The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 13 November 1913, Page 5

The Storyteller

THE JEWELLED CROSS PART I. The train from Paris to Lourdes was packed with intending pilgrims to the famous shrine; —as varied a collection of human beings as it would be possible to find in the same railway carriages in any country. A party from Scotland occupied one compartment, under the guidance of a priest who had visited Lourdes on a previous occasion, and who pointed out various spots, as the train sped along, that were still fresh in his memory. A few Americans, as yet sceptical • about the miraculous cures at Lourdes which they had read of, and anxious to investigate matters for themselves—to be convinced either in belief or disbelief, —were also in the train, sufferers from various human ailments, who had been declared incurable by their medical advisers, were going to Lourdes as a last resort. There were epileptics in the party, people paralysed: persons who were obviously clasped tight in the grip of consumption ; some in the charge of relatives, others accompanied by professional nurses. One of them was a young lady suffering from paralysis. She occupied the whole of one of the carriage seats, and lay on a portable stretcher. Her face was very beautiful, notwithstanding the unmistakable pallor of an invalid. She was evidently wealthy, as two attendants travelled with her, one 'an elderly nurse, the other a man whose duties consisted in having her carried on her stretcher, as required. The evidences of wealth were not obtrusive, with the exception of one that was very conspicuous. This was a curiously inlaid cross of gold and ivory, suspended from a gold necklace, and studded thickly with precious stones, which flashed and scintillated with her slightest movement. She was chatting pleasantly with a new acquaintance, an American gentleman, who, as he talked, kept watching the sparkling cross with a lively interest. 'You are looking at my cross,' she said, smilingly. 'My father purchased it at a sale of antique jewellery in London, and gave it to me on my birthday. But he never told me what it cost.' _ ' I have some knowledge of gems, as T. happen to be in that business in New York,' the American responded. 'At a casual inspection, I'm inclined to say it cost more than a few thousand dollars, Miss.' ' I believe it did. It isn't any feeling of vanity that makes me wear it though.' She smiled "at his

first thought about it. being connected with its cash value, — like an American. ‘ I am going to present it to the shrine of our Lady when we reach Lourdes, if they will accept it for an ornament. I have started on this Pilgrimage with a strong hope that my prayers will be heard, and that I shall be cured. That I shall at least be cured, and become like other people,well and strong.’ ‘ Faith can move mountains, I have often heard,’ he said reflectively. 1 But I never saw so many evidences of hope and faith among people whose cases are apparently hopeless, as I see now in the many afflicted people like yourself, who are going on this pilgrimage in the full belief that our Lady of Lourdes will help them.’ This conversation did not attract general attention in the compartment as the' other passengers were conversing on various topics among themselves. The rattling noise of the train, and the general buzz of conversation, rendered the Jady’s confidences almost private. But there were two persons—a man and a woman— were sitting near, and ,who overheard the lady’s expressed intention of presenting the jewelled cross to the Shrine of our Lady at Lourdes. They had entered the train at Paris, but not as members of any pilgrimage party. They were, indeed, two clever continental thieves, who made a fine living by travelling with wealthy tourists, staying at the same hotels en route, and disappearing with any-money or jewellery they could lay their hands upon. On their arrival, the pilgrimage party occupied rooms already reserved for them, and the pair of adventurers took apartments at the same hotel. It was a morning of intense devotional fervor for all, when they made their first acquaintance with the world-famed shrine, and when the sufferers and stricken ones were conveyed there by their friends. High Mass was celebrated, and then began the application of the miraculous waters. And when night arrived, the previous Fist of cures at Lourdes had been added to it by a fresh remarkable case, authenticated so clearly as to silence all doubters. Miss Agnew, the young English lady, had been seized with a convulsive fit, she had screamed wildly and then swooned. When conveyed back to the hotel, she began to feel the return of physical movement where paralysis had hitherto kept her helpless; the doctors had seen her, and had testified that she was on the way to recovery. Quiet, meantime, was absolutely necessary ; and ’when she- fell asleep, even the nurse left the room, lest the slightest sound should interfere with the young lady’s rest. On the following day, only a few of the many eager inquirers were permitted to see her. They discovered that in the midst of her joy and thanksgiving, she had met with one great disappointment. She had lost the jewelled cross which she had so fondly hoped to present to the Shrine of our Lady. As to how, when, or where she had lost it, she could form no idea. Neither could the man nor the woman who were in attendance upon her. The cross and necklace had been locked away on her arrival in the hotel; and, during her absence at the shrine, the bag containing them, left in the locked bedroom and forgotten about in the excitement, had been opened by a duplicate or skeleton key, and the contents abstracted. Suspicion pointed towards the man and woman who had travelled with the pilgrimage: suspicion which became certainty when, . after inquiry, it was found that they had disappeared, without leaving a trace or clue.

