Part 10

“Let this volume,” I replied, “answer for the peacefulness of my mission,”—at the same time, placing in his hands the copy of the Scriptures, which had been his own gift to the mother of Alethe, and which her child now brought as the credential of her claims on his protection. At the sight of this sacred pledge, which he recognized instantly, the solemnity that had marked his first reception of me softened into tenderness. Thoughts of other times seemed to pass through his mind, and as, with a sigh of recollection, he took the book from my hands, some words on the outer leaf caught his eye. They were few,—but contained, perhaps, the last wishes of the dying Theora, for as he eagerly read them over, I saw the tears in his aged eyes. “The trust,” he said, with a faltering voice, “is sacred, and God will, I hope, enable his servant to guard it faithfully.”

During this short dialogue, the other persons of the assembly had departed—being, as I afterwards learned, brethren from the neighbouring bank of the Nile, who came thus secretly before day‐break, to join in worshipping God. Fearful lest their descent down the rock might alarm Alethe, I hurried briefly over the few words of explanation that remained, and, leaving the venerable Christian to follow at his leisure, hastened anxiously down to rejoin the maiden.

CHAP. XVI.

Melanius was among the first of those Christians of Egypt, who, after the recent example of the hermit, Paul, renouncing all the comforts of social existence, betook themselves to a life of contemplation in the desert. Less selfish, however, in his piety, than most of these ascetics, Melanius forgot not the world, in leaving it. He knew that man was not born to live wholly for himself; that his relation to human kind was that of the link to the chain, and that even his solitude should be turned to the advantage of others. In flying, therefore, from the din and disturbance of life, he sought not to place himself beyond the reach of its sympathies, but selected a retreat, where he could combine the advantage of solitude with those opportunities of serving his fellow‐men, which a neighbourhood to their haunts would afford.

That taste for the gloom of subterranean recesses, which the race of Misraim inherit from their Ethiopian ancestors, had, by hollowing out all Egypt into caverns and crypts, furnished these Christian anchorets with a choice of retreats. Accordingly, some found a shelter in the grottos of Elethya;—others, among the royal tombs of the Thebaïd. In the middle of the Seven Valleys, where the sun rarely shines, a few have fixed their dim and melancholy retreat, while others have sought the neighbourhood of the red Lakes of Nitria, and there,—like those Pagan solitaries of old, who dwelt among the palm‐trees near the Dead Sea,—muse amid the sterility of nature, and seem to find, in her desolation, peace.

It was on one of the mountains of the Saïd, to the east of the river, that Melanius, as we have seen, chose his place of seclusion,—between the life and fertility of the Nile on the one side, and the lone, dismal barrenness of the desert on the other. Half‐way down this mountain, where it impends over the ravine, he found a series of caves or grottos dug out of the rock, which had, in other times, ministered to some purpose of mystery, but whose use had been long forgotten, and their recesses abandoned.

To this place, after the banishment of his great master, Origen, Melanius, with a few faithful followers, retired, and, by the example of his innocent life, no less than by his fervid eloquence, succeeded in winning crowds of converts to his faith. Placed, as he was, in the neighbourhood of the rich city, Antinoë, though he mingled not with its multitude, his name and his fame were among them, and, to all who sought instruction or consolation, the cell of the hermit was ever open.

Notwithstanding the rigid abstinence of his own habits, he was yet careful to provide for the comforts of others. Contented with a rude bed of straw, himself, for the stranger he had always a less homely resting‐place. From his grotto, the wayfaring and the indigent never went unrefreshed; and, with the assistance of some of his brethren, he had formed gardens along the ledges of the mountain, which gave an air of cheerfulness to his rocky dwelling, and supplied him with the chief necessaries of such a climate, fruit and shade.

Though the acquaintance which he had formed with the mother of Alethe, during the short period of her attendance at the school of Origen, was soon interrupted, and never afterwards renewed, the interest which he had then taken in her fate was too lively to be forgotten. He had seen the zeal with which her young heart welcomed instruction; and the thought that such a candidate for heaven should have relapsed into idolatry, came often, with disquieting apprehension, over his mind.

