Part 7
“She? Ah, she,” said my informant, “was only one of the household saints. She had been notable among celestial observers for many years. You know the type I mean--shy, silent--never thinks of herself, scarcely knows she has a self--toils, drudges, endures, prays; expects nothing of her friends, and gives all; hopes for little, even from her Lord, but surrenders everything; full of religious ideals, not all of them theoretically wise, but practically noble; a woman ready to be cut to inch pieces for her faith in an invisible Love that has never apparently given her anything in particular. Oh, you know the kind of woman: has never had anything of her own, in all her life--not even her own room--and a whole family adore her without knowing it, and lean upon her like infants without seeing it. We have been watching for this woman’s coming. We knew there would be an especial greeting for her. But nobody thought of her accompanying the engineer. Come! Shall we not follow, and see how they will be received? If I am not mistaken, it will be a great day in the city.”
XI.
Among the inquiries that must be raised by my fragmentary recital, I am only too keenly aware of the difficulty of answering one which I do not see my way altogether to ignore. I refer to that affecting the domestic relations of the eternal world.
It will be readily seen that I might not be permitted to share much of the results of my observation in this direction, with earthly curiosity, or even earthly anxiety. It is not without thought and prayer for close guidance that I suffer myself to say, in as few words as possible, that I found the unions which go to form heavenly homes so different from the marriage relations of earth, in their laws of selection and government, that I quickly understood the meaning of our Lord’s few revealed words as to that matter; while yet I do not find myself at liberty to explain either the words or the facts. I think I cannot be wrong in adding, that in a number of cases, so great as to astonish me, the marriages of earth had no historic effect upon the ties of Heaven. Laws of affiliation uniting soul to soul in a relation infinitely closer than a bond, and more permanent than any which the average human experience would lead to if it were socially a free agent, controlled the attractions of this pure and happy life, in a manner of which I can only say that it must remain a mystery to the earthly imagination. I have intimated that in some cases the choices of time were so blessed as to become the choices of Eternity. I may say, that if I found it lawful to utter the impulse of my soul, I should cry throughout the breadth of the earth a warning to the lightness, or the haste, or the presumption, or the mistake that chose to love for one world, when it might have loved for two.
For, let me say most solemnly, that the relations made between man and woman on earth I found to be, in importance to the individual, second to nothing in the range of human experience, save the adjustment of the soul to the Personality of God Himself.
If I say that I found earthly marriage to have been a temporary expedient for preserving the form of the eternal fact; that freedom in this as in all other things became in Heaven the highest law; that the great sea of human misery, swelled by the passion of love on earth, shall evaporate to the last drop in the blaze of bliss to which no human counterpart can approach any nearer than a shadow to the sun,--I may be understood by those for whose sake alone it is worth while to allude to this mystery at all; for the rest it matters little.
Perhaps I should say, once for all, that every form of pure pleasure or happiness which had existed upon the earth had existed as a type of a greater. Our divinest hours below had been scarcely more than suggestions of their counterparts above. I do not expect to be understood. It must only be remembered that, in all instances, the celestial life develops the soul of a thing. When I speak of eating and drinking, for instance, I do not mean that we cooked and prepared our food as we do below. The elements of nutrition continued to exist for us as they had in the earth, the air, the water, though they were available without drudgery or anxiety. Yet I mean distinctly that the sense of taste remained, that it was gratified at need, that it was a finer one and gave a keener pleasure than its coarser prototype below. I mean that the _soul of a sense_ is a more exquisite thing than what we may call the body of the sense, as developed to earthly consciousness.
So far from there being any diminution in the number or power of the senses in the spiritual life, I found not only an acuter intensity in those which we already possessed, but that the effect of our new conditions was to create others of whose character we had never dreamed. To be sure, wise men had forecast the possibility of this fact, differing among themselves even as to the accepted classification of what they had, as Scaliger who called speech the sixth sense, or our English contemporary who included heat and force in his list (also of six); or more imaginative men who had admitted the conceivability of inconceivable powers in an order of being beyond the human. Knowing a little of these speculations, I was not so much surprised at the facts as overwhelmed by their extent and variety. Yet if I try to explain them, I am met by an almost insurmountable obstacle.
It is well known that missionaries are often thwarted in their religious labors by the absence in savage tongues of any words corresponding to certain ideas such as that of purity or unselfishness. Philologists have told us of one African tribe in whose language exist six different words descriptive of murder; none whatever expressive of love. In another no such word as gratitude can be found. Perhaps no illustration can better serve to indicate the impediments which bar the way to my describing to beings who possess but five senses and their corresponding imaginative culture, the habits or enjoyments consequent upon the development of ten senses or fifteen. I am allowed to say as much as this: that the growth of these celestial powers was variable with individuals throughout the higher world, or so much of it as I became acquainted with. It will be readily seen what an illimitable scope for anticipation or achievement is given to daily life by such an evolution of the nature. It should be carefully remembered that this serves only as a single instance of the exuberance of what we call everlasting life.
Below, I remember that I used sometimes to doubt the possibility of one’s being happy forever under any conditions, and had moods in which I used to question the value of endless existence. I wish most earnestly to say, that before I had been in Heaven days, Eternity did not seem long enough to make room for the growth of character, the growth of mind, the variety of enjoyment and employment, and the increase of usefulness that practically constituted immortality.
It could not have been long after my arrival at my father’s house that he took me with him to the great music hall of our city. It was my first attendance at any one of the public festivals of these happy people, and one long to be treasured in thought. It was, in fact, nothing less than the occasion of a visit by Beethoven, and the performance of a new oratorio of his own, which he conducted in person. Long before the opening hour the streets of the city were thronged. People with holiday expressions poured in from the country. It was a gala-day with all the young folks especially, much as such matters go below. A beautiful thing which I noticed was the absence of all personal insistence in the crowd. The weakest, or the saddest, or the most timid, or those who, for any reason, had the more need of this great pleasure, were selected by their neighbors and urged on into the more desirable positions. The music hall, so-called, was situated upon a hill just outside the town, and consisted of an immense roof supported by rose-colored marble pillars. There were no walls to the building, so that there was the effect of being no limit to the audience, which extended past the line of luxuriously covered seats provided for them, upon the grass, and even into the streets leading to the city. So perfect were what we should call below the telephonic arrangement of the community, that those who remained in their own homes or pursued their usual avocations were not deprived of the music. My impressions are that every person in the city, who desired to put himself in communication with it, heard the oratorio; but I am not familiar with the system by which this was effected. It involved a high advance in the study of acoustics, and was one of the things which I noted to be studied at a wiser time.
Many distinguished persons known to you below, were present, some from our own neighborhood, and others guests of the city. It was delightful to observe the absence of all jealousy or narrow criticism among themselves, and also the reverence with which their superiority was regarded by the less gifted. Every good or great thing seemed to be so heartily shared with every being capable of sharing it, and all personal gifts to become material for such universal pride, that one experienced a kind of transport at the elevation of the public character.
I remembered how it used to be below, when I was present at some musical festival in the familiar hall where the bronze statue of Beethoven, behind the sea of sound, stood calmly. How he towered above our poor unfinished story! As we grouped there, sitting each isolated with his own thirst, brought to be slaked or excited by the flood of music; drinking down into our frivolity or our despair the outlet of that mighty life, it used to seem to me that I heard, far above the passion of the orchestra, his own high words,--his own music made articulate,--“_I go to meet Death with joy._”
When there came upon the people in that heavenly audience-room a stir, like the rustling of a dead leaf upon crusted snow; when the stir grew to a solemn murmur; when the murmur ran into a lofty cry; when I saw that the orchestra, the chorus, and the audience had risen like one breathless man, and knew that Beethoven stood before us, the light of day darkened for that instant before me. The prelude was well under way, I think, before I dared lift my eyes to his face.
The great tide swept me on. When upon earth had he created sound like this? Where upon earth had we heard its like? There he is, one listening nerve from head to foot, he who used to stand deaf in the middle of his own orchestra--desolate no more, denied no more forever, all the heavenly senses possible to Beethoven awake to the last delicate response; all the solemn faith in the invisible, in the holy, which he had made his own, triumphant now; all the powers of his mighty nature in action like a rising storm--there stands Beethoven immortally alive.
What knew we of music, I say, who heard its earthly prototype? It was but the tuning of the instruments before the eternal orchestra shall sound. Soul! swing yourself free upon this mighty current. Of what will Beethoven tell us whom he dashes on like drops?
As the pæan rises, I bow my life to understand. What would he with us whom God chose to make Beethoven everlastingly? What is the burden of this master’s message, given now in Heaven, as once on earth? Do we hear aright? Do we read the score correctly?
“Holy--holy”--
A chorus of angel voices, trained since the time when morning stars sang together with the sons of God, take up the words:
“Holy, _holy_, HOLY is the Lord.”