Miss Agnew, growing stronger from day to day, preparing to return home to her delighted relatives in England who were pouring telegrams of congratulations upon her, began to regard the loss of her jewelled cross with more equanimity. She was wealthy, and could procure another one in Paris. Meantime there were many ways in which, she could testify her gratitude for her recovery. The most practical way would be to lighten a little the burdens of the poverty-stricken; of the deserving poor who lived in slums, and who struggled against hunger and disease. Her purse was ever open, and she eagerly sought out such cases as stood in need of a helping hand.

Arrived in Paris, she determined to stay there for some time, and to advertise for the jewelled cross she had lost, giving a minute description, and offering a reward for its return. To one of the priests whom she enlisted to help her in her charity-giving, she told the story. When he heard it, he smiled gravely. You wealthy people sometimes forget that our cities harbor hundreds of people who live by theft and fraud, and those who wear expensive jewellery in public places are sources of great temptation to such as don’t want to work honestly for a living,’ he said ‘ Hundreds of such trinkets are lost and never recovered; the police and detectives, clever as they are, fail in nine cases out of ten to trace stolen property on the Continent. But you have regained your physical powers, after, as you tell me, eminent specialists had told you you were incurableand for that much smaller favor, the return of your cross you may still hope.’ She returned to England some weeks later, and her wonderful cure was made the theme of much comment. Protestants derided the idea of any supernatural intervention, but. were confounded by the statements of eminent medical men that there was no accounting by the mere rules of medical or surgical science for a euro so marvellous.

Li Part 11. Several months afterwards, the priest in one of the outlying Catholic churches of Paris received an urgent call from a public hospital in his neighborhood. A man had been shot in an affray in a low quarter of the city, and had been conveyed to this hospital. The surgeon who attended to the case saw upon examination that there was no hope of the man's recovery, and asked if there were any message or last wishes he desired to leave during the few hours that were left to him. The dying man hesitated a moment, and then, in gasping whispers, he told a long story. It was a confession of a long career of law-breaking, principally thefts, in which he had been helped by many accomplices, but oftenest by a woman, who was as clever and daring a thief as himself. Tins woman and he had eventually quarrelled and she had left him, taking with her all their ill-gotten gains. These consisted principally of jewellery, and included a valuable cross which he had stolen from a hotel where the owner, a crippled lady, had been staying. ' I am sorry for my sins now, when I know I'm dying,' he wound up his narrative in a hopeless tone. ' But they are so many that they fill up all I can remember of a lifetime of fraud and crime, and I cannot hope that my dying repentance will bring me God's pardon. Now I'm going to meet Him —I know it, though I pretended I didn't believe in Him. And I'm afraid to meet Him— answer to Him for all my thefts, my lies, my ill-spent life. How can a few minutes' death-bed prayer bring pardon for all the years I, spent defying Him V 'Yes, it is hard to understand how He can so easily forgive, when you have defied Him, and scoffed at Him for so long/ said the priest gently. ' And yet—Christ on the cross told the hardened sinner who hung beside Him, "this day thou shalt be with He in Paradise.". And I have good news for you, as I shall be God's humble instrument of restitution. I know the lady from whom you stole the jewelled cross. Tell me where can I find this womanthe accomplice who left you?' «/ The man gave him the address of a room in a crime-infested quarter of the citya place of such notoriously dangerous character that even the police shunned it. ' She used to live there/ he continued huskily, as the priest took a note of the address. 'But it would be a dangerous place for you—a priest— go—' ' No place can be so dangerous as to deter a priest when There is work for him to do. Indeed, I know the place well/ said the priest. His duty done, he assigned to one of the Sisters who attended the hospital the task of watching over the man's last moments, and hurried off to the apartment house he had taken note of. It was certainly an uninviting quarter, where

