He was there,
praying as on that other night, alone, on the hillside. He was there,
saying with His sweet eternal voice: "Come unto Me all ye who suffer,
all ye who are heavy laden, come unto Me." He was there and speaking,
the living Christ: "Believe in Me, for I am with you; I am your
strength, and I am peace. I the Humble, son of the Almighty; I the Meek,
son of the Terrible; I who prepare hearts for the kingdom of justice,
for the future union of all with Me in My Father." He, the Merciful, was
there in the tabernacle, breathing the ineffable invitation: "Come, open
thy heart; give thyself up to Me!"
And Clemente gave himself up, confiding to Him what he had never
confessed even to himself. He felt that everything in the ancient
monastery was dying, save Christ in the tabernacle. As the germ-cell
of ecclesiastical organism, the centre from which Christian warmth
irradiates upon the world, the monastery was becoming ossified by the
action of inexorable age. Within its walls noble fires of faith
and piety, enclosed--like the flames of the candles burning on the
altars--in traditional forms, were consuming their human envelope, their
invisible vapours rising towards heaven, but sending no wave of heat or
of light to vibrate beyond the ancient walls.
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