The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley - Volume 3

PREFACE

These stories were not written at one time, nor were they intended for publication in book form. For the most part they were contributions to Extension Magazine, of which the author is Editor, and which is, above all, a missionary publication. Most of them, therefore, were intended primarily to be appeals, as well as stories. In fact, there was not even a remote idea in the author's mind when he wrote them that some day they might be introduced to other readers than those reached by the magazine itself. In fact, he might almost say that the real object of most of the stories was to present a Catholic missionary appeal in a new way. Apparently the stories succeeded in doing that, and a few of them were made up separately in booklets and used for the propaganda work of The Catholic Church Extension Society. Then came a demand for the collection, so the writer consented to allow the stories to appear in book form; hoping that, thus gathered together, his little appeals for what he considers the greatest cause in the world may win a few new friends to the ideas which gave them life and name.

FRANCIS CLEMENT KELLEY.

Chicago, Illinois, July 30, 1913.

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"Father Ramoni suddenly felt his joy congealing into a cold fear."

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CONTENTS

TITLESPAGE

The City and the World 1

The Flaming Cross 20

The Vicar-General 44

The Resurrection of Alta 53

The Man with a Dead Soul 67

The Autobiography of a Dollar 74

Le Braillard de la Magdeleine 82

The Legend of Deschamps 84

The Thousand Dollar Note 89

The Occasion 109

The Yankee Tramp 119

How Father Tom Connolly Began to Be a Saint 127

The Unbroken Seal 136

Mac of the Island 144

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THE CITY AND THE WORLD

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FATHER DENFILI, old and blind, telling his beads in the corner of the cloister garden, sighed. Father Tomasso, who had brought him from his confessional in the great church to the bench where day after day he kept his sightless vigil over the pond of the goldfish, turned back at the sound, then, seeing the peace of Father Denfili's face, thought he must have fancied the sigh. For sadness came alien to the little garden of the Community of San Ambrogio on Via Paoli, a lustrous gem of a little garden under its square of Roman sky. The dripping of the tiny fountain, tinkling like a bit of familiar music, and the swelling tones of the organ, drifting over the flowers that clustered beneath the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, so merged their murmurings into the peacefulness of San Ambrogio, that Father Tomasso, just from the novitiate, felt intensely that he knew he must have dreamed Father Denfili's sigh. For what could trouble the old man here in San Ambrogio on this, the greatest day of the Community?

For to-day Father Ramoni had returned to Rome. Even as Father Tomasso passed the fountain a group of Fathers and novices were gathering around one of the younger priests, who still wore his fereoula and wide-brimmed hat, just as he had entered from Via Paoli. The newcomer's eyes traveled joyously over his breathless audience, calling Father Tomasso to join in hearing his news.

"Yes, it is true," he was saying. "I have just come from the audience. Father General and Father Ramoni stopped to call at the Secretariate of State, but I came straight home to tell you. His Holiness was most kind, and Father Ramoni was not a mite abashed, even in the presence of the Pope. When he knelt down the Holy Father raised him up and gave him a seat. 'Tell me all about your wonderful people and your wonderful work,' he said. And Father Ramoni told him of the thousands he had converted and how easy it was, with the blessing of God, to do so much. The Holy Father asked him every manner of question. He was full of enthusiasm for the great things our Father Ramoni has done. He is the greatest man in Rome to-day, is Ramoni. He will be honored by the Holy See. The Pope showed it plainly. This is a red-letter day for our Community." The little priest paused for breath, then hastened on. "Rome knows that our Father Ramoni has come back," he cried, "and Rome has not forgotten ten years ago."

"Was it ten years that Father Ramoni passed in South America?" a tall novice asked Father Tomasso.

