam, to wail over every sin
of their fallen children.
With the chosen three He ascends a gentle
slope, and reaches the wicket that led to Olivet.
He pauses to look back for the last time on the
temple. The moon by this time had climbed
the eastern sky ; it was flinging a peaceful glory
on half the landscape, leaving the portion
shadowed by the mountain in darkness. What
a proud picture the temple presented that night !
Its high walls stood boldly out, its white colon
nades glistened in pure beauty, while, high
above all, the Pylon towers flung their gold-
tipped spires to the heavens. There it stood
silent and majestic, against the blue background
of the sky — a huge casket of gold and ivory
draped in the white splendours of the Paschal
moon. One long last look at His Father's
house ! Great temple, your fate is sealed !
I2O
The Garden's Gloom
Even now the spirits of despair are sobbing
through the midnight winds, wailing a requiem
dirge around your gilded porticoes, and echoing
the prophetic words of last Sunday, " Not a
stone shall be left upon a stone ". By the set
ting of to-morrow's sun your purpose shall have
died, the old law vanished, the veil of your
sanctuary rent in twain, and profane eyes gaze
on the spot once shadowed by majesty. O fated
temple ! O doomed city ! fare thee well ! Pie
turns and plunges into the dark garden of
sorrow.
As they pass along the cedar walk, the sounds
of their footfalls die on the soft clay, and a
mysterious stillness hangs in the air. They
reach a smooth, round rock that rises above the
surface of the garden. Here Christ halts ; it is
the last milestone of His journey. His eyes
are streaming, His voice shaken with grief, as
He turns and says, " My soul is sorrowful even
unto death ; stay you here and watch with Me "
(Matt. xxvi. 38). The disciples, drawing their
garments around them, group beside the rock.
They try to pray, but the past day has been one
of incessant activity and strong emotions, and
the very atmosphere seems charged with a
121
From Dust to Glory
heaviness that weighs them down ; so they sink
into a troubled sleep, while the moaning Christ
staggers forward about fifty yards to His death
agony. " He began to grow sorrowful and to be
sad " (Matt. xxvi. ] 7). Here He gives the signal
for the conflict to bep-in.
II.
The
Battle
ground
Two powers are arrayed in a deadly struggle
—the powers of Christ and the powers of dark-
Surveyed, ness. To get the knowledge of the conflict we
must analyse the opposing forces. Before ap
proaching the task, it is necessary to readjust all
our previous notions of pain and merit, for on
the side of Christ the great fact that stands
boldly out is :—
i. The nature is indeed human, but the
person is divine ; therefore, His faintest word
or slightest sigh is of such value that eternity
alone can measure it. If we would, then, sound
to the full the depths of Christ's agony, like a
fixed star of light, we must keep before out-
minds, and never lose sight of the fact, that it is
God who suffers. The soul and body on which
the tempest beats are indeed human, but the
It is God
who
Suffers.
The Garden's Gloom
sufferer is divine, and, therefore, His every act is
infinite in merit and in dignity.
2. His sufferings are interior, and, therefore, HisSuf-
intense. What is the pain of nerve or body 'enn?s are
J Interior.
compared with the anguish of mind ? The
soul is the real seat of suffering, the body but
the channel through which it passes. The true
home of pain lies within. The deepest scar of
flesh will heal with time ; but who can minister
to the mind diseased, or pluck from the heart a
rooted sorrow? Men's heads have whitened in
a night from grief ; a sudden sorrow has often
snapped the chain of reason or stilled a heart for
ever. Therefore, to measure Christ's agony by
His wounds and ignore His mental anguish
would be most misleading.
3. There He lies, like a crushed worm, yet His Suf-
no man has touched Him. Why? Because fenngs
. . . were
Flis sorrows were obedient to His will, and in voluntary.
this His agony differs from all with which we
arc acquainted. We are caught up in a storm ;
when we ourselves suffer it is in spite of our
selves ; we make every effort to shake oft the
grip of pain ; we rebel against it, and, as the bird
dashes itself against the cage, our wills struggle
for freedom and escape. We are human, and,
123
From Dust to Glory
therefore, the playthings of the storm ; He was
God, and at His beck the tempests of His soul,
like the angry billows of Genesareth, rose in
fury, or were stilled into hushed repose. Not
only the winds and the waves obeyed Him, but
the emotions of His breast sank or swelled at
His wish. When He rejoiced, it was because
He commanded joy to enter ; and when He
sorrowed, it was grief, like all created things,
obeyed its Lord, and came to fill His heart.
He deliberately measured and controlled it.
