The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 12 May 1910, Page 723

The Storyteller

PITIED OF ANGELS

The Church of the Holy Angels is vast and beautiful. Standing in a prominent position in one of the largest cities of the United States, it is known to Catholic travellers as the princely gift of a wealthy Irishman, who, not forgetting his religion in the days of his prosperity, determined to offer to Almighty God a temple not altogether unworthy of His worship and praise. It may very well have been that the founder had a special devotion to the blessed spirits in whose honor the Church is dedicated; at any rate, few European churches contain so many painted and sculptured figures of those ambassadors of God. _ Very sweet to look upon are the angels of the Eucharist, carved in stone on the capitals of the pillars; devout and moving, the sight of the angels of Gethsemane and Calvary bearing the, instruments of the Passion; fair and beautiful the angels of the Resurrection and the consoling spirits who, on the day of the Ascension, stood by the Apostles on Mount Olivet; perpetual reminder, indeed, of the Divine Presence that hallows the building of which they are a part, for the head of every angel is turned towards the high altar, and its eyes are ever resting upon the tabernacle of God with men. To some, however, the painted groups high up above the arches, below and around the clerestory windows, are more beautiful and more moving. From the organ gallery the nine choirs of celestial singers are, of course, more plainly seen than from the floor of the nave, and very fitting it is that the choristers of the Church militant should be confronted with the chorus of the Church triumphant. At intervals, here and there above the spring of an arch, are representations of the Seven Spirits who stand before the throne, and upon these figures a skilled painter has bestowed his most careful art. Close to the organ-gallery, and looking immediately down upon the singers, are St. Gabriel, the Angel of Baptism, amt St. Jehudiel, the Angel of Penance. Full of strength and spiritual beauty are these figures of ‘ young men in shining garments,’ and if the eye rests long and lovingly upon the great Gabriel standing by a flowing fountain, and with the lilies of the Annunciation blooming at his feet —certainly one will not turn away in terror from the guardian Spirit of Penance. Grave, but very winning, is the aspect of St. Jehudiel, and though his left hand holds the scourge of three black cords, his right offers to the spectator a shining crown of gold— eternal reward of those who cleanse their souls in the fountain of the Precious Blood.

Years ago a little child, who sat on a low stool close I to his father’s organ-bench, studied these pictures long and I earnestly. For him, at least, the front of the gallery I blotted out the interior of the great church below, • and only I the groined roof and the pictured walls about the clerestory I were visible* He was never tired of looking at the angels of I the organ-loft. Sometimes, indeed, he would fall asleep, but I this was only to dream of the jfngel faces that smiled upon I him in his slumber. From such visions the music of the a organ would rouse him sweetly enough, and once the noble diapason sounded, the child was wide awake. Rarely did Professor Fryth employ the full power of that mighty instrument; when he did so his little Ambrose was never afraid. Sometimes it seemed as though the child’s pleasure increased in proportion to the loudness of the music, and it is certain that, at such times, he raised his voice and sangcanticles | without words, and the music of no fixed —jubilantly and continuously. His father never checked him. Even if the little creature’s singing produced a discord, the volume of sound was always sufficient to drown it; but the organist knew it was seldom his son sang a note that did not harmonise with the music that was being performed. As for the absence of words — the father thought the angels understood and would rightly interpret his child’s intention.

As time went on it became evident that little Ambrose Fryth was both talented and pious. On his fifth birthday the Professor had given him a tiny violin; long before he was six years old the child could play any simple .melody that was put before him. This was the more astonishing from the fact that the boy’s father was occupied during the greater part of the day with the duties attached to his post at the city academy, as also with a large circle of private pupils. The child’s mother had died when he was two years old,. and his infancy would have been a lonely one, perhaps, but for the companionship of his little fiddle. With this he could be happy for long hours together, giving no trouble to his father’s elderly housekeeper and her one assistant. Every morning, however, a governess came to the pretty villa on the outskirts of the city where the Professor lived, and the quickness with which Ambrose learned to read and write was on a par with his rapid progress in the art of music. Whenever the professor could do so, he spent his evening at home in the society of his little son; though it not unfrequently happened that a concert engagement kept him in the city until a late hour, for Mr. Fryth was an accomplished pianist as well as organist. However, Sunday