poverty and vice held sway, from the dark alleys of which the Apaches and nightbrrds crept forth to pick up a desperate living in the only way they knew. But, beyond a few sneers at his garb and a few rough pleasantries, the priest suffered no molestation in his search, until he at last found himself in the apartment of the woman he sought. He knocked at the door, and getting no answer, he turned the handle and went in. A woman was lying on a worn mattress on the floor, tossing from side to side, and babbling to herself. He was too well acquainted with the wretchedness of the ' underworld ' of Paris not to know that she was in a pitiable prostration which comes after many doses of absinthe have done their work, and are followed by a drop to the lowest depths of physical and mental prostration. 'Why don't I sleep or if I cannot sleep, why don't I die at once?' she cried in a wailing tone, and then went on to address some person who was not there. ■' No! you old witch ; you're waiting to get it—to sell —if I die, or if I sleep. But you shan't have it! Who are you?' she shrieked, as the priest, stooping over her, took her hand. ' I want you to come with me at once to the hospital/ he said quietly. ' A man is lying there whom you know, and he wants to see you before he dies. He is the man you leftfrom whom you stole the cross.' ' The cross ? He stole it first—l only took it from a thief/ she cried excitedly. 'He wanted to sell it for his own pleasuresl stole it from him because I wanted to sell it for myself. Old Gaston deals, in them—he would pay me a thousand francs for it, and ask no questions as to how I got it. But I couldn't sell it! I've been starving for food; I've been raving wild for absinthe— it lay in my bosom all the time, waiting to be changed into money. But I couldn't sell it! Every time I've tried, and taken it from my breast, tHat cross has glittered into my eyes, as if to say, "You dare not part with me, you must return it to the woman—to her who wants to give it to our Lady's Shrine." It seems to burn into my flesh when I touch it. But I won't sell it, and I won't let you rob me of it!' . ' Listen to me.' His calm, slowly-uttered words seemed to quiet her paroxysm; and he proceeded to tell her the story of the lady who owned the cross, and of her cure. 'As the world would look at you, you are an unfortunate woman/ he went on, when he saw that he had quieted her, ' yet there must be some good in your naturegood that you yourself don't know of. I don't ask you to give me that cross. Stolen by your accomplice, and stolen again from —by you—it must now go back to the lady who had intended it for a higher, holier use than either of you dreamed of. I don't even promise you any reward for its returnnor, on the other hand, do I threaten you with law and prison if you refuse to give it up. But come with me —take that cross with you —and if you come quickly, you can speak to your accomplice before he is dead. Afterwards you can keep that cross until you give it, with your own hands, back to its owner. You saw her once, crippled and helpless. You will see her now, restored to health and movement—the result of her wonderful love and her faith in the goodness of God. How slfe will reward you I cannot say. But come, in the name of God, I ask you to come!' Her weak will was like wax under the powerful mastery of his tone; and before an hour, still miserable and shivering, she walked by his side to the hospital . The man was still living and conscious. In the shadow-land of coming death, he recognised her; and as she took the cross from the bosom of her dress and laid it on the coverlet, his eyes Tested upon it. 'The cross/ he whispered. 'Pretty as a toy, yet the emblem of the greatest suffering that man could invent to kill the mortal flesh that Jiid their God from their murderous eyes. "God?" — used to laugh at God; but God is more powerful than I imagined. I thought Him a shadow, a myth of the superstitious—for He was patient when I mocked Him. The cross of

Christ cruel death — nailed Him upon it, living, and left Him to die upon it. Aye! He showed. men how to die ’

'He bore His sufferings for you and for mefor all the millions who have since gone to Him, and for all the millions who are still to go,’ said the priest earnestly, as he held his own crucifix close to the dimming eyes, ‘Look at that! You are going to Him Who hung in untold agony on the cross till He died, that you and every other poor sinner might be saved from the punishment that sin brings with it. ‘ I’m goingto Him trusting in His Mercy.’ And before long, fortified by the priest’s ministrations, he had passed away. Miss Agnew got back her 'cross after some time, and Teamed, from the priest, the manner of its recovery. She heard about the man’s death, and learned further that the woman, stricken and repentant, had been taken into a refuge, to work out her redemption away from a world of sin and temptation which in time softened into a dim memory. And a little cross at Lourdes is a double memento —not only of a body cured, but also of a soul reclaimed. —Catholic Bulletin.