But deep in his heart forever And unprofaned he kept The love of his saintly Mother, Who in the grave-yard slept.
His house had no pleasant pictures; Its comfortless walls were bare; But the riches of earth and ocean Could not purchase his Mother's Chair,--
The old chair, quaintly carven, With oaken arms outspread, Whereby, in the long gone twilights, His childish prayers were said.
For thence, in his lone night-watches, By moon or starlight dim, A face full of love and pity And tenderness looked on him. And oft, as the grieving presence Sat in his mother's chair, The groan of his self-upbraiding Grew into wordless prayer.
At last, in the moonless midnight, The summoning angel came, Severe in his pity, touching The house with fingers of flame.
The red light flashed from its windows And flared from its sinking roof; And baffled and awed before it, The villagers stood aloof.
They shrank from the falling rafters, They turned from the furnace-glare; But its tenant cried, "God help me! I must save my mother's chair."
Under the blazing portal, Over the floor of fire, He seemed, in the terrible splendor, A martyr on his pyre!
In his face the mad flames smote him And stung him on either side; But he clung to the sacred relic,-- By his mother's chair he died!
O mother, with human yearnings! O saint, by the altar-stairs! Shall not the dear God give thee The child of thy many prayers?
O Christ! by whom the loving, Though erring, are forgiven, Hast Thou for him no refuge, No quiet place in heaven?
Give palms to Thy strong martyrs, And crown Thy saints with gold, But let the mother welcome Her lost one to Thy fold!
The good Father Antonio returned from his conference with the cavalier with many subjects for grave pondering. This man, as he conjectured, so far from being an enemy either of Church or State, was in fact in many respects in the same position with his revered master,--as nearly so as the position of a layman was likely to resemble that of an ecclesiastic. His denial of the Visible Church, as represented by the Pope and Cardinals, sprang not from an irreverent, but from a reverent spirit. To accept _them_ as exponents of Christ and Christianity was to blaspheme and traduce both, and therefore he only could be counted in the highest degree Christian who stood most completely opposed to them in spirit and practice.