The Master-Christian | Page 6

softly, then swelling
into fuller melody, came floating from aloft, following the great bell's
vibration. Half way down the nave, just as he was advancing slowly
towards the door of egress, this music overtook the Cardinal like an
arresting angel, bringing him to a sudden pause.
"The organist practises late," he said aloud, as though speaking to some
invisible companion, and then was silent, listening. Round him and
above him surged the flood of rich and dulcet harmony,--the sunset
light through the blue and red stained-glass windows grew paler and
paler--the towering arches which sprang, as it were, from slender
stem-like side-columns up to full-flowering boughs of Gothic
ornamentation, crossing and re-crossing above the great High Altar,
melted into a black dimness,--and then--all at once, without any
apparent cause, a strange, vague suggestion of something supernatural
and unseen began suddenly to oppress the mind of the venerable prelate
with a curious sense of mingled awe and fear. Trembling a little, he
knew not why, he softly drew a chair from one of the shadowy corners,
where all such seats were piled away out of sight so that they might not

disfigure the broad and open beauty of the nave, and, sitting down, he
covered his eyes with one hand and strove to rouse himself from the
odd, half-fainting sensation which possessed him. How glorious now
was the music that poured like a torrent from the hidden organ-loft!
How full of searching and potential proclamation!--the proclamation of
an eternal, unguessed mystery, for which no merely human speech
might ever find fit utterance! Some divine declaration of God's absolute
omnipresence,-- or of Heaven's sure nearness,--touched the heart of
Felix Bonpre, as he sat like an enchanted dreamer among the tender
interweavings of solemn and soothing sound;--carried out of himself
and beyond his own existence, he could neither pray nor think, till, all
at once, upon the peaceful and devout silence of his soul, some very old,
very familiar words struck sharply as though they were quite new,-- as
though they were invested suddenly with strange and startling
significance--
"When the son of Man cometh, think ye He shall find faith on earth?"
Slowly he withdrew his hand from his eyes and gazed about him, half-
startled, half-appalled. Had anyone spoken these words?--or had they
risen of themselves as it were in letters of fire out of the sea of music
that was heaving and breaking tumultuously about him?
"WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMETH, THINK YE HE SHALL
FIND FAITH ON EARTH?"
The question seemed to be whispered in his ears with a thrilling
intensity of meaning; and moved by a sudden introspective and
retrospective repentance, the gentle old man began mentally to grope
his way back over the past years of his life, and to ask himself whether
in very truth that life had been well or ill spent? Viewed by his own
inner contemplative vision, Cardinal Felix Bonpre saw in himself
nothing but wilful sin and total unworthiness;--but in the eyes of those
he had served and assisted, he was a blameless priest,--a man beloved
of God, and almost visibly encompassed by the guardianship of angels.
He had been singularly happy in his election to a diocese which, though
it had always had an Archbishop for its spiritual head, boasted scarce as
many inhabitants as a prosperous English village,--and the result of this

was that he had lived altogether away from the modern world, passing
most of his time in reading and study,--while for relaxation, he
permitted himself only the innocent delight of growing the finest roses
in his neighbourhood. But he had pious scruples even about this rose-
growing fancy of his,--he had a lurking distrust of himself in it, as to
whether it was not a purely selfish pleasure,--and therefore, to
somewhat smooth the circumstance, he never kept any of the choice
blooms for his own gratification, but gave the best of them with a trust,
as simple as it was beautiful, to the altar of the Virgin, sending all the
rest to the bedsides of the sick and sorrowful, or to the coffins of the
dead. It never once occurred to him that the "Cardinal's roses," as they
were called, were looked upon by the poor people who received them
as miraculous flowers long after they had withered,--that special virtues
were assigned to them--and that dying lips kissed their fragrant petals
with almost as much devotion as the holy crucifix, because it was
instinctively believed that they contained a mystic blessing. He knew
nothing of all this;--he was too painfully conscious of his own
shortcomings,--and of late years, feeling himself growing old, and
realising that every day brought him nearer to that verge which all must
cross in passing from Time into Eternity, he had been sorely troubled in