Clara Maynard Part 7

"Though you do not know where your niece is, is Mr Lerew, or is her father's old friend, Mr Lennard, acquainted with her present address?"

asked the general.

"I should think that she would have informed me rather than any one else," replied Miss Pemberton; and the general at length, finding that he could get no information out of the lady, took his leave.

"I will try, at all events, to ascertain what either Lennard or Lerew know," said the general to himself, as he drove off. Though he suspected that the vicar knew something about the matter, he decided first to call on Mr Lennard. He believed him to be an honest man, but he had no great opinion of his sense. Mr Lennard was at home; he received the general in a kindly way. The latter observed that his manner was unusually subdued. Without loss of time, the general mentioned Miss Maynard, and expressed his regret at not finding her at home.

"Can you tell me where she has gone to?" he asked, "for her aunt declares that she does not know, though it was evident from her manner that she is not anxious about her."

"I regret to say that I know no more than you do," answered Mr Lennard.

"I had been for some time absent, and on my return I was greatly surprised to find that she had left Luton; and when I enquired of the Lerews, they told me that she had resolved to devote herself to works of charity, and was about to enter a sisterhood, but in what neighbourhood they did not inform me."

"In other words, that she is about to become a nun, to discard my poor son, and to give up her property, as soon as she has the power of disposing of it, to the safe keeping of one of those Romish communities," exclaimed the general, with more vehemence than he was accustomed to exhibit; "what do you say to that, Mr Lennard?"

"I don't suppose that Miss Maynard purposes entering a Romish convent; her intention, I conclude, is to join a sisterhood of the Anglican Church," said Mr Lennard.

"The Church of England, of which I suppose you speak, recognises no such inst.i.tutions," replied the general; "they are contrary to the spirit of the Reformation. Unhappy will it be for our country if they ever gain ground."

"I had been inclined to suppose that they would prove a great advantage, by enabling ladies to unite together and work under a good system in visiting the sick and poor, and in the instruction of the children, and in other beneficent labours; and I have, when requested, subscribed towards their support," remarked Mr Lennard.

"I do not insist that ladies should not thus employ themselves,"

observed the general; "but my objection is to the mode in which they unite themselves in the so-called religious system under which they are placed. They may, in most instances, serve G.o.d far better by staying at home and doing their duty in their families, instead of a.s.suming the dress and imitating the customs of the nuns of the middle ages."

"I do not look at the subject in that light," observed Mr Lennard, "and I know that it must be a hard matter for some young ladies to be religious at home, where the rest of the family are worldly-minded."

"Much more reason for them to stay at home and endeavour to improve the tone of the rest of the household," answered the general. "Those who know what human nature is should see that with whatever good intentions these sisterhoods are begun, they must in the end lead to much that is objectionable. If Miss Maynard has joined one of them, I must endeavour to find the means of getting her out, or of ascertaining if she was induced to join it, and remains of her own free will. I fear that Lerew will not afford me any a.s.sistance, as from his Romish tendencies he will probably consider them admirable inst.i.tutions, and would think that he had done a laudable act in inducing Clara to enter one. I must now wish you good-bye. I hope that you have good accounts of your young daughter Mary, and your son at Oxford."

Mr Lennard shook his head. "I received a letter to-day from my little girl, saying that she was very ill, and begging me to come and take her home; but as the mistress did not write, I do not suppose that her illness is serious. However, I intend to go to-morrow to Mary, and ascertain how she is, and I trust that I shall not be obliged to take her away from school."

The general considered whether he should call on Mr Lerew; but he first bethought himself of paying a visit to a lawyer in the neighbouring town, with whom he was well acquainted, and who had been a friend of Captain Maynard's. He was also an earnest religious man, and strongly opposed to ritualism. The general was not a person to let the gra.s.s grow under his feet. He was driving rapidly along, when he met Lieutenant Sims, who made a sign to him to stop. The general did so, and invited the lieutenant to accompany him into the town.

"With all my heart, for I want to have a talk with you, general,"

answered the lieutenant, springing in. "I have long been wis.h.i.+ng for your return. We've had some extraordinary goings on in this place.

What has concerned me most is the disappearance of my old friend's daughter, in whom you, I know, take a deep interest. All I know is that she went away with the vicar and his wife, and it is my belief that they had an object in spiriting her off; but whether to shut her up in a Romish or Ritualist convent is more than I can say. I don't think there is much to choose between them; the vicar might select the Ritualist, or the Anglican, as he would call it, as he, though a Papist at heart, would prefer keeping his living, while his lady would recommend the former; for it is said, and I believe it to be a fact, that she herself has turned Romanist, with her dear friend Lady Bygrave. Haven't you heard that both Sir Reginald and her ladys.h.i.+p were received last week into the bosom of the Church of Rome, as the expression runs?"

"Is it possible!" exclaimed the general; "but I ought not to be surprised when I saw the characters they admitted into their house. I thought that French abbe and Father Lascelles had some other object in view than the establishment of a colony; but perhaps you have been misinformed."

"I tell you, general, I haven't a doubt about the matter," answered Mr Sims. "They and Mrs Lerew attended the Romish church together, and I am told had been baptised with all ceremony a few days before. I know that two or three priests have been staying at the Hall ever since, and Mrs Lerew goes there regularly. They are about to have a chapel built in their grounds, and an architect came down from London about it; and in the meantime they have got a room fitted up in the house. What surprises me is that the vicar should allow his wife to turn; but that she has done so seems probable, for she was not at church last Sunday.

Should Lerew object to his wife's perversion, he has only himself to thank for it; he has led her up to the door as carefully as a man could do, and cannot be surprised at her going inside. Of course she thinks it safer to join what she has been taught to look upon as the true church, and has therefore honestly gone over to it; while whatever he may think, putting honesty and honour aside, he considers that it is more to his advantage to retain his living, and lead others in the way he has led his wife."

"I suspect that you are right," observed the general; "too many have set him the example. He, like them, has been trained in the school of the Jesuits, who are fully persuaded that evil may be done that good may come of it, and banish from their minds the principles which guide honest men, and which they themselves would advocate in the ordinary affairs of life. I can only wish that, unless Mr Lerew's mind is enlightened, he would go over himself; as I am afraid, while he remains in the Church of England, he may lead others in the same direction."

"Not much fear of that," observed the lieutenant; "except a few silly young people of the better cla.s.ses, and the poor, who look out for the loaves and fishes in the shape of coals and blankets and other creature comforts, I don't think many are influenced by him. He is more likely to empty his church, and to fill the Dissenting chapels."

"Still," said the general, "he sows broadcast the germs of Romanism through the doctrines he preaches, while he accustoms people to the sight of the ceremonies and paraphernalia of Rome, keeping them in ignorance at the same time of the simple truths of the Gospel, at the bidding of those whose commands he obeys; for he and his ritualistic brethren are but instruments in the hands of more cunning men than themselves. I have little doubt that he was carefully educated at the university for the part he is now playing, though he then had no idea of the designs of his tutor. People laugh at the notion that a Jesuit plot has long existed in England for the subversion of Protestantism; but I have evidence, which receives daily corroboration, that Jesuits in disguise matriculated at the universities for the express purpose of perverting the minds of all whom they could bring under their influence.

The pupils in numberless instances went over to Rome, while the tutors remained nominally in the Church of England, for the sake of trapping others. The scheme has succeeded, and has since been greatly enlarged; the Jesuits have now agents in every shape--some as inc.u.mbents of parishes, as lay supporters, men and women, guilds and sisterhoods; they have encouraged works of charity, schools, hospitals, refuges for the fallen and dest.i.tute, _creches_, mothers' meetings, and other inst.i.tutions, all excellent in themselves, knowing how much such would forward their object. Of that object, those who take part in them are, I am ready to believe, in many instances utterly ignorant; they are influenced by the desire to obey the commands of Christ, and to make themselves useful to their fellow-creatures, though the idea that they are thereby meriting heaven, and what they call working out their own salvation, underlies all they do, as they misinterpret the pa.s.sage.

They ignore the glorious truth that through simple faith in the atoning blood of Christ salvation is gained--that it is their own, and that the right motive of action must be through love and obedience to Him who has already saved them. All the forms and ceremonies in which they indulge are but will-wors.h.i.+p, tending to obscure their view of Him, and to destroy their spiritual life."

"General," said the lieutenant, "I have seen a good deal of Roman Catholic countries, where the priests have full sway, and I am very sure that the system these Ritualists have introduced is tending in the same direction. I know from experience that true religion makes a man all that can be expected of him. We had a dozen or more such men on board the last s.h.i.+p in which I served, and they were out and out the best men we had; they could be trusted on all occasions; and if any dangerous work had to be done, they were the first to volunteer. They were Dissenters of some sort, I believe, and were not in favour with our ritualistic chaplain, who had his followers both among officers and men.

