The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 22, 17 June 1925, Page 3

The Storyteller

-• (By George Henry Miles.)

STlie Truee of God A TALE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

f' CHAPTER 111. Fit to govern ! ■ ;,--;, 7-.' No, not to live. 0 nation miserable, With an untitled tyrant, bloody-sceptred, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again ? - • - ■ Macbeth. The third Friday after Gilbert bad been wounded, he mounted his horse, and, accompanied by Father Omehr, set out for the Castle of Hers, which lay some four leagues distant to the south. "You are sad, Father," said the youth, who felt all the exhilaration of returning strength, heightened by the freshness of the morning. "It is true, my son ; for though in all the trials of this pilgrimage 1. endeavor to turn to God the cheerful face lie loves to see in affliction, I am sometimes weak enough to tremble at the gloomy period before us. We are upon the eve of a tremendous struggle. You may not be aware of it, for you are Unaccustomed to watch events which govern the future for good or evil; but the firmness of our Holy Father, and the increasing recklessness and impiety of the emperor, must create an earthquake sooner or later." "My father," replied Gilbert, "has imputed to his Holiness a want of firmness.'' "Alas, with how little reason ! lie who, when seized by C'encius and his armed assassins at the altar of St. Mary Major—bruised, and dragged by the hair to the castle of ' his assailant —yet remained calm and unmoved, with the face of an angel, neither imploring mercy nor attempting an ineffectual resistancecannot be accused of a want of firmness. The matchless benevolencethe heart which melts at the first symptom of repentancethe clemency which led him, while his wounds were yet fresh, to pardon Cencius, prostrate at his —have also induced him to hearken to the promises of King 'Henry and accept his contrition." "But is it not almost folly to trust the royal hypocrite to whom Suabia pays so heavy a tribute? I wish that when his infant majesty fell in the Rhine, there had been no Count Ecbert nigh to rescue him!" "Is it not rather an exalted charity, of which you have no conception, and a Christian forgiveness which puts to shame your last ungenerous wish?" "I can have no sympathy or pity for him who has loaded with insult a princess alike distinguished for beauty and virtue." "You mean the queen, his wife. But tell me, when he endeavored to procure a divorce from Bertha, who prevented the criminal separation? Was it the boasted chivalry of Suabia? No! Peter Damian, the Pope's legate, alone opposed the angry monarch, and told him, in the presence of all his courtiers, that ' his designs were disgraceful

to. a kingstill more disgraceful to a Christian that he should blush' to commit a crime he • would punish in another; and that, unless he renounced his iniquitous pro* ject, he would incur the denunciation of the Church and the severity of the holy canons.' The result was the reconcilement of Henry with Ber-tha, in Saxony. And though Alexander was Pope, Peter received his instructions from Hildebrand. But there is a wide difference" between your hostility to Henry of Austria and the resistance of Gregory VII to his encroachments: your motives all flow from human considerations, and seek a human revenge; his, on the ontrary, proceed from the knowledge of his duty to God, and breathe forgiveness: you seek the king's destruction and your own aggrandisement Gregory, the king's welfare, and the independence and prosperity of the Christian Church." We will no longer continue a conversation which, to be intelligible to all, would require a more intimate acquaintance with the history of the times than can be obtained from the books in free circulation among us. Though Gregory VII has been reproached by all Protestants, and by some Catholics, with an undue assumption of temporal power and an unnecessary severity against Henry IV of Austria, it is certain that, in his own day, he was charged by many of his, own friends, particularly in Saxony and Suabia, with too tender a regard for a monarch who violated his most solemn engagements the moment he fancied he could do so with impunity, and whose court, already openly profligate, threatened to present the appearance of' an Eastern seraglio. A hasty glance at the prominent facts of the dispute will leave us in doubt whether' to admire most the dignified and Christian forbearance of the Pope while a hope of saving his adversary remained, or the Unwavering resolution he displayed, even to death in exile, when convinced that mercy to' the'king would be injustice to God.