Did He so will, the inflowing tide would stand
on its course or turn back. In Gethsemane,
then, He dismisses His attendant angels, opens
wide His arms, bares His breast, and bids
Lucifer, with his dark hosts, approach and put
forth their powers against Him. " Now is the
hour for the powers of darkness." " He began
to be sorrowful." The bolts and fastenings are
loosened, the sluice-gates thrown open, and the
angry waves dash in fury on the inner sanctuary
of His heart.
without 4. In sorrow we seek distraction ; we read
istrac- to our frjenc|s t-0 coax their thoughts away
tion. . J
from pain, for we know that by lessening
consciousness we lessen pain, and where con-
124
The Garden's Gloom
sciousness is completely destroyed there is no
pain.
The wounded soldier in the din of battle sees
the blood, but feels no twinge. The shouts of
onset, the blare of trumpets, the roar of conflict,
tear away his thoughts and, therefore, kill his
pain ; but Christ did not permit a distracting
breath to disturb the awful stillness of that inner
chamber of His soul, where His spirit and the
spirit of agony were clasped in deadly embrace.
By grasping these facts— that the sufferer is
God — that His anguish is not of flesh, but of
thought— that His sorrows are voluntary and
undisturbed — we are greatly assisted in our
efforts to penetrate the mysterious agony of
Gethsemane.
5. What kind of an instrument is the human The Soul
Soul of Christ, across which grief, sorrow, and of Christ,
sadness swept ? This is the important question,
for as the beauties of music are measured by the
perfection of the ear into which they flow, so
pain must be measured, not so much by the
blow struck, as by the nature on which it falls.
You wound a tree or flower ; it droops and
falls, but feels no pain, for a flower has no sensa
tion. You strike a brute, and the twentieth
125
From Dust to Glory
stroke is but one stroke disassociated with any
other, for a brute has neither reason nor reflection.
With a man how different ! His mind looks
back and forward, and gathers up all into an
undivided whole. The twentieth punishment
to him is the last drop of bitterness falling on
nineteen others held within the cup his reflective
powers have clasped. Each moment, too, that
prolongs a human sorrow adds to it a new life,
a new edge.
Now, let us push this reasoning one step
further. "Amongst men, by reason of their
different natures, there is a great diversity of
pain. On men of coarse and cloddish clay
sorrow falls with blunted edge ; but there are
souls like ^Eolian harps, whose strings vibrate
with the faintest whisper and tremble at the
slightest touch. Oh, how deep the wound, how
undying the pain even of a little word ! Like
the sea-shell that keeps ever murmuring the
music of its native deep, the muffled chimes of
sorrow keep ringing down the avenues of such
souls.
Now, higher than the heavens above the
earth did the soul of Christ surpass that of
the most perfect man in beauty and sensibility.
126
The Garden's Gloom
Such was the instrument across which the dark
tide of sorrow swept in Gethsemane.
III.
A. Let us now turn to examine the weapons Four
Sourc
Sorrow.
that the powers of darkness are discharging sour(
against the suffering Christ.
There He lies ; but what causes His breast
to heave, what sends the cold sweat teeming
through the pores of His body, what wrings
that anguished wail from His heart?
The causes are four, but the main one is the
contact of an all-pure and an all-holy God with
the foul repulsiveness of sin. Let us try and
understand what this meant.
We carry sin lightly, because we cannot realize
the shame of our load. But between God and
sin there is an eternal antagonism. Under other
circumstances the All-holy would drive it from
His presence ; but now not only has He taken
created flesh, and submitted to its laws, but He
is exposing the inmost recesses of His soul to
the foe. He has put on the hideous apparel of
our crimes, substituted Himself a victim for us.
"He has borne our iniquities, He has carried
our sins.1'
127
From Dust to Glory
As Jacob clothed himself in the garments
of Esau to secure a parent's blessing, so Christ
put on His brothers' vesture of shame, and
brought on Himself His Father's malediction.
His soul was wrapped in a robe steeped in all
that was loathsome in human crime. Crime
clings around His heart, it flows over His intel
lect, it fills the pores of His memory, it covers
Him like a moral leprosy, it burns like fire, it
roasts like poison, it dries the very fountain of
life.
If we have to bear the shadow of another's
guilt, if we have to rest under a false suspicion,
no matter how trivial, we wither ; life becomes
unbearable. Oh, with Christ it was no shadow ;
the awful torrents of others' sins flowed over
Him.
Did you ever, in some hideous nightmare,
imagine yourself clasped in the folds of a slimy
monster of the deep — a huge sea-serpent? In
fancy you felt its clammy coils entwine you, and
you watched the red tongue thrust forth to
pierce your breast and lap the hot blood from
the living chalice of your heart. You leaped
into the air with a scream of horror, while your
heaving breast and cold sweat attested your
128
The Garden's Gloom
agony as you thanked God it was only a dream.
With Christ it was no dream ; it was ghastly
reality.
