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WHAT HE BELIEVED
We are not obliged to sound the Bishop of D---- on the score
of orthodoxy.
In the presence of such a soul we feel ourselves in no mood
but respect.
The conscience of the just man should be accepted on his word.
Moreover, certain natures being given, we admit the possible
development of all beauties of human virtue in a belief that differs
from our own.
What did he think of this dogma, or of that mystery?
These secrets of the inner tribunal of the conscience are
known only to the tomb, where souls enter naked.
The point on which we are certain is, that the difficulties
of faith never resolved themselves into hypocrisy in his case.
No decay is possible to the diamond. He believed to the extent
of his powers.
"Credo in Patrem," he often exclaimed.
Moreover, he drew from good works that amount of satisfaction
which suffices to the conscience, and which whispers to a man,
"Thou art with God!"
The point which we consider it our duty to note is, that outside
of and beyond his faith, as it were, the Bishop possessed an excess
of love.
In was in that quarter, quia multum amavit,--because he loved
much--that he was regarded as vulnerable by "serious men,"
"grave persons" and "reasonable people"; favorite
locutions of our sad world where egotism takes its word of command
from pedantry. What was this excess of love?
It was a serene benevolence which overflowed men, as we have
already pointed out, and which, on occasion, extended even to
things.
He lived without disdain. He was indulgent towards God's creation.
Every man, even the best, has within him a thoughtless harshness
which he reserves for animals. The Bishop of D---- had none of
that harshness, which is peculiar to many priests, nevertheless.
He did not go as far as the Brahmin, but he seemed to have
weighed this saying of Ecclesiastes:
"Who knoweth whither the soul of the animal goeth?"
Hideousness of aspect, deformity of instinct, troubled him
not, and did not arouse his indignation.
He was touched, almost softened by them. It seemed as though
he went thoughtfully away to seek beyond the bounds of life which
is apparent, the cause, the explanation, or the excuse for them.
He seemed at times to be asking God to commute these penalties.
He examined without wrath, and with the eye of a linguist
who is deciphering a palimpsest, that portion of chaos which still
exists in nature.
This revery sometimes caused him to utter odd sayings.
One morning he was in his garden, and thought himself alone,
but his sister was walking behind him, unseen by him:
suddenly he paused and gazed at something on the ground; it
was a large, black, hairy, frightful spider.
His sister heard him say:--
"Poor beast!
It is not its fault!"
Why not mention these almost divinely childish sayings of
kindness? Puerile they may be; but these sublime puerilities were
peculiar to Saint Francis d'Assisi and of Marcus Aurelius.
One day he sprained his ankle in his effort to avoid stepping
on an ant. Thus lived this just man.
Sometimes he fell asleep in his garden, and then there was
nothing more venerable possible.
Monseigneur Bienvenu had formerly been, if the stories anent
his youth, and even in regard to his manhood, were to be believed,
a passionate, and, possibly, a violent man.
His universal suavity was less an instinct of nature than
the result of a grand conviction which had filtered into his heart
through the medium of life, and had trickled there slowly, thought
by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock, there may exist
apertures made by drops of water. These hollows are uneffaceable;
these formations are indestructible.
In 1815, as we think we have already said, he reached his
seventy-fifth birthday, but he did not appear to be more than
sixty.
He was not tall; he was rather plump; and, in order to combat
this tendency, he was fond of taking long strolls on foot; his
step was firm, and his form was but slightly bent, a detail from
which we do not pretend to draw any conclusion.
Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect and
smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad bishop.
Monseigneur Welcome had what the people term a "fine
head," but so amiable was he that they forgot that it was
fine.
When he conversed with that infantile gayety which was one
of his charms, and of which we have already spoken, people felt
at their ease with him, and joy seemed to radiate from his whole
person.
His fresh and ruddy complexion, his very white teeth, all
of which he had preserved, and which were displayed by his smile,
gave him that open and easy air which cause the remark to be made
of a man, "He's a good fellow"; and of an old man, "He
is a fine man."
That, it will be recalled, was the effect which he produced
upon Napoleon.
On the first encounter, and to one who saw him for the first
time, he was nothing, in fact, but a fine man.
But if one remained near him for a few hours, and beheld him
in the least degree pensive, the fine man became gradually transfigured,
and took on some imposing quality, I know not what; his broad
and serious brow, rendered august by his white locks, became august
also by virtue of meditation; majesty radiated from his goodness,
though his goodness ceased not to be radiant; one experienced
something of the emotion which one would feel on beholding a smiling
angel slowly unfold his wings, without ceasing to smile.
Respect, an unutterable respect, penetrated you by degrees
and mounted to your heart, and one felt that one had before him
one of those strong, thoroughly tried, and indulgent souls where
thought is so grand that it can no longer be anything but gentle.
As we have seen, prayer, the celebration of the offices of
religion, alms-giving, the consolation of the afflicted, the cultivation
of a bit of land, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, renunciation,
confidence, study, work, filled every day of his life.
Filled is exactly the word; certainly the Bishop's day was
quite full to the brim, of good words and good deeds.
Nevertheless, it was not complete if cold or rainy weather
prevented his passing an hour or two in his garden before going
to bed, and after the two women had retired. It seemed to be a
sort of rite with him, to prepare himself for slumber by meditation
in the presence of the grand spectacles of the nocturnal heavens.
Sometimes, if the two old women were not asleep, they heard
him pacing slowly along the walks at a very advanced hour of the
night.
He was there alone, communing with himself, peaceful, adoring,
comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the ether,
moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor of the constellations
and the invisible splendor of God, opening his heart to the thoughts
which fall from the Unknown. At such moments, while he offered
his heart at the hour when nocturnal flowers offer their perfume,
illuminated like a lamp amid the starry night, as he poured himself
out in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation,
he could not have told himself, probably, what was passing in
his spirit; he felt something take its flight from him, and something
descend into him.
Mysterious exchange of the abysses of the soul with the abysses
of the universe!
He thought of the grandeur and presence of God; of the future
eternity, that strange mystery; of the eternity past, a mystery
still more strange; of all the infinities, which pierced their
way into all his senses, beneath his eyes; and, without seeking
to comprehend the incomprehensible, he gazed upon it.
He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.
He considered those magnificent conjunctions of atoms, which
communicate aspects to matter, reveal forces by verifying them,
create individualities in unity, proportions in extent, the innumerable
in the infinite, and, through light, produce beauty. These conjunctions
are formed and dissolved incessantly; hence life and death.
He seated himself on a wooden bench, with his back against
a decrepit vine; he gazed at the stars, past the puny and stunted
silhouettes of his fruit-trees. This quarter of an acre, so poorly
planted, so encumbered with mean buildings and sheds, was dear
to him, and satisfied his wants.
What more was needed by this old man, who divided the leisure
of his life, where there was so little leisure, between gardening
in the daytime and contemplation at night?
Was not this narrow enclosure, with the heavens for a ceiling,
sufficient to enable him to adore God in his most divine works,
in turn?
Does not this comprehend all, in fact? and what is there left
to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to walk, and immensity
in which to dream. At one's feet that which can be cultivated
and plucked; over head that which one can study and meditate upon:
some flowers on earth, and all the stars in the sky.
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