I can't say much about those officers, and as to the men who pretended to agree with him, they were the most sneaking rascals in the s.h.i.+p. He tried to bring me over to his way of thinking, but my eyes were opened.

'No, no,' I answered; 'if the s.h.i.+p was going down, and you had to take your chance in one of the boats, which would you choose, the one manned by those fellows you anathematise, or with the men you call obedient sons of the Church?' He couldn't answer; but one day, he being left on sh.o.r.e, the heretics, as he called them, brought him off through a heavy surf, when no other men would venture. So you see, thanks to our chaplain, when I found the new vicar working changes in the church, I knew pretty well what he was about."

The general found Mr Franklin, his solicitor, at home.

"I am very glad you have come, general," said the latter. "Miss Maynard, as you are probably aware, has been induced to leave home, or, rather, has been entrapped by one of those conventual establishments, to which she will in due course, when she has the power, be persuaded to give up her property. Our business must be to get her out of their hands before that time arrives; and yours, general, more especially to point out to her the errors of the system which has thrown its glamour over her; for, if I understand rightly, she has sacrificed an excellent and satisfactory marriage, as well as the independence and comforts of home. It was not for a considerable time that I discovered her absence from Luton, when her aunt (who, no disrespect to the lady, I consider it a misfortune was left one of her guardians) positively declared that she did not know where she had gone. I, however, took steps to find out, and lately ascertained that she is an inmate of Saint Barbara's, near Staughton, to which place I discovered that she drove on leaving the railway, in company with Mr and Mrs Lerew. Convinced that Miss Pemberton was not likely to render any willing a.s.sistance, I awaited your return to take legal measures to obtain her release. Our first difficulty will be to communicate with her, for the nuns are allowed to receive no letters till they are first seen by the Lady Superior. It would be as well first to ascertain whether the young lady desires of her own free will to leave the convent; she has had some experience of it, and may by this time perhaps have repented of the step she has taken. My belief is that she has been deceived and cajoled. I know well of what those Ritualists are capable, influenced by what they believe the best of motives, and I strongly suspect that there is some misunderstanding between her and your son, brought about, I say without hesitation, by their means. Either her letters have not been forwarded to him, or his have not been received by her--perhaps the entire correspondence has been intercepted--I will not go farther than that. I say this as I wish to plead for your ward, at whose conduct you naturally feel deeply grieved."

"Poor girl! notwithstanding all the pain and suffering she has caused my son, I am not angry with her," said the general; "my indignation is directed against the system and persons by whom she has been deceived.

I suspect as you do with regard to the correspondence between her and my son, for I am very sure she would not have given him up without a.s.signing any reason, or answering his letters."

"Our first object must be to open a free communication with her; letters sent in the ordinary way are sure to be read by the Lady Superior, and the answers dictated by her, so that we shall not be wiser than at first," remarked Mr Franklin.

"I must try that simple plan, however, and if it fails, resort to stronger measures," observed the general. "I will go to Staughton myself, and write to say that, as her guardian, I wish to have a private interview with her on a matter of importance, and to beg that I may be allowed to call on her at the convent, or that she will come and see me at my hotel."

"I am afraid that means would be taken to prevent her from seeing you alone," observed Mr Franklin.

"What course do you then advise?" asked the general.

"We must take legal proceedings, and they are very certain to have their due effect, as the Lady Superior would be exceedingly loth to have the internal arrangements of her convent made public, and she is well aware that if she resists she will run the risk of that being the case. I have already had something to do with her ladys.h.i.+p, as well as with two or three other convents, and I know how jealous the managers are that the secrets of their prison-houses should be revealed. Their aim is to prove they have nothing to conceal, and that all is open as noon-day; but the moment troublesome questions are asked, they exhibit a reticence as to their rules and practices which shows how conscious they are that outsiders will object to them."

Before the general took his leave, it was arranged between him and Mr Franklin that they should go over together to Epsworth, and act according to circ.u.mstances. As he drove home he expressed a hope to the honest lieutenant that he might be the means of emanc.i.p.ating Miss Maynard from her present thraldom.

