Dawn of All, Robert Hugh Benson [ebook reader with highlighter txt] 📗

did the Church approve of the death penalty in the case of murder--another sin against society. Well, Christian society a hundred years ago inflicted death for the murder of the body; Christian society to-day inflicts death for a far greater crime against herself--that is, murderous attacks against her own life-principle."

"Then the old Protestants were right after all," burst in Monsignor indignantly; "they said that Rome would persecute again if she could."

"If she could?" said the monk questioningly.

"If she was strong enough."

"No, no, no!" cried the other, beating his hand on the table in gentle impatience; "it would be hopelessly immoral for the Church to persecute simply because she was strong enough--simply because she had a majority. She never persecutes for mere opinions. She has never claimed her right to use force. But, as soon as a country is convincedly Catholic--as soon, that is to say, as her civilization rests upon Catholicism and nothing else, that country has a perfect right to protect herself by the death penalty against those who menace her very existence as a civilized community. And that is what heretics do; and that is what Socialists do. Whether the authorities are right or wrong in any given instance is quite another question. Innocent men have been hanged. Orthodox Catholics have suffered unjustly. Personally I believe that I myself am innocent; but I am quite clear that if I am a heretic" (he leaned forward again and spoke slowly), "if I am a heretic, I must be put to death by society."

Monsignor was dumb with sheer amazement, and a consciousness that he had been baffled. He felt he had been intellectually tricked; and he felt it an additional outrage that he had been tricked by this young monk with whom he had come to sympathize.

"But the death penalty!" he cried. "Death! that is the horror. I understand a spiritual penalty for a spiritual crime--but a physical one. . . ."

Dom Adrian smiled a little wearily.

"My dear Monsignor," he said, "I thought I had explained that it was for a crime against society. I am not put to death for my opinions; but because, holding those opinions, which are declared heretical, and refusing to submit to an authoritative decision, I am an enemy of the civil state which is upheld solely by the sanctions of Catholicism. Remember it is not the Church that puts me to death. That is not her affair. She is a spiritual society."

"But death! death, anyhow!"

The man's face grew grave and tender.

"Is that so dreadful," he said, "to a convinced Catholic?"

Monsignor rose to his feet. It seemed to him that his whole moral sense was in danger. He made his last appeal.

"But Christ!" he cried; "Jesus Christ! Can you conceive that gentle Lord of ours tolerating all this for one instant! I cannot answer you now; though I am convinced there is an answer. But is it conceivable that He who said, 'Resist not evil,' that He who Himself was dumb before his murderers----"

Dom Adrian rose too. An extraordinary intensity came into his eyes, and his face grew paler still. He began in a low voice, but as he ended his voice rang aloud in the little room.

"It is you who are dishonouring our Lord," he said. "Certainly He suffered, as we Catholics too can suffer, as you shall see one day--as you have seen a thousand times already, if you know anything of the past. But is that all that He is? . . . Is He just the Prince of Martyrs, the supreme Pain-bearer, the silent Lamb of God? Have you never heard of the wrath of the Lamb? of the eyes that are as a flame of fire? of the rod of iron with which He breaks in pieces the kings of the earth? . . . The Christ you appeal to is nothing. It is but the failure of a Man with the Divinity left out . . . the Prince of sentimentalists, and of that evil old religion that once dared to call itself Christianity. But the Christ we worship is more than that--the Eternal Word of God, the Rider on the White Horse, conquering and to conquer.... Monsignor, you forget of what Church you are a priest! It is the Church of Him who refused the kingdoms of this world from Satan, that He might win them for Him self. He has done so! Christ reigns! . . . Monsignor, that is what you have forgotten! Christ is no longer an opinion or a theory. He is a Fact. Christ reigns! He actually rules this world. And the world knows it."

He paused for one second, shaking with his own passion. Then he flung out his hands.

"Wake up, Monsignor! Wake up! You are dreaming. Christ is the King of men again, now--not of just religiously minded devots. He rules, because He has a right to rule. . . . And the civil power stands for Him in secular matters, and the Church in spiritual. I am to be put to death! Well, I protest that I am innocent, but not that the crime charged against me does not deserve death. I protest, but I do not resent it. Do you think I fear death? . . Is that not in His hands too? . . . Christ reigns, and we all know it. And you must know it too!"

