Part 8

He taught us much. He reasoned of mysteries over which we had pored helplessly all our lives below. He explained intricate points in the plan of human life. He touched upon the perplexities of religious faith. He cast a great light backward over the long, dim way by which we had crept to our present blessedness. He spoke to us of our deadliest doubts. He confirmed for us our patient belief. He made us ashamed of our distrust and our restlessness. He left us eager for faith. He gave vigor to our spiritual ideals. He spoke to us of the love of God, as the light speaks of the sun. He revealed to us how we had misunderstood Him. Our souls cried out within us, as we remembered our errors. We gathered ourselves like soldiers as we knew our possibilities. We swayed in his hands as the bough sways in the wind. Each man looked at his neighbor as one whose eyes ask: “Have I wronged thee? Let me atone.” “Can I serve thee? Show me how.” All our spiritual life arose like an athlete, to exercise itself; we sought hard tasks; we aspired for far prizes; we turned to our daily lives like new-created beings; so truly we had kept Holy Day. When the discourse was over, there followed an anthem sung by a choir of child-angels hovering in mid-air above the preacher, and beautiful exceedingly to the sight and to the ear. “God,” they sang, “is Love--_is_ Love--is LOVE.” In the refrain we joined with our own awed voices.

The chant died away. All the air of all the worlds was still. The beloved Disciple raised his hand in solemn signal. A majestic Form glided to his side. To whom should the fisherman of Galilee turn with a look like _that_? Oh, grace of God! what a smile was there! The Master and Disciple stand together; they rise above us. See! He falls upon his knees before that Other. So we also, sinking to our own, hide our very faces from the sight.

Our Lord steps forth, and stands alone. To us in glory, as to them of old in sorrow, He is the God made manifest. We do not lift our bowed heads, but we feel that He has raised His piercéd hands above us, and that His own lips call down the Benediction of His Father upon our eternal lives.

XIII.

My father had been absent from home a great deal, taking journeys with whose object he did not acquaint me. I myself had not visited the earth for some time; I cannot say how long. I do not find it possible to divide heavenly time by an earthly calendar, and cannot even decide how much of an interval, by human estimates, had been indeed covered by my residence in the Happy Country, as described upon these pages.

My duties had called me in other directions, and I had been exceedingly busy. My father sometimes spoke of our dear hearts at home, and reported them as all well; but he was not communicative about them. I observed that he took more pains than usual, or I should say more pleasure than usual, in the little domestic cares of our heavenly home. Never had it been in more perfect condition. The garden and the grounds were looking exquisitely. All the trifling comforts or ornaments of the house were to his mind. We talked of them much, and wandered about in our leisure moments, altering or approving details. I did my best to make him happy, but my own heart told me how lonely he must be despite me. We talked less of her coming than we used to do. I felt that he had accepted the separation with the unquestioning spirit which one gains so deeply in Heaven; and that he was content, as one who trusted, still to wait.

One evening, I came home slowly and alone. My father had been away for some days. I had been passing several hours with some friends, who, with myself, had been greatly interested in an event of public importance. A messenger was needed to carry certain tidings to a great astronomer, known to us of old on earth, who was at that time busied in research in a distant planet. It was a desirable embassy, and many sought the opportunity for travel and culture which it gave. After some delay in the appointment, it was given to a person but just arrived from below: a woman not two days dead. This surprised me till I had inquired into the circumstances, when I learned that the new-comer had been on earth an extreme sufferer, bed-ridden for forty years. Much of this time she had been unable even to look out of doors. The airs of Heaven had been shut from her darkened chamber. For years she had not been able to sustain conversation with her own friends, except on rare occasions. Possessed of a fine mind, she had been unable to read, or even to bear the human voice in reading. Acute pain had tortured her days. Sleeplessness had made horror of her nights. She was poor. She was dependent. She was of a refined organization. She was of a high spirit, and of energetic temperament. Medical science, holding out no cure, assured her that she might live to old age. She lived. When she was seventy-six years old, death remembered her. This woman had sometimes been inquired of, touching her faith in that Mystery which we call God. I was told that she gave but one answer; beyond this, revealing no more of experience than the grave itself, to which, more than to any other simile, her life could be likened.

