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The Resurrection Of Alta
by
The dinner? Well, Anne excelled herself. Is not that enough to say? But perhaps you have never tasted Anne’s cooking? Then you surely have heard of it, for all the Diocese knows about it, and everyone said that Broidy was in his usual good luck when Anne left the Dean’s and went to keep house for the priest at Alta.
Story followed story, as dish followed dish, and a chance to rub up the wit that had been growing rusty in the country missions for months never passed by unnoticed.
The Dean was toastmaster.
“Right Reverend Bishop and Reverend Fathers,” he began, when he had enforced silence with the handle of his fork, “it is my pleasure and pride to be here to-day. Three years ago a young priest was sent to one of the most miserably poor places in the Diocese. What he found you all know. The sorrowful history of the decline of Alta was never a secret record. Eighteen careless families left. Bigotry rampant. Factories closed to Catholics. Church dilapidated. Only the vestry for a dwelling place. That was three years ago, and look around you to-day. See the church, house and school, and built out of what? That is Father Broidy’s work and Father Broidy’s triumph, but we are glad of it. No man has made such a record in our Diocese before. What have we others done by the side of his extraordinary effort? Yet we are not jealous. We know well the good qualities of soul and body in our young friend, and God bless him. We are pleased to be with him, though completely outclassed. We rejoice in the resurrection of Alta. Let me now call upon our beloved Bishop, whose presence among us is always a joy.”
When the applause subsided the Bishop arose, and for an instant stood again with that meaning smile just lighting his face. For that instant he did not utter a word. When he did speak there was a quiver in his voice that age had never planted and in spite of the jokes which had preceded and the laughter which he had led, it sounded like a forerunner of tears. He had never been called eloquent, this kindly-faced and snow-crowned old man, but when he spoke it was always with a gentle dignity, and a depth of sympathy and feeling that compelled attention.
“It is a great satisfaction, my dear Fathers,” he began, “to find so many of you here to rejoice with our young friend and his devoted people, and to thus encourage the growth of a priestly life which he has so well begun in Alta. No one glories in his success more than I. No one more warmly than I, his Bishop, tenders congratulations. This is truly a day the Lord has made–this day in Alta. It is a day of joy and gladness for priest and people. Will you pardon an old man if he stems the tide of mirth for an instant? He could not hope to stem it for long. On such an occasion as this it would burst the barriers, leaving what he would show you once more submerged beneath rippling waters and silver-tipped waves of laughter. It seems wrong even to think of the depths where lie the bodies of the dead and the hulks of the wrecked. But the bottom always has its treasure as well as its tragedy. There are both a tragedy and a treasure in the story I will tell you to-day.”
“You remember Father Belmond, the first pastor of Alta? Yes! Then let me tell you a story that your generous priestly souls will treasure as it deserves.”
The table was strangely silent. Not one of the guests had ever before known the depth of sympathy in the old Bishop till now. Every chord in the nature of each man vibrated to the touch of his words.
“Through the night we three, the old woman, the boy and myself, watched him and listened to his wanderings. Then I learned–old priest and bishop as I was–I learned my lesson. The lips that never spoke a complaint were moved, but not by his will, to go over the story of two terrible years. It was a sad story. It began with his great zeal. He wanted to do so much, but the black discouragement of everything slowly killed his hopes. He saw the Faith going from his people. He saw that they were ceasing to care. The town was then, as it is to-day, McDermott’s town, but McDermott had fallen away when his riches came, and some terrible event, a quarrel with a former priest who had attended Alta from a distant point, had left McDermott bitter. He practically drove the pastor from his door. He closed his factory to the priest’s people and one by one they left. Only eighteen families stayed. The dying priest counted them over in his dreams, and sobbed as he told of the others who had gone. Then the bigotry that McDermott’s faith had kept concealed broke out under the encouragement of McDermott’s infidelity. The boys of the town flung insults at the priest as he passed. The people gave little, and that grudgingly. I could almost feel his pain as he told in his delirium how, day after day, he had dragged his frail body to church and on the round of duty. But every now and then, as if the words came naturally to bear him up, he would say: