Part 7

The next morning they rose at four, though two of the family had been at prayer all night, and did not go to rest till the others rose. They went into the oratory in the house itself to prayers, for they kept six times of prayer during the day. At six they said the psalms of the hour, for every hour had its appropriate psalms, and at half-past six went to Church for matins. When they returned at seven o'clock they said the psalms of the hour, sang a short hymn, and went to breakfast. After breakfast, when the younger members of the family were at their studies, Mr. Ferrar took Inglesant to the school, where all the children in the neighbourhood were permitted to come. At eleven they went to dinner, and after dinner there was no settled occupation till one, every one being allowed to amuse himself as he chose. The young ladies had been trained not only to superintend the house, but to wait on any sick persons in the neighbourhood who came to the house at certain times for assistance, and to dress the wounds of those who were hurt, in order to give them readiness and skill in this employment, and to habituate them to the virtues of humility and tenderness of heart. A large room was set apart for this purpose, where Mr. Ferrar had instructed them in the necessary skill, having been himself Physic Fellow at Clare Hall, in Cambridge, and under the celebrated Professors at Padua, in Italy. This room Inglesant requested to see, thinking that he should in this way also see something of and be able to speak to the young ladies whose acquaintance he had hitherto not had much opportunity of cultivating. Mr. Ferrar told his nephew to show it him--young Nicholas Ferrar, a young man of extraordinary skill in languages, who was afterwards introduced to the King and Prince Charles, some time before his early death. When they entered the room Inglesant was delighted to find that the only member of the family there was the young lady in the Grey Friar's habit, whose face had attracted him so much in Church. She was listening to the long tiresome tale of an old woman, following the example of George Herbert, who thought on a similar occasion, that "it was some relief to a poor body to be heard with patience."

Johnny, who in spite of his Jesuitical and Court training was naturally modest, and whose sense of religion made him perfectly well-bred, accosted the young lady very seriously, and expressed his gratitude at having been permitted to stay and see so many excellent and improving things as that family had to show. The liking which the head of the house had evidently taken for Inglesant disposed the younger members in his favour, and the young lady answered him simply and unaffectedly, but with manifest pleasure.

Inglesant inquired concerning the assumed names of the sisters and how they sustained their respective qualities, and what exercises suited to these qualities they had to perform. She replied that they had exercises, or discourses, which they performed at the great festivals of the year, Christmas and Easter; and which were composed with reference to their several qualities. All of these, except her own, were enlivened by hymns and odes composed by Mr. Ferrar, and set to music by the music master of the family, who accompanied the voices with the viol or the lute. But her own, she said, had never any music or poetry connected with it; it was always of a very serious turn, and much longer than any other, and had not any historical anecdote or fable interwoven with it, the contrivance being to exercise that virtue to which she was devoted. Inglesant asked her with pity if this was not very hard treatment, and she only replied, with a smile, that she had the enjoyment of all the lively performances of the others. He asked her whether they looked forward to passing all their lives in this manner, or whether they allowed the possibility of any change, and if she had entirely lost her own name in her assumed one, or whether he might presume to ask it, that he might have wherewithal to remember her by, as he surely should as long as he had life. She said her name was Mary Collet; and that as to his former question, two of her sisters had had, at one time, a great desire to become veiled virgins, to take upon them a vow of perpetual chastity, with the solemnity of a Bishop's blessing and ratification, but on going to Bishop Williams he had discouraged, and at last, dissuaded them from it.

Inglesant and the young lady remained talking in this way for some time, young Nicholas Ferrar having left them; but at last she excused herself from staying any longer, and he was obliged to let her go. He ventured to say that he hoped they would remember him, that he was utterly ignorant of the future that lay before him, but that whatever fate awaited him, he should never forget the "Nuns of Gidding" and their religious life. She replied that they would certainly remember him, as they did all their acquaintance, in their daily prayer, especially as she had seldom seen her uncle so pleased with a stranger as he had been with him. With these compliments they parted, and Inglesant returned to the drawing-room, where more visitors had arrived.