“Though He slay me,” she said, “I will trust.”

“But, do you never doubt?”

“I _will_ trust.”

To this rare spirit, set free at last and re-embodied, the commission of which I have spoken was delegated; no one in all the city grudged her its coveted advantages. A mighty shout rose in the public ways when the selection was made known. I should have thought she might become delirious with the sudden access of her freedom, but it was said that she received her fortune quietly, and, slipping out of sight, was away upon her errand before we saw her face.

The incident struck me as a most impressive one, and I was occupied with it, as I walked home thoughtfully. Indeed, I was so absorbed that I went with my eyes cast down, and scarcely noticed when I had reached our own home. I did not glance at the house, but continued my way up the winding walk between the trees, still drowned in my reverie.

It was a most peaceful evening. I felt about me the fine light at which I did not look; that evening glow was one of the new colors,--one of the heavenly colors that I find it impossible to depict. The dog came to meet me as usual; he seemed keenly excited, and would have hurried me into the house. I patted him absently as I strolled on.

Entering the house with a little of the sense of loss which, even in the Happy World, accompanies the absence of those we love, and wondering when my father would be once more with me, I was startled at hearing his voice--no, voices; there were two; they came from an upper chamber, and the silent house echoed gently with their subdued words.

I stood for a moment listening below; I felt the color flash out of my face; my heart stood still. I took a step or two forward--hesitated--advanced with something like fear. The dog pushed before me, and urged me to follow. After a moment’s thought I did so, resolutely.

The doors stood open everywhere, and the evening air blew in with a strong and wholesome force. No one had heard me. Guided by the voices of the unseen speakers I hurried on, across the hall, through my own room, and into that sacred spot I have spoken of, wherein for so many solitary years my dear father had made ready for her coming who was the joy of his joy, in Heaven, as she had been on earth.

For that instant, I saw all the familiar details of the room in a blur of light. It was as if a sea of glory filled the place. Across it, out beyond the window, on the balcony which overlooked the hill-country and the sea, stood my father and my mother, hand in hand.

She did not hear me, even yet. They were talking quietly, and were absorbed. Uncertain what to do, I might even have turned and left them undisturbed, so sacred seemed that hour of theirs to me; so separate in all the range of experience in either world, or any life. But her heart warned her, and she stirred, and so saw me--my dear mother--come to us, at last.

Oh, what arms can gather like a mother’s, whether in earth or Heaven? Whose else could be those brooding touches, those raining tears, those half-inarticulate maternal words? And for her, too, the bitterness is passed, the blessedness begun. Oh, my dear mother! My dear mother! I thank God I was the child appointed to give you welcome--thus....

* * * * *

“And how is it with Tom,--poor Tom!”

“He has grown such a fine fellow; you cannot think. I leaned upon him. He was the comfort of my old age.”

“Poor Tom!”

“And promises to make such a man, dear! A good boy. No bad habits, yet. Your father is so pleased that he makes a scholar.”

“Dear Tom! And Alice?”

“It was hard to leave Alice. But she is young. Life is before her. God is good.”

“And you, my dearest, was it hard for you at the last? Was it a long sickness? Who took care of you? Mother! did you suffer _much_?”

“Dear, I never suffered any. I had a sudden stroke I think. I was sitting by the fire with the children. It was vacation and Tom was at home. They were all at home. I started to cross the room, and it grew dark. I did not know that I was dead till I found I was standing there upon the balcony, in your father’s arms.”

“I had to tell her what had happened. She wouldn’t believe me at the first.”

“Were you with her all the time below?”

“All the time; for days before the end.”

“And you brought her here yourself, easily?”

“All the way, myself. She slept like a baby, and wakened--as she says.”

