Conifer

“ Connie's First Communion will be so important an event for her that I feel as if I could not do enough in preparation for it. I should like to dress her more beautifully than on any day in her life. If she were grown and about to enter society, or if I were buying her wedding-dress, I would select the handsomest material procurable,—why not now, for an occasion so great that I ought hardly mention it in comparison? ”

“ In the Church of Rome, if the husband asks a favour from his wife, nine times in ten she will inquire from her father confessor whether or not she can grant him his request, and the poor husband will have to wait patiently for the permission of the master or the rebuke of the lord, according to the answer of the oracle which had to be consulted! If he gets impatient under the yoke, and murmurs, the wife will soon go to the feet of her confessor; to tell him how she has the misfortune to be united to a most unreasonable man, and how she has to suffer from him! ”

“ There was a law revealed to us—the law of consecration—through obedience to which every man expected to hold all that he possessed subject to the dictation of the servants of God. It is right that we should recollect this law, and continually seek to carry it out. We should feel that we are placed as stewards over the property God has placed in our hands, and that all we have is subject primarily to the counsels of God's servant, and that before we take any step of importance it is our duty to seek counsel from him who has the right to counsel. ”

“ How would you deal with their spiritual necessities? You think you can combat political infidelity in a nation by the principle of enlightened loyalty; how would you encounter religious infidelity in a state? By what means is the principle of profound reverence to be revived? How, in short, is man to be led to adore?’
‘Ah! that is a subject which I have not forgotten,’ replied Coningsby. ‘I know from your letters how deeply it has engaged your thoughts. I confess to you that it has often filled mine with perplexity and depression. ”

“ Flowing from God’s heart of love first came the privilege of Nazarite consecration; and then, by the act of consecration, His loving heart is so gladdened that it further overflows in these rich benedictions.
Looking, on the other hand, at the human side, we may learn that the soul which is fully consecrated always receives the blessing of God. Where that blessing is not enjoyed, there is always something unreal or defective in the consecration. ”

“ LADY FROTH. And my lord with him. Pray observe the difference.
SCENE II. [To them] LORD FROTH, MELLEFONT, and BRISK.
CYNT. Impertinent creature! I could almost be angry with her now. [Aside.]
LADY FROTH. My lord, I have been telling Cynthia how much I have been in love with you; I swear I have; I’m not ashamed to own it now. Ah! it makes my heart leap, I vow I sigh when I think on’t. My dear lord! Ha, ha, ha, do you remember, my lord? [Squeezes him by the hand, looks kindly on him, sighs, and then laughs out.]
LORD FROTH. Pleasant creature! perfectly well, ah! that look, ay, there it is ”

“ Deprived as was the priesthood of the gratification afforded by marriage to the natural instincts of man, the wife at best was succeeded by the concubine; at worst by a succession of paramours, for which the functions of priest and confessor gave peculiar opportunity. So thoroughly was this recognized that a man confessing an illicit amour was forbidden to name the partner of his guilt for fear it might lead the confessor into the temptation of abusing his knowledge of her frailty. ”

“ If my young lady left the house for a walk in the park the Countess would creep stealthily after her, and follow her behind the trees and bushes. At every sound in the corridor of an evening she would creep out, and stand watching the door of her cousin’s room. My lord began to grow restless and miserable. He loved his cousin so dearly, that to feel his intercourse with her restricted was a perfect torture to him. ”

“ But as for Coningsby, the mitigating hour that softens the heart made his spirit brave. Amid the ennobling sympathies of nature, the pursuits and purposes of worldly prudence and conventional advantage subsided into their essential nothingness. He willed to blend his life and fate with a being beautiful as that nature that subdued him, and he felt in his own breast the intrinsic energies that in spite of all obstacles should mould such an imagination into reality. ”

“ Father Conners seated himself, set his hat on the ground by his side, spread a red silk handkerchief over his head, and took out his Breviary. He had but little time to attend to the beauties of nature, but the situation brought an expression of pleasure to his face. He gave one glance up into the overshadowing branches that spread their fragrant screen between him and the sun, then a kindlier glance to the young woman who stood looking wistfully at him.
“Come here for your confession when you are ready, child,” he said, “and don't be afraid. See how peaceful the skies are. Is God less gentle? ”

“ Hellingsley was the subject on which Coningsby dwelt; he was charmed with all that he had seen! wished to see more. Sir Joseph was quite prepared to accompany him; but Lady Wallinger, who seemed to read Coningsby’s wishes in his eyes, proposed that the inspection should be general; and in the course of half an hour Coningsby was walking by the side of Edith, and sympathising with all the natural charms to which her quick taste and lively expression called his notice and appreciation. Few things more delightful than a country ramble with a sweet companion! ”

“ To have a confessor exclusively for one’s self was the surest sign of orthodoxy, and became as fashionable as it is now to have a box at the opera. Sovereigns, ministers, courtiers, noblemen—every man, in short, who had a certain position in society, had his own acknowledged confessor. ”

“ And if God foretelling to Eve that her husband should rule over her was a command [Pg 246] to which all women were to be subject for all time, does not this command to Cain to rule over his brother follow the seed of Cain for all time, and are not all elder brothers commanded to rule over the younger, and is it not the duty of the younger to submit to such rule? ”

“ On the ensuing sabbath, Mr. Conyers publicly related his conversion in his parish church; and, at once, began to preach, “By grace are ye saved, through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.” His preaching was now attended with marvellous success. The converts in the hamlets, in his widely extended parish, he formed into classes, men by themselves, women by themselves; and these into married and unmarried classes. At appointed times, he met them for spiritual communion; and, every day, at eleven o’clock, preached in some part of his parish. ”

