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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbf20cd --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #54230 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54230) diff --git a/old/54230-0.txt b/old/54230-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 03d046f..0000000 --- a/old/54230-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6036 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gates Ajar, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Gates Ajar - -Author: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps - -Release Date: February 25, 2017 [EBook #54230] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATES AJAR *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - THE GATES AJAR. - - BY - - ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. - - “Splendor! Immensity! Eternity! Grand words! Great things! - A little definite happiness would be more to the purpose.” - MADAME DE GASPARIN - - BOSTON: - JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, - LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO. - 1873. - - Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by - - FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., - -In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. - - UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO., - CAMBRIDGE. - - - - - To my father, whose life, like a perfume from beyond the Gates, - penetrates every life which approaches it, the readers of this little - book will owe whatever pleasant thing they may find within its pages. - -E. S. P. - -ANDOVER, October 22, 1868. - - - - - THE GATES AJAR. - - - - -I. - - -One week; only one week to-day, this twenty-first of February. - -I have been sitting here in the dark and thinking about it, till it -seems so horribly long and so horribly short; it has been such a week to -live through, and it is such a small part of the weeks that must be -lived through, that I could think no longer, but lighted my lamp and -opened my desk to find something to do. - -I was tossing my paper about,--only my own: the packages in the yellow -envelopes I have not been quite brave enough to open yet,--when I came -across this poor little book in which I used to keep memoranda of the -weather, and my lovers, when I was a school-girl. I turned the leaves, -smiling to see how many blank pages were left, and took up my pen, and -now I am not smiling any more. - -If it had not come exactly as it did, it seems to me as if I could bear -it better. They tell me that it should not have been such a shock. -“Your brother had been in the army so long that you should have been -prepared for anything. Everybody knows by what a hair a soldier’s life -is always hanging,” and a great deal more that I am afraid I have not -listened to. I suppose it is all true; but that never makes it any -easier. - -The house feels like a prison. I walk up and down and wonder that I ever -called it home. Something is the matter with the sunsets; they come and -go, and I do not notice them. Something ails the voices of the children, -snowballing down the street; all the music has gone out of them, and -they hurt me like knives. The harmless, happy children!--and Roy loved -the little children. - -Why, it seems to me as if the world were spinning around in the light -and wind and laughter, and God just stretched down His hand one morning -and put it out. - -It was such a dear, pleasant world to be put out! - -It was never dearer or more pleasant than it was on that morning. I had -not been as happy for weeks. I came up from the Post-Office singing to -myself. His letter was so bright and full of mischief! I had not had -one like it all the winter. I have laid it away by itself, filled with -his jokes and pet names, “Mamie” or “Queen Mamie” every other line, and -signed - - “Until next time, your happy - - ROY.” - -I wonder if all brothers and sisters keep up the baby-names as we did. I -wonder if I shall ever become used to living without them. - -I read the letter over a great many times, and stopped to tell Mrs. -Bland the news in it, and wondered what had kept it so long on the way, -and wondered if it could be true that he would have a furlough in May. -It seemed too good to be true. If I had been fourteen instead of -twenty-four, I should have jumped up and down and clapped my hands there -in the street. The sky was so bright that I could scarcely turn up my -eyes to look at it. The sunshine was shivered into little lances all -over the glaring white crust. There was a snow-bird chirping and pecking -on the maple-tree as I came in. - -I went up and opened my window; sat down by it and drew a long breath, -and began to count the days till May. I must have sat there as much as -half an hour. I was so happy counting the days that I did not hear the -front gate, and when I looked down a man stood there,--a great, rough -man,--who shouted up that he was in a hurry, and wanted seventy-five -cents for a telegram that he had brought over from East Homer. I believe -I went down and paid him, sent him away, came up here and locked the -door before I read it. - -Phœbe found me here at dinner-time. - -If I could have gone to him, could have busied myself with packing and -journeying, could have been forced to think and plan, could have had the -shadow of a hope of one more look, one word, I suppose I should have -taken it differently. Those two words--“Shot dead”--shut me up and -walled me in, as I think people must feel shut up and walled in, in -Hell. I write the words most solemnly, for I know that there has been -Hell in my heart. - -It is all over now. He came back, and they brought him up the steps, and -I listened to their feet,--so many feet; he used to come bounding in. -They let me see him for a minute, and there was a funeral, and Mrs. -Bland came over, and she and Phœbe attended to everything, I suppose. -I did not notice nor think till we had left him out there in the cold -and had come back. The windows of his room were opened, and the bitter -wind swept in. The house was still and damp. Nobody was there to welcome -me. Nobody would ever be * * * * - -Poor old Phœbe! I had forgotten her. She was waiting at the kitchen -window in her black bonnet; she took off my things and made me a cup of -tea, and kept at work near me for a little while, wiping her eyes. She -came in just now, when I had left my unfinished sentence to dry, sitting -here with my face in my hands. - -“Laws now, Miss Mary, my dear! This won’t never do,--a rebellin’ agin -Providence, and singein’ your hair on the lamp chimney this way! The -dining-room fire’s goin’ beautiful, and the salmon is toasted to a -brown. Put away them papers and come right along!” - - - - -II. - - -February 23d. - -Who originated that most exquisite of inquisitions, the condolence -system? - -A solid blow has in itself the elements of its rebound; it arouses the -antagonism of the life on which it falls; its relief is the relief of a -combat. - -But a hundred little needles pricking at us,--what is to be done with -them? The hands hang down, the knees are feeble. We cannot so much as -gasp, because they _are_ little needles. - -I know that there are those who like these calls; but why, in the name -of all sweet pity, must we endure them without respect of persons, as we -would endure a wedding reception or make a party-call? - -Perhaps I write excitedly and hardly. I feel excited and hard. - -I am sure I do not mean to be ungrateful for real sorrowful sympathy, -however imperfectly it may be shown, or that near friends (if one has -them), cannot give, in such a time as this, actual strength, even if -they fail of comfort, by look and tone and love. But it is not near -friends who are apt to wound, nor real sympathy which sharpens the worst -of the needles. It is the fact that all your chance acquaintances feel -called upon to bring their curious eyes and jarring words right into the -silence of your first astonishment; taking you in a round of morning -calls with kid gloves and parasol, and the liberty to turn your heart -about and cut into it at pleasure. You may quiver at every touch, but -there is no escape, because it is “the thing.” - -For instance: Meta Tripp came in this afternoon,--I have refused myself -to everybody but Mrs. Bland, before, but Meta caught me in the parlor, -and there was no escape. She had come, it was plain enough, because she -must, and she had come early, because, she too having lost a brother in -the war, she was expected to be very sorry for me. Very likely she was, -and very likely she did the best she knew how, but she was--not as -uncomfortable as I, but as uncomfortable as she could be, and was -evidently glad when it was over. She observed, as she went out, that I -shouldn’t feel so sad by and by. She felt very sad at first when Jack -died, but everybody got over that after a time. The girls were going to -sew for the Fair next week at Mr. Quirk’s, and she hoped I would exert -myself and come. - -Ah, well:-- - - “First learn to love one living man, - Then mayst thou think upon the dead.” - -It is not that the child is to be blamed for not knowing enough to stay -away; but her coming here has made me wonder