Their Language At First Is That
They Are "Staggered," Leading You By That Expression To Suppose
That They Had Been
Witnesses to some phenomenon, which it was very
difficult to account for otherwise than by supernatural causes; but
when I
Have questioned further, I have always found that these
"staggering" wonders were not even specious enough to be looked
upon as good "tricks." A man in England who gained his whole
livelihood as a conjurer would soon be starved to death if he could
perform no better miracles than those which are wrought with so
much effect in Syria and Egypt; SOMETIMES, no doubt, a magician
will make a good hit (Sir John once said a "good thing"), but all
such successes range, of course, under the head of mere "tentative
miracles," as distinguished by the strong-brained Paley.
CHAPTER IX - THE SANCTUARY
I crossed the plain of Esdraelon and entered amongst the hills of
beautiful Galilee. It was at sunset that my path brought me
sharply round into the gorge of a little valley, and close upon a
grey mass of dwellings that lay happily nestled in the lap of the
mountain. There was one only shining point still touched with the
light of the sun, who had set for all besides; a brave sign this to
"holy" Shereef and the rest of my Moslem men, for the one
glittering summit was the head of a minaret, and the rest of the
seeming village that had veiled itself so meekly under the shades
of evening was Christian Nazareth!
Within the precincts of the Latin convent in which I was quartered
there stands the great Catholic church which encloses the
sanctuary, the dwelling of the blessed Virgin. {23} This is a
grotto of about ten feet either way, forming a little chapel or
recess, to which you descend by steps. It is decorated with
splendour. On the left hand a column of granite hangs from the top
of the grotto to within a few feet of the ground; immediately
beneath it is another column of the same size, which rises from the
ground as if to meet the one above; but between this and the
suspended pillar there is an interval of more than a foot; these
fragments once formed a single column, against which the angel
leant when he spoke and told to Mary the mystery of her awful
blessedness. Hard by, near the altar, the holy Virgin was
kneeling.
I had been journeying (cheerily indeed, for the voices of my
followers were ever within my hearing, but yet), as it were, in
solitude, for I had no comrade to whet the edge of my reason, or
wake me from my noonday dreams. I was left all alone to be taught
and swayed by the beautiful circumstances of Palestine travelling -
by the clime, and the land, and the name of the land, with all its
mighty import; by the glittering freshness of the sward, and the
abounding masses of flowers that furnished my sumptuous pathway; by
the bracing and fragrant air that seemed to poise me in my saddle,
and to lift me along as a planet appointed to glide through space.
And the end of my journey was Nazareth, the home of the blessed
Virgin! In the first dawn of my manhood the old painters of Italy
had taught me their dangerous worship of the beauty that is more
than mortal, but those images all seemed shadowy now, and floated
before me so dimly, the one overcasting the other, that they left
me no one sweet idol on which I could look and look again and say,
"Maria mia!" Yet they left me more than an idol; they left me (for
to them I am wont to trace it) a faint apprehension of beauty not
compassed with lines and shadows; they touched me (forgive, proud
Marie of Anjou!) - they touched me with a faith in loveliness
transcending mortal shapes.
I came to Nazareth, and was led from the convent to the sanctuary.
Long fasting will sometimes heat my brain and draw me away out of
the world - will disturb my judgment, confuse my notions of right
and wrong, and weaken my power of choosing the right: I had fasted
perhaps too long, for I was fevered with the zeal of an insane
devotion to the heavenly queen of Christendom. But I knew the
feebleness of this gentle malady, and knew how easily my watchful
reason, if ever so slightly provoked, would drag me back to life.
Let there but come one chilling breath of the outer world, and all
this loving piety would cower and fly before the sound of my own
bitter laugh. And so as I went I trod tenderly, not looking to the
right nor to the left, but bending my eyes to the ground.
The attending friar served me well; he led me down quietly and all
but silently to the Virgin's home. The mystic air was so burnt
with the consuming flames of the altar, and so laden with incense,
that my chest laboured strongly, and heaved with luscious pain.
There - there with beating heart the Virgin knelt and listened. I
strived to grasp and hold with my riveted eyes some one of the
feigned Madonnas, but of all the heaven-lit faces imagined by men
there was none that would abide with me in this the very sanctuary.
Impatient of vacancy, I grew madly strong against Nature, and if by
some awful spell, some impious rite, I could - Oh most sweet
Religion, that bid me fear God, and be pious, and yet not cease
from loving! Religion and gracious custom commanded me that I fall
down loyally and kiss the rock that blessed Mary pressed. With a
half consciousness, with the semblance of a thrilling hope that I
was plunging deep, deep into my first knowledge of some most holy
mystery, or of some new rapturous and daring sin, I knelt, and
bowed down my face till I met the smooth rock with my lips.
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