In the afternoon there came from Cambridge Mr. Crashaw the poet, of Peterhouse, who afterwards went over to the Papists and died Canon of Loretto, and several gentlemen, undergraduates of Cambridge, to spend the Sunday at Gidding, being the first Sunday of the month. Mr. Crashaw, when Inglesant was introduced to him as one of the Queen's pages, finding that he was acquainted with many Roman Catholics, was very friendly and conversed with him apart. He said he conceived a great admiration for the devout lives of the Catholic saints, and of the government and discipline of the Catholic Church, and that he feared that the English Church had not sufficient authority to resist the spread of Presbyterianism, in which case he saw no safety except in returning to the communion of Rome. Walking up and down the garden paths, after evening prayers in Church, he spoke a great deal on this subject, and on the beauty of a retired religious life, saying that here at Little Gidding and at Little St. Marie's Church, near to Peterhouse, he had passed the most blissful moments of his life, watching at midnight in prayer and meditation.

That night Mr. Crashaw, Inglesant, and one or two others remained in the Church from nine till twelve, during which time they said over the whole Book of Psalms in the way of antiphony, one repeating one verse and the rest the other. The time of their watch being ended they returned to the house, went to Mr. Ferrar's door and bade him good-morrow, leaving a lighted candle for him. They then went to bed, but Mr. Ferrar arose according to the passage of Scripture "at midnight I will arise and give thanks," and went into the Church, where he betook himself to religious meditation.

Early on the Sunday morning the family were astir and said prayers in the oratory. After breakfast many people from the country around and more than a hundred children came in. These children were called the Psalm children, and were regularly trained to repeat the Psalter, and the best voices among them to assist in the service on Sundays. They came in every Sunday, and according to the proficiency of each were presented with a small piece of money, and the whole number entertained with a dinner after Church. The Church was crowded at the morning service before the Sacrament. The service was beautifully sung, the whole family taking the greatest delight in Church music, and many of the gentlemen from Cambridge being amateurs. The Sacrament was administered with the greatest devotion and solemnity. Impressed as he had been with the occupation of the preceding day and night, and his mind excited with watching and want of sleep and with the exquisite strains of the music, the effect upon Inglesant's imaginative nature was excessive. Above the altar, which was profusely bedecked with flowers, the antique glass of the East window, which had been carefully repaired, contained a figure of the Saviour of an early and severe type. The form was gracious and yet commanding, having a brilliant halo round the head, and being clothed in a long and apparently seamless coat; the two fore-fingers of the right hand were held up to bless. Kneeling upon the half-pace, as he received the sacred bread and tasted the holy wine, this gracious figure entered into Inglesant's soul, and stillness and peace unspeakable, and life, and light, and sweetness, filled his mind. He was lost in a sense of rapture, and earth and all that surrounded him faded away. When he returned a little to himself, kneeling in his seat in the Church, he thought that at no period of his life, however extended, should he ever forget that morning or lose the sense and feeling of that touching scene, of that gracious figure over the altar, of the bowed and kneeling figures, of the misty autumn sunlight and the sweeping autumn wind. Heaven itself seemed to have opened to him and one fairer than the fairest of the angelic hosts to have come down to earth.

After the service, the family and all the visitors returned to the mansion house in the order in which they had come, and the Psalm children were entertained with a dinner in the great hall; all the family and visitors came in to see them served, and Mrs. Collet, as her mother had always done, placed the first dish on the table herself to give an example of humility. Grace having been said, the bell rang for the dinner of the family, who, together with the visitors, repaired to the great dining-room, and stood in order round the table. While the dinner was being served they sang a hymn to the organ at the upper end of the room. Then grace was said by the Priest who had celebrated the communion, and they sat down. All the servants who had received the Sacrament that day sat at table with the rest. During dinner one of the young people whose turn it was, read a chapter from the Bible, and when that was finished conversation was allowed; Mr. Ferrar and some of the other gentlemen endeavouring to make it of a character suitable to the day, and to the service they had just taken part in. After dinner they went to Church again for evening prayer; between which service and supper Inglesant had some talk with Mr. Ferrar concerning the Papists and Mr. Crashaw's opinion of them.

"I ought to be a fit person to advise you," said Mr. Ferrar with a melancholy smile, "for I am myself, as it were, crushed between the upper and nether millstone of contrary reports, for I suffer equal obloquy--and no martyrdom is worse than that of continual obloquy--both for being a Papist and a Puritan. You will suppose there must be some strong reason why I, who value so many things among the Papists so much, have not joined them myself. I should probably have escaped much violent invective if I had done so. You are very young, and are placed where you can see and judge of both parties. You possess sufficient insight to try the spirits whether they be of God. Be not hasty to decide, and before you decide to join the Romish communion, make a tour abroad, and if you can, go to Rome itself. When I was in Italy and Spain, I made all the inquiries and researches I could. I bought many scarce and valuable books in the languages of those countries, in collecting which I had a principal eye to those which treated on the subjects of spiritual life, devotion, and religious retirement, but the result of all was that I am now, and I shall die, as I believe and hope shortly, in the Communion of the English Church. This day, as I believe, the blessed Sacrament has been in the Church before our eyes, and what can you or I desire more?"

