Chapter II (1)

God had given great compensation to Paula in the rare natures of her children. The eldest, and perhaps the most gifted, Blesilla, combined with delicate health an ardent soul, quick wit, and a charming mind. Her penetration astonished even St. Jerome. She was full of those characteristics that make one hope everything and fear everything. She was but fifteen when she lost her father, and seventeen when St. Jerome first knew her, in the first bloom of her youth and beauty. She spoke Greek and Latin with perfect purity, and the elegance of her language was remarkable, as well as the quickness of her intellect.

Paula, full of anxiety for such a nature, sought to give her the counterpoise of solid piety. But Blesilla, though capable of exalted virtues, was intoxicated by the splendors of the sphere in which she was born and educated. Like all young girls of her rank, she loved dress, luxury, and entertainments, and neither the death of her father nor her mother's example had detached her heart from the world, neither did her early widowhood; for Paula had given her in marriage to a young and rich patrician of the race of Camillus, who died in a short time after, leaving Blesilla a widow and without children. But even this blow did not suffice, and, after the usual time given to mourning, the worldly and frivolous tastes of the young widow again rose to the surface. She passed many hours before her glass, busy in adorning herself, surrounded by her slaves occupied in dressing her hair and waiting on her, and entertainments of all sorts were her delight.

Paulina, the second daughter of Paula, was, as we have already said, a great contrast to her sister. Less brilliant, but not less agreeable, great good sense was her chief attribute, with sweetness of disposition. Less captivated by the world than Blesilla, she was more inclined to be pious. The equilibrium in her nature was excellent. But there was nothing in any way uncommon about her. She seemed born for the ordinary destiny of woman. She was now sixteen, and Paula, with an instinct truly maternal, felt that what she had to do for her child was to give her a protector worthy of her, in a husband of sound character and amiable disposition.

But the pearl of Paula's children was her third daughter, Eustochium, who was sweetness and candor itself, and all innocence and piety. Her distinguishing feature was her love for her mother, whom she never for a moment quitted. Marcella kept her with her for some time, and when the child returned to Paula, she clung more than ever to her mother, like a young vine. Her only wish was to follow in the footsteps of Paula and to be like her, and to consecrate herself also to the service of God with her young virginal heart. Soft and silent, but hiding under this veil of timidity a remarkable mind, Eustochium was formed for high purposes. She was not fourteen when St. Jerome came to Rome.

{509}

Rufina was then only eleven or twelve years of age, and the time had not yet come for anxiety about her. It was, however, different with Toxotius, who was younger still, but had not received baptism, his father's family having assumed his guardianship; and they were pagans, which grieved Paula, who hoped to make her son a fervent Christian.

Such was the family of Paula. Her many duties to them had excited the interest of the austere monk, who, together with Marcella, wished to do everything possible to aid Paula in her cares. Blesilla at once filled the mind of St. Jerome with the ardent wish to save her from the career of worldliness on which she seemed bent; but in vain did he try to bring her to grave thoughts. Paulina was easier to guide, for Providence aided the pious efforts of her friends in the husband chosen for her by her mother, who was Pammachius, of whom St. Jerome has said that he was "the most Christian of the noble Romans, and the most noble of the Christians." He was also the old and tried friend of St. Jerome, to whom this marriage gave great happiness, as well as to Paula and Marcella.

As for Eustochium, she continued to expand and bloom under the influence of her mother. In vain were the rich dresses of her sisters and their shining jewels spread out before her. Her taste for religious life was becoming more and more decided every day. Notwithstanding her great youth, none of the maidens of the Aventine surpassed her in prayer, or in following St. Jerome in his laborious studies of the Scriptures. She had learnt Hebrew, and, like her mother, had inspired St. Jerome with singular devotion and interest. The increasing vocation of Eustochium aroused opposition in her father's family; for it was not possible that the progress of monastic tendencies among the patrician women should be allowed to take root without resistance in Rome, where opposition was made by law to anything like celibacy for men, with open advocacy of matrimony and the honors of maternity for women.

St. Jerome undertook to modify these ideas with his powerful pen, and, in his answer to the attack of one named Helvidius, came off the field completely victorious.

It was about this time, 384 A.D., that Blesilla fell ill of a pernicious fever, which for a month threatened her life. This illness brought her wisdom. The following is the story of her conversion, from St. Jerome: "During thirty days," he says, "we saw our Blesilla burning with a devouring fever. She lay almost bereft of life, panting under the struggle with death, and trembling at the thought of the judgments of God. Where then was the help of those who gave her worldly counsels? of those who prevented her from living for Christ? Could they save her from death? No. But our Lord himself, seeing that she was only carried away by the intoxication of youth and the errors of her century, came to her, touched her hand, and cried out to her, as to Lazarus, 'Arise, come forth and walk!' She understood this call, and she arose and knew that she owed the boon of life to him who had given it back to her." She was then but twenty years of age, when she shone in her new-born beauty of holiness. {510} She, who formerly passed long hours at her toilet, now sought only to find God; and, instead of the ornaments in which she had liked to appear, she now covered her fair head with the veil most becoming for a Christian woman. All the money that had been spent for adorning herself now went to the poor. And this ardent soul, once consecrated to God, gave itself up entirely, and, passing with a great flight beyond ordinary natures, at once reached the summit of human virtue and perfection.