XIV.

But was it possible to feel desolate in Heaven? Life now filled to the horizon. Our business, our studies, and our pleasures occupied every moment. Every day new expedients of delight unfurled before us. Our conceptions of happiness increased faster than their realization. The imagination itself grew, as much as the aspiration. We saw height beyond height of joy, as we saw outline above outline of duty. How paltry looked our wildest earthly dream! How small our largest worldly deed! One would not have thought it possible that one could even want so much as one demanded here; or hope so far as one expected now.

What possibilities stretched on; each leading to a larger, like newly-discovered stars, one beyond another; as the pleasure or the achievement took its place, the capacity for the next increased. Satiety or its synonyms passed out of our language, except as a reminiscence of the past. See, what were the conditions of this eternal problem. Given: a pure heart, perfect health, unlimited opportunity for usefulness, infinite chance of culture, home, friendship, love; the elimination from practical life of anxiety and separation; and the intense spiritual stimulus of the presence of our dear Master, through whom we approached the mystery of God--how incredible to anything short of experience the sum of happiness!

I soon learned how large a part of our delight consisted in anticipation; since now we knew anticipation without alloy of fear. I thought much of the joys in store for me, which yet I was not perfected enough to attain. I looked onward to the perpetual meeting of old friends and acquaintances, both of the living and the dead; to the command of unknown languages, arts, and sciences, and knowledges manifold; to the grandeur of helping the weak, and revering the strong; to the privilege of guarding the erring or the tried, whether of earth or heaven, and of sharing all attainable wisdom with the less wise, and of even instructing those too ignorant to know that they were not wise, and of ministering to the dying, and of assisting in bringing together the separated. I looked forward to meeting select natures, the distinguished of earth or Heaven; to reading history backward by contact with its actors, and settling its knotty points by their evidential testimony. Was I not in a world where Loyola, and Jeanne d’Arc, or Luther, or Arthur, could be asked questions?

I would follow the experiments of great discoverers, since their advent to this place. What did Newton, and Columbus, and Darwin in the eternal life?

I would keep pace with the development of art. To what standard had Michael Angelo been raising the public taste all these years?

I would join the fragments of those private histories which had long been matter of public interest. Where, and whose now, was Vittoria Colonna?

I would have the _finales_ of the old Sacred stories. What use had been made of the impetuosity of Peter? What was the private life of Saint John? With what was the fine intellect of Paul now occupied? What was the charm in the Magdalene? In what sacred fields did the sweet nature of Ruth go gleaning? Did David write the new anthems for the celestial chorals? What was the attitude of Moses towards the Persistence of Force? Where was Judas? And did the Betrayed plead for the betrayer?

I would study the sociology of this explanatory life. Where, if anywhere, were the Cave-men? In what world, and under what educators, were the immortal souls of Laps and Bushmen trained? What social position had the early Christian martyrs? What became of Caligula, whose nurse, we were told, smeared her breasts with blood, and so developed the world-hated tyrant from the outraged infant? Where was Buddha, “the Man who knew”? What affectionate relation subsisted between him and the Man who Loved?

I would bide my time patiently, but I, too, would become an experienced traveler through the spheres. Our Sun I would visit, and scarlet Mars, said by our astronomers below to be the planet most likely to contain inhabitants. The colored suns I would observe, and the nebulæ, and the mysteries of space, powerless now to chill one by its reputed temperature, said to be forever at zero. Where were the Alps of Heaven? The Niagara of celestial scenery? The tropics of the spiritual world? Ah, how I should pursue Eternity with questions!

What was the relation of mechanical power to celestial conditions? What use was made of Watts and Stevenson?

What occupied the ex-hod-carriers and cooks?