"She has too much sense and right feeling not to be open to conviction,"

answered Mr Sims; "what she wants is to be freed from the evil influences to which she has of late been exposed, and to have the simple truth placed before her; only don't let her meet her aunt or Mr Lerew till she has thoroughly got rid of all her erroneous notions, and understands the simple gospel as you well know how to put it."

"You may depend on my following your advice," said the general.

On reaching home, the general found a note from Mr Lennard. He wrote in great distress of mind. He had received a letter from a friend at Oxford, telling him that his son had left the university in company with a Romish priest, and had declared his intention of seeking admission into the Church of Rome. Mr Lennard was anxious, if possible, to find out his son, and prevent him from taking the fatal step, at the same time that he wished to be with his poor little girl at Cheltenham.

"I am afraid," he continued, "that the tutor under whom I placed my boy, by Mr Lerew's advice, has had much to do with it. I now hear that three or four of his previous pupils have become Romanists, and others, by all accounts, are likely to go over. I object to my son's becoming a Romanist, though I consider that the Church of Rome is the mother of all Churches, and has the advantage of antiquity on her side."

"The mother of all abominations!" exclaimed the general to himself. "I must endeavour to set my friend right on that subject, if he holds that fundamental error."

The general was a man of action. After taking a hurried meal, he drove on to the house of Mr Lennard. His journey to Cheltenham had been delayed, and he was now hesitating whether first to go in search of his son or to proceed there immediately. The thought at once struck the general that should he succeed in getting Clara out of the convent, he might go on to Cheltenham with her, and that if Mary was fit to be removed from the school, it would give Clara occupation to nurse her friend.

"I shall indeed be most grateful to you," said Mr Lennard, with the tears in his eyes; "I was sorely perplexed what to do, and I specially wish that Mary should not remain longer at the school than can be helped, as from her letter it is evident that she is not only ill, but very miserable there.

"You must give me your written authority, and I will act upon it," said the general. This was done. "Now, my friend," he continued, "I wish to speak to you on the remark made in your letter, in which you say that you consider the Church of Rome the mother of all Churches, and that it has the advantage of antiquity. You evidently go first on the a.s.sumption that our Lord inst.i.tuted a visible Church on earth, and that that Church, though corrupted, is the Church of Rome. Now I wish to draw your attention to the origin of that wonderful establishment which has for so long exerted a baneful influence over a large portion of the human race. For three centuries true Christians, though becoming less and less pure in their doctrine and form of wors.h.i.+p, existed in Rome as a despised and subordinate cla.s.s, the purity of their faith gradually decreasing as their numbers, wealth, and influence increased. At length the Emperor Constantine professed himself to be a Christian, which he did for the sake of obtaining the a.s.sistance of the Christians against his rival Licinius, who was supported by the idolaters. Constantine being victorious, and Licinius slain, the idolaters saw that they could no longer hope to be predominant. There existed in Rome from the days of Numa a college, or curia, the members of which, called pontiffs, had the entire management of all matters connected with religion. The post of head pontiff, or Pontifex Maximus, had been a.s.sumed by Julius Caesar and his successors. They had probably no real belief in the idolatrous system they supported; such secret faith as they had was centred in Astarte, the divinity of the ancient Babylonians, whose wors.h.i.+p had been introduced at an early period into Etruria, as it had been previously into Egypt and Greece. They were, in reality, the priests of Astarte, and from them we derive our festival of Christmas, our Lady Day, and many other festivals with Christian names. It had been their principle from the first to admit any G.o.ds who had become popular, and thus were added in rapid succession the numberless G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of the heathen mythology. At length Jesus of Nazareth was added to their pantheon. These pontiffs, on perceiving that Christianity, patronised by the Emperor, was likely to gain the day, saw that to maintain their power they must themselves pretend to belong to the new faith. This they did, and one of their number soon managed to get himself chosen the Bishop of Rome, while the other pontiffs by an easy transition formed the College of Cardinals. The t.i.tle of Pontifex Maximus, being held by the Emperor, was not a.s.sumed by the bishop of Rome till the Emperor Gratian in 376 refused any longer to be addressed by that t.i.tle. Having banished some of the grosser practices of idolatry, they introduced the remainder under different names, so that the pagans might readily conform to the new wors.h.i.+p. The apostles took the place of the various G.o.ds, and the martyrs those of the inferior divinities; above them all was raised Astarte, who, now named Mary the Mother of G.o.d and Queen of Heaven, became the chief object of adoration. In truth, the established wors.h.i.+p at Rome remained as truly idolatrous as it had ever been, while the great aim of the pontiffs was to increase their power, ama.s.s wealth, and strengthen their position. From that period they acted, as might have been expected, in direct opposition to all the principles of Christianity. b.l.o.o.d.y struggles often took place between rivals aiming at the pontificate, while they endeavoured to destroy all those who refused to obey them. It was not till a somewhat later period, when the head pontiff set up a claim of superiority above all other bishops, that, to strengthen it, it was a.s.serted that he was in direct apostolic succession from the apostle Peter, the pontiff who first made it being ignorant, probably, that the Christian Church at Rome was founded exclusively by Paul, and that the apostle Peter never was at Rome, he having been all his life employed in founding churches in the East. 'By their fruits ye shall know them;' and we have only to reflect on the lives of the popes, many of them monsters of atrocity, and the fearful acts of persecution which they encouraged and authorised, to be convinced that paganism, the invention of Satan, had usurped the name of Christianity, and that the Romish Church, as it is called, instead of being the mother of all Churches, is truly the Babylon of the Apocalypse; yet this is the system which ministers of the Church of England are endeavouring to introduce into our country, with its idolatrous rites and dogmas, and which you and many excellent men like yourself look at with a lenient eye, instead of regarding it with the abhorrence it deserves."