Eustochium and Paula had not more ardor. Jerome was admirable in his manner of seconding this generous enthusiasm. He now instructed her in the Scriptures, and she studied first Ecclesiastes, then the gospels, and Isaiah. She learned Hebrew to read the Psalms. Her energy was wonderful, for her steps still tottered from illness, and her delicate neck drooped under the weight of her young head. But the divine book was never out of her hands.

How shall we paint the joy of Paula at this change in her beloved child! Her dearest wishes had been granted. This, too, was a fruitful conversion; others imitated such an example; and Paula's house soon became a sort of monastery, which Jerome would call the _fireside church_. He gives a most beautiful description of Paula and her children at this period, when the blessing of God was so visibly on her household. Her fervor increased. She determined on a complete sacrifice of her worldly goods, and, in the words of St. Jerome, "being already dead to the world, though still living, she distributed all her fortune among her children," thereby entirely initiating herself into the holy poverty of Christ. Notwithstanding all the consolations God had sent her, she was still uneasy and dissatisfied; her life was not yet all that she sighed for. A great disgust toward Rome filled her mind, and the descriptions Epiphanius had given her of the East rose up for ever in her, making her soul long for the monastic life of the desert. The example of Melanie was then to increase this longing, for Melanie had now been for some years realizing her dreams in her convent on the Mount of Olives.

There was now nothing to prevent Paula from going. Blesilla, as well as Eustochium, wished to follow their mother in her pilgrimage, and many of their friends desired to join them. St. Jerome, the veteran pilgrim, was to be their pilot to holy places. He had strengthened them all in the love of God and nourished them with the Holy Scriptures. His letters to Eustochium at this time were exquisite. What could be more touching than the friendship uniting the austere old monk and this sweet young maiden? "O my Eustochium! O my daughter! O my sister!" he wrote to her, "since my age and charity alike permit me to give you these names, if you are by birth the noblest of Roman virgins, I beseech you guard zealously your own heart and keep it from evil. Imitate our Lord Jesus Christ, be obedient to your parents, go out rarely, and honor the martyrs in the solitude of your chamber. Read often and you will learn much. Let sleep surprise you with the holy book in your hands, and, if your head drop down with fatigue, let it be on the sacred pages."

Eustochium was grateful to him for his wise counsels, and, wishing to express her appreciation of his letters to her, she gathered courage to send him a little offering of a basket of cherries, with several of those bracelets called _armillae_ and some doves. The whole was accompanied by a sweet, girlish letter, full of affection. The cherries, she said, were a symbol of purity, to remind him of his letters; the bracelets were such as were given to reward brilliant deeds, and were to put him in mind of his own victories in controversy; and, lastly, the doves were emblematic of his tenderness to her from her childhood.

{511}

St. Jerome received with great kindness the little offerings of his spiritual daughter, and thanked her for them in a letter full of affection, mingled with the grave counsels which ever flowed from his pen.

The time was approaching for the departure of Paula for the East. It was in the autumn of 384 A.D., when Blesilla suddenly fell ill of the same fever which had once before laid her so low. The news of her illness filled her friends with consternation, for Blesilla was tenderly loved by them. She sank so rapidly that there was soon no hope left of her recovery. This was but four months after her conversion, and God already judged her ready for a better life, and called her to himself.

She was but twenty, and was going to die. Her mother, her sisters, her relations, her friends, Marcella and St. Jerome, all gathered around her death-bed in tears. Blesilla alone did not weep. Though the fever was consuming her, a ray of celestial light illuminated her countenance with a beauty not of earth, and transfigured her. Her only regret was, that her repentance had been so short. She turned to those who were around her: "Oh! pray for me," she cried, "to our Lord Jesus Christ, to have mercy on my soul, since I die before I have been able to accomplish what I had in my heart to do for him." These were her last words; every one present was moved to tears by them. Jerome eagerly offered consolation. "Trust in the Lord, dear Blesilla," said he; "your soul is as pure as the white robes you have worn since your consecration to God, which though but recent was so generous and complete that it came not too late." These words filled her soul with peace. And shortly afterward, to use the words of St. Jerome, "freeing herself from the pains of the body, this white dove flew off to heaven!"

Her obsequies were magnificent, followed by all the Roman nobles. Such was the custom of the patricians. A peculiar interest and sympathy were felt in the fate of this brilliant young woman, as well as universal compassion for the sorrow of her venerable mother. The long procession walked through the streets, followed by the coffin covered with a veil of gold. St. Jerome, though not approving of this display, dared not interfere to prevent it, as it seemed a sad consolation to Paula to see the honors paid to the child so tenderly loved. She undertook to accompany Blesilla to her last resting-place; but her strength failed, and, having taken but a few steps, she fainted away and was brought back to her house insensible.

The days that followed the funeral only increased her grief. She was crushed by it. In vain did she try to submit to the divine will, her heart failed her, and Jerome felt that he must make an effort to give her strength, or else she would succumb to the pressure. The effort was great on his part, for Blesilla was his beloved pupil, and this death annihilated all his own cherished hopes of her. He never found the courage to conclude a commentary, begun expressly for her, on Ecclesiastes. But feeling it a duty to help Paula, he wrote to her a letter filled with true delicacy of feeling and Christian faith. He commenced by weeping with her over the lost Blesilla, for he said: "While wishing to dry her mother's tears, am I not weeping myself?" {512} He continued this noble letter in these words, alike reproachful and sympathizing: "When I reflect that you are a mother, I do not blame you for weeping; but when I reflect also that you are a Christian, then, O Paula! I wish that the Christian would console the mother a little."

