Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

li THE VISION OF OLD ANDREW THE WEA VER.
"And would yon then," again nskfd Andrew, "leave heaved
and all this glory that is shining about you, to be again as
poor as you were before ?"
"Yes," was the triumphant reply, "if Jesus wills it, and
there are eouls to save," and again a ray of intense glory camo
down from above to play around his brow.
"
Well," said Andrew, rather talking to himself than to the
sainted man before him, "this beats all I have ever dreamed
of. Why, here have I been wishing these forty or fifty years,
to get rid of poverty, as the greatest of all evils ; while a saint
in heaven rejoices at having been poor, and likes it so well,
that he has no objection to be poor again.
I can't understand
it. It may be that a man who has been poor once, and has got
rich, may like to think and talk about it, though that ain't the
way with all but for him to want to be ; poor again ! That gets
over me. And were you always poor ?" he asked abruptly.
For a moment the saint bowed his head even lower than before,
as if unwilling to reply. But the angels seemed to whis-
per, " Do not hesitate ! There is no fear of pride in heaven I
In telling of thy virtues, thou dost but glorify Him who gave
thee strength to do them,"
Obedient to the suggestion, though still with some embarrass-
ment, and in a lower tone, he answered, " It is not indeed expedient,
but for your sake, I will confess, that I was
not always poor. Indeed, I was nobly born and
softly bred. I abounded in power and dignity. I had
much gold and wide lands, and many men to wait upon
me. But I heard the words of the wisest of teachers, ' if thou
wilt be perfect, leave all and follow me.' I saw Him, though
Lord of all things, choosing for Himself the lowest and poorest
tate ; and, helped by His graces, I tried to do the like : and I
know the experience of centuries has taught it to me that the
more we resemble Him on earth, the nearer do we approach to
Him in Heaven and ; every privation we endure for the love of
Him, and every year, or day, or hour we pass in pain or pover-
ty for the love of Him, is requited by our overwhelming increase
of glory. I know what He has given me for the few years He
permitted me to spend in my poor cell. Eternal thanks to Him
i'jr having let mo count BO many. If then He offer to me now
i ,f these precious years, shall I not, both for the love of
wiiat He has loved, and that I may add fresh brightness to my
everlasting crown, 1 ah&ll I not gladly embrace the opportu-
nity ?" ^
Andrew oould not but feel affected by
the fervor of these
laet words, still he was unwilling to give up his argument ; and
something which his saint!/ Instructor had said, seemed to give
him courage to proceed.
" I begin to understand something of your history now. I
ft having road about great and rich men, who have re-
nounced their di;^ui1ieB and gone into a monastery. And ;
m your coll, I suppose you were one of thcae. I don't
ay that it was'nt a great sacrifice ; bnt I have always born laid
what a happy life, after all, is the monk's. And so I think it
must be. To be shut out from the cares and temptations of the
world ; to have nothing to do all day long, but to serve God
and say one's prayers ; for any one who has a lilting that way,
I am sure there couldn't be anything more pleasant.
At any
rate it's very different from the workhouse, where I am to go
to-morrow ; I know, that, to escape it, I would go into the poorest
monastery that ever was."
"You mistake, greatly brother," did the good monk reply,
" if you fancy that the walls of a monastery can shut out care and
temptation. There are enough of those to be met with everywhere.
Still more do you mistake, if you suppose, that to the
nobleman of my days, who was in reality the king of his
neighborhood, it was any thing but a most serious sacrifice, to
give up his liberty for the confinement and strict obedience of
the cloister, his riches for its poverty, his pleasures for its
austerities. Not that I wish you to believe, that in my own
case the sacrifice cost much. Besides, the world often broke
in upon our peacefulness, and bad men, who had the power
often sought to despoil us of the little that was left to us, and
to drive us from our cells, humble and wretched as they were.
We too, on the other hand, had often to mingle with the world,
to preach against its follies, and strive against its wickedness. "
" O !
you were a priest too, and a preacher were you ?" said
Andrew, interrupting him, " that would make the matter still
easier. For priests are always honored ; and have many a
consolation in their ministry.
How do not their people love
and reverence them 1 How grateful to them are those whom
they have converted. I know how I love Father Peter, and he
has often said to me that my gratitude helped to repay him for
the anxieties of his office. Perhaps he only said it to please
found more happiness in poverty and humiliation, than I had
ever done in riches and in honor. What I did then, if such be
His will, I am ready to do again."
Andrew gazed at him in still greater astonishment. He was
almost at his wit's end for something else to say, yet he could
not altogether get over his incredulity. Of a sudden a new
thought seemed to strike him, for he exclaimed, " But, Sir, excuse
me if I make too free, but I think you mistake the thing.
You may, perhaps as you say, have been happier in poverty
than you were before in riches, though I don't quite understand
even that. But, you can't fancy that you would be happier if
you were as poor as I "
am, than you now are in heaven,
" It was not," he
"
replied, because I thought that I should
be happier, that I chose poverty, though afterwards I found
8uch to be the reward of my choice. No ! I only wished the
more perfectly to follow Jesus, and so, at some future time
when He should appoint, to possess real happiness. And now,
if i were permitted to return to earth, I should not look to be
Lappior than I am at present but it is the love of Him whom
;
now I know even as I am known, makes me willing again to take
upon myself that humble state which He so loved, that I may
bo thus more and more like Him in His abjection. For now I
me, but anyhow he must be happy to be so loved. All !
believe me, Sir, such a life as this is very different from that
of a poor man like me ; again I say, it's very different to live as
you did, in a monastery, and to have to go to a Union Workhouse.
There were no Union Workhouses in your time, so you
can't know what they are ; if you did if you had tried one,
you would'nt be so ready to give up your fine caatle, much less
heaven, to go into one. No, no, you little know what a Union
Workhouse is."
"Be it what it may," answered the "
saint, for the love of
Jesus, and of the souls He died to save, I would encounter it. "
"What," asked Andrew, "and be locked up, and not allowed
to see any one of your friends, but once a week ?"
" Yes ! for I would remember that Jesus, with all His faculties
about Him, was locked up for nine mouths in His mother's
womb."
"Ah! but there's the bad food into the bargain, and little
enough of it !"
"Not BO nauseous still, I would think, as the gall and vinegar
which He was forced to drink,"
" 1 '
Well, then, the surly master and his brutal assistants I
urged Andrew.
" Not more surly or brutal surely than the Pharisees and
their assistants, the executioners who nailed Him to the cross,"
was the reply.
"But there's such wicked company in the Workhouse,"
Andrew again said, "and they are BO quarrelsome, ud so fond
of cursing and blaspheming."
"Not more so, I think," quietly rejoined the saint, "than
were the servants of the High Priest, and the Boman soldiers,
\?ho soruck Jesus on the face and head t.ucl quarrelled with Him
for His very meekness, and called Him & blasphemer."
"But to seem to be deserted by every one," said Andrew, as
a last resourse, "aye, even by God. No friends to console or
help one, no good priest to comfort one, no Mass, even on
Sundays, no time for prayer, unless you would be scoffed at
for ever by a lot of ignorant bigots, little chance of having the
sacraments even at the hour of death. Ah! iu yournion,'
you had Liud brothers ever ready to assist yen; und tha
Blessed Sacrnmeiit always near yi.n, ami !,
ings to console you ; how would you boax with such a change ?"
^