For the Faith: A Story of the Young Pioneers of Reformation in Oxford

"I must see the fire at Carfax," she said; "I would see it with mine own eyes. Afterwards I will come to you, and will bring Anthony with me; but not till I have seen this thing for myself. I cannot help it. I must be there."

Magdalen entreated awhile, but Freda stood firm.

"I must see the fire at Carfax," she answered; and at last they forbore to press her, knowing her mind was made up.

It wanted but a few days to Easter when the day came for which Freda had waited with feverish, sleepless eyes. The sun rose clear and bright birds carolled in the gladness of their hearts; all nature was filled with the joy of happy springtide; but there was a heavy cloud resting upon Freda's spirits.

"I will not blame him; I will speak no word of reproach. In this hard strait should I have been more brave? It may be he is doing what he believes most right. I will not believe him unfaithful to his truer self. Who can judge, save God alone, of what is the most right thing to do in these dark and troublous days?"

She rose and donned a black gown, and shrouded herself in a long cloak, the hood of which concealed her face. She was very pale, and there were rings around her eyes that told of weeping and of vigil. Oh, how she had prayed for Anthony, that he might be pardoned wherein he might sin, strengthened wherein he was weak, purified and enlightened in the inner man, and taught by the Holy Spirit of God!

As she walked through the streets by her father's side, and marked the gathering crowd thronging towards Carfax and the route to be taken by the procession, she seemed to hear the words beaten out by the tread of hurrying feet: "Faithful unto death-faithful unto death-unto death!" till she could have cried aloud in the strange turmoil of her spirit, "Faithful unto death-unto death!"

There was a convenient window in the house of a kindly citizen, which had been put at her father's disposal. When they took their places at it they saw the men already at work over the bonfire in the centre of the cross roads. All the windows and the streets were thronged with curious spectators, and almost at once the tolling of the bells of various churches announced that the ceremony was about to begin.

The procession, it was whispered about, was to start from St. Mary's Church, to march to Carfax, where certain ceremonies were to be performed, and then to proceed to St. Frideswyde, where a solemn Mass would be performed, to which the penitents would be admitted. Then, with a solemn benediction, they would be dismissed to their own homes, and admitted to communion upon Easter Day.

Freda sat very still at the window, hearing little beside the heavy beating of her own heart and the monotonous tolling of the bells. The crowd was silent, too, and almost all the people were habited in black, partly out of respect to the season of the Lord's passion, partly because this ceremony took the nature of a solemn humiliation.

Perhaps there were many standing in that close-packed crowd who knew themselves to have been as "guilty" – if guilt there were-as those who were compelled to do penance that day. There was evident sympathy on many faces, and the girl, looking down from above, noted how many groups there were talking earnestly and quietly together, and how they threw quick glances over their shoulders, as though half afraid lest what they were saying might be overheard.

"I trow there are many here who have dared to read the Word of God and discuss it freely together, and compare the church as it now is with the church, the Bride of the Lamb. I wonder if they would have all submitted, had it been their lot to stand before those judges and hear the sentence pronounced."

A thrill seemed suddenly to pass through the crowd; the people pressed forward and then surged back.

"They are coming! they are coming!" the whisper went round, and Freda felt the blood ebbing away from her cheeks, and for a moment her eyes were too dim to see.

The solemn procession of heads and masters, clerks and beadles, seemed to swim before her in a quivering haze. Her strained eyes were fixed upon those other figures bringing up the rear-those men in the garb of the penitent, each bearing a fagot on his shoulder, and carrying a lighted taper in his hand.

Was Anthony among them? She held her breath in a sickening suspense, scarce knowing whether or not she longed to see him. She knew almost each face as it loomed up into view: there was young Fitzjames, their kinsman, looking shame-faced but submissive; there were Udel and Diet, Bayley, Cox, and others whom she had never suspected of having been concerned in the movement; and there, almost at the rear of the long procession, walked Anthony Dalaber, his dark, thin face looking worn and haggard, his hair tumbled and unkempt, his dark eyes bent upon the ground, his feet slow and lagging, but whether from weakness or unwillingness she was not able to say. She held her breath to watch him as he appeared. She saw the heavy frown upon his brow; she marked the change which had come over him-the cloud which seemed to envelop him. She knew that he was bowed to the ground with shame and humiliation, and with that sort of fierce despair of which she had seen glimpses in his nature before now.

