FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101  
102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   >>   >|  
ed now. The priest had always had a love for animals (and for ugly, common animals), which his pupil had by no means shared. His room at the chateau had been little less than a menagerie. He had even kept a glass beehive there, which communicated with a hole in the window through which the bees flew in and out, and he would stand for hours with his thumb in the breviary, watching the labours of his pets. And this also had been his room! This dark, damp cell. Here, breviary in hand, he had stood, and lain, and knelt. Here, in this miserable prison, he had found something to love, and on which to expend the rare intelligence and benevolence of his nature. Here, finally, in the last hours of his life, he had written on the fly-leaf of his prayer-book something to comfort his successor, and, "being dead, yet spoke" the words of consolation which he had administered in his lifetime. Monsieur the Viscount read that paper now with different feelings. There is, perhaps, no argument so strong, and no virtue that so commands the respect of young men, as consistency. Monsieur the Preceptor's lifelong counsel and example would have done less for his pupil than was effected by the knowledge of his consistent career, now that it was past. It was not the nobility of the priest's principles that awoke in Monsieur the Viscount a desire to imitate his religious example, but the fact that he had applied them to his own life, not only in the time of wealth, but in the time of tribulation and in the hour of death. All that high-strung piety--that life of prayer--those unswerving admonitions to consider the vanity of earthly treasures, and to prepare for death--which had sounded so unreal amidst the perfumed elegances of the chateau, came back now with a reality gained from experiment. The daily life of self-denial, the conversation garnished from Scripture and from the Fathers, had not, after all, been mere priestly affectations. In no symbolic manner, but literally, he had "watched for the coming of his Lord," and "taken up the cross daily;" and so, when the cross was laid on him, and when the voice spoke which must speak to all, "The Master is come, and calleth for thee," he bore the burden and obeyed the summons unmoved. _Unmoved_!--this was the fact that struck deep into the heart of Monsieur the Viscount, as he listened to Antoine's account of the Cure's imprisonment. What had astonished and overpowered his own undisciplined nature
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101  
102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Monsieur

 

Viscount

 

breviary

 

prayer

 

nature

 
animals
 

priest

 

chateau

 

applied

 
perfumed

amidst

 
gained
 

imitate

 

desire

 

reality

 

religious

 

elegances

 

prepare

 

unswerving

 

tribulation


strung

 

admonitions

 

wealth

 

treasures

 

experiment

 

sounded

 

earthly

 

vanity

 

unreal

 

manner


summons

 
unmoved
 

Unmoved

 

struck

 

obeyed

 
burden
 

calleth

 

astonished

 

overpowered

 

undisciplined


imprisonment

 

listened

 

Antoine

 

account

 

Master

 

priestly

 
affectations
 

Fathers

 

denial

 

conversation