whether I am different from -other women; why Roy was so much more to me than many brothers are to -many sisters. I think it must be that there never _was_ another like -Roy. Then we have lived together so long, we two alone, since father -died, that he had grown to me, heart of my heart, and life of my life. -It did not seem as if he _could_ be taken, and I be left. - -Besides, I suppose most young women of my age have their dreams, and a -future probable or possible, which makes the very incompleteness of life -sweet, because of the symmetry which is waiting somewhere. But that was -settled so long ago for me that it makes it very different. Roy was all -there was. - - -February 26th. - -Death and Heaven could not seem very different to a Pagan from what they -seem to me. - -I say this deliberately. It has been deliberately forced upon me. That -of which I had a faint consciousness in the first shock takes shape now. -I do not see how one with such thoughts in her heart as I have had can -possibly be “regenerate,” or stand any chance of ever becoming “one of -the redeemed.” And here I am, what I have been for six years, a member -of an Evangelical church, in good and regular standing! - -The bare, blank sense of physical repulsion from death, which was all -the idea I had of anything when they first brought him home, has not -gone yet. It is horrible. It was cruel. Roy, all I had in the wide -world,--Roy, with the flash in his eyes, with his smile that lighted the -house all up; with his pretty, soft hair that I used to curl and kiss -about my finger, his bounding step, his strong arms that folded me in -and cared for me,--Roy snatched away in an instant by a dreadful God, -and laid out there in the wet and snow,--in the hideous wet and -snow,--never to kiss him, never to see him any more! * * * * - -He was a good boy. Roy was a good boy. He must have gone to Heaven. But -I know nothing about Heaven. It is very far off. In my best and happiest -days, I never liked to think of it. If I were to go there, it could do -me no good, for I should not see Roy. Or if by chance I should see him -standing up among the grand, white angels, he would not be the old dear -Roy. I should grow so tired of singing! Should long and fret for one -little talk,--for I never said good by, and-- - -I will stop this. - - * * * * * - -A scrap from the German of Bürger, which I came across to-day, shall be -copied here. - - “Be calm, my child, forget thy woe, - And think of God and Heaven; - Christ thy Redeemer hath to thee - Himself for comfort given. - - “O mother, mother, what is Heaven? - O mother, what is Hell? - To be with Wilhelm,--that’s my Heaven; - Without him,--that’s my Hell.” - - -February 27th. - -Miss Meta Tripp, in the ignorance of her little silly heart, has done me -a great mischief. - -Phœbe prepared me for it, by observing, when she came up yesterday -to dust my room, that “folks was all sayin’ that Mary Cabot”--(Homer is -not an aristocratic town, and Phœbe doffs and dons my title at her -own sweet will)--“that Mary Cabot was dreadful low sence Royal died, and -hadn’t ought to stay shut up by herself, day in and day out. It was -behaving con-trary to the will of Providence, and very bad for her -health, too.” Moreover, Mrs. Bland, who called this morning with her -three babies,--she never is able to stir out of the house without those -children, poor thing!--lingered awkwardly on the door-steps as she went -away, and hoped that Mary my dear wouldn’t take it unkindly, but she did -wish that I would exert myself more to see my friends and receive -comfort in my affliction. She didn’t want to interfere, or bother me, -or--but--people would talk, and-- - -My good little minister’s wife broke down all in a blush, at this point -in her “porochial duties” (I more than suspect that her husband had a -hand in the matter), so I took pity on her embarrassment, and said -smiling that I would think about it. - -I see just how the leaven has spread. Miss Meta, a little overwhelmed -and a good deal mystified by her call here, pronounces “poor Mary Cabot -_so_ sad; she wouldn’t talk about Royal; and you couldn’t persuade her -to come to the Fair; and she was so _sober!_--why, it was dreadful!” - -Therefore, Homer has made up its mind that I shall become resigned in an -arithmetical manner, and comforted according to the Rule of Three. - -I wish I could go away! I wish I could go away and creep into the ground -and die! If nobody need ever speak any more words to me! If anybody only -knew _what_ to say! - -Little Mrs. Bland has been very kind, and I thank her with all my heart. -But she does not know. She does not understand. Her happy heart is bound -up in her little live children. She never laid anybody away under the -snow without a chance to say good by. - -As for the minister, he came, of course, as it was proper that he -should, before the funeral, and once after. He is a very good man, but I -am afraid of him, and I am glad that he has not come again. - - -Night. - -I can only repeat and re-echo what I wrote this noon. If anybody knew -_what_ to say! - -Just after supper I heard the door-bell, and, looking out of the window, -I caught a glimpse of Deacon Quirk’s old drab felt hat, on the upper -step. My heart sank, but there was no help for me. I waited for Phœbe -to bring up his name, desperately listening to her heavy steps, and -letting her knock three times before I answered. I confess to having -taken my hair down twice, washed my hands to a most unnecessary extent, -and been a long time brushing my dress; also to forgetting my -handkerchief, and having to go back for it after I was down stairs. -Deacon Quirk looked tired of waiting. I hope he was. - -O, what an ill-natured thing to say! What is coming over me? What would -Roy think? What could he? - -“Good evening, Mary,” said the Deacon, severely, when I went in. -Probably he did not mean to speak severely, but the truth is, I think he -was a little vexed that I had kept him waiting. I said good evening, and -apologized for my delay, and sat down as far from him as I conveniently -could. There was an awful silence. - -“I came in this evening,” said the Deacon, breaking it with a cough, “I -came--hem!--to confer with you--” - -I looked up. “I thought somebody had ought to come,” continued the -Deacon, “to confer with you as a Christian brother on your spiritooal -condition.” - -I opened my eyes. - -“To confer with you on your spiritooal condition,” repeated my visitor. -“I understand that you have had some unfortoonate exercises of mind -under your affliction, and I observed that you absented yourself from -the Communion Table last Sunday.” - -“I did.” - -“Intentionally?” - -“Intentionally.” - -He seemed to expect me to say something more; and, seeing that there was -no help for it, I answered. - -“I did not feel fit to go. I should not have dared to go. God does not -seem to me just now what He used to. He has dealt very bitterly with me. -But, however wicked I may be, I will not mock Him. I think, Deacon -Quirk, that I did right to stay away.” - -“Well,” said the Deacon, twirling his hat with a puzzled look, “perhaps -you did. But I don’t see the excuse for any such feelings as would make -it necessary. I think it my duty to tell you, Mary, that I am sorry to -see you in such a rebellious state of mind.” - -I made no reply. - -“Afflictions come from God,” he observed, looking at me as impressively -as if he supposed that I had never heard the statement before. -“Afflictions come from God, and, however afflictin’ or however crushin’ -they may be, it is our duty to submit to them. Glory in triboolation, -St. Paul says; glory in triboolation.” - -I continued silent. - -“I sympathize with you in this sad dispensation,” he proceeded. “Of -course you was very fond of Royal; it’s natural you should be, quite -natural--” He stopped, perplexed, I suppose, by something in my face. -“Yes, it’s very natural; poor human nature sets a great deal by earthly -props and affections. But it’s your duty, as a Christian and a -church-member, to be resigned.” - -I tapped the floor with my foot. I began to think that I could not bear -much more. - -“To be resigned, my dear young friend. To say ‘Abba, Father.’ and pray -that the will of the Lord be done.” - -“Deacon Quirk!” said I. “I am _not_ resigned. I pray the dear Lord with -all my heart to make me so, but I will not say that I am, until I -am,--if ever that time comes. As for those words about the Lord’s will, -I would no more take them on my lips than I would blasphemy, unless I -could speak them honestly,--and that I cannot do. We had better talk of -something else now, had we not?” - -Deacon Quirk looked at me. It struck me that he would look very much so -at a Mormon or a Hottentot, and I wondered whether he were going to -excommunicate me on the spot. - -As soon as he began to speak, however, I saw that he was only -bewildered,--honestly bewildered, and honestly shocked: I do not doubt -that I had said bewildering and shocking things. - -“My friend,” he said solemnly, “I shall pray for you and leave you in -the hands of God. Your brother, whom He has removed from this earthly -life for His own wise--” - -“We will not talk any more about Roy, if you please,” I interrupted; -“_he_ is happy and safe.” - -“Hem!