The Book of Missionary Heroes - Basil Mathews (reading a book txt) 📗
- Author: Basil Mathews
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Soon, however, a third ship was making ready to sail. This time Lull was carried on board and refused to return.
The ship cast off and threaded its way through the shipping of the harbour out into the open sea.
"From this moment," said Lull, "I was a new man. All fever left me almost before we were out of sight of land."
VThe First Battle
Passing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward till at last she made the yellow coast of Africa, broken by the glorious Gulf of Tunis. She dropped sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of Goletta. Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short ancient canal to Tunis, the mighty city which was head of all the Western Mohammedan world.
He landed and found the place beside the great mosque where the grey-bearded scholars bowed over their Korans and spoke to one another about the law of Mohammed.
They looked at him with amazement as he boldly came up to them and said, "I have come to talk with you about Christ and His Way of Life, and Mohammed and his teaching. If you can prove to me that Mohammed is indeed the Prophet, I will myself become a follower of him."
The Moslems, sure of their case, called together their wisest men and together they declaimed to Lull what he already knew very well—the watchword that rang out from minaret to minaret across the roofs of the vast city as the first flush of dawn came up from the East across the Gulf. "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God."
"Yes," he replied, "the Allah of Mohammed is one and is great, but He does not love as does the Father of Jesus Christ. He is wise, but He does not do good to men like our God who so loved the world that He gave His Son Jesus Christ."
To and fro the argument swung till, after many days, to their dismay and amazement the Moslems saw some of their number waver and at last actually beginning to go over to the side of Lull. To forsake the Faith of Mohammed is—by their own law—to be worthy of death. A Moslem leader hurried to the Sultan of Tunis.
"See," he said, "this learned teacher, Lull, is declaring the errors of the Faith. He is dangerous. Let us take him and put him to death."
The Sultan gave the word of command. A body of soldiers went out, seized Lull, dragged him through the streets, and threw him into a dark dungeon to wait the death sentence.
But another Moslem who had been deeply touched by Lull's teaching craved audience with the Sultan.
"See," he said, "this learned man Lull—if he were a Moslem—would be held in high honour, being so brave and fearless in defence of his Faith. Do not slay him. Banish him from Tunis."
So when Lull in his dungeon saw the door flung open and waited to be taken to his death he found to his surprise that he was led from the dungeon through the streets of Tunis, taken along the canal, thrust into the hold of a ship, and told that he must go in that ship to Genoa and never return. But the man who had before been afraid to sail from Genoa to Tunis, now escaped unseen from the ship that would have taken him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. He said to himself the motto he had written:
LIVES BY THE LIFE CANNOT DIE."
He was not afraid now even of martyrdom. He hid among the wharves and gathered his converts about him to teach them more and more about Christ.
VIThe Last Fight
At last, however, seeing that he could do little in hiding, Lull took ship to Naples. After many adventures during a number of years, in a score of cities and on the seas, the now white-haired Lull sailed into the curved bay of Bugia farther westward along the African coast. In the bay behind the frowning walls the city with its glittering mosques climbed the hill. Behind rose two glorious mountains crowned with the dark green of the cedar. And, far off, like giant Moors wearing white turbans, rose the distant mountain peaks crowned with snow.
Lull passed quietly through the arch of the city gateway which he knew so well, for among other adventures he had once been imprisoned in this very city. He climbed the steep street and found a friend who hid him away. There for a year Lull taught in secret till he felt that the time had come for him to go out boldly and dare death itself.
One day the people in the market-place of Bugia heard a voice ring out that seemed to some of them strangely familiar. They hurried toward the sound. There stood the old hero with arm uplifted declaring, in the full blaze of the North African day, the Love of God shown in Jesus Christ His Son.
The Saracens murmured. They could not answer his arguments. They cried to him to stop, but his voice rose ever fuller and bolder. They rushed on him, dragged him by the cloak out of the market-place, down the streets, under the archway to a place beyond the city walls. There they threw back their sleeves, took up great jagged stones and hurled these grim messengers of hate at the Apostle of Love, till he sank senseless to the ground.[9]
It was word for word over again the story of Stephen; the speech, the wild cries of the mob, the rush to the place beyond the city wall, the stoning.[10]
Did Lull accomplish anything? He was dead; but he had conquered. He had conquered his old self. For the Lull who had, in a fit of temper, smitten his Saracen slave now smiled on the men who stoned him; and the Lull who had showed the white feather of fear at Genoa, now defied death in the market-place of Bugia. And in that love and heroism, in face of hate and death, he had shown men the only way to conquer the scimitar of Mohammed, "the way in which Christ and His Apostles achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears and blood."