The next morning before Inglesant left, Mr. Ferrar showed him his foreign collections, his great treasure of rarities and of prints of the best masters of that time, mostly relative to historical passages of the Old and New Testaments. Inglesant dined with the family, of whom he took leave with a full heart, saluting the ladies with the pleasant familiarity which the manners of the time permitted. Mr. Ferrar went with him to the borders of the parish, and gave him his blessing. They never saw each other again, for two months afterwards Nicholas Ferrar was in his grave.

*CHAPTER V.*

The next year of Inglesant's life contained several incidents which had very important results. The first of these was the illness and death of his father, which occurred shortly after Johnny's return to London. His end was doubtless hastened by the perplexity and disappointment of many of his political projects, for his life in many respects was a failure. Though a rich man he had spent large sums in his political intrigues, and the property he left was not large. His lands and all his money he left to his eldest son, but he left Johnny some houses in the city, which Inglesant was advised to sell. He therefore disposed of them to a Parliament man, and deposited the money with a goldsmith to be ready in case of need. The possession of this money made him an important person, and he was advised to purchase a place about the Court, which, with his interest with the Queen's advisers, would secure his success in life. He endeavoured to act on this advice, but it was some time before he was successful.

After his return to London Inglesant saw Mr. Crashaw two or three times, when that gentleman was in London, and his conversation led him to think more of the Roman Catholics than he had hitherto done, and inclined him more and more to join them. Nothing would have recommended him so much to the Queen as such a step, and his feelings and sympathies all led him the same way. He was exceedingly disgusted with the conduct and conversation of the Puritans, and the extreme lengths to which it was evident they were endeavouring to drive the people. Most of his friends, even those who were themselves sound Churchmen, looked favourably on the Papists, and it was thought the height of ill breeding to speak against them at Court. It is probable, therefore, that Inglesant would have joined them openly but for two very opposite causes. The one was his remembrance of the Sacrament at Little Gidding, the other was the influence of his friend the Jesuit. The first of these prevented that craving after the sacrifice of the Mass, which doubtless is the strongest of all the motives which lead men to Rome; the other was exerted several ways.

It was one of the political maxims of this man that he never, if possible, allowed anything he had gained or any mode of influence he had acquired to be lost or neglected, even though circumstances had rendered it useless for the particular purpose for which he had at first intended it. In the present case he had no intention of permitting all the care and pains he had been at in Inglesant's education to be thrown away. It is true the exact use to which he had intended to devote the talents he had thus trained no longer existed, but this did not prevent his appreciating the exquisite fitness of the instrument he had prepared for such or similar use. Circumstances had occurred which in his far-seeing policy made the Church of England scarcely worth gaining to the Catholic side, but in proportion as the Church might cease to be one of the great powers in the country, the Papists would step into its place: and in the confused political struggles which he foresaw, the Jesuit anticipated ample occupation for the peculiar properties of his pupil. In the event of a struggle, the termination of which none could foresee, a qualified agent would be required as much between the Papists and the popular leaders as between the Catholics and the Royal and Church Party. Acting on these principles, therefore, the Jesuit was far from losing sight of Inglesant, or even neglecting him. So far indeed was he from doing so, that he was acquainted with most that passed through his mind, and was well aware of his increased attraction towards the Church to which he himself belonged. Now for Inglesant to have become actively and enthusiastically a Papist would at once have defeated all his plans for him, and rendered him useless for the peculiar needs for which he had been prepared. He would doubtless have gone abroad, and even if he had not remained buried in some college on the Continent, he would have returned merely as one of those mission priests (for doubtless he would have taken orders) of whom the Jesuit had already more than he required. It was even not desirable that he should associate exclusively with Papists. He was already sufficiently known and his position understood among them for the purposes of any future mission on which he might be engaged; and it would be more to the purpose for him to extend his acquaintance among Church of England people, and gain their confidence. To this end the Jesuit thought proper to remove him from the immediate attendance on the Queen, where he saw few except Papists, and to assist in his endeavours to purchase a place about the King's person. In this he was successful, and about the end of 1639 Inglesant purchased the place of one of the Esquires of the Body who relinquished his place on account of ill health. This post, which followed immediately after that of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, was looked upon as a very important and influential one, and cost Inglesant a large sum of money before he obtained it. He was, as we have seen, rather a favourite with the King, who had noticed him more than once, and he began to be regarded as a rising courtier whose friendship it would be well to keep.