"Ten years," said Father Tomasso. "He was the great preacher of Rome when the old General"-he nodded toward the cloister corner where Father Denfili prayed-"sent him away from Rome. No one knew why. His fame was at its height. Men and women of all the city crowded the church to listen to him, and he was but thirty-four years old. But Father Denfili sent him away to Marqua, commanding the Superior of our Order out there to send him to those far-off mountain people of whom the papers were telling at that time. I did not know Father Romani well. I was a novice at the time. But I knew that he did not want to go from Rome; though, being a good religious, he obeyed. Now, see what has happened. He has converted over one-third of that people, and the rest are only waiting for missionaries."

"And the work is all Father Ramoni's?" the novice asked.

"All." Father Tomasso drew him a little farther from the group that still listened to the little priest who had come from the Vatican. "Father Ramoni found that the people had many Christian traditions and were almost white; but it was he who instilled the Faith in their hearts. There must be thirty of our Fathers in Marqua now," he continued proudly, "and sooner or later, all novices will have to go out there. Father Ramoni has made a splendid Prefect-Apostolic. No wonder they have summoned him to Rome for consultation. I have heard"-he lowered his voice as he glanced over his shoulder to where Father Denfili sat on the bench by the pond-"that it is certain that Marqua is to be made a Province, with an archbishop and two bishops. There is a seminary in Marqua, even now, and they are training some of the natives to be catechists. I tell you, Brother Luigi, missionary history has never chronicled such wonders as our Father Ramoni has wrought."

From behind them came the rising voice of the little priest, bubbling into laughter. "And as I came through the Pincio all that I heard was his name. I had to wait for a duchessa's carriage to pass. She was telling an American woman of the times when Father Ramoni had preached at San Carlo. 'His words would convert a Hindu,' she was saying. And the Marchesi di San Quevo leaned from his horse to tell me that he had heard that Father Ramoni will be one of the Cardinals of the next Consistory. Is it not wonderful?"

The murmur of their responses went across the garden to old Father Denfili. Father Tomasso, crossing the path with the novice, suddenly saw a strange look of pain on the old priest's face, and started toward him just as the gate to the cloister garden swung back, revealing a picture that held him waiting. Four men-a great Roman prelate, the General of San Ambrogio, Father Ramoni and Father Pietro, Ramoni's secretary-were coming into the garden. Of the four Father Ramoni stood out in the center of the group as vividly as if a searchlight were playing on his magnificent bigness. His deep black eyes, set in a face whose strength had been emphasized by its exposure to sun and wind, gleamed joyous with his mood. His mouth, large, expressive, the plastic mouth of the orator, was curving into a smile as he gave heed to the speech of the prelate beside him. Once he shook his head as the great man, oblivious of their coming before a crowd of intent watchers, continued the words he had been saying on Via Paoli.

"And the Holy See is about to make your Marqua into a Province. Is it not wonderful, Father Ramoni, that you will go back with that gift to the people you converted? And yet to me it is more wonderful that you wish to go back. Why do you not stay here? You, a Roman, would advance."

"Not now, Monsignore," the missionary answered quickly. They were passing the group near the fountain, going toward the bench where Father Denfili sat. Ramoni's secretary, a thin, serious-visaged priest of about the same age as his Superior, with bald head and timid, shrinking eyes, took with the greatest deference the cloak and hat Father Ramoni handed to him. Then he fell back of the old General. The prelate answered Ramoni. "But you are right, of course," he admitted. "It is best that you return. The Church needs you there now. But later on-chi lo sa? You are to preach Sunday afternoon at San Carlo? I shall be there to hear you. So will all Rome, I suppose. Ah, you do well here! 'Filius urbis et orbis-son of the city and the world.' It's a great title, Ramoni!"

They had come in front of the bench where Father Denfili told his beads. The prelate turned to the old General of San Ambrogio with deference. "Is it not so, Father?" he asked. But Father Denfili raised his sightless eyes as if he sought to focus them upon the group before him. Father Ramoni, laughingly dissenting, suddenly felt his joy congealing into a cold fear that bound his heart. He turned away angrily, then recovered himself in time. Father Denfili was no longer on the bench beside the pond. He was groping his way back to the chapel.