--I hope so,” he replied, moving uneasily in his chair; “I believe -he never made a profession of religion, but there is no limit to the -mercy of God. It is very unsafe for the young to think that they can -rely on a death-bed repentance, but our God is a covenant-keeping God, -and Royal’s mother was a pious woman. If you cannot say with certainty -that he is numbered among the redeemed, you are justified, perhaps, in -hoping so.” - -I turned sharply on him, but words died on my lips. How could I tell the -man of that short, dear letter that came to me in December,--that Roy’s -was no death-bed repentance, but the quiet, natural growth of a life -that had always been the life of the pure in heart; of his manly beliefs -and unselfish motives; of that dawning sense of friendship with Christ -of which he used to speak so modestly, dreading lest he should not be -honest with himself? “Perhaps I ought not to call myself a Christian,” -he wrote,--I learned the words by heart.--“and I shall make no -profession to be such, till I am sure of it, but my life has not seemed -to me for a long time to be my own. ‘Bought with a price’ just expresses -it. I can point to no time at which I was conscious by any revolution of -feeling of ‘experiencing a change of heart,’ but it seems to me that a -man’s heart might be changed for all that. I do not know that it is -necessary for us to be able to watch every footprint of God. The _way_ -is all that concerns us,--to see that we follow it and Him. This I am -sure of; and knocking about in this army life only convinces me of what -I felt in a certain way before,--that it is the only way, and He the -only guide _to_ follow.” - -But how could I say anything of this to Deacon Quirk?--this my sealed -and sacred treasure, of all that Roy left me the dearest. At any rate I -did not. It seemed both obstinate and cruel in him to come there and say -what he had been saying. He might have known that I would not say that -Roy had gone to Heaven, if--why, if there had been the breath of a -doubt. It is a possibility of which I cannot rationally conceive, but I -suppose that his name would never have passed my lips. - -So I turned away from Deacon Quirk, and shut my mouth, and waited for -him to finish. Whether the idea began to struggle into his mind that he -_might_ not have been making a very comforting remark, I cannot say; but -he started very soon to go. - -“Supposing you are right, and Royal was saved at the eleventh hour,” he -said at parting, with one of his stolid efforts to be consolatory, that -are worse than his rebukes, “if he is singing the song of Moses and the -Lamb (he pointed with his big, dingy thumb at the ceiling), _he_ doesn’t -rebel against the doings of Providence. All _his_ affections are subdued -to God,--merged, as you might say,--merged in worshipping before the -great White Throne. He doesn’t think this miser’ble earthly spere of any -importance, compared with that eternal and exceeding weight of glory. In -the appropriate words of the poet,-- - - ‘O, not to one created thing - Shall our embrace be given, - But all our joy shall be in God, - For only God is Heaven.’ - -Those are very spiritooal and scripteral lines, and it’s very proper to -reflect how true they are.” - -I saw him go out, and came up here and locked myself in, and have been -walking round and round the room. I must have walked a good while, for I -feel as weak as a baby. - -Can the man in any state of existence be made to comprehend that he has -been holding me on the rack this whole evening? - -Yet he came under a strict sense of duty, and in the kindness of all the -heart he has! I know, or I ought to know, that he is a good man,--far -better in the sight of God to-night, I do not doubt, than I am. - -But it hurts,--it cuts,--that thing which he said as he went out; -because I suppose it must be true; because it seems to me greater than I -can bear to have it true. - -Roy, away in that dreadful Heaven, can have no thought of me, cannot -remember how I loved him, how he left me all alone. The singing and the -worshipping must take up all his time. God wants it all. He is a -“Jealous God.” I am nothing any more to Roy. - - -March 2. - -And once I was much,--very much to him! - -His Mamie, his poor Queen Mamie,--dearer, he used to say, than all the -world to him,--I don’t see how he can like it so well up there as to -forget her. Though Roy was a very good boy. But this poor, wicked little -Mamie,--why, I fall to pitying her as if she were some one else, and -wish that some one would cry over her a little. I can’t cry. - -Roy used to say a thing,--I have not the words, but it was like -this,--that one must be either very young or very ungenerous, if one -could find time to pity one’s self. - -I have lain for two nights, with my eyes open all night long. I thought -that perhaps I might see him. I have been praying for a touch, a sign, -only for something to break the silence into which he has gone. But -there is no answer, none. The light burns blue, and I see at last that -it is morning, and go down stairs alone, and so the day begins. - -Something of Mrs. Browning’s has been keeping a dull mechanical time in -my brain all day. - - “God keeps a niche - In Heaven to hold our idols: ... albeit - He brake them to our faces, and denied - That our close kisses should impair their white.” - -But why must He take them? And why should He keep them there? Shall we -ever see them framed in their glorious gloom? Will He let us touch them -_then_? Or must we stand like a poor worshipper at a Cathedral, looking -up at his pictured saint afar off upon the other side? - -Has everything stopped just here? Our talks together in the twilight, -our planning and hoping and dreaming together; our walks and rides and -laughing; our reading and singing and loving,--these then are all gone -out forever? - -God forgive the words! but Heaven will never be Heaven to me without -them. - - -March 4. - -Perhaps I had better not write any more here after this. - -On looking over the leaves, I see that the little green book has become -an outlet for the shallower part of pain. - -Meta Tripp and Deacon Quirk, gossip and sympathy that have buzzed into -my trouble and annoyed me like wasps (we are apt to make more fuss over -a wasp-sting than a sabre-cut), just that proportion of suffering which -alone can ever be put into words,--the surface. - -I begin to understand what I never understood till now,--what people -mean by the luxury of grief. No, I am sure that I never understood it, -because my pride suffered as much as any part of me in that other time. -I would no more have spent two consecutive hours drifting at the mercy -of my thoughts, than I would have put my hand into the furnace fire. -The right to mourn makes everything different. Then, as to mother, I was -very young when she died, and father, though I loved him, was never to -me what Roy has been. - -This luxury of grief, like all luxuries, is pleasurable. Though, as I -was saying, it is only the shallow part of one’s heart--I imagine that -the deepest hearts have their shallows--which can be filled by it, still -it brings a shallow relief. - -Let it be confessed to this honest book, that, driven to it by -desperation, I found in it a wretched sort of content. - -Being a little stronger now physically, I shall try to be a little -braver; it will do no harm to try. So I seem to see that it was the -content of poison,--salt-water poured between shipwrecked lips. - -At any rate, I mean to put the book away and lock it up. Roy used to say -that he did not believe in journals. I begin to see why. - - - - -III - - -March 7. - -I have taken out my book, and am going to write again. But there is an -excellent reason. I have something else than myself to write about. - -This morning Phœbe persuaded me to walk down to the office, “To keep -up my spirits and get some salt pork.” - -She brought my things and put them on me while I was hesitating; tied my -victorine and buttoned my gloves; warmed my boots, and fussed about me -as if I had been a baby. It did me good to be taken care of, and I -thanked her softly; a little more softly than I am apt to speak to -Phœbe. - -“Bless your soul, my dear!” she said, winking briskly, “I don’t want no -thanks. It’s thanks enough jest to see one of your old looks comin’ over -you for a spell, sence--” - -She knocked over a chair with her broom, and left her sentence -unfinished. Phœbe has always had a queer, clinging, superior sort of -love for us both. She dandled us on her knees, and made all our -rag-dolls, and carried us through measles and mumps and the rest. Then -mother’s early death threw all the care upon her. I believe that in her -secret heart she considers me more her child than her mistress. It cost -a great many battles to become established as “Miss Mary.” - -“I should like to know,” she would say, throwing back her great, square -shoulders and towering up in front of me,--“I should like to know if you -s’pose I’m a goin’ to ‘Miss’ anybody that I’ve trotted to Bamberry Cross -as many times as I have you, Mary Cabot! Catch me!” - -I remember how she would insist on calling me “her baby” after I was in -long dresses, and that it mortified me cruelly once when Meta Tripp was -here to tea with some Boston cousins. Poor, good Phœbe! Her rough -love seems worth more to me, now that it is all I have left me in the -world. It occurs to me that I may not have taken notice enough of her -lately. She has done her honest best to comfort me, and she loved Roy, -too. - -But about the letter. I wrapped my face up closely in the _crêpe_, so -that, if I met Deacon Quirk, he should not recognize me, and, thinking -that the air was pleasant as I walked, came home with the pork for -Phœbe and a letter for myself. I did not open it; in fact, I forgot -all about it, till I had been at home for half an hour. I cannot bear to -open a letter since that morning when the lances of light fell on the -snow. They have written to me from everywhere,--uncles and cousins and -old school-friends; well-meaning people; saying each the same thing in -the same way,--no, not that exactly, and very likely I should feel hurt -and lonely if they did not write; but sometimes I wish it did not all -have to be read. - -So I did not notice much about my letter this morning, till presently it -occurred to me that what must be done had better be done quickly; so I -drew up my chair to the desk, prepared to read and answer on the spot. -Something about the writing and the signature rather pleased me: it was -dated from Kansas, and was signed with the name of my mother’s youngest -sister, Winifred Forceythe. I will lay the letter in between these two -leaves, for it seems to suit the pleasant, spring-like day; besides, I -took out the green book again on account of it. - -LAWRENCE, KANSAS, February 21. - - MY DEAR CHILD,--I have been thinking how happy you will be by and - by because Roy is happy. - - And yet I know--I understand-- - - You have been in all my thoughts, and they have been such pitiful, - tender thoughts, that I cannot help letting you know that somebody - is sorry for you. For the rest, the heart knoweth its own, and I - am, after all, too much of a stranger to my sister’s child to - intermeddle. - - So my letter dies upon my pen. You cannot bear words yet. How - should I dare to fret you with them? I can only reach you by my - silence, and leave you with the Heart that bled and broke for you - and Roy. - -Your Aunt, - -WINIFRED FORCEYTHE. - -POSTSCRIPT, February 23. - - I open my letter to add, that I am thinking of coming to New - England with Faith,--you know Faith and I have nobody but each - other now. Indeed, I may be on my way by the time this reaches - you. It is just possible that I may not come back to the West. I - shall be for a time at your uncle Calvin’s, and then my husband’s - friends think that they must have me. I should like to see you for - a day or two, but if you do not care to see me, say so. If you let - me come because you think you must, I shall find it out from your - face in an hour. I should like to be something to you, or do - something for you; but if I cannot, I would rather not come. - -I like that letter. - -I have written to her to come, and in such a way that I think she will -understand me to mean what I say. I have not seen her since I was a -child. I know that she was very much younger than my mother; that she -spent her young ladyhood teaching at the South;--grandfather had enough -with which to support her, but I have heard it said that she preferred -to take care of herself;--that she finally married a poor minister, -whose sermons people liked, but whose coat was shockingly shabby; that -she left the comforts and elegances and friends of New England to go to -the West and bury herself in an unheard-of little place with him (I -think she must have loved him); that he afterwards settled in Lawrence; -that there, after they had been married some childless years, this -little Faith was born; and that there Uncle Forceythe died about three -years ago; that is about all I know of her. I suppose her share of -Grandfather Burleigh’s little property supports her respectably. I -understand that she has been living a sort of missionary life among her -husband’s people since his death, and that they think they shall never -see her like again. It is they who keep her from coming home again, -Uncle Calvin’s wife told me once; they and one other thing,--her -husband’s grave. - -I hope she will come to see me. I notice one strange thing about her -letter. She does not use the ugly words “death” and “dying.” I don’t -know exactly what she put in their places, but something that had a -pleasant sound. - -“To be happy because Roy is happy.” I wonder if she really thinks it is -possible. - -I wonder what makes the words chase me about. - - - - -IV. - - -May 5. - -I am afraid that my brave resolutions are all breaking down. - -The stillness of the May days is creeping into everything; the days in -which the furlough was to come; in which the bitter Peace has come -instead, and in which he would have been at home, never to go away from -me any more. - -The lazy winds are choking me. Their faint sweetness makes me sick. The -moist, rich loam is ploughed in the garden; the grass, more golden than -green, springs in the warm hollow by the front gate; the great maple, -just reaching up to tap at the window, blazes and bows under its weight -of scarlet blossoms. I cannot bear their perfume; it comes up in great -breaths, when the window is opened. I wish that little cricket, just -waked from his winter’s nap, would not sit there on the sill and chirp -at me. I hate the bluebirds flashing in and out of the carmine cloud -that the maple makes, and singing, singing, everywhere. - -It is easy to understand how Bianca heard “The nightingales sing through -her head,” how she could call them “Owl-like birds,” who sang “for -spite,” who sang “for hate,” who sang “for doom.” - -Most of all I hate the maple. I wish winter were back again to fold it -away in white, with its bare, black fingers only to come tapping at the -window. “Roy’s maple” we used to call it. How much fun he had out of -that old tree! - -As far back as I can remember, we never considered spring to be -officially introduced till we had had a fight with the red blossoms. Roy -used to pelt me well; but with that pretty chivalry of his, which was -rare in such a little fellow, which developed afterwards into that rarer -treatment of women, of which every one speaks who speaks of him, he -would stop the play the instant it threatened roughness. I used to be -glad, though, that I had strength and courage enough to make it some fun -to him. - -The maple is full of pictures of Roy. Roy not yet over the dignity of -his first boots, aiming for the cross-barred branch, coming to the -ground with a terrible wrench on his ankle, straight up again before -anybody could stop him, and sitting there on the ugly, swaying bough as -white as a sheet, to wave his cap,--“There, I meant to do it, and I -have!” Roy, chopping off the twigs for kindling-wood in his mud oven, -and sending his hatchet right through the parlor window. Roy cutting -leaves for me, and then pulling all my wreaths down over my nose every -time I put them on! Roy making me jump half-way across the room with a -sudden thump on my window, and, looking out, I would see him with his -hat off and hair blown from his forehead, framed in by the scented -blossoms, or the quivering green, or the flame of blood-red leaves. But -there is no end to them if I begin. - -I had planned, if he came this week, to strip the richest branches, and -fill his room. - - -May 6. - -The May-day stillness, the lazy winds, the sweetness in the air, are all -gone. A miserable northeasterly storm has set in. The garden loam is a -mass of mud; the golden grass is drenched; the poor little cricket is -drowned in a mud-puddle; the bluebirds are huddled among the leaves, -with their heads under their drabbled wings, and the maple blossoms, -dull and shrunken, drip against the glass. - -It begins to be evident that it will never do for me to live alone. Yet -who is there in the wide world that I could bear to bring here--into -Roy’s place? - -A little old-fashioned book, bound in green and gold, attracted my -attention this morning while I was dusting the library. It proved to be -my mother’s copy of “Elia,”--one that father had given her, I saw by the -fly-leaf, in their early engagement days. It is some time since I have -read Charles Lamb; indeed, since the middle of February I have read -nothing of any sort. Phœbe dries the Journal for me every night, and -sometimes I glance at the Telegraphic Summary, and sometimes I don’t. - -“You used to be fond enough of books,” Mrs. Bland says, looking -puzzled,--“regular blue-stocking, Mr. Bland called you (no personal -objection to you, of course, my dear, but he _doesn’t_ like literary -women, which is a great comfort to me). Why don’t you read and divert -yourself now?” - -But my brain, like the rest of me, seems to be crushed. I could not -follow three pages of history with attention. Shakespeare, Wordsworth, -Whittier, Mrs. Browning, are filled with Roy’s marks,--and so down the -shelf. Besides, poetry strikes as nothing else does, deep into the roots -of things. One finds everywhere some strain at the fibres of one’s -heart. A mind must be