was a royal day both for father and son. The professor had only to attend to his church duties, High Mass and Vespers, and in these Ambrose could be with him. Returning from church, the child would ask questions, many of which the father found it difficult to answer. When Ambrose gets a little older,’ said the professor one day to the rector of the Holy Angels, ‘ I must send him to one of the Fathers for religious instruction. Only a trained theologian could answer the questions he sometimes puts to me. Spiritual things are very real to him.’ ‘ Careful and clear instruction on the lines of the Catechism is the thing,’ said the priest, ‘and habits of very regular prayer. He is a dear little man, lam sure, and will take in the truths of religion as repidly as he absorbs every other kind of learning. Only don’t put it off too long, professor. A child’s piety is a very beautiful thing, but it is apt to be fanciful and sometimes unreal. Poetry, like music, is the gift of God, and a thing to be treasured for the sake of the giver; but it is not religion. And the piety of young children is largely made up of poetry.’ ‘ But he is so young at present, Father just turned six. You see he has not yet reached the age of reason.’

‘ Don’t be too sure of that,’ the rector answered. ‘ From what you tell me, I think it highly probable that he has reached the age of reason. Remember, he is not an ordinary child, and precocious, as some of our children are. I have never yet met a child so forward in the very best sense of the word, mind you-—as Ambrose.’ It was soon after this conversation that the little boy startled his father by a rather vigorous expression of dislike for the Angel of Penance , whose picture he had been studying during the sermon’ with more than ordinary interest.

‘ You mustn’t say that you hate an angel, Ambrose; that is downright naughty.’ ‘ But I shall always hate him tilltill he throws away his whips,’ the child explained with some vehemence. ‘ But, my dear, the angel is much too kind to hurt you. And then the golden crown —think of having that to keep as your very own! ’ _ ‘The other man’ (he meant St. Gabriel) ‘hasn’t got a whip. I like him best, and his flowers are so pretty.’ ‘ Well, my darling,’ answered the father, sorely puzzled how best to answer his child’s objection, ‘ at present you have nothing to do with the Angel of Penance. Some day, perhaps, you will love him as much as you love the Angel of Baptism.’

As Ambrose grew up, a very noticeable quality in him was a great shrinking from everything painful or unpleasant. Yet there was so much apparent piety mingled with this softness of disposition, and so much that was winning even in his wilfulness, that the father had little anxiety in regard to his darling’s future, and was accustomed to think and speak of the boy as a dutiful and affectionate son.

Of a loving nature Ambrose certainly was; but there I were times when the father had to acknowledge that his I child was both obstinate and disobedient. Yet the pro- I fessor shrank from the bare idea of ever inflicting the | smallest punishment, and when discreet friends suggested | a distant school he was horrified exceedingly. I ‘ You forget that he is my only child, and that he is I not like other boys,’ said the father one day to an old | friend of his who had been speaking rather plainly on the 9 subject of Ambrose : ‘He is the most sensitive soul I have 9 ever met with.’ B ‘ I grant you he is a" lad of delicate sensibilities,’ answered the plain-spoken person, ‘ but really, my dear professor, the world is full of such people nowadays. No doubt it is flattering enough to human pride to fancy oneself a case apart, and easy enough to act in accordance with such a notion, but it is certain that boys of this sort unless very carefully brought up and subjected to a wise —invariably become effeminate, ridiculously conceited, and heartlessly selfish.’ The professor was deeply offended; the more so, perhaps, as his own wide experience of a particularly sensitive class of human beings forced him to acknowledge the truth of his friend's remarks. However, in order to gain if possible a little flattering consolation, he took an early opportunity of discussing Ambrose with his own spiritual Father, the rector of the Holy Angels. The priest listened very patiently and attentively to the professor’s long panegyric of his son, and thento the musician’s astonish-ment-proceeded to speak, just as plainly as, if a little more kindly, than the. person whose words we have recorded, of that miserable form of unmanliness and selfishness which is very apt to be called by the softer name of I sensitiveness. - I ‘ But, my dear Father,’ cried the professor, ‘ my boy’s soul is responsive to the very faintest touch of— of beauty, or of affection.’ If that be so,’ said the priest, looking very grave, I ‘your son’s journey through life will be a perilous one, | and it is your first duty as father to put him in the way I of receiving all the extra graces he will certainly need I and which, mind you, the good God is perfectly ready and I willing to give him.’ I

