At the centre of this superb and daring court sat a friar, trained from
his childhood up in the customs, traditions, and beliefs of his Church
and of his order--a reverent practitioner in her fasts and sacraments,
simple in his habits as a hermit-monk, faithful in his religious duties
as the most punctilious priest in Rome, sure in his faith that God would
uphold the right, and asserting, without compromise, that right was on
the side of Venice.
What a stay for rulers who fortified their every position by some appeal
to precedent--who would punctiliously know the source and interpretation
of every law upon which they rested!
Above all, what a stay for the simple people who, in these days of
bewildering conflict, knew not what to believe!
Would Masses go on, and the church doors be open and the sacraments
continue? Might they still take their brides and baptize their little
ones, and follow their dead to burial, and sign the sign of the cross,
in token of the favor of heaven--as loyal sons of the Church?
And would the Madre Beata--blessed guardian of this Virgin City--still
smile upon them from all the separate shrines of Venice?
Should the labor and the imprecation of this simple people go on until
the evening in their wonted flow, and should nothing fail them of the
benedictions they had known?
It was a mystery; but threatening Rome was far and unfamiliar, and
Venice they knew--present, protecting, peremptory--impossible to
disobey.
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