* * * * *
When the oratorio has ended, and we glide out, each hushed as a hidden thought, to his own ways, I stay beneath a linden-tree to gather breath. A fine sound, faint as the music of a dream, strikes my ringing ears, and, looking up, I see that the leaf above my head is singing. Has it, too, been one of the great chorus yonder? Did he command the forces of nature, as he did the seraphs of Heaven, or the powers of earth?
The strain falls away slowly from the lips of the leaf:
“Holy, holy, holy,”--
It trembles, and is still.
XII.
That which it is permitted me to relate to you moves on swiftly before the thoughts, like the compression in the last act of a drama. The next scene which starts from the variousness of heavenly delight I find to be the Symphony of Color.
There was a time in the history of art, below, when this, and similar phrases, had acquired almost a slang significance, owing to the affectation of their use by the shallow. I was, therefore, the more surprised at meeting a fact so lofty behind the guise of the familiar words; and noted it as but one of many instances in which the earthly had deteriorated from the ideals of the celestial life.
It seemed that the development of color had reached a point never conceived of below, and that the treatment of it constituted an art by itself. By this I do not mean its treatment under the form of painting, decoration, dress, or any embodiment whatever. What we were called to witness was an exhibition of color, pure and simple.
This occasion, of which I especially speak, was controlled by great colorists, some of earthly, some of heavenly renown. Not all of them were artists in the accepted sense of designers; among them were one or two select creatures in whom the passion of color had been remarkable, but, so far as the lower world was concerned, for the great part inactive, for want of any scientific means of expression.
We have all known the _color natures_, and, if we have had a fine sympathy, have compassionated them as much as any upon earth, whether they were found among the disappointed disciples of Art itself, or hidden away in plain homes, where the paucity of existence held all the delicacy and the dream of life close prisoners.
Among the managers of this Symphony I should say that I observed, at a distance, the form of Raphael. I heard it rumored that Leonardo was present, but I did not see him. There was another celebrated artist engaged in the work, whose name I am not allowed to give. It was an unusual occasion, and had attracted attention at a distance. The Symphony did not take place in our own city, but in an adjacent town, to which our citizens, as well as those of other places, repaired in great numbers. We sat, I remember, in a luxurious coliseum, closely darkened. The building was circular in form; it was indeed a perfect globe, in whose centre, without touching anywhere the superficies, we were seated. Air without light entered freely, I know not how, and fanned our faces perpetually. Distant music appealed to the ear, without engaging it. Pleasures, which we could receive or dismiss at will, wandered by, and were assimilated by those extra senses which I have no means of describing. Whatever could be done to put soul and body in a state of ease so perfect as to admit of complete receptivity, and in a mood so high as to induce the loftiest interpretation of the purely æsthetic entertainment before us, was done in the amazing manner characteristic of this country. I do not know that I had ever felt so keenly as on this occasion the delight taken by God in providing happiness for the children of His discipline and love. We had suffered so much, some of us, below, that it did not seem natural, at first, to accept sheer pleasure as an end in and of itself. But I learned that this, like many other fables in Heaven, had no moral. Live! Be! Do! Be glad! Because He lives, ye live also. Grow! Gain! Achieve! Hope! _That_ is to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. Having fought--rest. Having trusted--know. Having endured--enjoy. Being safe--venture. Being pure--fear not to be sensitive. Being in harmony with the Soul of all delights--dare to indulge thine own soul to the brim therein. Having acquired holiness--thou hast no longer any broken law to fear. Dare to be happy. This was the spirit of daily life among us. “Nothing was required of us but to be natural,” as I have said before. And it “was natural to be right,” thank God, at last.
Being a new-comer, and still so unlearned, I could not understand the Color Symphony as many of the spectators did, while yet I enjoyed it intensely, as an untaught musical organization may enjoy the most complicated composition. I think it was one of the most stimulating sights I ever saw, and my ambition to master this new art flashed fire at once.
Slowly, as we sat silent, at the centre of that great white globe--it was built of porphyry, I think, or some similar substance--there began to breathe upon the surface pure light. This trembled and deepened, till we were enclosed in a sphere of white fire. This I perceived, to scholars in the science of color, signified distinct thought, as a grand chord does to the musician. Thus it was with the hundred effects which followed. White light quivered into pale blue. Blue struggled with violet. Gold and orange parted. Green and gray and crimson glided on. Rose--the living rose--blushed upon us, and faltered under--over--yonder, till we were shut into a world of it, palpitating. It was as if we had gone behind the soul of a woman’s blush, or the meaning of a sunrise. Whoever has known the passion for that color will understand why some of the spectators were with difficulty restrained from flinging themselves down into it, as into a sea of rapture.