healthily reconciled to actual life, before a -poet--at least most poets--can help it. We must learn to bear and to -work, before we can spare strength to dream. - -To hymns and hymn-like poems, exception should be made. Some of them are -like soft hands stealing into ours in the dark, and holding us fast -without a spoken word. I do not know how many times Whittier’s “Psalm,” -and that old cry of Cowper’s, “God moves in a mysterious way,” have -quieted me,--just the sound of the words; when I was too wild to take in -their meaning, and too wicked to believe them if I had. - -As to novels, (by the way, Meta Tripp sent me over four yesterday -afternoon, among which notice “Aurora Floyd” and “Uncle Silas,”) the -author of “Rutledge” expresses my feeling about them precisely. I do not -remember her exact words, but they are not unlike these. “She had far -outlived the passion of ordinary novels; and the few which struck the -depths of her experience gave her more pain than pleasure.” - -However, I took up poor “Elia” this morning, and stumbled upon “Dream -Children,” to which, for pathos and symmetry, I have read few things -superior in the language. Years ago, I almost knew it by heart, but it -has slipped out of memory with many other things of late. Any book, if -it be one of those which Lamb calls “books which _are_ books,” put -before us at different periods of life, will unfold to us new -meanings,--wheels within wheels, delicate springs of purpose to which, -at the last reading, we were stone-blind; gems which perhaps the author -ignorantly cut and polished. - -A sentence in this “Dream Children,” which at eighteen I passed by with -a compassionate sort of wonder, only thinking that it gave me “the -blues” to read it, and that I was glad Roy was alive, I have seized upon -and learned all over again now. I write it down to the dull music of the -rain. - -“And how, when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed -as if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt -life and death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at -first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not -cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if -I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how -much I had loved him. I missed his kindness and I missed his crossness, -and wished him to be alive again to be quarrelling with him (for we -quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again.” - -How still the house is! I can hear the coach rumbling away at the -half-mile corner, coming up from the evening train. A little arrow of -light has just cut the gray gloom of the West. - - -Ten o’clock. - -The coach to which I sat listening rumbled up to the gate and stopped. -Puzzled for the moment, and feeling as inhospitable as I knew how, I -went down to the door. The driver was already on the steps, with a -bundle in his arms that proved to be a rather minute child; and a lady, -veiled, was just stepping from the carriage into the rain. Of course I -came to my senses at that, and, calling to Phœbe that Mrs. Forceythe -had come, sent her out an umbrella. - -She surprised me by running lightly up the steps. I had imagined a -somewhat advanced age and a sedate amount of infirmities, to be -necessary concomitants of aunthood. She came in all sparkling with -rain-drops, and, gently pushing aside the hand with which I was trying -to pay her driver, said, laughing:-- - -“Here we are, bag and baggage, you see, ‘big trunk, little trunk,’ &c., -&c. You did not expect me? Ah, my letter missed then. It is too bad to -take you by storm in this way. Come, Faith! No, don’t trouble about the -trunks just now. Shall I go right in here?” - -Her voice had a sparkle in it, like the drops on her veil, but it was -low and very sweet. I took her in by the dining-room fire, and was -turning to take off the little girl’s things, when a soft hand stayed -me, and I saw that she had drawn off the wet veil. A face somewhat pale -looked down at me,--she is taller than I,--with large, compassionate -eyes. - -“I am too wet to kiss you, but I must have a look,” she said, smiling. -“That will do. You are like your mother, very like.” - -I don’t know what possessed me, whether it was the sudden, sweet feeling -of kinship with something alive, or whether it was her face or her -voice, or all together, but I said:-- - -“I don’t think you are too wet to be kissed,” and threw my arms about -her neck,--I am not of the kissing kind, either, and I had on my new -bombazine, and she _was_ very wet. - -I thought she looked pleased. - -Phœbe was sent to open the register in the blue room, and as soon as -it was warm I went up with them, leading Faith by the hand. I am unused -to children, and she kept stepping on my dress, and spinning around and -tipping over, in the most astonishing manner. It strikingly reminded me -of a top at the last gasp. Her mother observed that she was tired and -sleepy. Phœbe was waiting around awkwardly up stairs, with fresh -towels on her arm. Aunt Winifred turned and held out her hand. - -“Well, Phœbe, I am glad to see you. This is Phœbe, I am sure? You -have altered with everything else since I was here before. You keep -bright and well, I hope, and take good care of Miss Mary?” - -It was a simple enough thing, to be sure, her taking the trouble to -notice the old servant with whom she had scarcely ever exchanged a -half-dozen words; but I liked it. I liked the way, too, in which it was -done. It reminded me of Roy’s fine, well-bred manner towards his -inferiors,--always cordial, yet always appropriate; I have heard that -our mother had much the same. - -I tried to make things look as pleasant as I could down stairs, while -they were making ready for tea. The grate was raked up a little, a -bright supper-cloth laid on the table, and the curtains drawn. Phœbe -mixed a hasty cake of some sort, and brought out the heavier pieces of -silver,--tea-pot, &c., which I do not use when I am alone, because it is -so much trouble to take care of them, and because I like the little -Wedgwood set that Roy had for his chocolate. - -“How pleasant!” said Aunt Winifred, as she sat down with Faith in a high -chair beside her. Phœbe had a great hunt up garret for that chair; it -has been stowed away there since it and I parted company. “How pleasant -everything is here! I believe in bright dining-rooms. There is an -indescribable dinginess to most that I have seen, which tends to -anything but thankfulness. Homesick, Faith? No; that’s right. I don’t -think we shall be homesick at Cousin Mary’s.” - -If she had not said that, the probabilities are that they would have -been, for I have fallen quite out of the way of active housekeeping, -and have almost forgotten how to entertain a friend. But I do not want -her good opinion wasted, and mean they shall have a good time if I can -make it for them. - -It was a little hard at first to see her opposite me at the table; it -was Roy’s place. - -While she was sitting there in the light, with the dust and weariness of -travel brushed away a little, I was able to make up my mind what this -aunt of mine looks like. - -She is young, then, to begin with, and I find it necessary to reiterate -the fact, in order to get it into my stupid brain. The cape and -spectacles, the little old woman’s shawl and invalid’s walk, for which I -had prepared myself, persist in hovering before my bewildered eyes, -ready to drop down on her at a moment’s notice. Just thirty-five she is -by her own showing; older than I, to be sure; but as we passed in front -of the mirror together, once to-night, I could not see half that -difference between us. The peace of her face and the pain of mine -contrast sharply, and give me an old, worn look, beside her. After all, -though, to one who had seen much of life, hers would be the true -maturity perhaps,--the maturity of repose. A look in her eyes once or -twice gave me the impression that she thinks me rather young, though she -is far too wise and delicate to show it. I don’t like to be treated like -a girl. I mean to find out what she does think. - -My eyes have been on her face the whole evening, and I believe it is the -sweetest face--woman’s face--that I have ever seen. Yet she is far from -being a beautiful woman. It is difficult to say what makes the -impression; scarcely any feature is accurate, yet the _tout ensemble_ -seems to have no fault. Her hair, which must have been bright bronze -once, has grown gray--quite gray--before its time. I really do not know -of what color her eyes are; blue, perhaps, most frequently, but they -change with every word that she speaks; when quiet, they have a curious, -far-away look, and a steady, lambent light shines through them. Her -mouth is well cut and delicate, yet you do not so much notice that as -its expression. It looks as if it held a happy secret, with which, -however near one may come to her, one can never intermeddle. Yet there -are lines about it and on her forehead, which are proof plain enough -that she has not always floated on summer seas. She yet wears her -widow’s black, but relieves it pleasantly by white at the throat and -wrists. Take her altogether, I like to look at her. - -Faith is a round, rolling, rollicking little