- end_line
- 9151
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9082
- text
- BOOK XIV.
THE JOURNEY AND THE PAMPHLET.
I.
All profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by
Silence. What a silence is that with which the pale bride precedes the
responsive _I will_, to the priest's solemn question, _Wilt thou have
this man for thy husband?_ In silence, too, the wedded hands are
clasped. Yea, in silence the child Christ was born into the world.
Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the
invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world.
Silence is at once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all
nature. It speaks of the Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only
Voice of our God.
Nor is this so august Silence confined to things simply touching or
grand. Like the air, Silence permeates all things, and produces its
magical power, as well during that peculiar mood which prevails at a
solitary traveler's first setting forth on a journey, as at the
unimaginable time when before the world was, Silence brooded on the face
of the waters.
No word was spoken by its inmates, as the coach bearing our young
Enthusiast, Pierre, and his mournful party, sped forth through the dim
dawn into the deep midnight, which still occupied, unrepulsed, the
hearts of the old woods through which the road wound, very shortly after
quitting the village.
When first entering the coach, Pierre had pressed his hand upon the
cushioned seat to steady his way, some crumpled leaves of paper had met
his fingers. He had instinctively clutched them; and the same strange
clutching mood of his soul which had prompted that instinctive act, did
also prevail in causing him now to retain the crumpled paper in his hand
for an hour or more of that wonderful intense silence, which the rapid
coach bore through the heart of the general stirless morning silence of
the fields and the woods.
His thoughts were very dark and wild; for a space there was rebellion
and horrid anarchy and infidelity in his soul. This temporary mood may
best be likened to that, which--according to a singular story once told
in the pulpit by a reverend man of God--invaded the heart of an
excellent priest. In the midst of a solemn cathedral, upon a cloudy
Sunday afternoon, this priest was in the act of publicly administering
the bread at the Holy Sacrament of the Supper, when the Evil One
suddenly propounded to him the possibility of the mere moonshine of the
Christian Religion. Just such now was the mood of Pierre; to him the
Evil One propounded the possibility of the mere moonshine of all his
self-renouncing Enthusiasm. The Evil One hooted at him, and called him a
fool. But by instant and earnest prayer--closing his two eyes, with his
two hands still holding the sacramental bread--the devout priest had
vanquished the impious Devil. Not so with Pierre. The imperishable
monument of his holy Catholic Church; the imperishable record of his
Holy Bible; the imperishable intuition of the innate truth of
Christianity;--these were the indestructible anchors which still held
the priest to his firm Faith's rock, when the sudden storm raised by the
Evil One assailed him. But Pierre--where could _he_ find the Church, the
monument, the Bible, which unequivocally said to him--"Go on; thou art
in the Right; I endorse thee all over; go on."--So the difference
between the Priest and Pierre was herein:--with the priest it was a
matter, whether certain bodiless thoughts of his were true or not true;
but with Pierre it was a question whether certain vital acts of his were
right or wrong. In this little nut lie germ-like the possible solution
of some puzzling problems; and also the discovery of additional, and
still more profound problems ensuing upon the solution of the former.
For so true is this last, that some men refuse to solve any present
problem, for fear of making still more work for themselves in that way.
- title
- Chunk 1