“ The Roman priest, in consecrating the water of the font for baptism, blows over it and signs it twice with the cross. He also begins the rite of baptism by blowing in the catechumen’s face. In the rite of laying hands on an elect the bishop of the Armenian Paulicians blows three times in the face of the newly ordained. The impure spirit is blown out and the pure blown in. (2) Laying-on of hands. The particular persons whose virtue is to be transmitted lay their hands on the head or shoulders of the consecrand, e.g. three bishops in episcopal consecration. ”

“ The king did not appear to be in the least perturbed; he gave the prince a fatherly pat on his shoulder and winked at the Emperor of Zabonia.
“He’s only twenty-three and a few days,” explained the king, “so naturally he takes it a bit hard. I did myself—thought of entering a monastery—yes, really.”
His Zabonian Serenity chuckled deep in his cavern of chest.
“Ernie,” said the king, turning to his son, and speaking in his most kindly manner, “you’ve discovered what all kings discover sooner or later. You’ve found yourself out. Now your job will be to keep the people from finding you out. ”

“ When I knew his case, O Commander of the Faithful, I was concerned for him and perplexed by reason of [my] jealousy [for his welfare] ; so I said to him, “O my cousin, wilt thou that I counsel thee a plan, wherein, if it please God, thou shalt find a source of amendment and the way of advisement and success and whereby God shall do away from thee that thou dreadest?” “Say on, O my cousin,” answered he. Quoth I, “When it is night and the girl cometh, set her on my camel; for she is swift of going, and mount thou thy courser, whilst I mount one of these she-camels. ”

“ The reader will understand that every nun has a confessor; and here I may as well add, for the truth must be told at once, that every confessor has a concubine, and there are very few of them who have not several. Let any American mother imagine her young daughter among these semi-reverend crones, called nuns, and she will have no difficulty in seeing the possibility of her immediate ruin. When your daughter comes among those women, they pretend to be the happiest set of beings upon earth. ”

“ Now, fair Constance, Almighty God thee guide!
Now woulde some men waiten, as I guess,
That I should tellen all the purveyance,
The which the emperor of his noblesse
Hath shapen for his daughter, Dame Constance.
Well may men know that so great ordinance
May no man tellen in a little clause,
As was arrayed for so high a cause. ”

“ As he bowed lowly before the Duchess and her daughter, it would have been difficult to imagine a youth of a mien more prepossessing and a manner more finished.
A manner that was spontaneous; nature’s pure gift, the reflex of his feeling. No artifice prompted that profound and polished homage. Not one of those influences, the aggregate of whose sway produces, as they tell us, the finished gentleman, had ever exercised its beneficent power on our orphan, and not rarely forlorn, Coningsby. ”

“ And, accordingly, we are to understand the testimony, "He hath commanded his covenant for ever," [494] as implying not merely that it should endure for ever, but that to his almighty mandate are its origin and continuance due. This the Psalmist celebrates when he sings of Zion, "There the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore." [495] And this, too, in addressing the children of Zion, and the God of Zion, he records. "Thy God hath commanded thy strength: strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us." ”

“ Pride she had in abundance. It peeped out in all directions. But it did not affect her behaviour to me; simply because she believed me heart and [8] soul devoted to Conny; and attributed any effervescing manner of mine to the most cousinly impulses, and the most laudable anxiety to be thought amiable.
I had been now ten days at my uncle’s. He had begged me in his hearty, hospitable manner to stop the fortnight, and I had consented.
There had been a time during those ten days when I was eager for nothing but to return to Updown. But Conny’s silence had made me rebellious. ”

“ There they will see, with their own eyes, that, as a general thing, the confessor has more women to serve him than the Mormon prophets ever had. Let them read the memoirs of one of the most venerable men of the Church of Rome, Bishop de Ricci, and they will see, with their own eyes, that the confessors are more free with their penitents, even nuns, than husbands are with their wives. ”

“ But to marry her, or keep her as a concubine, while his father was alive, though he had repudiated her, or she had deserted him, whether she were his own mother or not, was incestuous fornication: Scelus incredibile (as Cicero calls it) , et prater unum in omni vitâ inauditum (Orat. pro Cluent.) , when a woman had caused her daughter to be put away, and was married to her husband. Incredible wickedness! says the orator; such I never heard of in all my life besides. Not that there were no such instances of incestuous marriages among the heathens ”

“ When Coningsby had attained his twelfth year, an order was received from Lord Monmouth, who was at Rome, that he should go at once to Eton. This was the first great epoch of his life. There never was a youth who entered into that wonderful little world with more eager zest than Coningsby. ”

“ He that whines for a lass
Is an ignorant ass,
For a bumper has not its fellow.
But if you would have me marry my cousin, say the word, and I'll do't. Wilfull will do't, that's the word. Wilfull will do't, that's my crest,—my motto I have forgot.
LADY. My nephew's a little overtaken, cousin, but 'tis drinking your health. O' my word, you are obliged to him -
SIR WIL. IN VINO VERITAS, aunt. If I drunk your health to-day, cousin,—I am a Borachio.—But if you have a mind to be married, say the word and send for the piper; Wilfull will do't. If not, dust it away, and let's have t'other round. ”

“ Coningsby was separated from Edith. The Duchess of Grand Cairo, the beautiful wife of the heir of one of the Imperial illustrations, had determined to appropriate Coningsby as her cavalier for the moment. Distracted, he made his escape; but his wandering eye could not find the object of its search; and he fell prisoner to the charming Princess de Petitpoix, a Carlist chieftain, whose witty words avenged the cause of fallen dynasties and a cashiered nobility.
Behold a scene brilliant in fancy, magnificent in splendour! ”