It was, therefore, with true pleasure, that, but a year or two before her death, he had learned, by a private communication from Theora, transmitted through a Christian embalmer of Memphis, that “not only her own heart had taken root in the faith, but that a new bud had flowered with the same divine hope, and that, ere long, he might see them both transplanted to the desert.”

The coming, therefore, of Alethe was far less a surprise to him, than her coming thus alone was a shock and a sorrow; and the silence of their meeting showed how deeply each remembered that the tie which had brought them together was no longer of this world,—that the hand, which should have been joined with theirs, was in the tomb. I now saw that not even religion was proof against the sadness of mortality. For, as the old man put the ringlets aside from her forehead, and contemplated in that clear countenance the reflection of what her mother had been, there was a mournfulness mingled with his piety, as he said, “Heaven rest her soul!” which showed how little even the certainty of a heaven for those we love can subdue our regret for having lost them on earth.

The full light of day had now risen upon the desert, and our host, reminded, by the faint looks of Alethe, of the many anxious hours we had passed without sleep, proposed that we should seek, in the chambers of the rock, such rest as the dwelling of a hermit could offer. Pointing to one of the largest openings, as he addressed me,—“Thou wilt find,” he said, “in that grotto a bed of fresh doum leaves, and may the consciousness of having protected the orphan sweeten thy sleep!”

I felt how dearly this praise had been earned, and already almost repented of having deserved it. There was a sadness in the countenance of Alethe, as I took leave of her, to which the forebodings of my own heart but too faithfully responded; nor could I help fearing, as her hand parted lingeringly from mine, that I had, by this sacrifice, placed her beyond my reach for ever.

Having lighted me a lamp, which, in these recesses, even at noon, is necessary, the holy man led me to the entrance of the grotto;—and here, I blush to say, my career of hypocrisy began. With the sole view of obtaining another glance at Alethe, I turned humbly to solicit the benediction of the Christian, and, having conveyed to her, as I bent reverently down, as much of the deep feeling of my soul as looks could express, with a desponding spirit I hurried into the cavern.

A short passage led me to the chamber within,—the walls of which I found covered, like those of the grottos of Lycopolis, with paintings, which, though executed long ages ago, looked fresh as if their colours were but laid on yesterday. They were, all of them, representations of rural and domestic scenes; and, in the greater number, the melancholy imagination of the artist had called Death in, as usual, to throw his shadow over the picture.

My attention was particularly drawn to one series of subjects, throughout the whole of which the same group—a youth, a maiden, and two aged persons, who appeared to be the father and mother of the girl,—were represented in all the details of their daily life. The looks and attitudes of the young people denoted that they were lovers; and, sometimes, they were seen sitting under a canopy of flowers, with their eyes fixed on each other’s faces, as though they could never look away; sometimes, they appeared walking along the banks of the Nile,

——on one of those sweet nights When Isis, the pure star of lovers, lights Her bridal crescent o’er the holy stream,— When wandering youths and maidens watch her beam, And number o’er the nights she hath to run, Ere she again embrace her bridegroom sun.

Through all these scenes of endearment the two elder persons stood by;—their calm countenances touched with a share of that bliss, in whose perfect light the young lovers were basking. Thus far, all was happiness,—but the sad lesson of mortality was to come. In the last picture of the series, one of the figures was missing. It was that of the young maiden, who had disappeared from among them. On the brink of a dark lake stood the three who remained; while a boat, just departing for the City of the Dead, told too plainly the end of their dream of happiness.

This memorial of a sorrow of other times—of a sorrow, ancient as death itself,—was not wanting to deepen the melancholy of my mind, or to add to the weight of the many bodings that pressed on it.

