The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861

The red light flashed from its windows
And flared from its sinking roof;
And baffled and awed before it,
The villagers stood aloof.

They shrank from the falling rafters,
They turned from the furnace-glare;
But its tenant cried, "God help me!
I must save my mother's chair."

Under the blazing portal,
Over the floor of fire,
He seemed, in the terrible splendor,
A martyr on his pyre!

In his face the mad flames smote him
And stung him on either side;
But he clung to the sacred relic,—
By his mother's chair he died!

O mother, with human yearnings!
O saint, by the altar-stairs!
Shall not the dear God give thee
The child of thy many prayers?

O Christ! by whom the loving,
Though erring, are forgiven,
Hast Thou for him no refuge,
No quiet place in heaven?

Give palms to Thy strong martyrs,
And crown Thy saints with gold,
But let the mother welcome
Her lost one to Thy fold!

AGNES OF SORRENTO

CHAPTER XVI.

ELSIE PUSHES HER SCHEME

The good Father Antonio returned from his conference with the cavalier with many subjects for grave pondering. This man, as he conjectured, so far from being an enemy either of Church or State, was in fact in many respects in the same position with his revered master,—as nearly so as the position of a layman was likely to resemble that of an ecclesiastic. His denial of the Visible Church, as represented by the Pope and Cardinals, sprang not from an irreverent, but from a reverent spirit. To accept them as exponents of Christ and Christianity was to blaspheme and traduce both, and therefore he only could be counted in the highest degree Christian who stood most completely opposed to them in spirit and practice.

His kind and fatherly heart was interested in the brave young nobleman. He sympathized fully with the situation in which he stood, and he even wished success to his love; but then how was he to help him with Agnes, and above all with her old grandmother, without entering on the awful task of condemning and exposing that sacred authority which all the Church had so many years been taught to regard as infallibly inspired? Long had all the truly spiritual members of the Church who gave ear to the teachings of Savonarola felt that the nearer they followed Christ the more open was their growing antagonism to the Pope and the Cardinals; but still they hung back from the responsibility of inviting the people to an open revolt.

Father Antonio felt his soul deeply stirred with the news of the excommunication of his saintly master; and he marvelled, as he tossed on his restless bed through the night, how he was to meet the storm. He might have known, had he been able to look into a crowded assembly in Florence about this time, when the unterrified monk thus met the news of his excommunication:—

"There have come decrees from Rome, have there? They call me a son of perdition. Well, thus may you answer:—He to whom you give this name hath neither favorites nor concubines, but gives himself solely to preaching Christ. His spiritual sons and daughters, those who listen to his doctrine, do not pass their time in infamous practices. They confess, they receive the communion, they live honestly. This man gives himself up to exalt the Church of Christ: you to destroy it. The time approaches for opening the secret chamber: we will give but one turn of the key, and there will come out thence such an infection, such a stench of this city of Rome, that the odor shall spread through all Christendom, and all the world shall be sickened."

But Father Antonio was of himself wholly unable to come to such a courageous result, though capable of following to the death the master who should do it for him. His was the true artist nature, as unfit to deal with rough human forces as a bird that flies through the air is unfitted to a hand-to-hand grapple with the armed forces of the lower world. There is strength in these artist natures. Curious computations have been made of the immense muscular power that is brought into exercise when a swallow skims so smoothly through the blue sky; but the strength is of a kind unadapted to mundane uses, and needs the ether for its display. Father Antonio could create the beautiful; he could warm, could elevate, could comfort; and when a stronger nature went before him, he could follow with an unquestioning tenderness of devotion: but he wanted the sharp, downright power of mind that could cut and cleave its way through the rubbish of the past, when its institutions, instead of a commodious dwelling, had come to be a loathsome prison. Besides, the true artist has ever an enchanted island of his own; and when this world perplexes and wearies him, he can sail far away and lay his soul down to rest, as Cytherea bore the sleeping Ascanius far from the din of battle, to sleep on flowers and breathe the odor of a hundred undying altars to Beauty.

Therefore, after a restless night, the good monk arose in the first purple of the dawn, and instinctively betook him to a review of his drawings for the shrine, as a refuge from troubled thought. He took his sketch of the Madonna and Child into the morning twilight and began meditating thereon, while the clouds that lined the horizon were glowing rosy purple and violet with the approaching day.

"See there!" he said to himself, "yonder clouds have exactly the rosy purple of the cyclamen which my little Agnes loves so much;—yes, I am resolved that this cloud on which our Mother standeth shall be of a cyclamen color. And there is that star, like as it looked yesterday evening, when I mused upon it. Methought I could see our Lady's clear brow, and the radiance of her face, and I prayed that some little power might be given to show forth that which transports me."

And as the monk plied his pencil, touching here and there, and elaborating the outlines of his drawing, he sang,—

"Ave, Maris Stella,
Dei mater alma,
Atque semper virgo,
Felix coeli porta!

"Virgo singularis,
Inter omnes mitis,
Nos culpis solutos
Mites fac et castos!

"Vitam praesta puram,
Iter para tutum,
Ut videntes Jesum
Semper collaetemur!"[1 - Hail, thou Star of Ocean,Thou forever virginMother of the Lord!Blessed gate of Heaven,Take our heart's devotion!Virgin one and only,Meekest 'mid them all,From our sins set free,Make us pure like thee,Freed from passion's thrall!Grant that in pure living,Through safe paths below,Forever seeing Jesus,Rejoicing we may go!]

As the monk sang, Agnes soon appeared at the door.

"Ah, my little bird, you are there!" he said, looking up.

"Yes," said Agnes, coming forward, and looking over his shoulder at his work.

"Did you find that young sculptor?" she asked.

"That I did,—a brave boy, too, who will row down the coast and dig us marble from an old heathen temple, which we will baptize into the name of Christ and his Mother."

"Pietro was always a good boy," said Agnes.

"Stay," said the monk, stepping into his little sleeping-room; "he sent you this lily; see, I have kept it in water all night."

"Poor Pietro, that was good of him!" said Agnes. "I would thank him, if I could. But, uncle," she added, in a hesitating voice, "did you see anything of that—other one?"

"That I did, child,—and talked long with him."

"Ah, uncle, is there any hope for him?"

"Yes, there is hope,—great hope. In fact, he has promised to receive me again, and I have hopes of leading him to the sacrament of confession, and after that"–

"And then the Pope will forgive him!" said Agnes, joyfully.

The face of the monk suddenly fell; he was silent, and went on retouching his drawing.

"Do you not think he will?" said Agnes, earnestly. "You said the Church was ever ready to receive the repentant."