No sooner had Gregory assumed the tiara, than he addressed letters to different persons, in which he assured them of his earnest desire to .unite with Henry in upholding the honor of the Church and the imperial dignity; to accomplish which lie would embrace the first opportunity of sending legates to Henry, to acquaint the king with his views. •But, while proffering his love, he declared that, if Henry should venture to offer God insult instead of honor, he would not fail in his duty to the Divine Head of the Church through fear of offending man. So in a letter to Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, who at that time was known to be secretly hostile to the king, Gregory declared that he entertained no ill-feeling whatever for Henry, hut simply desired to do his duty. There were two evils which Gregory -wis

esolved to extirpate: lay investitures, and lie incontinence r of the clergy. While the tower '^r appointing ;: to the • benefices was SppdJW the civil power, the emperor was I to fill the highest places in his gift |p creatures of his own. The inevitable |3sult, of. this . was to create two classes of ►relates—one of- lay, the other of ecclesiasical investiture. Its ultimate effect was to ender the Church completely dependent ipon the State, and to change and corrupt is very source with the varying vices of ibertine despots. It was found (and how ould it be otherwise?) that the proteges of he emperor studied only how to please him ; Hid that, in serving the State ami the >rince, they became indifferent to the Jlmrcli. Selected to serve a. particular purlose, or chosen in consideration of a valuiblo donation, the lay nominee had been are to fulfil the object for which he was levated, or to indulge the avarice or amotion which had craved the appointment, t was in attempting to remedy this fatal nnovation that Gregory found himself repeatedly thwarted by Henry ; and yet he has been censured by those who lament the vorklliness of a portion of the medieval •lergy, for striking at the root of the evil. After repeated provocation, the arm of the Pope is uplifted to strike; but Henry, iwed by his menaces, and by an insurrection in Saxony, hastens to avert the blow by an tirireserved submission and the fairest promises. He confesses, not only to have meddled in ecclesiastical matters, but to have unjustly stripped,churches of their pastors —to have .sold them to unworthy objects j;uir&; of simony, whose very ordination was questionable —and implores the Pope to befein the reform with the Cathedral of Milan, which is in schism by his fault.

[ Gregory pardons him; and, in 1074, holds [his first council at "orae against simony r-. v. and, the incontinence of the clergy. It was jin this year that Henry, already pressed by '-.he.Saxons and Thuringians, found himself threatened by Salomon, King of Hungary. In v this emergency, he has recourse to Gregory, who, ,by an eloquent letter, calms the indignant . Hungarian.

With the year following, the campaign against Saxony begins. This brave but turbulent people had risen against the towns fin possession of Henry, and burned the magnificent Cathedral at Hartzburg. Here again the Pope secured to the king the powerful assistance of Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, in conjunction with whom the royal army obtains a decisive victory at Hohenburg. ' But once in security and crowned with - success, the graceless monarch forgets his submission, and exclaims, "It does not befit a hero, who has vanquished a warlike people, struggling in defence of what they hold most sacred, to bow humbly down before a, priest, whose only weapon is his |tongu»J" Faithless to his recorded vow in Sfee l-ftW' of danger, he nominates Henry, ;3^»h'of Verdun. to fill the see vacated by IBishop of Liege; and, soon after, calls J* see of Milan, Theobald, his own chapJ%' in place of the murdered Herlembaud. jfus repeatedly deceived, Gregory ; must jFiike at last, or sacrifice the independence

of the Church of God to human weakness.

i It I was in the pause between these new indignities and the consecration of Hidolpho in the Archbishopric of Cologne, that Father Omehr and Gilbert rode slowly on toward the Castle of Hers.

The conversation naturally turned from the consideration of impending evils, to the miserable feud actually existing between the two houses of Hers and Stramen.

“I sincerely wish it were ended,” said Gilbert, in reply to a vehement denunciation just pronounced by his companion. “I could willingly forgive all the injuries I have received at their-hands, when I remember the kindness of the Lady Margaret.”