After a night, as it seemed, of anxious and unsleeping thought, I rose from my bed and returned to the garden. I found the Christian alone,—seated, under the shade of one of his trees, at a small table, with a volume unrolled before him, while a beautiful antelope lay sleeping at his feet. Struck forcibly by the contrast which he presented to those haughty priests, whom I had seen surrounded by the pomp and gorgeousness of temples, “Is this, then,” thought I, “the faith, before which the world trembles—its temple the desert, its treasury a book, and its High Priest the solitary dweller of the rock!”

He had prepared for me a simple, but hospitable, repast, of which fruits from his own garden, the white bread of Olyra, and the juice of the honey‐ cane were the most costly luxuries. His manner to me was even more cordial than before; but the absence of Alethe, and, still more, the ominous reserve, with which he not only, himself, refrained from all mention of her name, but eluded the few inquiries, by which I sought to lead to it, seemed to confirm all the fears I had felt in parting from her.

She had acquainted him, it was evident, with the whole history of our flight. My reputation as a philosopher—my desire to become a Christian—all was already known to the zealous Anchoret, and the subject of my conversion was the very first on which he entered. O pride of philosophy, how wert thou then humbled, and with what shame did I stand, casting down my eyes, before that venerable man, as, with ingenuous trust in the sincerity of my intention, he welcomed me to a participation of his holy hope, and imprinted the Kiss of Charity on my infidel brow!

Embarrassed as I felt by the consciousness of hypocrisy, I was even still more perplexed by my total ignorance of the real tenets of the faith to which I professed myself a convert. Abashed and confused, and with a heart sick at its own deceit, I heard the animated and eloquent gratulations of the Christian, as though they were words in a dream, without link or meaning; nor could disguise but by the mockery of a reverential bow, at every pause, the entire want of self‐possession, and even of speech, under which I laboured.

A few minutes more of such trial, and I must have avowed my imposture. But the holy man saw my embarrassment;—and, whether mistaking it for awe, or knowing it to be ignorance, relieved me from my perplexity by, at once, changing the theme. Having gently awakened his antelope from its sleep, “You have heard,” he said, “I doubt not, of my brother‐anchoret, Paul, who, from his cave in the marble mountains, near the Red Sea, sends hourly ‘the sacrifice of thanksgiving’ to heaven. Of _his_ walks, they tell me, a lion is the companion; but, for me,” he added, with a playful and significant smile, “who try my powers of taming but on the gentler animals, this feeble child of the desert is a far fitter play‐mate.” Then, taking his staff, and putting the time‐worn volume which he had been reading into a large goat‐skin pouch, that hung by his side, “I will now,” said he, “lead thee over my rocky kingdom,—that thou mayst see in what drear and barren places, that ‘fruit of the spirit,’ Peace, may be gathered.”

To speak of peace to a heart like mine, at that moment, was like talking of some distant harbour to the mariner sinking at sea. In vain did I look round for some sign of Alethe;—in vain make an effort even to utter her name. Consciousness of my own deceit, as well as a fear of awakening in Melanius any suspicion that might frustrate my only hope, threw a fetter over my spirit and checked my tongue. In silence, therefore, I followed, while the cheerful old man, with slow, but firm, step, ascended the rock, by the same ladders which I had mounted on the preceding night.

During the time when the Decian Persecution was raging, many Christians of this neighbourhood, he informed me, had taken refuge under his protection, in these grottos; and the chapel on the summit, where I had found them at prayer, was, in those times of danger, their place of retreat, where, by drawing up these ladders, they were enabled to secure themselves from pursuit.

From the top of the rock, the view, on either side, embraced the two extremes of fertility and desolation; nor could the Epicurean and the Anchoret, who now gazed from that height, be at any loss to indulge their respective tastes, between the living luxuriance of the world on one side, and the dead repose of the desert on the other. When we turned to the river, what a picture of animation presented itself! Near us, to the south, were the graceful colonnades of Antinoë, its proud, populous streets, and triumphal monuments. On the opposite shore, rich plains, teeming with cultivation to the water’s edge, offered up, as from verdant altars, their fruits to the sun; while, beneath us, the Nile,

——the glorious stream, That late between its banks was seen to glide,— With shrines and marble cities, on each side, Glittering, like jewels strung along a chain,— Had now sent forth its waters, and o’er plain And valley, like a giant from his bed Rising with outstretch’d limbs, superbly spread.