He reminded her of the children she had left, and with all the authority of his holy office bid her take care lest, "in loving her children so much, she did not love God enough." "Listen," he says, "to Jesus, and trust in him: 'Your daughter is not dead, but sleepeth.'"

Then Jerome would picture to Paula her daughter in all her celestial glory. He would suppose Blesilla calling upon her mother in these words: "If you have ever loved me, O my mother! if you have ever nourished me from your bosom, and trained my soul with your words of wisdom and virtue, oh! I conjure you, do not lament that I have such glory and happiness as is mine here! What prayers does Blesilla not now offer up for you to God!" And St. Jerome adds, "She is praying for me also, for you know, O Paula! how devoted I was to her soul, and what I did not fear to brave, that she might be saved."

St. Jerome's letter awoke new Christian strength and resignation in the broken spirit of Paula. The tears ceased to flow, but the wound bled inwardly and never healed. The void left by Blesilla in her mother's heart must ever make it desolate. Rome became insupportable to her, and the pilgrimage to the East, so long thought of, seemed now the only thing that could interest her. About this time Pope Damasus died. He was a great loss to St. Jerome, for his successor had not the same moral courage, and dared not sustain the old monk in advocating monastic life, which so enraged the patricians.

Finally, worn out by persecution, and perhaps longing to return to that solitude he had never ceased to regret, Jerome determined to leave Rome. This was in the year 385 A.D. His friends were only waiting for his signal to accompany him in numbers, and many were the tears shed by his gentle pupils in Rome at his departure. His farewell letter to them all was addressed to the venerable Asella, through whom he sent his last greetings to Paula, Eustochium, Albina, Marcella, Marcellina, and Felicity, "his sisters in Jesus Christ." Many of these he was destined to see no more. But the decision of Paula was irrevocable. She had no longer any earthly tie to detain her. Her son, moved by the example of his mother and sisters, had received Christian baptism, and was soon to marry a young Christian maiden, the cousin of Marcella. Rufina was to remain during her mother's absence with her sister Paulina and Pammachius, and also with Marcella, her second mother.

Eustochium was to accompany her mother, as well as a large number of the pious community of the Aventine. They left Rome in the autumn of 385 A.D. Paula courageously bid farewell to her children, and the friends who had followed in troops to see her embark. Leaning on the arm of Eustochium, she was seen on the deck of the vessel, her eyes averted, that her strength might not fail her as she witnessed the sorrow of her loved ones whom she was leaving. For St. Jerome tells us, "Paula loved her children more than any other woman."

{513}

The voyage was favorable, the vessel touching at many places of classic interest. When they finally reached Salamines in the Island of Cyprus, what was her joy on finding her venerable friend, St. Epiphanius, waiting on the shore to receive her, happy in being able to return the hospitality he had enjoyed under her roof in Rome three years before.

The Island of Cyprus was filled with monasteries and convents founded and protected by Epiphanius, which were a great attraction to Paula. Holy hymns were sung where Venus but lately had reigned supreme; and the grave of the holy patriarch Hilarion stood near the ruins of the ancient temple of the heathen goddess.

After leaving Cyprus, Paula went to Antioch. There Jerome and the priests and monks who had accompanied him from Rome were awaiting her with Paulinus, the bishop. They wished to detain her; but since her feet had touched land her ardor to reach Jerusalem had so increased that nothing could stop her. To follow the footsteps of Christ, to see where his precious blood was shed, then to visit the anachorites of the desert, such was Paula's thought. Eustochium and her companions shared this desire. No time was lost. A caravan was organized, Jerome and his friends on dromedaries, Paula and her suite on asses, and they began their journey together. The road from Antioch to Jerusalem was long and fatiguing for women so delicately bred. A journey in those days was full of perils of which we now have no idea. But Paula was indefatigable, deterred by no dangers and complaining of no inconveniences, as she crossed the icy plains at this most trying season of the year. St. Jerome tells of the cities that she saw, and of the emotions that she felt as her knowledge of Scripture and of holy books brought up recollections and associations either of Jewish or of Christian history wherever she went. Besides, Jerome was there, with his prodigious memory and knowledge, to throw light on every step.

As Paula approached Jerusalem, her soul was more deeply moved, than it had yet been. The view of the landscape around the city was desolate, even as early as the fourth century. She entered by the Gate of Jaffa, also called the Gate of David and the Gate of the Pilgrims. The proconsul of Palestine had sent an escort to meet her, to receive her with honor; but with that sentiment which later made Godefroi de Bouillon refuse to wear a golden crown where God had worn one of thorns, Paula refused to lodge in the palace offered for her convenience, and she and her whole suite staid at a modest dwelling not far from Calvary; then she started at once to visit the Holy Places. Who can describe her feelings as she entered the church of the Holy Sepulchre? In the fourth century, the stone which closed the entrance to the tomb of our Lord was still to be seen by the faithful pilgrims. To-day it is covered by a monument of marble. As soon as Paula saw it, with great emotion she embraced it; but when she entered into the sepulchre itself, and went up to the rock on which had laid the body of our Lord, she could no longer restrain her tears, and, falling on her knees, sobbed and wept abundantly. All Jerusalem saw these tears, and were edified at the great piety of this noble Roman lady, the daughter of the Scipios.