It was a month before the Consistory met to nominate the new hierarchy for Marqua. It had been expected that the first meeting would end in decisive action and that, immediately afterward, the great missionary of the Community of San Ambrogio would return with increased authority and dignity to his charge. But something-one of those mysterious "somethings" peculiar to Rome-had happened, and the nominations were postponed.

In the month that Father Ramoni remained in Rome he had tasted the fruits of his old popular success. On his first Sunday at home he preached in San Carlo as well as ever-better than ever. And the awed crowd he looked down on at the end of his sermon took away from the church the tidings of his greater power. From that time nearly every moment was taken by the demands of people of position and authority, who wished to make the most of him before he went back to Marqua. He scarcely saw his brethren at all, except after his Mass, when he went to the refectory for his morning coffee. He had no time to loiter in the garden, and the story of the conversion of the people of Marqua was left to the quiet Fr. Pietro, who told the splendid tales of his Superior's great work, till Father Tomasso and Brother Luigi prayed to be given the opportunity to be Ramoni's servants in the far-away land of the western world. But, if Ramoni was but seldom in the cloister, he did not avoid Father Denfili. The old blind priest seemed to meet him everywhere, in the afternoons on the Pincio, in the churches where he preached, in the subdued crowds at ecclesiastical assemblies. Once Ramoni caught a glimpse of his face lifted toward him during a conference; and a remembrance of that old look in the cloister garden gave him the sensation of belief that the old General could see, even though Ramoni himself, was the only one whom he saw.

On the day the letter from the Vatican came, Father Ramoni, detained in the cloister by the expected visit of a prelate who had expressed his desire to meet the missionary of Marqua, passed Father Denfili on his way to the reception-room. While Father Ramoni, summoning his secretary to bring some photographs for better explanation of the South American missions, went on his way, the blind man groped along the wall till he reached the General's office. He had come to the door when he felt that undercurrent of anxiety which showed itself on the white faces of the General and his assistant, who stood gazing mutely at the letter the former held. He heard the General call Father Tomasso. "Take this to Father Pietro, my son," he said. Then he listened to the younger priest's retreating footsteps.

Father Tomasso, frightened by the unwonted strangeness of the General's tone, carried the atmosphere of tense and troubled excitement with him when he entered the room the prelate was just leaving. Father Pietro glanced up at him from the table where he was returning to their case the photographs of Marqua. Tomasso laid the letter before him and left the room just as Father Ramoni, bidding his visitor a gay good-bye, turned back.

"I can't take it," he was sobbing, "it's a mistake, a terrible mistake."

Father Pietro was taking the letter from its large square envelope. He read it with puzzled wonder rising to his eyes. Before he came to its end he was on his feet.

"No! No!" he cried. "It is impossible. It is a mistake."

Father Ramoni turned quickly. The man who had been his faithful servant for ten years in Marqua was very dear to him. "What is a mistake, Pietro?" he asked, coming to the table.

"The Consistory," Father Pietro stammered, "the Consistory has made a mistake. They have done an impossible thing. They have mixed our names. This letter to the General-this letter-" he pointed to the document on the table "-says that I have been made Archbishop of Marqua."

Ramoni took the letter. As he read it he knew what Pietro had not known. The news was genuine. The name signed at the letter's end guaranteed that. Ramoni caught the edge of the table. The pain of the blow gripped him relentlessly and he knew that it was a pain that would stay. He had been passed over, ignored, set down for Pietro, who sat weeping beside the table, his head buried in his hands.

"I can't take it," he was sobbing; "I am not able. It's a mistake, a terrible mistake."

Ramoni put his hand on the other man's head. "It is true, Pietro," he said. "You are Archbishop of Marqua. May God bless you!"

But he could say no more. Pietro was still weeping when Ramoni went away, crossing the cloister on his way to his cell, where, with the door closed behind him, he fought the battle of his soul.