With his sudden movement, Gherardi and Moretti
also stirred from their frozen attitudes of speechless amazement,
and would have approached, but that the Pope signed them away with
so fierce and impatient a gesture that they shrank back appalled.
And still he gazed at Manuel as if his very soul were passing
through his eyes.
"Come out with you!" he said, in a hoarse, faint whisper--"Come out
with you!"
"Yes!--come out with me!" repeated Manuel, his accents vibrating
with a strange compelling sweetness, "Come out and see the poor
lying at the great gates of St. Peter's--the lame, the halt, the
blind--come and heal them by a touch, a prayer! You can, you must,
you shall heal them!--if you WILL! Pour money into the thin hands of
the starving!--come with me into the miserable places of the world,-
-come and give comfort! Come freely into the courts of kings, and
see how the brows ache under the crowns!--and the hearts break
beneath the folds of velvet and ermine! Why stand in the way of
happiness, or deny even emperors peace when they crave it? Your
mission is to comfort, not to condemn! You need no throne! You want
no kingdom!--no settled place--no temporal power! Enough for you to
work and live as the poorest of all Christ's ministers,--without
pomp, without ostentation or public ceremonial, but simply clothed
in pure holiness! So shall God love you more! So shall you pass
unscathed through the thick of battle, and command Brotherhood in
place of Murder! Go out and welcome Progress!--take Science by the
hand!--encourage Intellect!--for all these things are of God, and
are God's gifts divine! Live as Christ lived, teaching the people
personally and openly;--loving them, pitying them, sharing their
joys and sorrows, blessing their little children! Deny yourself to
no man;--and make of this cold temple in which you now dwell
selfimprisoned, a home and refuge for the friendless and the poor!
COME OUT WITH ME!"
As he thus spoke, with a living, breathing enthusiasm of entreaty,
which might have moved even the dry bones in the valley of the
prophet's vision to rise up and become a great standing army, the
Pope's figure seemed to grow more and more attenuated,--his worn
white hands grasping the gilt arms of his chair, looked like the
claws of a dead bird--and his face, shrunken and withered, like a
Chinese ivory carving of some forgotten idol.
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