...
* * * *
There, then, as Anthony looked on the canvas, was that living, moving
face and figure. What more could He have done that He did not do? What
perfection could be dreamed of that was not already a thousand times His?
And when the likeness was finished, and Father Robert stepped aside from
the portrait that he had painted with such tender skill and love, it is
little wonder that this lad threw himself down before that eloquent
vision and cried with Thomas, My Lord and my God!
* * * *
Then, very gently, Father Robert led him through those last steps; up
from the Illuminative to the Unitive; from the Incarnate Life with its
warm human interests to that Ineffable Light that seems so chill and
unreal to those who only see it through the clouds of earth, into that
keen icy stillness, where only favoured and long-trained souls can
breathe, up the piercing air of the slopes that lead to the Throne, and
there in the listening silence of heaven, where the voice of adoration
itself is silent through sheer intensity, where all colours return to
whiteness and all sounds to stillness, all forms to essence and all
creation to the Creator, there he let him fall in self-forgetting love
and wonder, breathe out his soul in one ardent all-containing act, and
make his choice.
CHAPTER XIV
EASTER DAY
Holy Week passed for Anthony like one of those strange dreams in which
the sleeper awakes to find tears on his face, and does not know whether
they are for joy or sorrow.
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