Where were all the songs of all the poets? In the eternal accumulation of knowledge, what proportion sifted through the strainers of spiritual criticism? What _were_ the standards of spiritual criticism? What became of those creations of the human intellect which had acquired immortality? Were there instances where these figments of fancy had achieved an eternal existence lost by their own creators? Might not one of the possible mysteries of our new state of existence be the fact of a world peopled by the great creatures of our imagination known to us below? And might not one of our pleasures consist in visiting such a world? Was it incredible that Helen, and Lancelot, and Sigfried, and Juliet, and Faust, and Dinah Morris, and the Lady of Shalott, and Don Quixote, and Colonel Newcome, and Sam Weller, and Uncle Tom, and Hester Prynne and Jean Valjean existed? could be approached by way of holiday, as one used to take up the drama or the fiction, on a leisure hour, down below?

Already, though so short a time had I been in the upper life, my imagination was overwhelmed with the sense of its possibilities. They seemed to overlap one another like the molecules of gold in a ring, without visible juncture or practical end. I was ready for the inconceivable itself. In how many worlds should I experience myself? How many lives should I live? Did eternal existence mean eternal variety of growth, suspension, renewal? Might youth and maturity succeed each other exquisitely? Might individual life reproduce itself from seed, to flower, to fruit, like a plant, through the cycles? Would childhood or age be a matter of personal choice? Would the affectional or the intellectual temperaments at will succeed each other? Might one try the domestic or the public career in different existences? Try the bliss of love in one age, the culture of solitude in another? Be oneself yet be all selves? Experience all glories, all discipline, all knowledge, all hope? Know the ecstasy of assured union with the one creature chosen out of time and Eternity to complement the soul? And yet forever pursue the unattainable with the rapture and the reverence of newly-awakened and still ungratified feeling?

Ah me! was it possible to feel desolate even in Heaven?

I think it may be, because I had been much occupied with thoughts like these; or it may be that, since my dear mother’s coming, I had been, naturally, thrown more by myself in my desire to leave those two uninterrupted in their first reunion--but I must admit that I had lonely moments, when I realized that Heaven had yet failed to provide me with a home of my own, and that the most loving filial position could not satisfy the nature of a mature man or woman in any world. I must admit that I began to be again subject to retrospects and sadnesses which had been well brushed away from my heart since my advent to this place. I must admit that in experiencing the immortality of being, I found that I experienced no less the immortality of love.

Had I to meet that old conflict _here_? I never asked for everlasting life. Will He impose it, and not free me from _that_? God forgive me! Have I evil in my heart still? Can one sin in Heaven? Nay, be merciful, be merciful! I will be patient. I will have trust. But the old nerves are not dead. The old ache has survived the grave.

Why was this permitted, if without a cure? Why had death no power to call decay upon that for which eternal life seemed to have provided no health? It had seemed to me, so far as I could observe the heavenly society, that only the fortunate affections of preëxistence survived. The unhappy, as well as the imperfect, were outlived and replaced. Mysteries had presented themselves here, which I was not yet wise enough to clear up. I saw, however, that a great ideal was one thing which never died. The attempt to realize it often involved effects which seemed hardly less than miraculous.

But for myself, events had brought no solution of the problems of my past; and with the tenacity of a constant nature I was unable to see any for the future.

I mused one evening, alone with these long thoughts. I was strolling upon a wide, bright field. Behind me lay the city, glittering and glad. Beyond, I saw the little sea which I had crossed. The familiar outline of the hills uprose behind. All Heaven seemed heavenly. I heard distant merry voices and music. Listening closely, I found that the Wedding March that had stirred so many human heart-beats was perfectly performed somewhere across the water, and that the wind bore the sounds towards me. I then remembered to have heard it said that Mendelssohn was himself a guest of some distinguished person in an adjacent town, and that certain music of his was to be given for the entertainment of a group of people who had been deaf-mutes in the lower life.

As the immortal power of the old music filled the air, I stayed my steps to listen. The better to do this, I covered my eyes with my hands, and so stood blindfold and alone in the midst of the wide field.

The passion of earth and the purity of Heaven--the passion of Heaven and the deferred hope of earth--what loss and what possession were in the throbbing strains!