There He kneels in Gethsemane. Like
another Samson He lifts up His strong arms
and draws down upon His head the charged
clouds of His Father's wrath. The blood of
Abel, the crimes of Sodom, the guilt, the lusts,
and blasphemies of all times ! He quivers in
every nerve ; the blood is rushing through His
veins in terror ; He wails piteously and falls
prostrate. " He was wounded for our iniquities,
He was bruised for our sins " (Is. liii. 5).
The persecutors of the early Church believed
they discovered the master scheme of human
torture when they hit on the plan of tying a
Christian to a corpse.
When he slept it was in the cold embrace of
a corpse ; when he awoke at midnight, the stony
eyes of the dead stared him, and the stripped
teeth of a skeleton grinned in mockery. He
dared not shake himself free from the loath
some companionship. He moved in a cloud of
sickening odours, till life became a hell, and he
staggered and fell, a corpse within the arms of
a corpse. Even this gruesome picture gives
129 9
From Dust to Glory
us no idea of what the revolting companionship
of sin meant to Jesus.
Procession Look ! in that silent midnight hour, see the
shame, trooping spectres come in grim procession. All
the criminals that were ever, or e'er shall be,
march past.
There is Cain in the purple sheet of his
brother's blood, rank with the foulness of his
crime ; there is Herod, dripping with the gore
of the young innocents ; there the wretche
reeking with the abominations of Sodom ; and
each, as he passes, discharges the foulness of
his life on the pure head of Christ.
Crime flows over Him, crime streams down
His vesture and drips from His beard, till He
almost seems to be that which He could never
be. O God ! those hands of Christ that were
never lifted except to soothe the sorrowing or
raise the wretched, they are purpled with the
blood of a thousand murders. Those lips that
breathed sweetness, that were perfumed with
mercy, they are black with blasphemies, they
reek with foulness. His eyes are filled with
evil visions, and His ears are ringing with the
roar of strife and the bacchanal shouts of revelry.
His heart is frozen with cruelty, hardened with
130
The Garden's Gloom
avarice. His memory is laden with every sin
from Adam to the last man. There He lies,
moaning and crushed beneath the weight. " He
hath put on cursing as a garment." " He was
wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for
our sins."
But see, now He struggles to His feet, His
knees totter, His form is bowed. Staggering
under the weight of man's guilt, He seeks the
solace of His chosen three. Alas ! they are
asleep. "I looked for one that would grieve
with Me, but there was none ; for one that
would comfort Me, and I found none" (Ps.
Ixviii. 2 i).
With difficulty He reaches them, drops on His
knees. Placing His hands on the ground for
support, He bends till His breath falls hot on
the sleeping face of Peter. "Simon, sleepest
thou ? " With these words He falls prostrate
from exhaustion.
The startled Apostles hasten to raise Him.
When they turn His face in the moonlight, a
cry of horror breaks from them. How changed
in a few hours ! He has grown an old man !
They would not recognize Him except for the
halo of light that played around His head.
From Dust to Glory
There He lies in their arms, His eyes swim
ming with tears, His beard dishevelled, His hair
matted with sweat, and the ashen pallor of death
upon His features. He sobs and cautions
them against the trials before them, and implores
them to stand fast.
Then He goes again towards the bitter chalice
that will not pass from Him. The weeping
Apostles kneel and stretch forth their hands after
His receding figure. They embrace each other,
sobbing, and asking, What ails Him ? What
ails Him ? Christ falls prostrate, and the second
awful stage of His agony commences.
A Picture B. What was the new source of grief? He
of Pam. looked into the clear mirror of His divinity,
and saw reflected there the horrors that to
morrow had in store. All His life, His Passion
was before Him. At Bethlehem, when His
infant eyes gazed in silent wonder on the starry
heavens, while the air was still thrilled with
angels' song, even then Gethsemane spread
itself out before His vision, and His ears rang
with the yells of the murderous mob.
He was God, without a past or future ; all
was the living present. He looked through the
incense cloud that rose from the adoring Magi
132
The Garden's Gloom
at His cradle, and beheld the purple agony of
Olivet.
This ever-present vision, so far from causing
sorrow, made His heart pant for it. " I have a
Baptism with which I am to be baptized. How
am I straitened till it be accomplished? " (Luke
xii. 50). He calls it " His hour," for it was to
register His victory over sin, to mark the ful
filment of His mission, and the liberation of
humanity. How is it that, when He finds
Himself confronted with death, fear shakes His
soul and sorrow convulses Him ? Because the
future triumphs of His Passion are now pushed
to the background, and He stands face to face
with grief alone.
The patriot soldier, while planning his country's
liberation, sees only her chains falling, hears only
the chimes of victory and the plaudits of rejoicing
thousands. But on the day of actual battle
these visions die ; the cry of pain and the sight
of blood alone are present.