Suddenly all the old tenderness rushed over her as in a flood. She forgot her sense of disappointment in his lack of firmness; she forgot how he had boasted of his courage and devotion, and how, in the time of temptation and trial, he had let himself be persuaded to take the easier path; she forgot all save that he had loved her, and that she had loved him, and that love can surmount all things, because its essence is divine. If he had fallen, he had suffered keenly. Suffering was stamped upon every line of his face.

Was not God's love for sinners so great that before the world repented of its wickedness He gave His Son to die for an atonement and expiation? Must we then not love those who err, and who repent of their weakness? Nay, are we not all sinners, all weak, all frail and feeble beings in weak mortal bodies? Shall we judge and condemn one another? Shall we not rather seek to strengthen one another by love and tenderness, and so lead one another onward in the way which leads to life everlasting?

These thoughts rushed like a flood through Freda's mind as she watched through a mist of tears the throwing of the fagots and the books upon the fire at Carfax. Three times did the penitents walk round the fire, the bells tolling, and the crowd observing an intense silence, as the servants handed to the young men books from the baskets to fling upon the fire.

Only one was given to Anthony, and he gave one quick glance before he threw it into the heart of the blaze. Arthur Cole had been as good as his word. It was no portion of God's Word that he was condemned to burn, but a pamphlet of peculiar bitterness by one of the foreign reformers.

Then the procession formed up again, and started for its final goal; and Freda, rising, laid her hand upon her father's arm and said:

"Take me home, I prithee, sweet father-take me home first. I have seen enough. I would now go home. And then, when all is over, go thou to St. Frideswyde and bring Anthony to me."

Chapter XVI: "Reconciled."

Anthony sat with his face buried in his hands, in an attitude of profound dejection. He was gaunt and haggard and worn to a shadow, and Freda's gentle, pitying gaze held in its depths nothing but love and tender compassion.

The first rapture of meeting once again had passed. The exultant joy engendered by a sense of freedom had lasted for several hours. Anthony had laughed and sung aloud and shouted for joy in the shady alleys of the garden, amid all the blissful sights and sounds of springtide. He had wandered there with Freda beside him in a sort of trance of happiness, in which all else had been forgotten. The joy to both had been so keen, so exquisite, that it had sufficed them for the present.

But with the falling of the softened dusk, with the setting of the sun, with the natural and inevitable reaction upon an enfeebled body and sensitive spirit, following upon a severe and protracted strain, Dalaber's spirits had suddenly left him. An intense depression both of body and mind had followed, and in the gathering twilight of that familiar room he sat in an attitude of profound dejection, whilst Freda scarce knew whether it were better to seek to find words of comfort, or to leave him alone to fight out the inevitable battle.

"Why did I do it? Why did I consent?" he suddenly broke out. "Why did I listen to the voice of the charmer? Would it have been so hard to die? Will it not be harder to live with the stain of this sin upon my soul?"

"'The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin,'" spoke Freda very softly.

"And I have denied my Lord-in deed, if not in word," and he groaned aloud.

"It was an act of submission and obedience," spoke Freda, using the arguments familiar to her. "Nor did you yourself cast upon the fire the precious Word of God; you did not deny your faith. You affirmed-so they say-your assent to the doctrines of Holy Church, and did penance for past disobedience. Is that a matter to grieve so greatly over?"

She spoke very gently, yet not as though her heart went altogether with her words. Anthony raised his head and broke out into vehement speech, which she welcomed gladly after the long silence of utter depression.

"They made it easy for us. They sought to win us by gentle methods. They knew that the most of us loved Holy Church, and were loath indeed to be divorced from her communion. They did not bid us in so many words to deny those things which we have held-the right of every man to hold in his hand the Word of God, and to read and study it for himself; but they made us perform an act which in the eyes of the world will be taken to mean as much-to mean that we acknowledge the sinfulness of circulating that precious, living Word, and are ready to cast it into the flames like an unholy and corrupt thing.

"And I consented. I let them persuade me. I let mine eyes be blinded. And now, whither shall I go? I have denied my Lord. I have sinned in His sight. I have not taken up my cross and followed Him. I have sought to save my life, and yet I had thought myself ready to follow Hun to the cross and the grave."