From this scene, on one side of the mountain, we had but to turn round our eyes, and it was as if nature herself had become suddenly extinct;—a wide waste of sands, bleak and interminable, wearying out the sun with its sameness of desolation;—black, burnt‐up rocks, that stood as barriers, at which life stopped;—while the only signs of animation, past or present, were the foot‐prints, here and there, of an antelope or ostrich, or the bones of dead camels, as they lay whitening at a distance, marking out the track of the caravans over the waste.

After listening, while he contrasted, in a few eloquent words, the two regions of life and death on whose confines we stood, I again descended with my guide to the garden we had left. From thence, turning into a path along the mountain‐side, he conducted me to another row of grottos, facing the desert, which had once, he said, been the abode of those brethren in Christ, who had fled with him to this solitude from the crowded world,—but which death had, within a few months, rendered tenantless. A cross of red stone, and a few faded trees, were the only traces these solitaries had left behind.

A silence of some minutes succeeded, while we descended to the edge of the canal; and I saw opposite, among the rocks, that solitary cave, which had so chilled me with its aspect on the preceding night. By the bank we found one of those rustic boats, which the Egyptians construct of planks of wild thorn, bound rudely together with bands of papyrus. Placing ourselves in this boat, and rather impelling than rowing it across, we made our way through the foul and shallow flood, and landed directly under the site of the cave.

This dwelling, as I have already mentioned, was situated upon a ledge of the rock; and, being provided with a sort of window or aperture to admit the light of heaven, was accounted, I found, more cheerful than the grottos on the other side of the ravine. But there was a dreariness in the whole region around, to which light only lent more horror. The dead whiteness of the rocks, as they stood, like ghosts, in the sunshine;—that melancholy pool, half lost in the sands;—all gave me the idea of a wasting world. To dwell in such a place seemed to me like a living death; and when the Christian, as we entered the cave, said, “Here is to be thy home,” prepared as I was for the worst, my resolution gave way;—every feeling of disappointed passion and humbled pride, which had been gathering round my heart for the last few hours, found a vent at once, and I burst into tears!

Well accustomed to human weakness, and perhaps guessing at some of the sources of mine, the good Hermit, without appearing to notice this emotion, expatiated, with a cheerful air, on, what he called, the many comforts of my dwelling. Sheltered, he said, from the dry, burning wind of the south, my porch would inhale the fresh breeze of the Dog‐star. Fruits from his own mountain‐garden should furnish my repast. The well of the neighbouring rock would supply my beverage; and, “here,” he continued,—lowering his voice into a more solemn tone, as he placed upon the table the volume which he had brought,—“here, my son, is that ‘well of living waters,’ in which alone thou wilt find lasting refreshment or peace!” Thus saying, he descended the rock to his boat, and after a few plashes of his oar had died upon my ear, the solitude and silence around me was complete.

CHAP. XVII.

What a fate was mine!—but a few weeks since, presiding over that splendid Festival of the Garden, with all the luxuries of existence tributary in my train; and now,—self‐humbled into a solitary outcast,—the hypocritical pupil of a Christian anchoret,—without even the excuse of fanaticism, or of any other madness, but that of love, wild love, to extenuate my fall! Were there a hope that, by this humiliating waste of existence, I might purchase but a glimpse, now and then, of Alethe, even the depths of the desert, with such a chance, would be welcome. But to live—and live thus—_without_ her, was a misery which I neither foresaw nor could endure.