Through life Christ and agony stood at a dis
tance, now they are face to face ; death is stretch
ing forth his hand to seize his victim, and his
cold breath chills His brow.
He was God, and to-morrow lived, throbbed,
From Dust to Glory
and palpitated before His eyes. He saw not
confusedly, but counted and pondered over
every detail of the ghastly tragedy — the hid
eous embrace of Judas, the kiss that burned to
the bone like a drop of corrosive poison, the
breath from the traitorous lips that reeked
with the fetid airs of hell. There stood before
His vision the speechless agony of Mary, the
flight of His Apostles ; He saw His honour
trampled on when He was mocked as a fool ;
His shame insulted when He stood bleeding
and naked before a jeering rabble. The scourge,
the nails, the whole bloody drama, to the last
expiring sigh, passes before His aching eyes.
Is it any wonder that His breast heaves and
swells, and His sacred heart, like the wine-press,
distils the red drops P They burst through His
pores, they glisten on His brow. And now He
turns His eyes from the picture of His own
pain to a new scene that unfolds itself — all
His friends would surfer.
For My Anxiety for those he loves is the uppermost
Name's thought in the mind of every generous man.
" I can die myself, but I cannot bear the sight
of my starving wife and child," was a saying often
heard in famine years. But pain wears a double
1 34
The Garden's Gloom
edge when they suffer, precisely because they
are our friends. They are struck for the crime
of our friendship alone.
And, oh ! how Christ loved His friends !
He goes so far as to identify Himself with
them. " He who touches My anointed ones
touches the apple of My eye." "Saul, why
persecutest thou Me ? " (Acts ix. 4). The
blow from Saul's hand struck Christ when
it fell on His Church. The stones flung at
Stephen wounded Him, the fire that roasted
St. Laurence burned Him.
His eyes are now looking down through
the vista of future ages. He sees millions of
martyrs pour out their blood ; He sees His
Apostles hurled from the Temple's pinnacle,
or torn on crosses ; He sees Nero's garden
illuminated by the roasting Christians tied to
lamp-posts and smeared with pitch ; He sees
their blood dashed over the sands of the Colos
seum, or dripping from the jaws of beasts.
And while His gaze rested on that picture
His body swayed like the reed in the night
wind, and the blood gathers in great drops and
falls, while the rushing tide of sorrow sweeps
Christ prostrate to the earth.
'35
From Dust to Glory
Quae And now the agonizing Jesus turns to
utihtas. tke jast an(j most distressing picture of all.
Instead of the chaste beauty of the Paschal
moon, the caverns of hell are spread before
Him. He sees the tongues of hissing fire lap
ping around the very souls for which He bleeds
— souls glorified by the jewels of Baptism ; souls
that glittered with the seven-fold splendours of
Confirmation ; souls that, like Judas, fed on
His own body. As He beholds them, swept like
autumn leaves into the fiery gusts of hell, He
piteously moans, "Quae utilitas in sanguine
meo?" (Ps. xxix.) — "What is the use of My
blood ? " How few they are who take advantage
of it and save themselves !
He sees the heretic rising out of the bosom
of His Church and lifting Lucifer's standard of
revolt, and schism tearing her seamless robe ;
and as she lay wounded by the roadside, the
very men she nourished, like the Levite of old,
pass her by and stretch out no friendly hand.
While His streaming eyes wander on that sad
picture, Satan comes mocking and asking, " Is it
for these you suffer 1 What folly to die for
such ingrates ! " The angel who held the bitter
chalice for a moment thought He would send it
136
The Garden's Gloom
away untasted, when Christ, lifting His face,
takes it in His trembling hands, and as of old,
when He pardoned a whole city in consideration
of even five just souls, now, for the sake of
those who would avail of His Passion, He lifts
the cup to His lips and murmurs, " Not as I
will, but as Thou wilt " (Matt. xxvi. 39).
Once more He staggers to His feet. But
oo
what a sight ! His eyes are blinded with blood,
their lashes purple ; His mouth is filled with
blood, His beard drips, His hair is clotted, His
garments soaked in blood.
Not a hand has touched Him, not a nail or
scourge has tapped a vein. But the life-stream,
impatient of fifteen hours' delay, comes surging
from the Sacred Heart to pour itself over souls
that are perishing, and to appease an angry
Heaven. His disciples watch Him tottering to
wards them through the olive shadows. They
are speechless with terror when they see that
ghastly spectre of sorrow bathed in blood.
For the last time He leaves them, His cousins,
James and John, supporting, and the first Pope
following, weeping.1
1 See Newman's " Discourses to Mixed Congregations,"
Discourse XVI.
'37
From Dust to Glory
IV.
