Lights and shadows of spiritualism

114 yElVISH AND CHRISTIAN ERAS.country sat amoug the judges ^Yho decided on ber murder ;theking and the nobles whom she had saved, the army which shehad led to victory, stirred not a step to save her. For thechieftains of England and France were equally enraged againstthe inspired shepherdess. Talbot, Bedford, and Burgundy werewrathful that, before this girl they, the successors to the victorof Agincourt, should have been forced to flee like sheep ;Charlesand Orleans chafed to think that they had approved themselvesmore timid soldiers, and less skilful generals, than a simplepeasant girl. French and English alike knew, indeed, that shehad done these things by a power not her own. They hadwitnessed her penetrating clairvoyance, they had beheld her ever}'prophecy fulfilled ; and when the brief and brilliant mission of thewonderful maid was accomplished ; when, after advancing almostto the Mediterranean, the invaders were beaten back to the shoresof the English Channel, her foes, having seized her, condemnedand slew her, as in league with devils, and her false friendsappeared, by their inaction and silence, to acquiesce in the truthof the verdict and the justice of the sentence. Neither jDartythought of recognising in the deliverance of France the hand ofGod. The doubtful sort of halo which hung around Joan preventedher recognition as a saint. Instead of wasting herexistence in a convent she rode at the head of armies. Instead ofthe sable garments of a nun, she wore the glittering armour of aknight. She was no tool of the Papacy, but an imtrument shapedby Heaven to accomplish the deliverance of her fatherland. Itwas scarcely possible that a corrupted Church could recognise inher one of the noblest of the daughters of God ; and the Churchheld true to its traditions. At first it denounced her as a servantof the Evil One, and when the sure changes of time had renderedthis policy unsound, and English and French were alike busy in"gleaning up into the golden urn of history" the ashes of herwhom their forefathers slew, the Church of Rome stood sullenlyaloof, and lent neither aid nor countenance to the work.A bishopof that Church had been one of the foremost among the murderersof Joan, and by Ilomish ecclesiastics the perjuries were sworn,