- The priest looked quickly up in the young man’s face, but Gilbert was gazing with an abstracted air upon the blue outline of the beautiful Lake of Constance/ which just began to appear to the south.

“It were far better,” he said, commanding the youth’s attention by taking his hand —“it were far better to forgive them when you remember the prayer of your dying Jesus for His persecutors, than out of gratitude to the ordinary courtesy of a pitying damsel.” Gilbert made no direct reply, nor did he return the glance of his friend, which he well knew was upon him.

“I could wish,” ho began, after a considerable pause, “before leaving your hospitable roof, to have expressed to the Lady Margaret my deep sense of the interest she deigned to display in my regard, and which I fear has done more to soften my feelings toward her father, than the nobler and holier motive you have mentioned.”

There was a humility in this that pleased the good missionary ; but he saw until pain, and uneasiness the direction which the ardent mind of the youth was evidently taking, and instantly rejoined:

“Did you know the Lady Margaret better, you would spare yourself that regret. In her charitable attention to your wants, she overcame a natural repugnance to yourself. She would rather miss than receive any return you can make, and is always more inclined to set a proper value upon the solid and eternal recompense of God, than attach any importance to the empty and interested gratitude of man.”

(Gilbert's eyes were bent again upon .1110 Lake of Constance. They were now at. the foot of a long, high hill, which they began to ascend in silence. Gilbert pressed his horse rather swiftly up the gradual ascent, and they soon gained the summit. ''What is the Danube to that splendid lake!'' cried the mercurial stripling; "and what is there in all the lordship of Stramcn to vie with this!" The view now opened might excuse his excitement, even in a less interested person. The Castle of Hers, though built for strength, presented a very different appearance from that of Stramen ; its outline was light and graceful, and it seemed rather to lift up than cumber the tall hill that it so elegantly crowned. It was situated upon the border of the lake, which, by trouvere and troubadour, in song and in verse, in every age and in every clime, has been so justly celebrated. 'A few miles to the- south-west the mighty

Rhino came tumbling in; who, as the Gorman poets say, scorns to mingle his mountain ; stream. with the : quiet waters of the lake. Wo will attempt no further description, for fear of spoiling a finer picture, which must already exist in the eye of the reader, created by more skilful hands.

As the horsemen neared the castle, they saw a knight, followed by a few men, dashing (down the hill. Gilbert knew his father, and hastened to meet him. Their meeting was manly and cordial. The baron stopped but to embrace his son, and hastened to welcome Father Omehr. He dismounted, and imprinted a kiss upon the old man’s still vigorous hand.

“I should be childless now,” he said, “but for your kindness; and you know that words would but mock my feelings.”

The tears in the baron’s eyes expressed more than a long oration.

Father Omehr only replied, with a laugh, “You must blame your son’s indiscretion, and not applaud me!” Thus saved from a formal and unsatisfactory conversation, the knight remounted his horse and led the way to the castle.

Upon the slope of the bill, half-way between the castle and the lake, was a chapel built of white stone, which had stood there, according to tradition, .from the ninth century. It was said to have been erected by Charlemagne, on his second expedition against the Saxons. The Baron of Hers had ornamented and repaired it with much taste and at great expense, until it was celebrated throughout the circle of Suabia for its richness and elegance. It had been dedicated to Mary the Morning Star, as appeared from a statue of the Blessed Virgin surmounted with a star, and was called the Pilgrim's Chapel. It was in charge of Herman, a priest, who had studied at Monte Cassino under the Benedictines, with Father Omehr, whom he loved as a brother. They had spent their period of training and had been ordained together; and for forty years theydiad labored in the same vineyard, side by side, yet seldom meeting. When they did meet, however, it was with the joy and chastened affection which only the pure-minded and truly religious can know; and they would recall with tears of happiness the scenes of other days the splendid convent, whose church shone like a grotto of jewels and precious stones-the learned and devout monk, and the theological difficulties over which they had triumphed band in hand. (To be continued.)