Proces- But His agony is now over ; the death anguish
of Christ has passed.
Triumph.
As for the third time He kneels, the heavens
open, and a trail of splendour comes floating
towards the earth, and the trooping angels
hasten to minister to their Lord. Three hours
ago the victories to be purchased by His
Passion, the visions of anticipated conquest,
were veiled and put aside in order that His
soul might be laid bare to suffering. Now
the comforting angels recall them one by one.
Christ now sees Limbo freed, the gates of
Heaven flung wide open ; Joseph, His great pre
cursor, with the myriads of the just, are hastening
to share the triumphs of His Precious Blood.
There before Him passes, too, the long proces
sion of His martyrs, with their waving palms and
shouts of victory. He beholds His Apostles
planting His banner on pagan lands, His
Doctors beating back the foe with the sword of
light, His Virgins ennobling humanity by their
triumph over our baser selves, and the tens of
thousands of chosen souls that would to the end
of time rejoice the heavens and widen the empire
The Garden's Gloom
of the Precious Blood ; and as the vision of
triumph glowed before His eyes, sorrow, fear,
and sadness fled like guilty shades, and rapture
cheered His freezing heart, and strength returned
to His limbs, as with a firm step He seeks His
Apostles, to deliver Himself up to the howling
Jews, led on by Judas, and already battering at
the gates of Olivet.
Here we pause. We have watched by His
death agony. On the Cross He calmly makes
His will and yields up the ghost.
Fifteen hours before death came He passed
through death's anguish. Why? Because His
death was the work of man, and God alone
could create the tempestuous sea of sorrow
through which His spirit passed, but all the
fury of men and devils could not inflict the
millionth part of suffering that His own deliberate
will measured out.
By these two facts— that His sufferings were
so intense and yet absolutely voluntary — we
measure the enormity of mortal sin, and the
unfathomed love of His sacred heart.
We rise from adoration of the sorrowing
Christ with another thought, it is this :—
The reader can scarcely have failed to notice
From Dust to Glory
the striking contrast in the conduct of the friends
of Christ and the friends of Lucifer. The latter
knew no rest, nor food nor sleep that night.
We see the lights of hurrying messengers
flitting to and fro. Look at these men — their
faces are pale, their eyes are flashing, and their
voices charged with passion. Some are in
structing the false witnesses in what they are
to swear, some debauching the pagan soldiers,
and others goading the mob to madness. No
thought to spare for food or family. The very
air is electric with passion, they are aflame with
their master's— Lucifer's — interest.
Turn from that picture to the agonizing Christ
staggering under the weight of our sins. He goes
to seek the solace of His friends. How sweet
to that freezing heart will be the warm word of
comfort, the tear of sympathy, and the strong
arm flung out to support His tottering form !
Surely He has a claim on all this — for who
are the friends whose consolation He seeks :
From all Adam's children He chose twelve.
Now from those twelve so favoured He makes
a further exclusive selection— He takes three ;
they nestled around His heart ; they stood with
Him on Thabor. Now, in His darkest hour, He
The Garden's Gloom
has a good right to expect that men so favoured
would comfort Him. Alas ! while He bends
above them moaning in agony, they are sleeping !
they are sleeping !
We have knelt in reverent adoration with our
divine Lord through the darkness of Geth-
semane. We now leave the shadows of that
garden behind and turn to fill our eyes with the
light of His risen glory.
141
CHAPTER X.
THE LIGHT OF VICTORY.
EASTER SUNDAY.
THE Good Friday darkness that overspread the
earth seemed to typify the complete failure of
the Divine Victim that hung upon the Cross
and the triumph of His foes.
They vented their rage upon Him with im
punity ; they branded Him as a seducer ; they
challenged Him to come down from the Cross.
They saw His body lie stiff and mangled in
death ; they followed it to the tomb ; that
tomb's entrance they closed with a massive rock ;
upon that rock they put the seal of public
authority ; and to make assurance doubly sure,
they obtained a guard of Roman Pretorians to
protect it.
No wonder they rubbed their hands in glee
and congratulated one another. Here was a
142
The Light of Victory
victory complete in every detail — a triumph
without the suspicion of a flaw.
As hours, however, wore on, the tempest of
unbridled fury began to abate, and sanity asserted
itself. The sun that evening set over a city of
conflicting thoughts and strong emotions.
Thousands did not witness in vain the
darkened sun, the rent rocks, and the ghosts
issuing from the sepulchres. They went home
striking their breasts, and many would rush to
the other side of the street in terror on the
approach of the principal actors in the awful
tragedy. The garments of these men seemed
to smell of blood.
There was an anxious searching of hearts on
every side — even the friends of Judas are not
so secure that their victory over Christ is quite
as complete as they would wish ; for these
repeated promises of His rising on the third
day from the grave come flitting back and send
a chill through them ; and the accusing angels
of His innocent blood are lashing their con
sciences.