The professor understood the priest’s meaning only too well. _ That religious instruction suggested by the former, years ago, and warmly seconded by the latter, had come to little or nothing. binder some pretext or otherhealth or weather, or a prior engagement father had nearly always excused his son from attendance upon what so closely affected the boy's spiritual good. ‘ Even the first confession had been put off until the boy was nearly ten, and subsequent confessions had been exceedingly rare. At the age of eleven, Ambrose had made his first appearance on the concert platform; his First Communion was deferred until he was thirteen! This good priest does not understand my Ambrose, that is clear,’ the professor said to himself, as on his way home he passed into a confectioner’s shop to get the halfpound of sweets and other dainties his son had asked him to buy. ‘Yes, it is evident the- good Father does not understand. What is it the poor mother says in Shakespeare’s play, “He talks to me who never had a son.’’ Yes, yes, that is my position exactly.’ Poor man! Was it possible that he. could be forgetful of the obvious fact that his parish priest was the. father of a huge family of spiritual children, and that he knew immeasuiabiy more of their needs and necessities, their dangers and difficulties and temptations, than their own parents could possibly know! Entering the drawing-room of his pretty suburban villa on this particular morning, the professor ' found Ambrose lying at full length on the sofa, reading a story-book, a great pile of illustrated papers heaped on the floor beside him.

‘What! no lessons to-day, Ambrose!’ exclaimed the father. ‘Lessons!’ the boy ejaculated, without looking up from his story-book, “ I should think not, indeed. Say, father, have you got that chocolate and candy?’ ‘But hasn’t Mr.'lverson been here this morning?’ the father asked as he handed the boy two or three bulky packages. ‘Oh, yes, he came,’ the boy answered laughingly, ‘but I guess he went off again pretty quick. Why, I am just tired to death after last night’s concert.’ Dear me, yes; I was forgetting.’ ■ The professor sighed a little as he left the room. These public appearances were getting too frequent; he began to fear the boy would grow up an ignoramus. However, the father had so many pupils to see that he could not stop to argue with his son. ‘ My dear, I shall not be home till late,’ he called out from the little entrance-hall; ‘ but be sure you prepare your lessons for to-morrow.’ ‘

‘ All right ! ’ shouted the boy, settling himself more comfortably among the sofa cushions, ‘ I’ll just finish this and them ’and then he would have the violin practice. If any time was left after —why, then, perhaps, he would look at his French or Latin author. Had not his father frequently urged upon him the necessity of giving at least three hours a day to violin? And was not this quite in accordance with Ambrose’s own inclinations? Besides, what had a musician to do with lessons! • Such were the boy’s unspoken thoughts.