St. Jerome tells us that, while she was in Jerusalem, "she would see everything," and that "she was only dragged away from one holy place that she might be taken to another."

{514}

After having visited Jerusalem, the pilgrims travelled all over the Holy Land, commencing with Bethlehem and Judea, then visiting Jericho and the Jordan, Samaria and Galilee as far as Nazareth, and finally, reorganizing the caravan, they set out for Egypt; not, however, before paying a visit to Melanie, in her convent on the Mount of Olives, whence they returned to Jerusalem.

Paula would now have fixed herself at Bethlehem but for this longing to visit the fathers of the desert. They started on this, the longest and most fatiguing part of their journey, and were sixteen days in going from Jerusalem to Alexandria. This city was the Athens of the East. In such an atmosphere of learning, there had been great intellectual development among the Christians, and the school of Christian philosophers of Alexandria was renowned throughout the world. This was what detained Paula and Eustochium, and particularly Jerome, some time at Alexandria, where they were received with great hospitality by the bishop, Theophilus. But even the most interesting studies could not make Paula forget the principal object of her voyage to Egypt, and her desire to see and to know the ascetics, that wonderful class of men, who voluntarily exiled themselves from the world and from all human ties, and astonished mankind by incredible austerities, and by consecrating their lives entirely to spiritual things and to a future existence. At this time the number of these anachorites had so multiplied, that it was said that in Egypt the deserts had as many inhabitants as the cities. Monastic life was then in all its glory. The great anachorites, Paul, Antony, Hilarion, and Pacomius, were dead; but their disciples lived, as celebrated as themselves. A great work of organization had been accomplished among them. The first men who came to the desert lived alone in caves or cells, each following his individual inspiration. Paul had lived forty years in a grotto, at the entrance of which was a spring and a palm-tree, drinking the water of the spring and eating the fruit of the tree, being his only nourishment. Antony's life had been more extraordinary still. But when the number of the hermits increased, they felt the necessity of community life being established, and the cenobites began to take the place of the anachorites, though there remained many of the latter, dividing, as it were, the hermits into two kinds, the Anachorites and the Cenobites. Large convents spread out along the banks of the Nile to the furthest extremity of Egypt.

It was not easy to visit these establishments. In going there, many years before, Melanie and her companions had been lost for five days, and their provisions being exhausted they had nearly died of hunger and thirst in the desert. Crocodiles, basking in the sun, had awaited with open jaws to devour them, and numberless other dangers had beset them.

But this did not discourage Paula, and her route being happily chosen, she accomplished her journey safely to the mountain of Nitria, where five thousand cenobites lived in fifty different convents, under the rule of one abbot. The news of her coming had preceded her, and the Bishop of Heliopolis had come to welcome the noble lady. He was surrounded by a great crowd of cenobites and anachorites. As soon as they perceived the caravan, they came forward singing hymns. Paula was soon surrounded. She declared herself most unworthy of the honors accorded her, and at the same time glorified God, who worked such marvels in the desert. The bishop first conducted the pious band to the church situated on the summit of the mountain, and there, with that hospitality for which the monks of the East were ever remarkable, the travellers were given the best rooms attached to the convent and intended for the use and convenience of strangers. {515} Fresh water was brought to them to wash their feet, and linen to dry them, and the fruits of the desert to refresh their palates; after which they were allowed to visit the convents and the hermits, whose life was very simple and very free, at the same time holy and austere. Ambitious of reducing the body to servitude, and to penetrate the secrets of things divine, they united action with contemplation. Their days were passed between work and prayer. Some were to be seen digging the earth, cutting trees, fishing in the Nile, or perhaps plaiting the mats on which they were to die. Others were absorbed by the reading of, or meditation on, the Holy Scriptures. The monasteries swarmed like bee-hives.

After having witnessed the cenobitical life, Paula went to the desert of cells to see the anachorite life, which there was carried out in all its austerity and all its poetry. These monks had no walls built by man, but had retired to the mountains as to the most inaccessible asylums. Caverns and rocks were their dwellings, the earth their table, their food roots and wild plants, and water from the springs their refreshment. Their prayers were continual, and all the mountain hollows rang with God's praises. These grottoes did not communicate with each other, and the isolation of the anachorites was complete. Once a week, on Sunday only, they left their cells, and, dressed in robes made of palm-leaves or of sheepskin, they went to the church of Nitria, where they saw one another, and also met the cenobites. Paula wished to know and listen to these pious men. She therefore visited all the grottoes, one by one, talking always of the things of God to their inmates.

Paula's next visit was through a still more savage country to see those called by St. Jerome "the columns of the desert." She cared not for dangers nor fatigue, so that she could contemplate such men as _Macarius_--the disciple of Antony and Pacomius--a man so austere that he had astonished Pacomius himself, who had watched him during the whole of one Lent plaiting mats in his cell, without speaking to any one, all absorbed in God, and only eating once a week, on Sunday, a few raw vegetables. None could surpass this great ascetic. He permitted the pilgrims to penetrate into his grotto, and delighted Paula with his holy conversation and instruction.