It was an anxious Saturday in Jerusalem —
but one more day for friends and foes, and all
will be decided. Should He rise— His triumph
'43
From Dust to Glory
Resurrcxit. will be complete ; should He fail — His miracles
will be forgotten, and black ruin must stare His
disciples.
The Paschal moonlight is glinting off the
burnished helmets and the glittering shields of
the Roman guards in the garden of Joseph of
Arimathea. Through the stillness you can hear
the measured tread of the sentry beside the
sepulchre, and the clang of his javelin on the
stony path.
The night grows old and streaks of pale opal
mark the eastern horizon. The Roman guards
pause ; a mysterious terror is creeping over
their hearts ; they tremble ; the earth heaves
and rocks ; and sweeping through the now
brightening skies, an angel-form descends. He
bursts through the sepulchre, rolls back the
stone, and high above the prostrate forms of
the terror-stricken guards resplendent towers the
figure of the Victorious Christ.
" Resurrexit, sicut dixit, Alleluia."
("He arose, as He said, Alleluia.")
Limbo. For a brief moment we must retrace our
steps.
The evangelist dramatically closes the history
H4
The Light of Victory
of Good Friday's tragedy with one word —
expiravit — He gave up the ghost.
When the soul of Christ passed from His
body, He went straight to Limbo, where the
saints of the old law were detained till Heaven
was thrown open by His conquering death.
He announced to them that their redemption
was complete ; the long-sighed-for hour was
come ; and by the glories of the Beatific Vision
He transformed Limbo into Paradise.
As His glance swept over that home of
patient longing, what a venerable assemblage
presented itself. There were the prophets
whose inspired tongues had announced Him ;
there was the last and the greatest of the
prophets — John — the precursor, who, on the
Jordan's bank, lifted the veil from the picture
they had painted, and cried, " Behold the Lamb
of God " ; there was holy Simeon whose lips
had fashioned the sword for Mary's heart ; and
above all, there was His foster-father — St.
Joseph.
What a flood of recollections throng back to
Joseph now — the wrapt ecstasies of the first
Christmas when the midnight skies thrilled with
the angelic "Gloria" ; the cloud of incense that
145 10
From Dust to Glory
rose from the adoring kings ; the anxious flight
and the privations of their journey into Egypt ;
the wondrous love that sanctified their humble
home ; and, above all, the last sigh he breathed
in the arms of the God that now stands radiant
before him.
Christ now leads up this sainted host to
Calvary — He shows them His body, His torn
flesh, His thorn-crowned head, and pierced heart,
to enable them to realize what a price has been
paid for their redemption.
And when they sighed over that wounded
heart, He checked them, for this was no time
for sighs or sorrow, and He then showed them
D '
Its future glories. They saw religious orders
and great confraternities marching to conquest
under its banner, stately basilicas and convents
sheltering under its shadow, and the love it was
to symbolize wrapped around the world like a
fiery flame.
Christ then entering the tomb re-invested
Himself with His body, and lo ! what a trans
formation ! Every trace of Good Friday's shame
is consumed in the blaze of its new splendours.
The transfigured glories of Thabor, multiplied a
thousand times, returned.
146
The Light of Victory
It hangs around Him transfused with glory,
every wound blazing with the splendours of
a rising sun. Death, decay, or suffering have
claim on it no more. It is endowed with the
properties of Spirit— to sweep from pole to pole
in the twinkling of an eye, and pass through the
walls of the closed chamber without impediment.
But the risen Christ has other friends to visit.
Although the scriptures do not expressly Mary
mention the fact, it has been the unbroken tra
dition of the Church that the first person to
whom our risen Lord appeared was His mother.
Naturally, for not only was she His mother,
but the chief sharer of His sorrows, and the
chief mourner at His Cross. The honour of
the first visit was then eminently due to her.
The reader is familiar with the beautiful
picture, " The Descent from Calvary ". The
Blessed Virgin, Magdalen, and St. John are re
turning on Good Friday. Lowering clouds, in
dark broken masses, fill the horizon behind
them ; but a streak of sweet light is falling on
the Virgin's face. It was a symbol of the hope
that sprung up within her heart that hour.
Whoever else might forget His repeated pro
mises to rise, she would not. His Resurgam—
147 10*
From Dust to Glory
I will rise, kept sounding like a trumpet through
the halls of her memory ; and if through the
night-watch her heart for a moment trembled, it
came back to feed her courage.
What an anxious night for Mary must have
been that vigil of the first Easter. She looks
out into the midnight skies and strange splen
dours are floating! through them. White birds
of paradise glide and circle around. The
flowers have opened their chalices and are pour
ing forth their fragrance to perfume the air
through which their Maker is to pass. And
now there came melodies floating as if from
some far-off sphere — the air is pulsing with
heavenly harmony.
