The Blue Flower [49]
young men were standing in a street of
Antioch, in the dusk of early morning, fifteen hundred years
ago--a class of candidates who had nearly finished their years
of training for the Christian church. They had come to call
their fellow-student Hermas from his lodging.
Their voices rang out cheerily through the cool air. They
were full of that glad sense of life which the young feel when
they have risen early and come to rouse one who is still
sleeping. There was a note of friendly triumph in their call,
as if they were exulting unconsciously in having begun the
adventure of the new day before their comrade.
But Hermas was not asleep. He had been waking for hours,
and the walls of his narrow lodging had been a prison to his
heart. A nameless sorrow and discontent had fallen upon him, and
he could find no escape from the heaviness of his own thoughts.
There is a sadness of youth into which the old cannot
enter. It seems unreal and causeless. But it is even more
bitter and burdensome than the sadness of age. There is a
sting of resentment in it, a fever of angry surprise that the
world should so soon be a disappointment, and life so early
take on the look of a failure. It has little reason in it,
perhaps, but it has all the more weariness and gloom, because
the man who is oppressed by it feels dimly that it is an
unnatural thing that he should be tired of living before he
has fairly begun to live.
Hermas had fallen into the very depths of this strange
self-pity. He was out of tune with everything around him. He
had been thinking, through the dead night, of all that he had
given up when he left the house of his father, the wealthy
pagan Demetrius, to join the company of the Christians. Only
two years ago he had been one of the richest young men in
Antioch. Now he was one of the poorest. The worst of it was
that, though he had made the choice willingly and with a kind of
enthusiasm, he was already dissatisfied with it.
The new life was no happier than the old. He was weary of
vigils and fasts, weary of studies and penances, weary of
prayers and sermons. He felt like a slave in a treadmill. He
knew that he must go on. His honour, his conscience, his
sense of duty, bound him. He could not go back to the old
careless pagan life again; for something had happened within
him which made a return impossible. Doubtless he had found
the true religion, but he had found it only as a task and a
burden; its joy and peace had slipped away from him.
He felt disillusioned and robbed. He sat beside his hard
couch, waiting without expectancy for the gray dawn of another
empty day, and hardly lifting his head at the shouts of his
friends.
"Come down, Hermas, you sluggard! Come down! It is
Christmas morn. Awake, and be glad with us!"
"I am coming," he answered listlessly; "only have patience
a moment. I have been awake since midnight, and waiting for
the day."
"You hear him!" said his friends one to another. "How he
puts us all to shame! He is more watchful, more eager, than
any of us. Our master, John the Presbyter, does well to be
proud of him. He is the best man in our class."
While they were talking the door opened and Hermas stepped
out. He was a figure to be remarked in any company--tall,
broad-shouldered, straight-hipped, with a head proudly poised
on the firm column of the neck, and short brown curls
clustering over the square forehead. It was the perpetual
type of vigorous and intelligent young manhood, such as may be
found in every century among the throngs of ordinary men, as
if to show what the flower of the race should be. But the
light in his eyes was clouded and uncertain; his smooth cheeks
were leaner than they should have been at twenty; and there
were downward lines about his mouth which spoke of desires
unsatisfied and ambitions repressed. He joined his
companions with brief greetings,--a nod to one, a word to
another,--and they passed together down the steep street.
Overhead the mystery of daybreak was silently
Antioch, in the dusk of early morning, fifteen hundred years
ago--a class of candidates who had nearly finished their years
of training for the Christian church. They had come to call
their fellow-student Hermas from his lodging.
Their voices rang out cheerily through the cool air. They
were full of that glad sense of life which the young feel when
they have risen early and come to rouse one who is still
sleeping. There was a note of friendly triumph in their call,
as if they were exulting unconsciously in having begun the
adventure of the new day before their comrade.
But Hermas was not asleep. He had been waking for hours,
and the walls of his narrow lodging had been a prison to his
heart. A nameless sorrow and discontent had fallen upon him, and
he could find no escape from the heaviness of his own thoughts.
There is a sadness of youth into which the old cannot
enter. It seems unreal and causeless. But it is even more
bitter and burdensome than the sadness of age. There is a
sting of resentment in it, a fever of angry surprise that the
world should so soon be a disappointment, and life so early
take on the look of a failure. It has little reason in it,
perhaps, but it has all the more weariness and gloom, because
the man who is oppressed by it feels dimly that it is an
unnatural thing that he should be tired of living before he
has fairly begun to live.
Hermas had fallen into the very depths of this strange
self-pity. He was out of tune with everything around him. He
had been thinking, through the dead night, of all that he had
given up when he left the house of his father, the wealthy
pagan Demetrius, to join the company of the Christians. Only
two years ago he had been one of the richest young men in
Antioch. Now he was one of the poorest. The worst of it was
that, though he had made the choice willingly and with a kind of
enthusiasm, he was already dissatisfied with it.
The new life was no happier than the old. He was weary of
vigils and fasts, weary of studies and penances, weary of
prayers and sermons. He felt like a slave in a treadmill. He
knew that he must go on. His honour, his conscience, his
sense of duty, bound him. He could not go back to the old
careless pagan life again; for something had happened within
him which made a return impossible. Doubtless he had found
the true religion, but he had found it only as a task and a
burden; its joy and peace had slipped away from him.
He felt disillusioned and robbed. He sat beside his hard
couch, waiting without expectancy for the gray dawn of another
empty day, and hardly lifting his head at the shouts of his
friends.
"Come down, Hermas, you sluggard! Come down! It is
Christmas morn. Awake, and be glad with us!"
"I am coming," he answered listlessly; "only have patience
a moment. I have been awake since midnight, and waiting for
the day."
"You hear him!" said his friends one to another. "How he
puts us all to shame! He is more watchful, more eager, than
any of us. Our master, John the Presbyter, does well to be
proud of him. He is the best man in our class."
While they were talking the door opened and Hermas stepped
out. He was a figure to be remarked in any company--tall,
broad-shouldered, straight-hipped, with a head proudly poised
on the firm column of the neck, and short brown curls
clustering over the square forehead. It was the perpetual
type of vigorous and intelligent young manhood, such as may be
found in every century among the throngs of ordinary men, as
if to show what the flower of the race should be. But the
light in his eyes was clouded and uncertain; his smooth cheeks
were leaner than they should have been at twenty; and there
were downward lines about his mouth which spoke of desires
unsatisfied and ambitions repressed. He joined his
companions with brief greetings,--a nod to one, a word to
another,--and they passed together down the steep street.
Overhead the mystery of daybreak was silently