piece of mischief, with -three years and a half of experience in this very happy world. She has -black eyes and a pretty chin, funny little pink hands all covered with -dimples, and a dimple in one cheek besides. She has tipped over two -tumblers of water, scratched herself all over playing with the cat, and -set her apron on fire already since she has been here. I stand in some -awe of her; but, after I have become initiated, I think that we shall be -very good friends. - -“Of all names in the catalogue,” I said to her mother, when she came -down into the parlor after putting her to bed, “Faith seems to be about -the _most_ inappropriate for this solid-bodied, twinkling little bairn -of yours, with her pretty red cheeks, and such an appetite for supper!” - -“Yes,” she said, laughing, “there is nothing _spirituelle_ about Faith. -But she means just that to me. I could not call her anything else. Her -father gave her the name.” Her face changed, but did not sadden; a -quietness crept into it and into her voice, but that was all. - -“I will tell you about it sometime,--perhaps,” she added, rising and -standing by the fire. “Faith looks like him.” Her eyes assumed their -distant look, “like the eyes of those who see the dead,” and gazed -away,--so far away, into the fire, that I felt that she would not be -listening to anything that I might say, and therefore said nothing. - -We spent the evening chatting cosily. After the fire had died down in -the grate (I had Phœbe light a pine-knot there, because I noticed -that Aunt Winifred fancied the blaze in the dining-room), we drew up our -chairs into the corner by the register, and roasted away to our hearts’ -content. A very bad habit, to sit over the register, and Aunt Winifred -says she shall undertake to break me of it. We talked about everything -under the sun,--uncles, aunts, cousins, Kansas and Connecticut, the -surrenders and the assassination, books, pictures, music, and Faith,--O, -and Phœbe and the cat. Aunt Winifred talks well, and does not gossip -nor exhaust her resources; one feels always that she has material in -reserve on any subject that is worth talking about. - -For one thing I thank her with all my heart: she never spoke of Roy. - -Upon reflection, I find that I have really passed a pleasant evening. - - * * * * * - -She knocked at my door just now, after I had written the last sentence, -and had put away the book for the night. Thinking that it was Phœbe, -I called, “Come in,” and did not turn. She had come to the bureau where -I stood unbraiding my hair, and touched my arm, before I saw who it was. -She had on a crimson dressing-gown of warm flannel, and her hair hung -down on her shoulders. Although so gray, her hair is massive yet, and -coils finely when she is dressed. - -“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I thought you would not be in bed, -and I came in to say,--let me sit somewhere else at the breakfast-table, -if you like. I saw that I had taken ‘the vacant place.’ Good night, my -dear.” - -It was such a little thing! I wonder how many people would have noticed -it or taken the trouble to speak of it. The quick perception, the -unusual delicacy,--these too are like Roy. - -I almost wish that she had stayed a little longer. I almost think that I -could bear to have her speak to me about him. - -Faith, in the next room, seems to have wakened from a frightened dream, -and I can hear their voices through the wall. Her mother is soothing and -singing to her in the broken words of some old lullaby with which -Phœbe used to sing Roy and me to sleep, years and years ago. The -unfamiliar, home-like sound is pleasant in the silent house. Phœbe, -on her way to bed, is stopping on the garret-stairs to listen to it. -Even the cat comes mewing up to the door, and purring as I have not -heard the creature purr since the old Sunday-night singing, hushed so -long ago. - - - - -V. - - -May 7. - -I was awakened and nearly smothered this morning by a pillow thrown -directly at my head. - -Somewhat unaccustomed, in the respectable, old maid’s life that I lead, -to such a pleasant little method of salutation, I jerked myself upright, -and stared. There stood Faith in her night-dress, laughing as if she -would suffocate, and her mother in search of her was just knocking at -the open door. - -“She insisted on going to wake Cousin Mary, and wouldn’t be washed till -I let her; but I stipulated that she should kiss you softly on both your -eyes.” - -“I did,” said Faith, stoutly; “I kissed her eyes, both two of ’em, and -her nose, and her mouth and her neck; then I pulled her hair, and then I -spinched her; but I thought she’d have to be banged a little. _Wasn’t_ -it a bang, though!” - -It really did me good to begin the day with a hearty laugh. The days -usually look so long and blank at the beginning, that I can hardly make -up my mind to step out into them. Faith’s pillow was the famous pebble -in the pond, to which authors of original imagination invariably resort; -I felt its little circles widening out all through the day. I wonder if -Aunt Winifred thought of that. She thinks of many things. - -For instance, afraid apparently that I should think I was afflicted with -one of those professional visitors who hold that a chance relationship -justifies them in imposing on one from the beginning to the end of the -chapter, she managed to make me understand, this morning, that she was -expecting to go back to Uncle Forceythe’s brother on Saturday. I was -surprised at myself to find that this proposition struck me with dismay. -I insisted with all my heart on keeping her for a week at the least, and -sent forth a fiat that her trunks should be unpacked. - -We have had a quiet, homelike day. Faith found her way to the orchard, -and installed herself there for the day, overhauling the muddy grass -with her bare hands to find dandelions. She came in at dinner-time as -brown as a little nut, with her hat hanging down her neck, her apron -torn, and just about as dirty as I should suppose it possible for a -clean child to succeed in making herself. Her mother, however, seemed to -be quite used to it, and the expedition with which she made her -presentable I regard as a stroke of genius. - -While Faith was disposed of, and the house still, auntie and I took our -knitting and spent a regular old woman’s morning at the south window in -the dining-room. In the afternoon Mrs. Bland came over, babies and all, -and sent up her card to Mrs. Forceythe. - -Supper-time came, and still there had not been a word of Roy. I began to -wonder at, while I respected, this unusual silence. - -While her mother was putting Faith to bed, I went into my room alone, -for a few moments’ quiet. An early dark had fallen, for it had clouded -up just before sunset. The dull, gray sky and narrow horizon shut down -and crowded in everything. A soldier from the village, who has just come -home, was walking down the street with his wife and sister. The crickets -were chirping in the meadows. The faint breath of the maple came up. - -I sat down by the window, and hid my face in both my hands. I must have -sat there some time, for I had quite forgotten that I had company to -entertain, when the door softly opened and shut, and some one came and -sat down on the couch beside me. I did not speak, for I could not, and, -the first I knew, a gentle arm crept about me, and she had gathered me -into her lap and laid my head on her shoulder, as she might have -gathered Faith. - -“There,” she said, in her low, lulling voice, “now tell Auntie all about -it.” - -I don’t know what it was, whether the voice, or touch, or words, but it -came so suddenly,--and nobody had held me for so long,--that everything -seemed to break up and unlock in a minute, and I threw up my hands and -cried. I don’t know how long I cried. - -She passed her hand softly to and fro across my hair, brushing it away -from my temples, while they throbbed and burned; but she did not speak. -By and by I sobbed out:-- - -“Auntie, Auntie, Auntie!” as Faith sobs out in the dark. It seemed to me -that I must have help or die. - -“Yes, dear. I understand. I know how hard it is. And you have been -bearing it alone so long! I am going to help you, and you must tell me -all you can.” - -The strong, decided words, “I am going to help you,” gave me the first -faint hope I have had, that I _could_ be helped, and I could tell -her--it was not sacrilege--the pent-up story of these weeks. All the -time her hand went softly to and fro across my hair. - -Presently, when I was weak and faint with the new comfort of my tears, -“Aunt Winifred,” I said, “I don’t know what it means to be resigned; I -don’t know what it _means_!” - -Still her hand passed softly to and fro across my hair. - -“To have everything stop all at once! without giving me any time to -learn to bear it. Why, you do not know,--it is just as if a great black -gate had swung to and barred out the future, and barred out him, and -left me all alone in any world that I can ever live in, forever and -forever.” - -“My child,” she said, with emphasis solemn and low upon the words,--“my -child, I _do_ know. I think you forget--my husband.” - -I had forgotten. How could I? We are most selfishly blinded by our own -griefs. No