She recognizes those angel voices — thirty-three
years ago she heard that heavenly choir at Beth
lehem. Now they have come to sing the second
birthday of her Son, who has just sprung from
the womb of Earth.
" Regina coeli, Icetare, Alleluia,
Resurrexit, sicut dixit, Alleluia."
("Queen of heaven rejoice, Alleluia,
Fie has risen, as He said, Alleluia.")
A brilliant light now dazzles her, and Jesus,
148
The Light of Victory
radiant in His risen splendours, is in the arms
of Mary. Three days ago that body lay in
those arms, mangled, torn, bleeding. These
same arms now enfold it, glorious and resplen
dent.
But Christ is not alone, for He has brought
the hosts of the liberated just, amongst them
Mary's parents and her gentle spouse, St. Joseph.
For them He paints the tragic splendours of
her past, the heroic part she played in man's
redemption ; and then in the presence of the
combined citizens of Karth and Heaven, He
proclaimed her Oueen of Angels and of Saints.
Then the voices of the angelic choir and the
liberated just united in chanting the Canticle of
Jesus' victory and Mary's dignity :—
"Oueen of heaven rejoice, Alleluia,
He has risen, as He said, Alleluia."
Though the scriptures merely records the bald Peter,
fact that He appeared to St. Peter, it requires
small effort of imagination to picture that meeting.
Two passions are devouring Peter's heart
since Good Friday— sorrow for his dead Lord,
and remorse for his own denial. While his
soul is now thrilled with joy at the sight of the
From Dust to Glory
risen Christ, the tear trembles and there is a
painful twitching at the corners of his mouth,
and the rising flood of anguish is ready to rush
from his heart — but Christ reminds him that
this is a day of triumph. No mourning De
profundus — no weeping Miserere. The lamenta
tions and the tenebrae are all swallowed up in
the bright Easter Alleluia.
He consoles Peter by telling him that he will
have the honour of redeeming the past by laying
down his life— that for the one Pope who denied
Him, thirty will pour out their blood, that
though Peter's enemies, like those of his Divine
Master, may seal the tomb and place Pilate's
guard around the Papacy, the Papacy will burst
the rock and rise triumphant.
For a moment they are silent, then their eyes
turn towards a black figure swaying in the morn
ing breeze against the sky-line- — it is the carcase
of Judas. Again the gulp comes to Peter's
throat— "O Christ, out of twelve that you
chose, two were traitors ". Once more Christ
reminds him that this is Easter morning, and its
full joys leave no room for sighs.
Then, lifting up His hand, our Lord draws
aside the curtain of the future and shows him
The Light of Victory
the reparation that would be made for the dark
crime that avarice prompted.
The long line of the crusaders passes before
his eyes. He sees nobles pawning their estates,
and kings pledging their jewels, sighing for the
day when, with bare feet and ashes on their heads,
they might walk in reverence over the streets
consecrated by His blood last Friday. He sees
millions of religious in every land and age turn
ing their backs on this world's wealth, that they
might embrace poverty as a mother. He sees
high-born men and women tearing the diamonds
from their ornaments, and kings the jewels from
their crowns, and feeling honoured when they
are permitted to set them in glittering circles
around the Sacred Host in the Benediction
Monstrance, or to stud the Tabernacle roof, that,
while Christ sleeps in His sacramental swaddling
clothes, they might let their imprisoned light
fall upon Him like the light from the star of
Bethlehem. By the time that vision of glorious
reparation had passed before him, the sighs and
tears of Peter were dissolved in joy.
Magdalen was anxious, according to the cus- Magd
tom of her country, to embalm the body of len*
Christ when it was laid in the tomb, but the
From Dust to Glory
j
Sabbath day began with the sunset on Friday,
and she dare not walk even to the garden, which
was only a mile and a half away, so this labour
of love had to be deferred till the dawn of
Easter morning.
During the night, Mary and the other holy
women were engaged preparing the spices of
embalmment, and the box of aromatics that she
poured on His feet at Bethany was replenished.
It is not yet dawn when we see her hurrying
through the narrow streets and over the rough
pavements, swept onward by the tide of love ;
the tempest of her affections will brook no delay.
She reaches the sepulchre — only to find it
empty ; and hurrying back she ran towards the
city to tell the Apostles that the body of Christ
was stolen.
The day was now breaking, and Peter and
John, terror-stricken at Magdalen's story, ran
towards the garden, she swiftly following. We
see her rich tresses blown by the morning
breeze, her eyes dilated, her quivering lips, and
her face pale with terror against the whitening
dawn.
