“blood must be my body’s balmer,—
while my soule, like peaceful palmer,
travelleth toward the land of heaven,
other balm will not be given.”
sir walter raleigh.
elaine tapped softly on the weatherbeaten door of the cell. it was merely hollowed out in the rock, and built up in front, with a low door and a very little window.
“who is it?” asked a soft voice from within.
“elaine and annora,” replied the little girl.
“come in, my children.”
motioning philippa to wait for her an instant, elaine lifted the latch and entered, half closing the door behind her. some low-toned conversation followed within the cell; and then elaine opened the door, and asked philippa to enter. the grey lady stood before her.
what she saw was a tall, slender, delicate figure, attired in dark grey. the figure alone was visible, for over the face the veil was drawn down. but philippa’s own knowledge of aristocratic life told her in an instant that the reverence with which she was received was that of a high-born lady. it was plain that the eremitess was no peasant.
elaine seemed to know that she was no longer wanted, and she drew annora away. the children went dancing through the wood, and philippa, desiring lena and oliver to await her pleasure, shut the door of the cell.
“mother,” she began—for recluses were addressed as professed nuns, and were indeed regarded as the holiest of all celibates—“i desire your help.”
“for body or soul?” was the reply.
“for the soul—for the life,” said philippa.
“ay,” replied the eremitess; “the soul is the life.”
“know you guy of ashridge?” asked philippa.
the grey lady bowed her head.
“i have confessed to him, and he hath dealt hardly with me. he saith i will not be saved; and i wish to be saved. he tells me to come to christ, and i know not how to come, and he saith he cannot make me understand how. he saith god loveth me, because he hath given me a very desolate and unhappy life; and i think he hateth me by that token. in short, father guy tells me to do what i cannot do, and then he saith i will not do it. will you teach me, and comfort me, if you can? the monk only makes me more unhappy. and i do not want to be unhappy. i want comfort—i want rest—i want peace. tell me how to obtain it!”
“no one wishes to be unhappy,” said the eremitess, in her gentle accents; “but sometimes we mistake the medicine we need. before i can give you medicine, i must know your disease.”
“my disease is weariness and sorrow,” answered philippa. “i love none, and none loveth me. none hath ever loved me. i hate all men.”
“and god?”
“i do not know god,” she said, her voice sinking. “he is afar off, and will come no nearer.”
“or you are afar off, and will go no nearer? which is it?”
“i think it is the first,” she answered; “guy of ashridge will have it to be the second. i cannot get at god—that is all i know. and it is not for want of praying. i have begged the intercession of my patron, the holy apostle saint philip, hundreds of times.”
“do you know why you cannot get at god?”
“no. if you can guess, tell me why it is.”
“because you have gone the wrong way. you have not found the door. you are trying to break through over the wall. and ‘he that entereth not by the door into the sheep-fold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.’”
“explain to me what you mean, mother, an’ it like you.”
“you know how adam sinned in paradise?” asked the grey lady.
“when he and eva disobeyed god, and ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree? yes, i have heard that.”
“he built up a terrible wall between him and god. every man, as born into this world, is on the hither side of that wall. he knoweth not god, he loveth not god, he careth not for god.”
“but that is not the case with me,” objected philippa; “for i do wish for him. i want some one to love me; and i should not mind if it were god. even he were better than none.”
the grey lady’s veil trembled a little, as philippa thought; but she sat meditating for an instant.
“before i answer your last remark,” she said, “will you tell me a little of your life? i might know better how to reply. you are a married woman, of course, for your dress is not that of a nun, nor of a widow. have you children? are your parents living?”
“i have no child,” said philippa: and the grey lady’s penetration must have been obtuse if she were unable to detect a tone of deep sadness underlying the words. “and parents—living—did you ask me? by mary, mother and maiden, i have but one living, and i hate—i hate him!” the passionate energy with which the last words were spoken told its own tale.
“then it is no marvel,” answered the grey lady, in a very different tone from philippa’s, “that you come to me with a tale of sorrow. where there is hatred there can be no peace; and without peace there can be no hope.”
“hope!” exclaimed philippa, bitterly. “what is there for me to hope? who ever cared for me? who ever asked me if i were happy? nobody loves me—why should i love anybody?”