Hating even to look upon the den to which I was doomed, I hurried out into the air, and found my way, along the rocks, to the desert. The sun was going down, with that blood‐red hue, which he so frequently wears, in this clime, at his setting. I saw the sands, stretching out, like a sea, to the horizon, as if their waste extended to the very verge of the world,—and, in the bitterness of my feelings, rejoiced to see so much of creation rescued, even by this barren liberty, from the grasp of man. The thought seemed to relieve my wounded pride, and, as I wandered over the dim and boundless solitude, to be thus free, even amid blight and desolation, appeared a blessing.

The only living thing I saw was a restless swallow, whose wings were of the hue of the grey sands over which he fluttered. “Why may not the mind, like this bird, take the colour of the desert, and sympathise in its austerity, its freedom, and its calm?”—thus, between despondence and defiance, did I ask myself, endeavouring to face with fortitude what yet my heart sickened to contemplate. But the effort was unavailing. Overcome by that vast solitude, whose repose was not the slumber of peace, but the sullen and burning silence of hate, I felt my spirit give way, and even love itself yield to despair.

Seating myself on a fragment of a rock, and covering my eyes with my hands, I made an effort to shut out the overwhelming prospect. But in vain—it was still before me, deepened by all that fancy could add; and when, again looking up, I saw the last red ray of the sun, shooting across that melancholy and lifeless waste, it seemed to me like the light of the comet that once desolated this world, shining out luridly over the ruin that it had made!

Appalled by my own gloomy imaginations, I turned towards the ravine; and, notwithstanding the disgust with which I had left my dwelling, was not ill pleased to find my way, over the rocks, to it again. On approaching the cave, to my astonishment, I saw a light within. At such a moment, any vestige of life was welcome, and I hailed the unexpected appearance with pleasure. On entering, however, I found the chamber as lonely as I had left it. The light came from a lamp that burned brightly on the table; beside it was unfolded the volume which Melanius had brought, and upon the leaves—oh, joy and surprise—lay the well‐known cross of Alethe!

What hand, but her own, could have prepared this reception for me?—The very thought sent a hope into my heart, before which all despondency fled. Even the gloom of the desert was forgotten, and my cave at once brightened into a bower. She had here reminded me, herself, by this sacred memorial, of the vow which I had pledged to her under the Hermit’s rock; and I now scrupled not to reiterate the same daring promise, though conscious that through hypocrisy alone I could fulfil it.

Eager to prepare myself for my task of imposture, I sat down to the volume, which I now found to be the Hebrew Scriptures; and the first sentence, on which my eyes fell, was—“The Lord hath commanded the blessing, even Life for evermore!” Startled by these words, in which the Spirit of my dream seemed again to pronounce his assuring prediction, I raised my eyes from the page, and repeated the sentence over and over, as if to try whether the sounds had any charm or spell, to reawaken that faded illusion in my soul. But, no—the rank frauds of the Memphian priesthood had dispelled all my trust in the promises of religion. My heart had again relapsed into its gloom of scepticism, and, to the word of “Life,” the only answer it sent back was, “Death!”

Impatient, however, to possess myself of the elements of a faith, on which,—whatever it might promise for hereafter,—I felt that my happiness here depended, I turned over the pages with an earnestness and avidity, such as never even the most favourite of my studies had awakened in me. Though, like all, who seek but the surface of learning, I flew desultorily over the leaves, lighting only on the more prominent and shining points, I yet found myself, even in this undisciplined career, arrested, at every page, by the awful, the supernatural sublimity, the alternate melancholy and grandeur of the images that crowded upon me.

I had, till now, known the Hebrew theology but through the platonising refinements of Philo;—as, in like manner, for my knowledge of the Christian doctrine I was indebted to my brother Epicureans, Lucian and Celsus. Little, therefore, was I prepared for the simple majesty, the high tone of inspiration,—the poetry, in short, of heaven that breathed throughout these oracles. Could admiration have kindled faith, I should, that night, have been a believer; so elevated, so awed was my imagination by that wonderful book,—its warnings of woe, its announcements of glory, and its unrivalled strains of adoration and sorrow.