Dawn of All - Robert Hugh Benson (the read aloud family txt) 📗

new type of man who had at last conquered the world. It was not a superman that had been waited for so long, not a demigod armed with powers of light; not man raising himself above his stature, building towers on earthly foundations that should reach to heaven; but just man, utterly true to himself and his instincts, walking humbly before his God; looking for a city that has no foundations, coming down to him out of heaven. It was supernature, not superman; grace and truth transfiguring nature; not nature wrenching itself vainly towards the stature of grace. It was man who could suffer, who could reign; since he only who knows his weakness, dares to be strong. . . . Vicisti Galilaee!


(II)

Slowly then he had come to see that, as had been told him long before, the kingdoms of this world were already passing into the hands of a higher dominion--and this was the significance of this microcosm of those kingdoms that now lay before his bodily eyes.

There, opposite to him, in the blaze of sunlight, stood the throne that for a thousand years had faced the throne of the Fisherman, now as a dependant, now as a rebel--stable and fixed at last in its allegiance. Here beneath him lay London, the finest city in the world, where, if ever anywhere, had been tried the experiment of a religion resting on the strength of a national isolation instead of an universal supernationalism;--it had been tried, and found wanting. Beneath him lay his own cathedral, already blazing within like a treasure-cave, ready for its consummation, without, tranquil and strong; behind him the ancient Abbey once again in the hands of its children; far away to the right, seeming strangely near in this lucid atmosphere, hung, like a bubble, the great dome below which, as he knew, stood the first basilican altar in London, newly consecrated as a sign of its papal dignities and privileges. And beyond that again London; and yet again London, a wonderful white city, gleaming at a thousand points with cross and spire and dome and pinnacle, patched with green in square and park and open space--London come back again at last to her ancient faith and her old prosperity.

But this was not all.

For he knew and his imagination circled out wider and wider that he might take it in--he knew that Europe itself at last dwelt again with one mind in her house. There beyond the channel--across which ten minutes ago, as the thunder of guns had told him, the Arbiter of the World had come at last with his train of kings behind him--there lay the huge continent, the great plains of France, the forests of Germany, the giant tumbled debris of Switzerland, the warm and radiant coasts, the ancient world-stage of Italy, passionate Spain which never yet had wholly lost her love. There all lay, at one at last, each her own, with her own liberties and customs and traditions, yet each in the service of her neighbour, since each and all alike lay beneath the Peace of God.

Still wider fled his thought. . . . He saw to the southwards and far away westwards across the seas, how now this country, now that, flew its flag and administered its laws, yet how those flags all together saluted the Crossed Keys; how those laws, however diverse, bowed all together before the Law of Liberty; and how there, farther yet, already the gates of the East had rolled back, and how there peered out across half the world the patient seeking faces of those old children of earth, awakened at last to destinies greater than their own--awakened, not as men had once feared, by the thunder of Christian guns, but by the call of the Shepherd to sheep that were not of His Fold. . . .

So there the vision lay before him--this man who had lost his memory and had found a greater gift instead.

* * * * *


An old priest in the white fur of a canon came gently up the deck from behind. . . .

"Your Eminence . . ." he said, "they have signalled up the line. . . . I thought, perhaps----"

The new Cardinal started as one from a dream.

"What is it, Father Jervis? . . ."

The old man looked at him closely; then he laid his hand on his arm.

"Your Eminence, the King is waiting. Do you not remember? Your Eminence was to give the signal."

Beneath, like huge voices speaking a single word all at once, roared the old guns from the Tower and Greenwich and the palaces.

The Cardinal shook his head.

"I . . . I forget," he said; "I was thinking. . . . What am I to do?"

The old priest looked at him again earnestly, without speaking. Then he leaned forward closer still.

"Will your Eminence authorize me to give the signals?"

"Yes, yes, Father . . . anything. What am I to do? Have I to say anything?"

His eyes had a look of dawning terror in them as he glanced from side to side. The priest once again laid his hand on the lace-covered wrist and held it there steadily.

"Nothing at all, your Eminence. You have simply to sit still. I will arrange everything."

Still standing there, he turned slightly and made a sharp gesture behind the throne with his left hand. A bell sounded instantly. There was a moment's silence. Then once again a bell; and a chorus answered it.