“‘god commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, christ died for us.’”
the words fell like cooling water on the hot fire of philippa’s bitterness; but she made no answer.
“had god waited for us to love him,” resumed the eremitess, “where had we been now? ‘we love him, because he first loved us.’”
“he never loved me,” answered philippa, mournfully.
“he loved me so much,” said the grey lady, softly, “that he made the way rough, that he might help me over it; he made the waters deep, that he might carry me through them; he caused the rain to fall heavily, that i might run to him for shelter; he made ‘mine earthly house of this tabernacle’ dreary and cold, that i might find the rest, and light, and warmth of his home above so much the sweeter. yea, he made me friendless, that i might seek and find in jesu christ the one friend who would never forsake me, the one love that would never weary nor wax cold.”
philippa shook her head. she had never looked at her troubles in this light “but if the way be thus rough, and yet you will walk in it alone, though your feet be bleeding; if the waters be deep, and yet you will strive to ford them unaided; if the house be drear and lonely, and yet you will not rise up and go home—is it any wonder that you are sorrowful, or that you do not know him whose love you put thus away from you? and you tell me that god’s love were better to you than none! better than none!—better than any, better than all! man’s love can save from some afflictions, i grant: but from how many it can not! can human love keep you from sickness?—from sorrow?—from poverty?—from death? yet the love of christ can take the sting from all these,—can keep you calm and peaceful through them all. they will remain, and you will feel them; but the sting will be gone. there will be an underlying calm; the wind may ruffle the surface, but it cannot reach beneath. the lamb is safe in the arms of the shepherd, but it does not hold itself there. he who shed his blood for us on the rood keepeth us safe, and none shall be able to pluck us out of his hand. o lady, if ‘thou knewest the gift of god, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.’”
“they tell me of that living water, one and all; and i would fain drink thereof; but i am in the desert, and the well is afar off, and i know not where to find it.” philippa spoke not angrily now, but very sorrowfully.
“and ‘thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.’”
“that is just what i feel,” said philippa, earnestly.
“yet it is close beside you,” answered the grey lady. “the water is drawn, and ready. all that is needed is your outstretched hand to take it. christ giveth the living water; christ is the door by which, if any man enter in, he shall be saved; christ is our peace with god. you have not to make peace; for them that take christ’s salvation, peace is made. you can never make peace: it took christ to make it. your salvation—if you be saved at all—was finished thirteen hundred years ago. god hath provided this salvation for you, and all your life he hath been holding it forth to you—hath been calling you by all these your sorrows to come and take it. so many years as you have lived in this world, so many years you have grieved him by turning a deaf ear and a cold heart towards his great heart and open hand held forth to you—towards his loving voice bidding you come to him. oh grieve him no longer! let your own works, your own goodness, your own sufferings, drop from you as the cast-off rags of a beggar, and wrap yourself in the fair white robe of righteousness which the king giveth you—which he hath wrought himself on purpose for you,—for which he asks no price from you, for he paid the price himself in his own blood. he came not to live, and work, and suffer, for himself, but for you. you complain that none loveth you: all these years there hath been love unutterable waiting for you, and you will not take it.”
it seemed to philippa a very fair picture. never before had the garden of god looked so beautiful, to her who stood waiting without the gate. but there appeared to be barriers between it and her, which she could not pass: and in especial one loomed up before her, dark and insuperable.
“but—must i forgive my father?”
“you must come to christ ere you do any thing. after that—when he hath given you his forgiving spirit, and his strength to forgive—certainly you must forgive your father.”
“whatever he hath done?”
“whatever he hath done.”
“i can never do that,” replied philippa, yet rather regretfully than angrily. “what he did to me i might; but—”
“i know,” said the grey lady quietly, when philippa paused. “it is easier to forgive one’s own wrongs than those of others. i think your heart is not quite so loveless as you would persuade yourself.”
“to the dead—no,” said philippa huskily. “but to any who could love me in return—” and she paused again, leaving her sentence unended as before. “no, i never could forgive him.”
“never, of yourself,” was the answer. “but whoso taketh christ for his priest to atone, taketh christ also for his king to govern. in him god worketh, bringing forth from his soul graces which he himself hath first put there—graces which the natural heart never can bring forth. faith is the first of these; then love; and then obedience. and both love and obedience teach forgiveness. ‘if ye forgive not men their trespasses, how then shall your father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses?’”