Jerome admired likewise the prodigies of this pure and austere life; but more occupied than Paula with the doctrines he heard discussed, he had perceived that some of the monks were less enlightened than others. It seems, as it afterward was proved, that the theories of Origen were already beginning to trouble the inhabitants of the desert.

There remained now, to complete Paula's insight into the life of the hermits, but to visit the convents founded by Pacomius, which she hesitated not to do. There were six thousand monks living in them, governed by the venerable Serapion. Their rule divided each monastery into a certain number of families. Their frugal lives enabled them to extend their charities far and wide. Their fasting and abstinence lasted all the year round, becoming only more strict in Lent. Paula enjoyed their hospitality greatly, learning much from Serapion that delighted her about this well-organized monastic life which realized her ideal.

{516}

She thought for a moment of establishing herself in the desert, and of requesting Serapion to admit her colony under the rule of Pacomius; but the love of the Holy Places prevented her from carrying out this plan. She said "her resting-place was not in these deserts, it was in Bethlehem." Already had she lingered too long! She had now learned all that she wished to learn, enough for her own guidance. She therefore embarked with her entire caravan for Maioma, a sea-port of Gaza; and from there, without stopping on her way, she returned to Jerusalem, and thence to Bethlehem, with as much rapidity, says St. Jerome, as if she had had wings.

Here the news awaited her of the death of her daughter Rufina. The blow was terrible to Paula, but her mind was strengthened by all she had seen, and the voice of God reached her heart and comforted her, and gave her stronger hope than she had ever had in reunion hereafter with her beloved children. She sought to make herself worthy of immortality, and her faith and her good works brought her consolation and peace. She resolved to found two monasteries: one for herself, Eustochium, and her friends from the Aventine; the other for Jerome and his followers. This was done without delay, and they at once began the life which they longed for--a life of labor, of study, and of prayer.

To Be Continued.

-------------

To The Count De Montalembert,
With A Copy Of "Inisfail." [Footnote 149]

[Footnote 149: From a forthcoming volume of Poems, by Aubrey
de Vere, now in press by the Catholic Publication Society.]

Your spirit walks in halls of light:
On earth you breathe its sunnier climes:
How can an Irish muse invite
Your fancy thus to sorrowing rhymes?

But you have fought the church's fight!
My country's cause and hers are one:
And every cause that rests on Right
Invokes Religion's bravest son.

----------

{517}

The Legend of Glastonbury.--A D. 62.

Down in the pleasant west of England a river--the copious Brue--follows its course to Bridgewater Bay, between the Sedgemoors and other rising grounds. Somersetshire farmers now drive their ploughs and graze their cattle where I am going to describe water: thanks to those Benedictine monks whom they have so clean forgotten. But at Christmas-tide, some sixty years after the first Christmas the world ever saw, there were no monks at Glastonbury; for the simple reason, there were no Christians there. No one had banked out the waters of the Bristol Channel, and converted a brackish and unwholesome swamp into fine arable or pasture land. The Brue had it all its own way, to make islands, pools, and treacherous bogs with its unrestrained waters; until it had got so far west as to struggle with the advancing tide of the bay.

Glastonbury has the holiest memories of any place in England; and they date from the first moment when the faith was planted there. The sacred name of our Lord was brought to this marshy district in a far-off heathen land by one of his own disciples, Saint Joseph of Arimathea.

Who has not heard of the Glastonbury thorn? A history of Somerset would be incomplete which did not mention its blossoming every Christmas that comes round. It was fair and fragrant for fifteen hundred winters, while all around was sapless and dead. People try to account for this standing miracle by something peculiar in the soil, as they would explain away the freedom of Ireland from snakes and toads, or the healing virtues of St. Winifred's Well. There were probably Sadducees in Jerusalem who thought the Pool of Bethesda was all nonsense, or a mere chalybeate. Anything you like about the powers of nature, but nothing of the marvels of grace. Chemistry to any extent, but of miracle not one jot. Thorns blooming at Christmas? It is all a question of earth, soil, stratum, and the lay of the ground, with those who are "of the earth, earthy."

But we are now on our way to Glastonbury as Christian pilgrims, staff in hand. And it is very fit that we should regard the old thorn (or such suckers and cuttings of it as may be found) with reverence. For that thorn is a Christian tree, planted by Christian hands. More than this: it was planted by the hands whose unutterable privilege it was to unfasten and take down from the cross, and bear with adoring reverence to the tomb, the body of God, separated from his soul, united ever with his divinity.

We are accustomed, in our meditations on the passion, to contemplate the emaciated, agonized form of our Lord stretched and racked upon the cross; or, after the _Consummatum est_, when eventide was come, laid stark and bloodless in the arms of the Queen of martyrs, his most desolate Mother. Naturally we lose out of sight, by comparison, other agents and events in what followed his expiring cry. Yet look again. In the growing dusk of that first Good Friday, at the foot of the cross, and in the group of five or six persons to whom the eternal Father seems to commit the lifeless body of his Son, there is the saint of Glastonbury. {518} With the dolorous Mother, and the beloved disciple, and the saintly, penitent Magdalene, and the other holy women, and Nicodemus, St. Joseph of Arimathea also bears his part.

