“I seemed left alive
Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,
To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared,
When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things.”
-BROWNING.
IT was the morning of the 11th of December, 1602. Over old Geneva, Queen of Lake Leman, light snow-clouds rested; and in the narrow, sunless streets the cold was intense and bitter. So thought the crowd of young scholars who poured out, book and tablet in hand, into the Rue Verdaine through the gateway of the Academy -that gateway which bears upon its keystone,. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." The great Cathedral clock, the clock of St. Peter's, was just tolling the tenth hour. So they were, going to dinner, for in the Geneva of that day men dined at 10 or 11 a.m., or at latest at noon. There was far less noise and uproar than there would be now in such a scene. These Genevan youths were born to a destiny austere and high, and they learned early to take life seriously. Still they were cheerful and healthy, and to their vigorous young frames the cold was only a pleasant stimulus. All were clad very plainly, most of them in frocks or "blouses" of frieze, black, brown, or gray—a few in more substantial broadcloth.
Among these last was a fair-haired lad from England, with a bright, open face, who ran, without drawing breath, from the Rue Verdaine to the Rue des Chanoines, where he paused at the door of one of the plain, high houses. Seeing that it was not quite shut he pushed it open, and softly entered a room on the ground floor.
It was a common room, plainly furnished, and that which it contained was very common also. In every city in the world, and in every age and time, has the hand of disease so often spared the old to strike the young, and called the parents, reversing the order of nature, to weep for their children.
On a low bed in the midst lay a young girl, scarcely more than a child. She was very white and still, but not unconscious, for her wide-opened eyes were bright with intelligence, and full of wistful, anxious thought. As the boy entered, a long-robed person, evidently a physician, gently withdrew the hand with which he had been feeling her pulse, and looked sadly at her father, who was standing by him. On the other side of the bed the mother stood, a cup in her hand, and her face turned aside lest her tears should fall into it. A servant girl was there too, and a young man named Mercier, a friend of the family. The English scholar made one more, where already there were too many in the room for the patient's good. As special efforts had been made to exclude the outer air, and a fire of charcoal burned on the hearth, the atmosphere, according to our modern notions, was stifling.
“How is she?" the boy whispered to the young man beside him.
Jacques Mercier shook his head.
“The bleeding has returned," he answered in the same tone. The foe that was sapping the young life of Theodora Viret wore what is, for us, a too familiar face. Even to our Saxon forefathers it was already known as lung ail." There was then but little protection for ailing lungs against the climate of Geneva, often severe in winter. Fires, except in the kitchens, had sometimes been, proscribed by law, and were always discouraged by custom. There, as elsewhere in that age, the houses "were one great draft from attic to cellar"; and luxury in warm clothing, like all other luxuries, was looked upon with an unfriendly eye. Even the loved and cherished, if they were the feeble also, had a hard time of it; and the law of the survival of the fittest must have been in active operation.
This girl was dearly loved, and fondly cherished. Young Robert Musgrave could not take his eyes from the face of the father—a hard face, long and narrow, with stern, strong features, which had in them a depth of silent sorrow that struck into the boy's heart a sort of awe, and held him like a spell.
Suddenly everyone bent forward, and the physician raised his hand. The sick girl was trying to speak. Regardless of the forbidding gesture, the words came—two brief syllables slowly but clearly uttered, "J' ai peur " ("I am afraid"). That anxious, questioning look in the young eyes sought, one after another, the faces round. At last it rested, pleadingly, on her father's. He answered the mute appeal, cleared his throat, tried to speak, failed, tried again—"Jesus said: ' Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.'”
“I know," the weak voice said again, "I believe—but—I am afraid—to die."
“My child, you must not speak," the physician interposed, with gentle decision. "Hush! Not a word!”
“' There is, therefore, now no condemnation,' the father resumed;" ' no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.' For ' the sting of death is sin.'”
“I do not fear death," the child murmured."
I fear—dying." At all costs, she would be understood.
But those around her could not understand. It did not enter into their conception that the fear was mainly physical, the instinctive shrinking of life from its "enemy" death. A look of keen distress disturbed the settled sorrow in the father's face, and the mother sobbed aloud.
At this moment someone knocked gently with a stick upon the outer door. The young scholar, who stood nearest, went out quietly and opened it.
A stately old man, in a doctor's fur-trimmed robe, and with a doctor's cap on his snow-white head, stood without, leaning on a staff.
“How is my dear god-daughter?" he asked, in the trembling voice of age.
Robert Musgrave bowed low as he answered, "Very ill, sir. I fear, dying.”
He had to repeat his words, for the old man was hard of hearing. But he did not repeat the last. "Will it please you, sir, to come in?" he added instead.
No light cause had brought Dr. Theodore Beza, worn with the weight of his more than fourscore years, from the shelter of his own roof on this snowy day. Fourscore years, moreover, weighed more heavily then than now. But his god-daughter—the grand child of his friend and fellow-worker, Pastor Viret, was very dear to him.