“then,” said philippa, after a minute’s silence, during which she was deeply meditating, “what we give to god is these graces of which you speak?—we give him faith, and love, and obedience?”
“assuredly—when he hath first implanted all within us.”
“but what do we give of ourselves?” asked philippa in a puzzled tone.
“we give ourselves.”
“this giving of ourselves, then,” pursued philippa slowly, “maketh the grace of condignity?”
“we give to god,” replied the low voice of the eremitess, “ourselves, and our sins. the last he purgeth away, and casteth them into the depths of the sea. is there grace of condignity in them? and for us, when our sins are forgiven, and our souls cleansed, we are for ever committing further sin, for ever needing fresh cleansing and renewed pardon. is there grace of condignity, then, in us?”
“but where do you allow the grace of condignity?”
“i allow it not at all.”
philippa shrank back a little. in her eyes, this was heresy.
“you love not that,” said the grey lady gently. “but can you find any other way of salvation that will stand with the dignity of god? if man save himself, then is christ no saviour; if man take the first step towards god, then is christ no author, but only the finisher of faith.”
“it seems to me,” answered philippa rather coldly, “that such a view as yours detracts from the dignity of man.”
she could not see the smile that crossed the lips of the eremitess.
“most certainly it does,” said she.
“and god made man,” objected philippa. “to injure the dignity of man, therefore, is to affront the dignity of god.”
“dignity fell with adam,” said the grey lady. “satan fatally injured the dignity of man, when he crept into eden. man hath none left now, but only as he returneth unto god. and do you think there be any grace of condignity in a beggar, when he holdeth forth his hand to receive a garment in the convent dole? is it such a condescension in him to accept the coat given to him, that he thereby earneth it of merit? yet this, and less than this, is all that man can do toward god.”
“are you one of the boni-homines?” asked philippa suddenly.
she was beginning to recognise their doctrines now.
“the family of god are one,” answered the grey lady, rather evasively. “he teacheth not different things to divers of his people, though he lead them by varying ways to the knowledge of the one truth.”
“but are you one of the boni-homines?” philippa repeated.
“by birth—no.”
“no,” echoed philippa, “i should think not, by birth. your accent and your manners show you high-born; and they are low-born varlets—common people.”
“the common people,” answered the grey lady, “are usually those who hear christ the most gladly. ‘not many noble are called;’ yet, thank god, a few. but do you, then, count archbishop bradwardine, or bishop grosteste, or william de edingdon, bishop of winchester and chancellor of england,—among the common people?”
“they were not among them?” exclaimed philippa in contemptuous surprise.
“trust me, but they were,—two of them at least; and the third preached their doctrines, though he went not out from them.”
“i could not have believed it!”
“‘the wind bloweth where it listeth,’” said the grey lady, softly: but she hardly spoke to her visitor.
philippa rose. “i thank you for your counsel,” she said.
“and you mean, not to follow it?” was the gentle response.
“i do not know what i mean to do,” she said honestly. “i want to do right; but i cannot believe it right to deny the grace of condignity. it is so blessed a doctrine! how else shall men merit the favour of god? and i do not perceive, by your view, how men approach god at all.”
“by god approaching them,” said the eremitess. “‘whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ but god provideth the water; man only receiveth it; and the will to receive it is of god, not of man’s own deed and effort. ‘it is god that worketh in us.’ salvation is ‘not of works, lest any man should boast.’”
“that is not the doctrine of holy church,” answered philippa, somewhat offended.
“it is the doctrine of saint paul,” was the quiet rejoinder, “for the words i have just spoken are not mine, but his.”
“are you certain of that, mother?”
“quite certain.”
“who told you them?”
the grey lady turned, and took from a rough shelf or ledge, scooped out in the rocky wall of the little cavern, a small brown-covered volume.
“i know not if you can read,” she said, offering the book to lady sergeaux; “but there are the words.”
the little volume was no continuous book of scripture, but consisted of passages extracted almost at random, of varying lengths, apparently just as certain paragraphs had attracted her when she heard or read them.
“yes, i can read. my nurse taught me,” said philippa, taking the little book from her hand.
but her eyes lighted, the first thing, upon a passage which enchained them; and she read no further.
“whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that i shall give him shall never thirst.”