[9] June 30. 1315.
[10] Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.
CHAPTER IV FRANCIS CŒUR-DE-LION (St. Francis of Assisi)A.D. 1181-1226
(Date of Incident, 1219)
The dark blue sky of an Italian night was studded with sparkling stars that seemed to be twinkling with laughter at the pranks of a lively group of gay young fellows as they came out from a house half-way up the steep street of the little city of Assisi.
As they strayed together down the street they sang the love-songs of their country and then a rich, strong voice rang out singing a song in French.
"That is Francis Bernardone," one neighbour would say to another, nodding his head, for Francis could sing, not only in his native Italian, but also in French.
"He lives like a prince; yet he is but the son of a cloth merchant,—rich though the merchant be."
So the neighbours, we are told, were always grumbling about Francis, the wild spendthrift. For young Francis dressed in silk and always in the latest fashion; he threw his pocket-money about with a free hand. He loved beautiful things. He was very sensitive. He would ride a long way round to avoid seeing the dreadful face of a poor leper, and would hold his nose in his cloak as he passed the place where the lepers lived.
He was handsome in face, gallant in bearing, idle and careless; a jolly companion, with beautiful courtly manners. His dark chestnut hair curled over his smooth, rather small forehead. His black twinkling eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was straight and finely shaped.
When he laughed he showed even, white, closely set teeth between thin and sensitive lips. He wore a short, black beard. His arms were shortish; his fingers long and sensitive. He was lightly built; his skin was delicate.
He was witty, and his voice when he spoke was powerful and sonorous, yet sweet-toned and very clear.
For him to be the son of a merchant seemed to the gossips of Assisi all wrong—as though a grey goose had hatched out a gorgeous peacock.
The song of the revellers passed down the street and died away. The little city of Assisi slept in quietness on the slopes of the Apennine Mountains under the dark clear sky.
A few nights later, however, no song of any revellers was heard. Francis Bernardone was very ill with a fever. For week after week his mother nursed him; and each night hardly believed that her son would live to see the light of the next morning. When at last the fever left him, he was so feeble that for weeks he could not rise from his bed. Gradually, however, he got better: as he did so the thing that he desired most of all in the world was to see the lovely country around Assisi;—the mountains, the Umbrian Plain beneath, the blue skies, the dainty flowers.
At last one day, with aching limbs and in great feebleness, he crept out of doors. There were the great Apennine Mountains on the side of which his city of Assisi was built. There were the grand rocky peaks pointing to the intense blue sky. There was the steep street with the houses built of stone of a strange, delicate pink colour, as though the light of dawn were always on them. There were the dark green olive trees, and the lovely tendrils of the vines. The gay Italian flowers were blooming.
Stretching away in the distance was one of the most beautiful landscapes of the world; the broad Umbrian Plain with its browns and greens melting in the distance into a bluish haze that softened the lines of the distant hills.
How he had looked forward to seeing it all, to being in the sunshine, to feeling the breeze on his hot brow! But what—he wondered—had happened to him? He looked at it all, but he felt no joy. It all seemed dead and empty. He turned his back on it and crawled indoors again, sad and sick at heart. He was sure that he would never feel again "the wild joys of living."
As Francis went back to his bed he began to think what he should do with the rest of his life. He made up his mind not to waste it any longer: but he did not see clearly what he should do with it.
A short time after Francis begged a young nobleman of Assisi, who was just starting to fight in a war, if he might go with him. The nobleman—Walter of Brienne, agreed: so Francis bought splendid trappings for his horse, and a shield, sword and spear. His armour and his horse's harness were more splendid than even those of Walter. So they went clattering together out of Assisi.
But he had not gone thirty miles before he was smitten again by fever. After sunset one evening he lay dreamily on his bed when he seemed to hear a voice.
"Francis," it asked, "what could benefit thee most, the master or the servant, the rich man or the poor?"
"The master and the rich man," answered Francis in surprise.
"Why then," went on the voice, "dost thou leave God, Who
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