When the Jesuit had seen him settled in his new post, he put in motion another and still more powerful engine which he had prepared for preventing his pupil from joining the Romish Church. He had himself inculcated as much as possible a broad and philosophical method of thought upon his pupil, but he was necessarily confined and obstructed in this direction by his own position and supposed orthodoxy, and he was therefore anxious to infuse into Inglesant's mind a larger element of rational inquiry than in his sacred character it was possible for him to accomplish without shocking his pupil's moral sense. If I have not failed altogether in representing that pupil's character, it will have been noticed that it was one of those which combine activity of thought with great faculty of reverence and of submission to those powers to which its fancy and taste are subordinated. These natures are enthusiastic, though generally not supposed to be so, and though little sign of it appears in their outward conduct; for the objects of their enthusiasm being generally different from those which attract most men, they are conscious that they have little sympathy to expect in their pursuit of them, and this gives their enthusiasm a reserved and cautious demeanour. They are not, however, blindly enthusiastic, but are never satisfied till they have found some theory by which they are able to reconcile in their own minds the widest results to which their activity of thought has led them, with the submission and service which it is their delight and choice to pay to such outward systems and authorities as have pleased and attracted their taste. This theory consists generally in some, at times half-formed, conception of the imperfect dispensation in which men live, which makes obedience to authority, with which the most exalted reason cannot entirely sympathise, becoming and even necessary. This feeling more than anything else, gives to persons of this nature a demeanour quite different from that of the ordinary religious or political enthusiast, a demeanour seemingly cold and indifferent, though courteous and even to some extent sympathetic, and which causes the true fanatic to esteem them as little better than the mere man of the world, or the minion of courtly power. The enthusiastic part of his character had been fully cultivated in Inglesant, the reasoning and philosophic part had been wakened and trained to some extent by his readings in Plato under the direction of the Jesuit; it remained now to be still more developed, whether to the ultimate improvement of his character it would be hard to say.

The Jesuit took him one day into the city to Devonshire House, where, inquiring for Mr. Hobbes, they were shown into a large handsome room full of books, where a gentleman was sitting whose appearance struck Inglesant very much. He was tall and very erect, with a square mallet-shaped head and ample forehead. He wore a small red moustache, that curled upward, and a small tuft of hair upon his chin. His eyes were hazel and full of life and spirit, and when he spoke they shone with lively light; when he was witty and laughed the lids closed over them so that they could scarcely be seen, but when he was serious and in earnest they expanded to their full orb, and penetrated, as it seemed, to the farthest limit of thought. He was dressed in a coat of black velvet lined with fur, and wore long boots of Spanish leather laced with ribbon. When the first compliments were over, the Jesuit introduced Inglesant to him as a young gentleman of promise, who would derive great benefit from his acquaintance, and whose friendship he hoped might not prove unacceptable to Mr. Hobbes.

Inglesant came often to Mr. Hobbes, whose conversation delighted him. It frequently referred to the occurrences of the day, in which Mr. Hobbes sided with the Government, having a great regard for the King personally, as had Harrington afterwards, and most of the philosophers--all their sympathies and theories being on the side of law and strong government; but their discourse frequently went beyond this, and embraced those questions of human existence which interest thinking men. He soon found out Inglesant's tendency towards Catholicism, and strongly dissuaded him from it.

"Your idea of the Catholic system," he said, "is a dream, and has no real existence among the Papists. Your ideal is an exalted Platonic manifestation of the divine existence diffused among men: the reality is a system of mean trivial details, wearisome and disgusting to such men as you are. Instead of the perfect communion with the Divine Light, such as you seek, you will have before you and above you nothing but the narrow conceptions of some ignorant priest to whom you must submit your intellect. What freedom of thought or existence will remain to you when you have fully accepted the article of transubstantiation, and truly believe that the priest is able of a piece of bread to make absolutely and unconditionally our Saviour's body, and thereby at the hour of death to save your soul? Will it not have an effect upon you to make you think him a god, and to stand in awe of him as of God Himself if He were visibly present?"

"I suppose it would," said Inglesant.