All sensation seemed to have ebbed from the man who listened. . . . He was conscious of a white ecstatic face with burning eyes looking at him. He could no longer actively resist or rebel. It was only by the utmost effort that he could still keep from yielding altogether. Some great pressure seemed to enfold and encircle him, threatening his very existence as an individual. So tremendous was the force with which the words were spoken, that for an instant it seemed as if he saw in mental vision that which they described--a Supreme Dominant Figure, wounded indeed, yet overmastering and compelling in His strength--no longer the Christ of gentleness and meekness, but a Christ who had taken His power at last and reigned, a Lamb that was a Lion, a Servant that was Lord of all; One that pleaded no longer, but commanded. . . .

And yet he clung still desperately and blindly to his old ideal. He pushed off from him this dominating Presence; his whole self and individuality would not yield to Him who demanded the sacrifice of both. He saw this Christ at last, and by a flash of intuition perceived that this was the key to this changed world he found so incomprehensible; and yet he would not have it--he would not have this Man to rule over him. . . .

He made one last effort; the vision passed and he stood up, feeling once more sensation come back, understanding that he had saved himself from an extinction more utter than that of death.

"Well," he said quietly--so quietly that he almost deceived himself too,--"well, I will remember what you say, Dom Adrian, and I will do what I can with the Cardinal."


CHAPTER IV


(I)

"I'm afraid it's been a great shock," said Father Jervis soothingly. "And I'm not surprised, after your illness. . . . Yes I quite see your point. Of course it must seem very strange. . . . Now what about coming over to Ireland for a week? The Cardinal will be delighted, I'm sure."

The blow had fallen this morning--a fortnight after the trial had ended.

First, the answer had come back from Rome that the sentence was ratified--a sentence simply to the effect that the Church could no longer protect this tonsured and consecrated son of hers from the secular laws. But, as Monsignor knew privately, an urgent appeal had been made by Rome to remit the penalty in this instance, as in others. Then the formalities of handing over the monk to the secular authorities had taken place, in accordance with the Clergy Discipline Amendment Act of 1964--an Act by which the secular houses of Representatives had passed a code of penalties for clerks condemned by the ecclesiastical courts--clerks, that is to say, who had availed themselves of Benefit of Clergy and had submitted themselves to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Under that Act Dom Adrian had been removed to a secular prison, his case had been re-examined and, in spite of the Pope's appeal, the secular sentence passed. And this morning Monsignor had read that the sentence had been carried out. . . . He neither knew nor dared to ask in what form. It was enough that it was death.

There had been a scene with the startled secretaries. Fortunately Monsignor had been incoherent. One of them had remained with him while the other ran for Father Jervis. Then the two laymen had left the room, and the priests alone together.

Things were quieter now. Monsignor had recovered himself, and was sitting white and breathless with his friend beside him.

"Come to Ireland for a week," said the old man again, watching him with those large, steady, bright eyes of his. "It is perfectly natural, under the circumstances, that the thing should be a shock. To us, of course----"

He broke off as Monsignor looked up with a strange white glare in his eyes.

"Well, well," said the old man. "You must give yourself a chance. You've been working magnificently; I think perhaps a little too hard. And we don't want another breakdown. . . . Then I take you'll come to Ireland? We'll spend a perfectly quiet week, and be back in time for the meeting of Parliament."

Monsignor made a small movement of assent with his head. (He had had Ireland explained to him before.)

"Then I'll leave you quietly here for a little. Call me up if you want me. I'll tell the secretaries to work in the next room. I'll see the Cardinal at once, and we'll go by the five o'clock boat. I'll arrange everything. You needn't give it a thought."

A curious process seemed to have been at work upon the mind of the man who had lost his memory, since his interview with the monk immediately after the trial. At first a kind of numbness had descended upon him. He had gone back to his business, his correspondence, his interviews, his daily consultation with the Cardinal, and had conducted all these things efficiently enough. Yet, underneath, the situation arranged itself steadily and irresistibly. It had become impressed upon him that, whether for good or evil, the world was as it was; that Christian civilization had taken the form which he perceived round him, and that to struggle against it was as futile, from a mental point of view, as to resent the physical laws of the universe. Nothing followed upon such resistance except intense discomfort to oneself. It might be insupportably unjust that one could not fly without wings, yet the fact remained. It might be intolerably unchristian that a tonsured clerk should be put to death for heresy, yet he was put to death, and not a soul, it seemed (not even the victim himself) resented it. Dom Adrian's protest had been not against the execution of heretics, but against the statement that he was a heretic. But he had refused to submit to a decision which he acknowledged as authoritative, and found no fault therefore with the consequence of such refusal. The condemnation, he granted, was perfectly legal and therefore extrinsically lust; and it was the penalty he had to pay for an individualism which the responsible authorities of the State regarded as