As he entered the room every eye turned towards him. In youth he had been strikingly handsome, and the beauty of an ideal old age transcends even the beauty of youth. There is, on earth, no crown of glory like the hoary head, found in the way of righteousness. An ample forehead, which many of his contemporaries might have matched in height but few approached in breadth, surmounted blue eyes still full of intelligence, though something of the fire of former days had gone, and the calm, out looking gaze of age had come instead. A flowing silver beard concealed the sunken lips, and gave an added grace to the venerable aspect of the last of the Reformers, the sole survivor of the bygone mighty years, when there were giants in the earth.
“The Lord bless you and keep you, dear brethren and sisters," he said, removing his doctor's cap.
They made way for him to approach the bed. For a few moments he stood in silence, looking sadly on the wasted face of the sweet child he had caressed and taught—
“The old eyes searching, dim with life,
The young eyes dim with death.”
He, at least, thought he saw death there, Very gently he spoke to her—"My little lamb, thou art in the arms of the Good Shepherd. He is putting thee to sleep and while thou sleepest, He will carry thee over the river, which is Death. Thou shalt wake presently, the pin and danger all past, to see His face above thee.”
She looked up, with a smile so bright and sweet that those around her wondered. Her father's set face changed, and his strong lips quivered. But who had told the Doctor the poor child's unreasoning dread? None had told him; it is a fact that those who live very near to God, and ask Him to give them words wherewith to reach the hearts of others, are often guided to meet the needs of which they themselves know nothing.
“Let us pray," the old man said again. All knelt reverently, save the two whom age or sickness prevented. In words strong and tender, though few, the sufferer and the mourners were commended to the God of all grace and consolation. When they rose again, the two women were sobbing, and there was a mist of gathering tears in the father's eyes. The old man stretched out his hands with the words of ancient benediction, "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
Then silently he turned to go. The scholar followed, opened the door for him, and asked "Sir, will it please you to lean on me?”
“I thank thee, my child," said Beza, laying his left hand on the boy's shoulder—his right held the staff.
They went in silence up the street, till they passed a house which bore the number 122. Here Beza paused, and looked. Robert Musgrave, like every other boy in Geneva, knew why. In that house John Calvin had lived and labored, and thence he "went to God," as the Genevan register `path it. That was eight-and-thirty years ago; but the friend of his soul, who had loved him living and ministered to him dying, never passed that house without a thought of the years of the Right Hand of the Most High—
“When there was mid-sea and the mighty things.”
Young Musgrave looked also, and doffed his cap in reverence. Then Beza spoke, either to him, or more likely to himself. "With him the way was long and hard; in the dark valley the shadows of pain fell heavily. For he was strong in soul, and God had much glory in the faith and patience, of His servant. But with the weak He, deals tenderly. ‘So He giveth His beloved sleep '—or, it may be, ' in sleep.' Which rendering Master Calvin accepted, I do not now remember. I have forgotten many things. But I know it is often His way to take us over that which we fear, or to give" us that which we long for—to deliver or to bless us—while we sleep.”
Robert was far too shy to speak, but he laid up the words in his memory. They went on again in silence But as he neared',.; his own door, a kindly thought for his young companion crossed the old man's mind, and he asked, "What is thy name, my lad? know thy face, but I forget—I forget.”
“Robert Musgrave, to serve you, sir.”
“Ah!" with a brightened look. "Yes, of a surety I should have known. Thou art, then, the son of my good friend Master Musgrave, who came here during the persecution of Queen Mary—was a man of note in the English congregation, and a friend of Master John Knox. He was given the Freedom of the City. A good man, and chosen of the Lord.”
“I am his grandson, sir. My father, who is now Sir John Musgrave, was sent by him for education here, and was also made a citizen of Geneva. I, too, I am a child of Geneva, and when I grow to man's estate, I should be right glad to be enrolled.”
The boy raised his head proudly. To the men of the Reformation, the Genevan citizenship was a kind of patent of nobility. Many of the Protestant Faith, from every country in Europe, used in those days to send their sons to Geneva for their education.
“In the meantime, my boy, how dost thou in the schools?" Beza asked, with interest. He had himself been Rector of the Academy, until his age and infirmities obliged him to resign.
“Pretty well, sir," Robert answered, modestly. "I am yet in the third class, but I hope next ' Promotions ' to be advanced to the second, and perhaps to be made a dizenier" (monitor having charge of ten).
“That is well, Master Robert. Dost love thy book?”
“I love Virgil and Horace, sir. I am not, as yet, far enough advanced in Greek to love those who wrote in it.”
“An honest answer. But tell me, dost thou, like thy grandfather, love the Book, which is thine, and mine, and every man's, because it comes from the heart of the God who made us, and who knows therefore all that is in ours?”
“I think, sir, I do," Robert Musgrave answered thoughtfully.
As he spoke, they reached the door of the Reformer's modest dwelling. He withdrew his hand gently from the boy's shoulder, said a pleasant word of thanks and farewell, and passed in.