As never on earth, they called the glad to rapture. As never on earth, they stirred the sad to silence. Where, before, had soul or sense been called by such a clarion? What music was, we used to dream. What it is, we dare, at last, to know.

And yet--I would have been spared this if I could, I think, just now. Give me a moment’s grace. I would draw breath, and so move on again, and turn me to my next duty quietly, since even Heaven denies me, after all.

I would--what would I? Where am I? Who spoke, or stirred? WHO called me by a name unheard by me of any living lip for almost twenty years?

In a transport of something not unlike terror, I could not remove my hands from my eyes, but still stood, blinded and dumb, in the middle of the shining field. Beneath my clasped fingers, I caught the radiance of the edges of the blades of grass that the low breeze swept against my garment’s hem; and strangely in that strange moment, there came to me, for the only articulate thought I could command, these two lines of an old hymn:

“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green.”

“Take down your hands,” a voice said quietly. “Do not start or fear. It is the most natural thing in the world that I should find you. Be calm. Take courage. Look at me.”

Obeying, as the tide obeys the moon, I gathered heart, and so, lifting my eyes, I saw him whom I remembered standing close beside me. We two were alone in the wide, bright field. All Heaven seemed to have withdrawn to leave us to ourselves for this one moment.

I had known that I might have loved him, all my life. I had never loved any other man. I had not seen him for almost twenty years. As our eyes met, our souls challenged one another in silence, and in strength. I was the first to speak:

“_Where is she?_”

“Not with me.”

“When did you die?”

“Years ago.”

“I had lost all trace of you.”

“It was better so, for all concerned.”

“Is she--is she”--

“She is on earth, and of it; she has found comfort long since; another fills my place. I do not grieve to yield it. Come!”

“But I have thought--for all these years--it was not right--I put the thought away--I do not understand”--

“Oh, come! I, too, have waited twenty years.”

“But is there no reason--no barrier--are you sure? God help me! You have turned Heaven into Hell for me, if this is not right.”

“Did I ever ask you to give me one pitying thought that was not right?”

“Never, God knows. Never. You helped me to be right, to be noble. You were the noblest man I ever knew. I was a better woman for having known you, though we parted--as we did.”

“Then do you trust me? Come!”

“I trust you as I do the angels of God.”

“And I love you as His angels may. Come!”

“For how long--am I to come?”

“Are we not in Eternity? I claim you as I have loved you, without limit and without end. Soul of my immortal soul! Life of my eternal life!--Ah, come.”

XV.

And yet so subtle is the connection in the eternal life between the soul’s best moments and the Source of them, that I felt unready for my joy until it had His blessing whose Love was the sun of all love, and whose approval was sweeter than all happiness.

Now, it was a part of that beautiful order of Heaven, which we ceased to call accident, that while I had this wish upon my lips, we saw Him coming to us, where we still stood alone together in the open field.

We did not hasten to meet Him, but remained as we were until He reached our side; and then we sank upon our knees before Him, silently. God knows what gain we had for the life that we had lost below. The pure eyes of the Master sought us with a benignity from which we thanked the Infinite Mercy that our own had not need to droop ashamed. What weak, earthly comfort could have been worth the loss of a moment such as this? He blesses us. With His sacred hands He blesses us, and by His blessing lifts our human love into so divine a thing that this seems the only life in which it could have breathed.

* * * * *

By-and-by, when our Lord has left us, we join hands like children, and walk quietly through the dazzling air, across the field, and up the hill, and up the road, and home. I seek my mother, trembling, and clasp her, sinking on my knees, until I hide my face upon her lap. Her hands stray across my hair and cheek.

“What is the matter, Mary?--_dear_ Mary!”

“Oh, Mother, I have Heaven in my heart at last!”

“Tell me all about it, my poor child. Hush! There, there! my dear!”

“_Your poor child?_ ... Mother! What _can_ you mean?”--

* * * * *