To come back to Glastonbury; we must pass over some thirty years from that sacred paschal eve. Pentecost soon followed it, with its fiery tongues on the apostles' brows. They were illuminated and strengthened to preach the faith over the earth lying in darkness. So they separated on this world-wide mission, each on the path whereon the guidance of God's Spirit led him. "Their sound went over all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole world." St. Philip went into Phrygia, and, by some accounts, was martyred there. Others make him to have preached the gospel in what is now France, and that St. Joseph was one of his companions. A better supported tradition has it that St. Joseph, with St. Lazarus and his two holy sisters, Martha and Mary, landed at Marseilles from Judea. Anyhow, here comes St. Joseph of Arimathea to Britain, with a faithful band of eleven disciples. He has reached the distant region of tin-mines which the old Phoenicians had discovered and worked in Cornwall, Scilly, and, perhaps, the Mendip Hills. He is come not for precious metals, but to bring the priceless word of life.

So, rather more than sixty years after the Incarnation, and while Saints Peter and Paul are still alive in Rome, though the day of their martyrdom draws near, we find ourselves on the brow of Weary-All Hill, a mile or so south-west of the spot where Glastonbury Abbey will be built.

Weary-All Hill! the name it has been known by for generations back. But not a likely name to be given it by St. Joseph and his eleven companions, as they stood on it for the first time, eighteen centuries ago; as they looked on the marshy plain, dotted with islands, in and out of which the glassy stream is winding. Weariness, at least lassitude of spirit, was unknown to those apostolic men. Had they not come all this way to bring the everlasting gospel? Had not their feet been "beautiful upon the mountains" as they crossed them, bearing this message of heavenly love?--mountains deep in snow, yawning with frightful clefts and precipices, gloomy with impenetrable forests, to which this Weary-All is scarcely a mole-hill?

"At length, then," said St. Joseph, when the twelve had paused on the brow of it to recover breath; for few of them were young, and it was rather a pull for a Somersetshire hill--"at length we have reached the end of our pilgrimage."

As he spoke, he pointed with his long staff to the little group of islands already noticed. A cheery December sun lingered on the scene, and, though it was evening, still cast a gleam upon the wide-spread water. The Brue was winding along, noiseless and limpid, sprinkled with its dark islets, as the shining coils of a snake are variegated with the spots upon its skin. There was no ice yet, though it was already the Christmas season. Perhaps the sea-water that mingled with the marsh from the Bristol Channel prevented its formation. The leafless thickets that fringed the slopes of West Sedgemoor, and clothed both islands and marshland in irregular clumps, allowed a more distinct view of the mirror of waters than when shaded with summer foliage. There was a kind of grave and sober animation over the whole scene.

{519}

A short distance further off, to the east, rose a solitary peaked hill, perhaps even _then_ called the Tor. It has several scarped lines, or passes, drawn around it, denoting that the Romans had fortified it as a stronghold, which they occupied from time to time. Years after, a little chapel in honor of St. Michael the archangel will be built on its summit. Years later, again, that little chapel will be enlarged into a stately church, the tower of which still remains. And nearly fifteen centuries after St. Joseph first stood on Weary-All, the last abbot of the stately Benedictine monastery, as Glastonbury had become, was martyred there with two of his monks. His crime was, that he rendered to Caesar _only_ those things that were Caesar's, and refused to acknowledge the tyrant Henry VIII. as head of God's church in England.

Northward of where we stand, at the distance of five miles and more, the abrupt range of the Mendip Hills caught at that moment almost the last beams of the declining sun, as it sank, fiery red, toward the western ocean.

"The end of our pilgrimage," said St. Joseph again, slowly, and gazed down on the peaceful spot. "These are the islands of which the heathen king spoke:--how are we to name him?"

"Arviragus," answered one of his companions, nay, it was the saint's own nephew, called Helaius.

"Permitting us to set up there a Christian altar, and to proclaim the names and the praises of Jesus and Mary."

"May the kindness be returned a hundred-fold into his own bosom," ejaculated Theotimus.

"Amen," answered St. Joseph fervently. And Joseph his son, and Simeon and Avitus, and the rest, responded.

Then all knelt there on the brow of the hill; all but Hoel, their poor pagan guide to the spot. And with Christian psalms, and the Gloria Patri, and invocations to the court of heaven to assist them in their praises, they poured out thanksgivings to him who had permitted their long wanderings to cease, and their missionary life in this heathen land to begin.

Hoel stood near, leaning on his shepherd's crook. He guessed in general what it was about; but he understood neither Hebrew nor Greek.

He is a true Briton of that date, is Hoel; and he might literally be called "true blue," for he is painted all over in blue patterns with the juice of the woad, like his northern cousins, the Picts. His scanty garments are dyed the same hue with the same plant, which yields its juice plentifully in this part of Britain.

He looks at the saint, and thinks he is inquiring the name of that principal island in the group to which his staff points.

