The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-02-12
The EXILE
lPHlGENlA AND DAVID ARE cLAs-
sic ExAMPLEs-THE ILLUsTRI.
Gus EXILE IN THE TARER-
NAcLE.

SIC #EXAMPLES-THE lLLUSTRl-
Gus EXILE IN THE TARER.
NAcLE.
Among eXiles the classic example is
Iphigenia. She stands on the barren
rock-bound coast of Tauris. At her
feet a melancholy waste of waters
stretches far away Her eyes are
fixed on the distant horizon while she
yearns for home and kindred and the
old familiar scenes Of youth. She is
a perfect type of the disconsoIate.
stranger in a strange land. How cold
and cruel are her northern surround
ings compared with the warm sunny
Isles of Greece. Grim, tragic, horrible,
is the story of that coast on the
Euxine, where the shipWreck mariner,
from time immemorial, had been sac
rificed to the pagan gods that coast
where, as priesteSs of Diana, she must
still offer up the bleeding sacrifice.
| The genius of Goethe puts appropriate
lines into her mouth:
ALIAS for him who friendless and
alone,
Remote from parents and from breth-
| rem dwells.
From him grief snatches every coming
joy
Ere it doth reach his lips His yearn-
ing thoughts
Throng back forever to his fathers
halls
Where first to him the radiant sun un-
closed
The gates of heaven; where closer day
by day
Brothers and sisters leagued in past
time sweet
Around each other Irvine loves tender
bonds"
fancy that the painting by Feuer-
| bach catches the exact note of her
| usefulness, all her mental gloom and
depression, for like David she seems
/ to cry out in the picture, ooh, for the
| wings of a dove that | might fly to
the uttermost parts of the morning"
But though her exiled condition ex-
cites sympathy we cannot sympathize
with her as fully as with another per-
feet type of exile beneath Egyptian
skies. There is something uncanny,
repulsive, almost abhorrent, about the
office of Iphigenia, her surroundings
and her ancestry; whereas, the great
Hebrew Law-giver touches the cords of
our own spiritual tradition, and al
| though he had neither Il Goethe nor a
Euripides to sing his sufferings i'll dra-
matte verse, yet he remains withal an
| historical type of the exile far more
secure to fame than the celebrated
| daughter of Clytemnestra. How SIM
pie yet how pathetic is the statement
| of Moses concerning his lonesome So
journ in Egypt have been stran-
ger in strange land" Shakespeare
says of a certain king that i'll his very
look was writ a tragic volume. Sure
| ly as much may be said about this line
which sums up not only the days and
months and years of slavery and suf-
fering endured by Moses but in vital
sense recalls the whole story of Israel
in the house of bondage.
How often the human spirit feels
kinship with Moses and Israel, for the
bondage of the flesh resembles the
bondage of Egypt! 1t is state of ex-
! lie, and the immortal captive longs to
| fly with David-longs with ST. Paul
to be dissolved from the body Of this
death. We all feel at times i'll the
same strain of meditation with Words
| In 1, is ri
"The clouds that gather round the set
ting sun
Do take sober coloring from the eye
That hath kept watch on mans NOR
j tality."
World-wearinesS never oppressed the
soul so much as it does today when
war clouds darken the sky and when
fertilization, instead of gazing upward
toward the heaven of all of our ideals
now looks sullenly down upon pool
of blood and sees therein the image
of maniac scattering dust-"a wild
eyed fury singing flame" Cardinal
Newman in his beautiful sermon on
the Church: The Home of the Lone.
| w." points out our chief refuge and
consolation when thoughts of our OK
lie make the soul sad and discon.
ISOLATE.
For there III the silent sanctuary
before the ever-burning taper is the
| Illustrious Exile in the Tabernacle OF
His love. Not hate as in the case OF
Iphigenia, but love, infinite love, has
| exiIed Him from His heavenly home
in order that He may dwell among
sinners and bring them to repentance.
And SO the prodigal soul kneels before
the Blessed Sacrament, and silently
seeks spiritual strength and refresh.
ment; the pilgrim weary of the thorn
and thirst and the lone garish day
Surrenders at last
Keep thou my feet. do not wish
to see
The distant scene: one step enough