Long before Ambrose readied the age of sixteen he had attained a considerable local reputation as a violinist in his seventeenth year the merest accident brought him suddenly into contact with a branch of the musical art of which hitherto he had no experience. . ' A famous opera company had arrived in the city, and, on the very day of their first performance, the leader of the first violins fell seriously ill. The conductor of the orchestra lost no time in trying to find a substitute, and, at the outset, of his inquiry, he was assured that Ambrose Fryth was the very person he wanted. It never occurred to the professor to make the smallest objection to his son’s appearance in the orchestra of the opera house. He knew that Ambrose was fully "capable of what was required of him no other consideration entered the professor’s mind. But very late, of the night of the first performance, the father sat in his lonely room awaiting his son’s returnwondering a little if he had acted wisely, and somewhat regretting his readily accorded permission. At 3 o’clock in the morning the youth burst into the house heated and flushed with drink, and almost incoherent in his rhapsodical account of the evening’s music and what had succeeded it. , /It was heavenly, heavenly!’ he shouted again and again, but the only echo in the father’s heart as he helped the lad to bed was —‘Hellish!’ On the previous night the professor had said little or nothing to the, excited youth; in the morning he spoke to him gravely, seriously, and a little severely; but to the father’s complete dismay Ambrose interrupted him with a torrent of violent language, largely mingled with downright personal abuse. The scene was a painful one. It ended by the youth leaving the house'in a raging passion. On the same day he was offered, and accepted, a permanent post in the opera company’s orchestra. For an entire week the company remained in town ; yet the mentally paralysed and heart-broken father made no effort to see his son, and it was only on the last day of the week that the professor wrote a letter to Ambrose, addressing it to the opera house. A reply reached him

on Sunday morning at the very time the members of the company were on their way to the railway station. The note was brief, heartless, and callous. The youth accused his father of trying to keep him out of the profession—of wishing to hinder his best prospects. It even hinted at the professor’s jealousy of his son’s many successes. It ended with Farewell forever!’

On tliat Sunday morning there was no organ music at the Church of the Angels yet ’the poor suffering organist crept to the church, and, kneeling in a remote corner, prayed as he had not prayed for yearspitied of angels’ surely! Pitied of angels, indeed! But not in the sense of the poet’s words. Pitied of angels, surely, when they see their charges oblivious of everything save

‘Music which makes giddy the dim brain Faint with intoxication of keen joy

pitied for the peril they are in, and the awful, risks they run who abuse one of God’s best gifts, and who permit that which was intended to draw down fire from heaven to carry them to the very brink of hell! Pitied of angels, in very truth, when health, life, and the immortal soul are sacrificed to the requirements of this too-fascinating art! .

111.

1 Music’s eternal power was given Not to dissolve our clay But draw Promethean fire from heaven.’ Newman

Slowly, so slowly, passed the weary years for one; for the other time was but a perpetual whirlwind of passion and of so-called pleasure. From the daily papers and the musical journals the professor gathered that his son had by degrees won for himself an assured place among the leading players of the time. Almost at the outset of his career Ambrose changed I his name. He was now known to the great world as Signor I Saulini. ' I After a lapse of twelve years the suffering father, though 8 only a little past fifty, was bowed and bent like a man of | fourscore years: yet he still attended to his academical duties, and had a fair number of pupils. Several times he had tried to resign his post as organist, but on each occasion the rector of the Holy Angels succeeded in persuading him to retain it. : ' , ;; ‘ You are the only friend I have left on the earth,’ the professor had said to the priest; ‘ I cannot run counter to your wishes. Would that I had listened to you years ago!’ Yet it cost him much to produce that jubilant music he had once rejoiced in, and, often enough, at the close of some function, instead of flooding the huge building with a torrent of massive harmony, he would produce exquisite music, indeed, but notes the exceeding mystery of whose loveliness saddened delight. Nor did the player linger at the organ as he had been I wont to do. He had become a man of prayer. Before I the church was half empty of its worshippers the organist | would be kneeling in a dark corner of the gallery, seeking I consolation from a never-failing source; praying for pardon | of the foolish fondness that had wrought such ruin to his child; praying for the salvation of his son’s soul at whatever cost. ■ Late one night he sat in his solitary dining-room, .1 apidly scanning the papers of the day. He had begun to find a melancholy interest in running through the columns of the daily and weekly journals, on the chance of seeing some notice of his son’s performances; experiencing a cer- | tain .sad excitement in following Ambrose in his travels from; one city to another, and sometimes from the United States to Europe and back again. To-night, however, the papers contained nothing that specially interested or concerned him, and he was about to put them aside and retire to llß bedroom, when, in the very act of folding a sheet of a New York paper, his eye was caught by a paragraph that he had overlooked. ■ It was only a late telegram announcing I a serious railway accident in the West. Reading it half mechanically he came to a line which almost stopped the beating of his heart. ‘ Signor Saulini is among the seriously injured.’ Wcsif 11 llolU later tlie Pressor was in the mail cars going