"Iniswytryn," cries Hoel, in explanation. "You're Latin scholars, gentlemen; so I suppose you know what that means--_Glassy Island_." [Footnote 150]

[Footnote 150: _Insula Vitrea_, the Roman and therefore
the British name (by a slight corruption) of what was
afterward called Glastonbury. _Glas_ is the Celtic word
for grayish blue, [Greek text] and enters into numerous local
names in Ireland, Wales, and the Highlands. Its affinity with
our word _glass_ is probably more than a coincidence of
sound, the ancient glass being mostly of the same neutral
tint. Others derive the name of the place from the
woad-plant, _glaisn_, which grows abundantly in this
watered district.]

Glass, in those days, imported by the Romans into Britain, sorry stuff as the best of it would now be reckoned in the Birmingham or St. Helen's foundries, was thought a wonder of rarity and beauty. So Glassy Island was a name equivalent to our calling _another_ island that we love very dearly the

"First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea."

{520}

Hoel now spoke again in the same strange jargon as before, composed of British, or what we should call Welsh, and a little Latin. It was the dialect of those parts of Britain where the Romans had established their colonies and introduced their tongue. Be it noted, we are at this moment near the Roman colonies of Uxella, or Bridgewater, Ad Aquas, or Wells, and Ischalis, or Ilchester.

"So you are going to settle down there," remarked Hoel. "Won't you offer some sacrifice on first sighting the place?"

"We have no means of sacrificing this evening, friend," answered St. Joseph calmly, "nor to-morrow morning, I fear, unless we obtain materials, which at present we lack."

"Means!--materials!" said Hoel, musing with himself. "Well, every nation, I take it, has its own customs. But I know those who would not be long without providing the materials."

St. Joseph wished to ascertain what was passing in the man's mind. The zeal which urged St. Paul to become all things to all men, that he might save all, burned in the holy missionary's bosom. It made him seek out all that might serve the purpose of his coming. He had everything to learn: language, habits of thought, customs of social life, and the very observances of British heathenism.

"And how," he asked, "would you offer a sacrifice, good friend, when you had nothing to offer it with?"

"I? Nay, _I_ could not. What good would a sacrifice be from a peasant like me?"

"To pray is to make an offering, is it not?"

"Yes; but I don't mean that. You know I mean something more; why, something really sacrificed--consumed, to make the gods favorable. Have you no such sacrifice in your religion? Then it can't be the true one, _I'm_ sure!"

"Certainly," said St. Joseph, "we have the one true and adorable Sacrifice, of which all others are mere shadows, and some of them very dark, distorted shadows. Every morning we offer to the true and living God that spotless Lamb who alone can take away sin, or be a worthy thank-offering to his majesty and his mercy."

"A lamb?" said Hoel, still musing; "why, that's not to be had at this season. But would nothing else do instead? For example, now, I've a nice--"

"Do not concern yourself," answered St. Joseph, and smiled again, kindly. "We shall be able to provide ourselves in a few days, when we have made acquaintance with the neighborhood. I suppose they grow wine in these parts?"

"Wine?" repeated the peasant, opening his eyes. "Oh! yes, to be sure." Then, after a pause: "You're fond of wine, then, after all, like our own Druids? Well, I should hardly have thought--"

Helaius could hardly repress a smile at his mistake.

Hoel looked at him; then, as if he had hit on the cause of his amusement, laughed his loud clownish laugh, too.

"Wine? Ah! the very best, if you can buy it of those gray-bearded gentlemen; and old mead, and metheglin; or cider from our apples hereabout. We grew a mortal sight of 'em." [Footnote 151]

[Footnote 151: Glastonbury was afterward called by the Saxons
_Avalon_, or the Island of Apples.]

Then he broke out into singing, and a kind of war-dance, to please his companions, as he deemed:

"All under yon oaks, and the mistletoe sprouting.
When victims have bled in the circle of stones.
We drink down the sunset with sword-play and shouting,
And he that refuses, we'll raddle his bones:
His bones!
And he that refuses, we'll raddle his bones!"

{521}

It was difficult not to smile at his extravagant tones and gestures.

"Gently, gently," said St. Joseph to his companions, "or we shall be misleading him, and doing harm."

"Oh! never mind, ancient sir," remarked Hoel encouragingly, though he had not understood what was said. "All quite right--why shouldn't one? Only, it strikes me, you've no place to lay in a stock of it at present. Now, our Druids burrow out caves, 'tis thought, somewhere under their cromlechs--"

"Listen!" interrupted St. Joseph, laying his hand on the other's arm. He looked into Hoel's face, and gained his attention in a moment. "Listen, while I say a thing to you. Bread and wine, the ordinary food of man in our native land, have been appointed by him whom we serve, as the materials of that true sacrifice which he will accept. He requires, and will admit, no other. Animals were sacrificed to him of old, before he appointed this new and better way; but now--"

"You spoke of a lamb," interrupted the peasant, growing rather sulky, "so I just took the liberty of informing you as we'd none at your service."

It was not the moment to pursue such high and mysterious truths with him any further. But Hoel himself would not be let off, nor would he let off St. Joseph. Something seemed to be working in his mind.

"A lamb is a lamb," persisted he doggedly, though he seemed to mean no disrespect; "and a sacrifice is a sacrifice; and bread is bread, I hope; and wine, I'm sure, is wine."

"All things are what they have been created by God," answered St. Joseph very gently, "until it is his holy will and pleasure to change them in any way, or even to change them into other things."

Hoel looked at him, but said nothing. His look, though, meant inquiry, and this St. Joseph perceived.