other form than ours ever seems to walk with us in the -furnace. Her few words made me feel, as I could not have felt if she had -said more, that this woman who was going to help me had suffered too; -had suffered perhaps more than I,--that, if I sat as a little child at -her feet, she could teach me through the kinship of her pain. - -“O my dear,” she said, and held me close, “I have trodden every step of -it before you,--every single step.” - -“But you never were so wicked about it! You never felt--why, I have been -_afraid_ I should hate God! You never were so wicked as that.” - -Low under her breath she answered “Yes,”--this sweet, saintly woman who -had come to me in the dark as an angel might. - -Then, turning suddenly, her voice trembled and broke:-- - -“Mary, Mary, do you think He _could_ have lived those thirty-three -years, and be cruel to you now? Think that over and over; only that. It -may be the only thought you dare to have,--it was all I dared to have -once,--but cling to it; _cling with both hands_, Mary, and keep it.” - -I only put both hands about her neck and clung there; but I hope--it -seems, as if I clung a little to the thought besides; it was as new and -sweet to me as if I had never heard of it in all my life; and it has not -left me yet. - -“And then, my dear,” she said, when she had let me cry a little longer, -“when you have once found out that Roy’s God loves you more than Roy -does, the rest comes more easily. It will not be as long to wait as it -seems now. It isn’t as if you never were going to see him again.” - -I looked up bewildered. - -“What’s the matter, dear?” - -“Why, do you think I shall see him,--really see him?” - -“Mary Cabot,” she said abruptly, turning to look at me, “who has been -talking to you about this thing?” - -“Deacon Quirk,” I answered faintly,--“Deacon Quirk and Dr. Bland.” - -She put her other arm around me with a quick movement, as if she would -shield me from Deacon Quirk and Dr. Bland. - -“Do I think you will see him again? You might as well ask me if I -thought God made you and made Roy, and gave you to each other. See him! -Why, of course you will see him as you saw him here.” - -“As I saw him here! Why, here I looked into his eyes, I saw him smile, I -touched him. Why, Aunt Winifred, Roy is an angel!” - -She patted my hand with a little, soft, comforting laugh. - -“But he is not any the less Roy for that,--not any the less your own -real Roy, who will love you and wait for you and be very glad to see -you, as he used to love and wait and be glad when you came home from a -journey on a cold winter night.” - -“And he met me at the door, and led me in where it was light and warm!” -I sobbed. - -“So he will meet you at the door in this other home, and lead you into -the light and the warmth. And cannot that make the cold and dark a -little shorter? Think a minute!” - -“But there is God,--I thought we went to Heaven to worship Him, and--” - -“Shall you worship more heartily or less, for having Roy again? Did Mary -love the Master more or less, after Lazarus came back? Why, my child, -where did you get your ideas of God? Don’t you suppose He _knows_ how -you love Roy?” - -I drank in the blessed words without doubt or argument. I was too -thirsty to doubt or argue. Some other time I may ask her how she knows -this beautiful thing, but not now. All I can do now is to take it into -my heart and hold it there. - -Roy my own again,--not only to look at standing up among the -singers,--but close to me; somehow or other to be as near as--to be -nearer than--he was here, _really_ mine again! I shall never let this -go. - -After we had talked awhile, and when it came time to say good night, I -told her a little about my conversation with Deacon Quirk, and what I -said to him about the Lord’s will. I did not know but that she would -blame me. - -“Some time,” she said, turning her great, compassionate eyes on me,--I -could feel them in the dark,--and smiling, “you will find out all at -once, in a happy moment, that you can say those words with all your -heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength; it will come, -even in this world, if you will only let it. But, until it does, you do -right, quite right, not to scorch your altar with a false -burnt-offering. God is not a God to be mocked. He would rather have only -the old cry: ‘I believe; help mine unbelief,’ and wait till you can say -the rest. - -“It has often grated on my ears,” she added, “to hear people speak those -words unworthily. They seem to me the most solemn words that the Bible -contains, or that Christian experience can utter. As far as my -observation goes, the good people--for they are good people--who use -them when they ought to know better are of two sorts. They are people in -actual agony, bewildered, racked with rebellious doubts, unaccustomed to -own even to themselves the secret seethings of sin; really persuaded -that because it is a Christian duty to have no will but the Lord’s, they -are under obligations to affirm that they have no will but the Lord’s. -Or else they are people who know no more about this pain of bereavement -than a child. An affliction has passed over them, put them into -mourning, made them feel uncomfortable till the funeral was over, or -even caused them a shallow sort of grief, of which each week evaporates -a little, till it is gone. These mourners air their trouble the longest, -prate loudest about resignation, and have the most to say to you or me -about our ‘rebellious state of mind.’ Poor things! One can hardly be -vexed at them for pity. Think of being made so!” - -“There is still another class of the cheerfully resigned,” I suggested, -“who are even more ready than these to tell you of your desperate -wickedness--” - -“People who have never had even the semblance of a trouble in all their -lives,” she interrupted. “Yes. I was going to speak of them. Of all -miserable comforters, they are the most arrogant.” - -“As to real instant submission,” she said presently, “there _is_ some of -it in the world. There are sweet, rare lives capable of great loves and -great pains, which yet are kept so attuned to the life of Christ, that -the cry in the Garden comes scarcely less honestly from their lips, than -from his. Such, like the St. John, are but one among the Twelve. Such, -it will do you and me good, dear, at least to remember.” - -“Such,” I thought when I was left alone, “you new dear friend of mine, -who have come with such a blessed coming into my lonely days,--such you -must be now, whatever you were once.” - -If I should tell her that, how she would open her soft eyes! - - - - -VI. - - -May 9. - -As I was looking over the green book last night, Aunt Winifred came up -behind me and softly laid a bunch of violets down between the leaves. - -By an odd contrast, the contented, passionless things fell against those -two verses that were copied from the German, and completely covered them -from sight. I lifted the flowers, and held up the page for her to see. - -As she read, her face altered strangely; her eyes dilated, her lip -quivered, a flush shot over her checks and dyed her forehead up to the -waves of her hair. I turned away quickly, feeling that I had committed a -rudeness in watching her, and detecting in her, however involuntarily, -some far, inner sympathy, or shadow of a long-past sympathy, with the -desperate words. - -“Mary,” she said, laying down the book, “I believe Satan wrote that.” - -She laughed a little then, nervously, and paled back into her quiet, -peaceful self. - -“I mean that he inspired it. They are wicked words. You must not read -them over. You will outgrow them sometime with a beautiful growth of -trust and love. Let them alone till that time comes. See, I will blot -them out of sight for you with colors as blue as heaven,--the _real_ -heaven, where God _will_ be loved the most.” - -She shook apart the thick, sweet nosegay, and, taking a half-dozen of -the little blossoms, pinned them, dripping with fragrant dew, upon the -lines. There I shall let them stay, and, since she wishes it, I shall -not lift them to see the reckless words till I can do it safely. - -This afternoon Aunt Winifred has been telling me about herself. Somewhat -more, or of a different kind, I should imagine, from what she has told -most people. She seems to love me a little, not in a proper kind of way, -because I happen to be her niece, but for my own sake. It surprises me -to find how pleased I am that she should. - -That Kansas life must have been very hard to her, in contrast as it was -with the smooth elegance of her girlhood; she was very young, too, when -she undertook it. I said something of the sort to her. - -“They have been the hardest and the easiest, the saddest and the -happiest, years of all my life,” she answered. - -I pondered the words in my heart, while I listened to her story. She -gave me vivid pictures of the long, bright bridal journey, overshadowed -with a very mundane weariness of jolting coaches and railway accidents -before its close; of the little neglected hamlet which waited for them, -twenty miles from a post-office and thirty from a school-house; of the -parsonage, a log-hut among log-huts, distinguished and adorned by a -little lath and plastering, glass