Diary of a Dying Man (Contd.)

Lourdes, August 17th. Father F ….., my dear old chaplin, departed today, tears in his eyes and in mine. Ay, Christ is not dead, but liveth in these Christlike men. Where have I seen this thought – You, Kant, where are your children who call themselves by your name, preach your doctrines, follow in practice your life? You, Fichte, Schelling, Spinoza, whose schemes and systems come up, angry and impotent, mounting over and leveling each other like waves of an angry sea and breaking in vapour on the sands of time, where are your followers, your disciples, who would swear by your doctrines, and give their lives for the truth? But the gentle Christ, what awful power He exercises, as the magnetism of His example and the magic of His words stretch down along the centuries and fill today the world’s convents as they filled the Lauras of Nitria, a hundred years after his death. Goodbye, Pere F…., I don’t know what secret influence caused your path to cross mine, but you judged me in your love and revealed your master. (Culled from ‘Triumph of Failure’ by Canon Sheehan)