"Is not a tree changed into something very different from what it was before," he went on, "when the warm air of spring breathes upon it, and the sap rises into it, and it puts forth green buds, and they swell, and burst, and afterward come leaves and fruit?"

"True," answered he; and then was silent, thinking.

"Did you ever see one of the trees down yonder blossom at this season?"

For all answer, Hoel laughed, and pointed to the leafless boughs on the island, and the shores around them.

"Could the gods whom you worship cause them to do so?"

"Not one of 'em all," answered he, with a somewhat scornful gesture.

"Then, _who_ makes winter pass and spring return; the bud burst forth, and the fruit ripen?"

A pause. The poor pagan was not prepared to answer.

"Now," continued St. Joseph, "my God, the one living and true, not only has appointed the laws by which seasons come round with their produce, and the sun rises and sets. He sometimes, moreover, changes these things, according to his own all-perfect will, so that the sun stays motionless in the heavens above, and the tree blooms in mid-winter on the earth below."

Hoel mused, and mused again, while his eyes wandered from the speaker to the rest, in whose looks he read confirmation of the words. Then he turned to take a sweep over the wintry scene that lay beneath and around. Woods and thickets skirting the slopes of Sedgemoor, the osiers lining the banks of the Brue, the few apple-trees that were even then on Iniswytryn--all without sign of a leaf.

{522}

He bent his eyes to the ground, knit his brows, seemed determined to hear no more, and to believe nothing of what he _had_ heard.

Still the gentle, persuasive voice of the saint sounded in his ears:

"What is that, friend, you have in your hand?"

"My shepherd's crook," was the brief and surly answer.

"And see, my pilgrim-staff, that has aided my steps so far. Yours was cut from a British sapling, out of your moist soil, I dare say, no longer ago than last autumn. Mine, under a burning sky, long years since, in Judea, a land you never heard of. It came from a thorn-brake that had furnished thorns for a crown of which you know nothing. Which of these two staves would bud the quickest, if they were planted side by side?"

Hoel looked up, pleased to find something he understood. "Mine would, of course," he grinned out. "'Tis a right slip of mountain-ash, and would have leaves next spring, if I struck it into the ground."

"And what if mine now budded before you could count ten?"

"You jest with me where I see no jest," exclaimed the countryman, disposed now to be angry, "or you speak as one of the unwise."

"There is no jest here," answered St. Joseph with unruffled look. You say truly. By no power of mine could the seasons alter, or the effects of them. My Master has said: 'All the days of the earth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, night and day, shall not cease!' But what if his power and his will unite to make some wonderful change in all this?"

"His power is great in the summer," answered Hoel, casting a look at the declining sun; "but in the winter time he seems further off, or feebler. He cannot melt the ice, nor draw up the dew, nor warm my fingers while I stand watching my sheep."

It was plain he was speaking of his deity, then sinking in the west, lower every moment.

"Ah!" said Avitus, "is it even such darkness as this into which the land is plunged? Would we had pushed on sooner from Gaul!"

"Courage, brother," whispered Simeon in answer. "There has been no time lost, Man can do but little, except pray and obey. If he does these well, he does good all around him. What says the holy text? 'Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been _faithful in a little_.'"

Meanwhile St. Joseph had been in silent prayer. By some inspiration he felt moved to ask for power to work the first miracle ever wrought in Britain. Our Lord had promised: "These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." "Amen, amen, I say to you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do, he shall do also; and greater than these shall he do, because I go to the Father. And whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do; that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

And even while St. Joseph prayed, it seemed as if witnesses of the miracle, and disciples of the truth, were being given him; for, stealing up the ascent from various directions, knots of the wild Britons, in threes and fours, converged on the summit of Weary-All Hill. {523} I do not suspect Hoel of treachery, or that he had meant to lead the foreigners into a snare. It is likely the rude inhabitants had perceived them from afar as they stood there, their forms traced on the hill-top against the red sunset sky. But these new-comers seemed to have no friendly intention. Most of them held in their hands the rude weapons of ancient British warfare. The bare arms of some were stained blue with the juice of the woad; others were tattooed; they had the wild and savage look we have seen in prints of the Sandwich Islanders. So, with threatening aspect and gestures, on they came, brandishing their lances and _celts_, or bronze hatchets, and beginning a sort of war-cry.

Yes; the moment was come, and the sovereignty of the true Lord both over nature and grace was to be manifested in one and the same moment.

St. Joseph told his companions how strongly the thought had come into his mind. It had, indeed, guided much that he had already said to Hoel. As by one impulse, they all knelt again, and besought our Lord to remember now his promise; so that the soul that had remained impervious to his word might see his work.

St. Joseph then approached the peasant, who by this time was surrounded by his countrymen. In a mild voice, yet with an authority not to be resisted, he said:

"Plant your staff here, upright in the ground."

Hoel was startled, looked at him, then slowly obeyed.

The multitude still gathered, their gestures more threatening every moment.

"Call now, if you will, on your gods, that the staff may bud and blossom."

The peasant turned by a kind of instinct to the setting sun; clouds were mantling round it; its form was veiled; nothing seen but a dull and rusty stain of sunset fast paling into twilight. Hoel shook his head.

"You will not call on it to hear, to help you?"

He was answered by a gesture which implied that the power of Hoel's god was set for that night.