A tnll Month passed away before the professor returned to n i, home. When he did so he was accompanied by a tall, but tottering young man, who had to be assisted in getting out of the cab and almost carried into his father’s house. The left sleeve of Ambrose’s coat hung limp and empty; his left arm had been amputated shortly, after .the accident. It is hard to say if joy or sorrow preponderated in the fathers breast at this strange home-coming of his son; it is certain, however, that before many months were over, in the soul of both father and son a subdued gladness was lord of all. • & . . Yet the day came when the penitent prodigal caused his father a passing pang at what the latter mistook for a sign of restlessness. - . . •. . , £ You cannot possibly keep me here, father! ’ Ambrose had said. . . ... But, my dear child, where would you * go, and what can you possibly do ’ •

I ought to shift for myself, I think. Of course I can never hold a violin again; still I might, perhaps, give lessons or—or something.’ He stopped as he saw his father’s eyes filling with tears. - < Surely, surely, my boy, you will never leave me again i i But—l am ashamed to say it, father—l have saved absolutely nothing.’ , ‘ And what of that, my dear lad? : You know that I am not a poor man. There is enough for both of —enough also tor you when lam gone. No, no, Ambrose! Proml,lß® you will never think of leaving me while I live.’ 1 lie father had risen from his chair, and was leaning over his son with an intensity of expression that made the young man grasp the elder’s hand and kiss it again and again. My dear father,’ he cried, through his tears, ‘ I am a worthless - and despicable w r ret ;h, but lam still yours—if you will have me and God’s.’ t i x ln the evening of the old organist’s life there was much light and peace. The scourge of the Angel of Penance had fallen heavily indeed upon father and son alike, but with the healing of their wounds came joy and happiness to both. Two more loving and devoted men never tried to make each other’s life bright and beautiful. In this they could scarcely have failed, for the wellspring of all their happiness as the mercy and love of a forgetting and forgiving God. The organ gallery at the Angels’ church became to the processor and Ambrose a second home; the devout rendering of the church’s services their chief employment. As time went on, Ambrose found to his delight that the loss of the left arm did not render organ-playing impossible, especially now that the mechanical limb, ..with which he had been provided, was at least available for pushing in a stop, or holdmg an occasional note. When, therefore, increasing age and feebleness made the duty a burden to the professor, Ambrose was held to be fully capable of retaining the appointment. 1 Many of the father’s pupils, too, were gradually transferred to the son, and thus all anxiety for the latter’s future was completely removed. . One Sunday afternoon, after returning home from a great function the Church of the Holy Angels was keeping its dedication festival that —the professor was sitting a the piano in his drawing-room, recalling fragments of the morning s music, while Ambrose was bending over a scrap of paper alternately thinking and writing. Suddenly the father struck a great final chord and left the piano, saying in an undertone; : How paltry is the: music-of earth angels p 6 0116 lln^s °f the ravishing harmony of the ‘ What are you saying about the angels, father ? ’ Ambrose asked, putting down his pen. Why, my dear, I was just thinking .the angels in the church must find our music intolerable after—well, after the harmony they themselves produce.’ ‘ Nowadays, father, we seem to think in couples, so to Just listen to a little thought that came to me after High Mass, and which I have tried to put into verse— ,";

‘ Twas on a day of such magnificence As earth affords is ever freely given, In token and in loving evidence Of man’s dependency on the God of heaven.

1 While Music’s splendor stunned and overpower’d, Shaking the heart unto its very core; ’ ’Mid all the rain of scalding tears down showered, I cried “0 God of pity, spare me more!”

‘ My angel presence then I quick perceived; Looking on me with love he gently smiled Gazed upward while far heaven his look received, • Saw God; then, softly turning, said— “ Poor child ’

Ah! said the father, smiling through his tears, ‘that I fancy, is the sense in which we are “pitied of angels!” ’ —Messenger of the Sacred Heart. :.