"Like Peter," spoke Freda softly. "Yet the Lord looked upon him with tender love; and He forgave him freely and fully, and gave him special charge to strengthen the brethren, to feed the sheep and the lambs. The Lord wore our mortal flesh. He knows that it is weak. He understands all. Be not too much cast down, my Anthony. Perchance in the past thou didst too much trust in thine own strength. In the days to come let us look ever more and more to the Lord Himself. He will first forgive, and then confirm His strength in us."

"In us? But thou hast ever been strong in faith," spoke Anthony quickly. "I can read it in thine eyes how that thou dost hold me weak and wavering. Had it been thou who wast thus tried, I trow thou wouldst have stood firm."

"Indeed I know not that, Anthony," she answered earnestly, "and I dare not say that I did desire it of thee. I was rent in twain by the struggle. If, indeed, patience and tenderness are shown by those in authority to the sons they hold to be in error, then love should be met by love. We must not rend the body of the Lord by needless strife and contention, if other and gentler means may with patience prevail. We know that obedience and submission to the powers that be are enjoined upon us; yet we know that we must keep our conscience void of reproach. It is hard, indeed, to judge; but let us always seek to take the highest path, and if we fall by reason of weakness in faith, in judgment, or in spirit, let us pray the more fervently for the Spirit of truth to guide us into all truth, and keep us pure within."

They had been so earnestly talking that they had not heard the sound of steps and voices in the house, and started when the door was suddenly opened by young Fitzjames, who ushered in Garret and the monk Robert Ferrar.

Dalaber started to his feet. He had seen both these former companions of his in the procession that morning, but not a word had been exchanged between them. He stood gazing at them with a strange mixture of emotion.

"Anthony Dalaber, we have come to say farewell," said Garret, whose thin, white face and the burning brightness of his eyes testified to the struggle through which his own spirit had passed. "For the present the brotherhood is broken up; for the present the powers of the world are too strong for us; but the day will come when the truth shall be vindicated, when it shall shine forth as the sun in his strength, and we of the faith will be the first to welcome the rising rays. Be not afraid; be not cast down. The Lord will arise, and His enemies will be scattered. And there is work for us all to do, to prepare for His appearing. Let us not be weary in well doing. Though we have bent our heads to the storm, yet we will lift them up with joy anon, knowing that redemption draweth nigh. You believe that, Anthony Dalaber?"

"I verily believe that God will visit the earth and His church, and that He will sit as a refiner, and purify her from all impurities; but whether He will condescend to use again such imperfect instruments as we have proved, I do not know. We have bowed ourselves in the house of Rimmon. Shall we ever be fit for the service of the house of God?"

Garret was still for a moment, silenced by the strange expression of concentrated remorse upon Dalaber's face. It was Ferrar who spoke in his low, even voice.

"'And when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon his servant in this thing. And Elisha said unto him, Go in peace.'"

Deep silence fell upon the room, and then Freda spoke.

"I think God is ever more merciful than man. God reads the heart, and He knows that, though men may fail through weakness, they may rise again in His strength and yet do valiantly."

"I will yet live to do Him service!" cried Garret, with kindling eyes. "I will yet live that I may lay down my life for Him if He call me. If I have been deceived this once, He will lead me aright in the days to come. Mine hour will yet come; I know it, I feel it. And He shall see then that Thomas Garret will not shrink even from death for His name's sake."

Dalaber looked straight into his face.

"I consented to take part in this penance today because I heard that you had submitted. I believed that all had done so. Had I known that Master Clarke had refused, God helping me, I would have refused also; for surely never was there a man who had so fully the mind of the Lord Jesus as John Clarke."

Garret's glance fell before that burning gaze. He too had noted that Clarke was not amongst the penitents, and it had cut like a knife into his heart. He had always been so ready with his protestations of willingness to die for the faith, yet he had been won over to an act which looked like one of recantation. Clarke had never boasted, had always spoken with gentle warning of the dangers which beset them, and his doubts as to whether they should have strength to withstand the fiery trial if it came upon them. There had been times when Garret had openly charged him with being lukewarm in the cause. Yet Clarke lay still in his noisome prison, excommunicate, and in danger of death at the stake, whilst they stood free men, reconciled to the church, and restored to her favour.

Whose position was that of most true blessedness? Garret twisted his hands nervously together as this flood of thought came surging over him.

"They say that Clarke would have been there," spoke young Fitzjames, "but that he was too enfeebled by captivity to walk in the procession."