There were others more affected by the purple, and even by the scarlet; some, again, by the delicate tints in which was the color of the sun, and by colors which were hints rather than expressions. Marvelous modifications of rays set in. They had their laws, their chords, their harmonies, their scales; they carried their melodies and “execution;” they had themes and ornamentation. Each combination had its meaning. The trained eye received it, as the trained ear receives orchestra or oratory. The senses melted, but the intellect was astir. A perfect composition of color unto color was before us, exquisite in detail, magnificent in mass. Now it seemed as if we ourselves, sitting there ensphered in color, flew around the globe with the quivering rays. Now as if we sank into endless sleep with reposing tints; now as if we drank of color; then as if we dreamed it; now as if we felt it--clasped it; then as if we heard it. We were taken into the heart of it; into the mystery of the June sky, and the grass-blade, the blue-bell, the child’s cheek, the cloud at sunset, the snowdrift at twilight. The apple-blossom told us its secret, and the down on the pigeon’s neck, and the plume of the rose-curlew, and the robin’s-egg, and the hair of blonde women, and the scarlet passion-flower, and the mist over everglades, and the power of a dark eye.
It may be remembered that I have alluded once to the rainbow which I saw soon after reaching the new life, and that I raised a question at the time as to the number of rays exhibited in the celestial prism. As I watched the Symphony, I became convinced that the variety of colors unquestionably far exceeded those with which we were familiar on earth. The Indian occultists indeed had long urged that they saw fourteen tints in the prism; this was the dream of the mystic, who, by a tremendous system of education, claims to have subjected the body to the soul, so that the ordinary laws of nature yield to his control. Physicists had also taught us that the laws of optics involved the necessity of other colors beyond those whose rays were admissible by our present vision; this was the assertion of that science which is indebted more largely to the imagination than the worshiper of the Fact has yet arisen from his prone posture high enough to see.
Now, indeed, I had the truth before me. Colors which no artist’s palette, no poet’s rapture knew, played upon optic nerves exquisitely trained to receive such effects, and were appropriated by other senses empowered to share them in a manner which human language supplies me with no verb or adjective to express.
As we journeyed home after the Symphony, I was surprised to find how calming had been the effect of its intense excitement. Without fever of pulse or rebel fancy or wearied nerve, I looked about upon the peaceful country. I felt ready for any duty. I was strong for all deprivation. I longed to live more purely. I prayed to live more unselfishly. I greatly wished to share the pleasure, with which I had been blessed, with some denied soul. I thought of uneducated people, and coarse people, who had yet to be trained to so many of the highest varieties of happiness. I thought of sick people, all their earthly lives invalids, recently dead, and now free to live. I wished that I had sought some of these out, and taken them with me to the Symphony.
It was a rare evening, even in the blessed land. I enjoyed the change of scene as I used to do in traveling, below. It was delightful to look abroad and see everywhere prosperity and peace. The children were shouting and tumbling in the fields. Young people strolled laughing by twos or in groups. The vigorous men and women busied themselves or rested at the doors of cosy homes. The ineffable landscape of hill and water stretched on behind the human foreground. Nowhere a chill or a blot; nowhere a tear or a scowl, a deformity, a disability, or an evil passion. There was no flaw in the picture. There was no error in the fact. I felt that I was among a perfectly happy people. I said, “I am in a holy world.”
The next day was a Holy Day; we of the earth still called it the Sabbath, from long habit. I remember an especial excitement on that Holy Day following the Color Symphony, inasmuch as we assembled to be instructed by one whom, above all other men that had ever lived on earth, I should have taken most trouble to hear. This was no other than St. John the Apostle.
I remember that we held the service in the open air, in the fields beyond the city, for “there was no Temple therein.” The Beloved Disciple stood above us, on the rising ground. It would be impossible to forget, but it is well-nigh impossible to describe, the appearance of the preacher. I think he had the most sensitive face I ever saw in any man; yet his dignity was unapproachable. He had a ringing voice of remarkable sweetness, and great power of address. He seemed more divested of himself than any orator I had heard. He poured his personality out upon us, like one of the forces of nature, as largely, and as unconsciously.