MACBETH.

The third Friday after Gilbert had been wounded, he mounted his horse, and, accompanied by Father Omehr, set out for the Castle of Hers, which lay some four leagues distant to the south.

“You are sad, Father,” said the youth, who felt all the exhilaration of returning strength, heightened by the freshness of the morning.

“It is true, my son; for though in all the trials of this pilgrimage I endeavor to turn to God the cheerful face He loves to see in affliction, I am sometimes weak enough to tremble at the gloomy period before us.  We are upon the eve of a tremendous struggle.  You may not be aware of it, for you are unaccustomed to watch events which govern the future for good or evil; but the firmness of our Holy Father, and the increasing recklessness and impiety of the emperor, must create an earthquake sooner or later.”

“My father,” replied Gilbert, “has imputed to His Holiness a want of firmness.”

“Alas, with how little reason!  He who, when seized by Cencius and his armed assassins at the altar of St. Mary Major—­bruised, and dragged by the hair to the castle of his assailant—­yet remained calm and unmoved, with the face of an Angel, neither imploring mercy nor attempting an ineffectual resistance—­cannot be accused of a want of firmness.  The matchless benevolence—­the heart which melts at the first symptom of repentance—­the clemency which led him, while his wounds were yet fresh, to pardon Cencius, prostrate at his feet—­have also induced him to hearken to the promises of King Henry and accept his contrition.”

“But is it not almost folly to trust the royal hypocrite to whom Suabia pays so heavy a tribute?  I wish that when his infant majesty fell in the Rhine, there had been no Count Ecbert nigh to rescue him!”

“Is it not rather an exalted charity, of which you have no conception, and a Christian forgiveness which puts to shame your last ungenerous wish?”

“I can have no sympathy or pity for him who has loaded with insult a princess alike distinguished for beauty and virtue.”

“You mean the queen, his wife.  But tell me, when he endeavored to procure a divorce from Bertha, who prevented the criminal separation?  Was it the boasted chivalry of Suabia?  No!  Peter Damian, the Pope’s legate, alone opposed the angry monarch, and told him, in the presence of all his courtiers, that ’his designs were disgraceful to a king—­still more disgraceful to a Christian; that he should blush to commit a crime he would punish in another; and that, unless he renounced his iniquitous project, he would incur the denunciation of the Church and the severity of the holy canons.’  The result was the reconcilement of Henry with Bertha, in Saxony.  And though Alexander was Pope, Peter received his instructions from Hildebrand.  But there is a wide difference between your hostility to Henry of Austria and the resistance of Gregory VII to his encroachments:  your motives all flow from human considerations, and seek a human revenge; his, on the contrary, proceed from the knowledge of his duty, to God, and breathe forgiveness:  you seek the king’s destruction and your own aggrandizement—­Gregory, the king’s welfare, and the independence and prosperity of the Christian Church.”