Very slowly the Cardinal lifted his head, and saw before him the Royal barge sway ever so slightly, conscious himself that through his own vessel a vibration was beginning to run as the huge engines beneath moved into action. Again roared the guns far down the river, and, as the bellow ceased, from a thousand steeples broke out the clamour of brazen tongues. . . .

He sat still; he knew at least that this he must do. . . . Surely this obscurity of brain would pass again in a moment. He was going to meet the Holy Father, was he not? . . . down there, down that road of light and air, along which now his great barge floated side by side with the King's. That was it. He remembered again now as his memory flickered in glimpses. This was the great Progress round the world of the new Arbiter of the World, the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, come into his Kingdom at last.

He kept his eyes steadily before him, scarcely seeing the flash of the river as it swept beneath him and away, or on all sides the dipping flags, the monstrous gilded prows, the bravery of colour, down this broad road on which he went, scarcely conscious that, as he passed, the great barges wheeled behind him to follow to the meeting; scarcely hearing the tremendous music that, sweeping up from the crowded streets below, wafted up to him the adoration of a free people who had learned at last that the Law of Liberty was the Law of Love. . . .

Ah! there at last they came. . . .

Far down, rising every instant higher above the summer haze, outlined against a heaven of intensest blue, approached a cloud that sparkled as it came, that broke into a thousand points of colour--a long, flat cloud, seen at first as a steamer stretched across the sky, curving down behind, as it seemed, into the haze from which it came. On and up it came, growing every instant, widening and deepening, ever more and more clear in colour and form and depth.

It could be seen now of what elements it was made--a throng of tiny specks, moving like stately birds, which, even as the eye watched, seemed to spread their wings upon the breeze that followed; to expand their bulk, and to glow, as the distance lessened, into the separate colours of each. . . .

Then once again bellowed the guns, heard now like the voice of articulate thunder five miles behind, rolling up the river as if to welcome this fleet upon its way; and still he kept his eyes upon those who came so swiftly.

There in front moved the great guard-ships, monsters of polished steel, decked at prow and stern with the huge banners that stood out straight behind in the swiftness of their coming, but which, even as he looked, flapped and bellied to this side and that as the speed decreased. Then, wheeling outwards, disclosing as they wheeled the insignia that each bore, the eagles of Germany, the lilies of France and the rest, the guard of thirty giants fell once more into line, half a mile apart, as those that followed came on, and waited; beating the air with the shimmer of their netted wings.

Then ship after ship came up, each wheeling in its turn and waiting, building now up with the speed of thought a vast semicircle, expanding ever more and more swiftly, as the watcher looked--himself halted now, with the royal barge on his right and his train of boats behind. There each in its turn passed the air-navies of the Great Powers, come to bring their Lord with honour on his progress through the world--vast armaments of inconceivable war, enrolled at last in the service of the Prince of Peace.

Then when the movement was complete, and there lay there across the burning blue of the sky, five hundred feet in air, this vast curve of glittering splendour, ten miles from horn to horn, on came the great fleet that they had escorted.

There, then, the watcher saw two by two, first the barges of the Papal Orders, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre with its five-fold cross, and the Golden Spur, leading--huge medieval galleons, carved at prow and stem, each bearing its insignia; then came couple after couple bearing the Papal Court, followed closely by great barges, each with its canopy and throne, and the coat of the Cardinal whom each bore flying overhead.

And then a glorious sight.

For, moving alone in a solid phalanx, each vessel separated only by the space necessary for close manoeuvring, came the royal barges of Europe, ranked on either side by a line of guard-boats--France, Austria, and Germany, then Belgium and Holland, then the Scandinavian kingdoms, then a crowd of lesser States from the Balkan, Greece, and the Black Sea; then the black-eagled barge of Russia, and finally the great galleons of Spain and Italy: and on each sat a royal figure beneath a canopy of state. And last of all moved a huge vessel, in scarlet and white, with a banner of white and gold and cross-keys at the prow; scarcely seen at first through the crowding craft, with a squadron of guard-ships coming after.

There, then, the man who had lost his memory sat motionless, and watched it all--this astounding display of inner grace transformed into glory at last, that Royalty which since first the Fisherman took his seat in Holy Rome, had little by little, through reverse and success, forced its way outwards on the world--the leaven hid in the meal till all was leavened. . . . And it seemed to him as he looked, as if, through the splendour of the midday sun, the glitter of that sea of air-craft--through the pealing of the bells beneath and the shock of the guns and the shrill crying that filled the air--there moved other Presences, too, in yet a third medium than those