The Apostles, finding the tomb empty, return
to Jerusalem. Not so, however, Magdalen—
152
The Light of Victory
she goes around the garden moaning, sobbing,
wringing her hands in anguish.
To the sepulchre she once more returns,
where she sees two angels in white who ask :
"Woman, why weepest thou ? " (John xx. 13).
" Because they have taken away my Lord, and
1 know not where they have laid Him."
Hearing footsteps behind her, she rises and
finds herself face to face with one she takes to be
the gardener, who repeats the angels' question :
"Woman, why weepest thou P '' "Sir, if thou
hast taken Him hence, tell me where thou hast
laid Him, and I will take Him away."
"Him," "Him"— the word burns through
every sentence. Her love for Christ fills her
heart and speech.
The dramatic moment of her life has now
come. Christ, fixing on her a look of com
passionate love, utters but one word — " Mary ".
Oh ! the tone in which that word was spoken-
it thrilled every fibre of her being. The music
of that voice kept singing down for many a day
through the chambers of her soul.
The day she first heard it she was an outcast,
and passion's tempests raged and held high
revels within her heart ; but as on that night
From Dust to Glory
w
hen, with fluttering garments and flowing hair,
Christ walked in majesty over the billows of
Genesareth, and shaping His power into speech,
cried, " Peace, be still ! " that same voice broke
above the tempest of her soul ; a heavenly peace
descended, and, like the waves of the Galilean
sea, the angry passions obeyed His voice and
troubled Magdalen no more.
She heard it again when she passed into
Simon's banquet chamber, when she sank at
the feet of Jesus and poured the alabaster box
of ointment upon them. On that day she read
a flame of indignation and the ring oi manly
chivalry in His words as He scourged her
scoffers : "Simon, dost thou see this woman? '
but His voice melts with tender softness when,
over her bowed head, He breathed absolution,
"Thy sins are forgiven thee " (Luke vii. 48).
Once more she heard His voice — His eyes
were swimming with tears, and an anguished
moan was breaking from His heart, when it
rang with power divine through her brother's
tomb, crying, " Lazarus, come forth " (John xi.
43).
But sin, anger, and death belong to a world
that has passed—love, and love alone rules now.
The Light of Victory
He permits the splendours of the divine to
radiate His countenance, and His face once
more did shine like the sun, and His garments
became as white as snow ; with a voice tremb
ling with compassionate tenderness, He softly
breathes — "Mary "-—and the music of all the
spheres seemed to break upon her soul with
that one word, "Mary". She sinks at His
feet ; her heart is in her throat ; with the
lips of that heart, she too utters but one
word, " Rabboni — O my Master — O Master
mine!"
The morning sun in splendour burst above
the garden that framed the most wondrous
picture that hangs in the gallery of time — Christ,
radiant in the glories of His resurrection, with
Magdalen bent in reverent adoration trembling
with her new-found joy, crying, " Rabboni, O
Master mine ".
The first human censer, after the heart of
Mary, to send up the incense of love to the
Risen Christ was the heart out of which He had
cast seven devils. The first pair of eyes on
which the light of His Easter triumph fell were
not those of sinless John, but the eyes that
were washed by the tears of sorrow. What
'55
From Dust to Glory
comfort to those, who, like Magdalen, sinned
in the past, but who, like her, resolve to do
penance in the future.
With Mary, Peter, and Magdalen we rejoice
in the victory of our King, and our joy is not
unselfish since we are destined to share His
glory: " He will reform the body of our lowliness
made like to the body of His glory " (Phil,
iii. 21).
Yes ! all nature points to our resurrection —
the sun sinks into the sea, but sinks to rise
again ; stars disappear and return ; flowers droop
and die, but come to life again ; so we shall
pass from temporary death to our true home-
Heaven.
Now if there was never a hell to punish
sinners, should not the happiness of that paradise
be sufficient to induce men to serve God. Think
of it — No suffering, no death, no parting from
friends, no blighted hopes, no broken hearts ;
beauty, immortality, the company of angels, joy
without an end.
Look around the world and see what sleepless
energies, what scorn of toil, what anxious years
men consume for a patch of land — a purse of
money — a social honour.
The Light of Victory
Yet the hour will strike when all must vanish.
Even sceptres moulder, thrones topple, and
empires pass like a dream.
To you, dear reader, who have followed the
life-story of man from the dust-shell, as you saw
him in the first chapter, to the glory-crowned
king that you now leave him in the last — to you
a parting word : while you see men draining
life's dearest treasures to grasp at the shadow
prizes here, will you hesitate to strain every
energy of soul and body for the conquest of that
glorious kingdom where " Eye hath not seen nor
ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart
of man what things God hath prepared for them
that love Him" (i Cor. ii. 9).
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS,
ABERDEEN
157
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