"My dear friend," said Mr Lennard, greatly astonished, "I certainly had never regarded the Church of Rome in that light; I looked upon it as the ancient Church, corrupted in the course of ages."

"It has no true claim to be a Christian Church at all," said the general; "it is like the cuckoo, which, hatched in the nest of the hedge-warbler, by degrees forces out the other fledglings, and usurps their place. So did paganism treat Christianity; although, fostered by G.o.d, the latter was enabled to exist, persecuted and oppressed as it was, and still to exert a benign influence in the world. On examining the tenets of many who are called heretics, we find that it was not the creed they held, but the opposition they offered to the Romish system, which was their crime, and brought down persecution on their heads.

When we read of the horrible cruelties practised on the Waldenses and Albigenses, the followers of Huss in Bohemia, the true Protestants of all ages down to the time of Luther, the detestable system of the Inquisition, the treatment of the inhabitants of the Netherlands by Alva and the Spaniards, when whole hecatombs of victims were put to death at the instigation of the pope and his cardinals, the destruction of thousands and tens of thousands of Huguenots in France, the martyrdoms of the n.o.ble Protestants of Spain, the ma.s.sacre of Saint Bartholomew, and the fires of Smithfield--all these diabolical acts performed with the concurrence and approval of the papal power--can we for a moment hesitate to believe that that power owes its origin, not to the Divine Head of the Church, but to that spirit of evil, Satan, the deadly foe of the human race? Can any system founded on it, however much reformed it may appear, fail to partake of the evil inherent in the original itself.

It is from not seeing this that so many are led to embrace the errors-- I would rather say the abominations--of Rome; while others are taught to look at them with lenient eyes, and to believe that the system itself is capable of reformation. Before true and simple faith can be established throughout the world the whole must be overthrown and hurled into the depths of the sea, as completely as have been the idols and idolatrous practices of the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, where Christianity has been established."

Mr Lennard leant his head on his hand. "I must think deeply of what you say; you put the whole matter in a new light to me. I have had no affection for Rome; still, I have always regarded her as a Church founded on the apostles and prophets."

"Yet which virtually forbids its followers to study those prophets and apostles," remarked the general. "But what I want you to do is to look into the subject for yourself. I have merely given you a hint for your guidance; by referring carefully to the Scriptures, you will find more and more light thrown on it, till you must be convinced that the view I have taken is the correct one; and would that every clergyman and layman in England might do the same! these ritualistic practices would then soon be banished from the land."

Never in his life had poor Mr Lennard been so perplexed and troubled.

He was invited to reconsider opinions which he had held, in a somewhat lax fas.h.i.+on it may be granted, all his life. He had to search for his son, and prevent him if possible from becoming a slave to the system he had just heard so strongly denounced, and he was painfully anxious about the health of his dear little Mary. While he was still in this unhappy state of mind, the general left him to return home. The next morning they both set off to their respective destinations, the general to Epsworth, having called for Mr Franklin on his way, and Mr Lennard to London.