windows, and a doorstep;--they drew in -sight of it at the close of a tired day, with a red sunset lying low on -the flats. - -Uncle Forceythe wanted mission-work, and mission-work he found here -with--I should say with a vengeance, if the expression were exactly -suited to an elegantly constructed and reflective journal. - -“My heart sank for a moment, I confess,” she said, “but it never would -do, you know, to let him suspect that, so I smiled away as well as I -knew how, shook hands with one or two women in red calico who had been -‘slicking up inside,’ they said; went in by the fire,--it was really a -pleasant fire,--and, as soon as they had left us alone, I climbed into -John’s lap, and, with both arms around his neck, told him that I knew we -should be very happy. And I said--” - -“Said what?” - -She blushed a little, like a girl. - -“I believe I said I should be happy in Patagonia,--with him. I made him -laugh at last, and say that my face and words were like a beautiful -prophecy. And, Mary, if they were, it was beautifully fulfilled. In the -roughest times,--times of ragged clothes and empty flour-barrels, of -weakness and sickness and quack doctors, of cold and discouragement, of -prairie fires and guerillas,--from trouble to trouble, from year’s end -to year’s end, we were happy together, we two. As long as we could have -each other, and as long as we could be about our Master’s business, we -felt as if we did not dare to ask for anything more, lest it should seem -that we were ungrateful for such wealth of mercy.” - -It would take too long to write out here the half that she told me, -though I wish I could, for it interested me more than any story that I -have ever read. - -After years of Christ-like toiling to help those rough old farmers and -wicked bushwhackers to Heaven, the call to Lawrence came, and it seemed -to Uncle Forceythe that he had better go. It was a pleasant, influential -parish, and there, though not less hard at work, they found fewer rubs -and more comforts; there Faith came, and there were their pleasant days, -till the war.--I held my breath to hear her tell about Quantrell’s raid. -There, too, Uncle wasted through that death-in-life, consumption; there -he “fell on sleep,” she said, and there she buried him. - -She gave me no further description of his death than those words, and -she spoke them with her far-away, tearless eyes looking off through the -window, and after she had spoken she was still for a time. - -The heart knoweth its own bitterness; that grew distinct to me, as I -sat, shut out by her silence. Yet there was nothing bitter about her -face. - -“Faith was six months old when he went,” she said presently. “We had -never named her: Baby was name enough at first for such a wee thing; -then she was the only one, and had come so late, that it seemed to mean -more to us than to most to have a baby all to ourselves, and we liked -the sound of the word. When it became quite certain that John must go, -we used to talk it over, and he said that he would like to name her, but -what, he did not tell me. - -“At last, one night, after he had lain for a while thinking with closed -eyes, he bade me bring the child to him. The sun was setting, I -remember, and the moon was rising. He had had a hard day; the life was -all scorched out of the air. I moved the bed up by the window, that he -might have the breath of the rising wind. Baby was wide awake, cooing -softly to herself in the cradle, her bits of damp curls clinging to her -head, and her pink feet in her hands. I took her up and brought her just -as she was, and knelt down by the bed. The street was still. We could -hear the frogs chanting a mile away. He lifted her little hands upon his -own, and said--no matter about the words--but he told me that as he left -the child, so he left the name, in my sacred charge,--that he had chosen -it for me,--that, when he was out of sight, it might help me to have it -often on my lips. - -“So there in the sunset and the moonrise, we two alone together, he -baptized her, and we gave our little girl to God.” - -When she had said this, she rose and went over to the window, and stood -with her face from me. By and by, “It was the fourteenth,” she said, as -if musing to herself,--“the fourteenth of June.” - -I remember now that Uncle Forceythe died on the fourteenth of June. It -may have been that the words of that baptismal blessing were the last -that they heard, either child or mother. - - -May 10. - -It has been a pleasant day; the air shines like transparent gold; the -wind sweeps like somebody’s strong arms over the flowers, and gathers up -a crowd of perfumes that wander up and down about one. The church bells -have rung out like silver all day. Those bells--especially the Second -Advent at the further end of the village--are positively ghastly when it -rains. - -Aunt Winifred was dressed bright and early for church. I, in morning -dress and slippers, sighed and demurred. - -“Auntie, _do_ you expect to hear anything new?” - -“Judging from your diagnosis of Dr. Bland,--no.” - -“To be edified, refreshed, strengthened, or instructed?” - -“Perhaps not.” - -“Bored, then?” - -“Not exactly.” - -“What do you expect?” - -“There are the prayers and singing. Generally one can, if one tries, -wring a little devotion from the worst of them. As to a minister, if he -is good and commonplace, young and earnest and ignorant, and I, whom he -cannot help one step on the way to Heaven, consequently stay at home, -Deacon Quirk, whom he might carry a mile or two, by and by stays at home -also. If there is to be a ‘building fitly joined together,’ each stone -must do its part of the upholding. I feel better to go half a day -always. I never compel Faith to go, but I never have a chance, for she -teases not to be left at home.” - -“I think it’s splendid to go to church most the time,” put in Faith, who -was squatted on the carpet, counting sugared caraway seeds,--“all but -the sermon. That isn’t splendid. I don’t like the gre-at big prayers ’n’ -things, I like caramary seeds, though; mother always gives ’em to me in -meeting ’cause I’m a good girl. Don’t you wish _you_ were a good girl, -Cousin Mary, so’s you could have some? Besides, I’ve got on my best hat -and my button-boots. Besides, there used to be a real funny little boy -up in meeting at home, and he gave me a little tin dorg once over the -top the pew. Only mother made me give it back. O, you ought to seen the -man that preached down at Uncle Calvin’s! I tell you he was a bully old -minister,--_he banged the Bible like everything_!” - -“There’s a devotional spirit for you!” I said to her mother. - -“Well,” she answered, laughing, “it is better than that she should be -left to play dolls and eat preserves, and be punished for disobedience. -Sunday would invariably become a guilty sort of holiday at that rate. -Now, caraways or ‘bully old ministers’ notwithstanding, she carries to -bed with her a dim notion that this has been holy time and pleasant -time. Besides, the associations of a church-going childhood, if I can -manage them genially, will be a help to her when she is older. Come, -Faith! go and pull off Cousin Mary’s slippers, and bring down her -boots, and then she’ll have to go to church. No, I _didn’t_ say that you -might tickle her feet!” - -Feeling the least bit sorry that I had set the example of a stay-at-home -Christian before the child, I went directly up stairs to make ready, and -we started after all in good season. - -Dr. Bland was in the pulpit. I observed that he looked--as indeed did -the congregation bodily--with some curiosity into our slip, where it has -been a rare occurrence of late to find me, and where the light, falling -through the little stained glass oriel, touched Aunt Winifred’s -thoughtful smile. I wondered whether Dr. Bland thought it was wicked for -people to smile in church. No, of course he has too much sense. I wonder -what it is about Dr. Bland that always suggests such questions. - -It has been very warm all day,--that aggravating, unseasonable heat, -which is apt to come in spasms in the early part of May, and which, in -thick spring alpaca and heavy sack, one finds intolerable. The -thermometer stood at 75° on the church porch; every window was shut, and -everybody’s fan was fluttering Now, with this sight before him, what -should our observant minister do, but give out as his first hymn: “Thine -earthly Sabbaths.” “Thine earthly Sabbaths” would be a beautiful hymn, -if it were not for those lines about the weather:-- - - “No midnight shade, _no clouded sun_, - _But sacred, high, eternal noon_”! - -There was a great hot sunbeam striking directly on my black bonnet. My -fan was broken. I gasped for air. The choir went over and over and -_over_ the words, spinning them into one of those indescribable tunes, -in which everybody seems to be trying to get through first. I don’t know -what they called them,--they always remind me of a game of “Tag.” - -I looked at Aunt Winifred. She took it more coolly than I, but an amused -little smile played over her face. She told me after church that she had -repeatedly heard that hymn given out at noon of an intense July day. Her -husband, she said, used to save it for the winter, or for cloudy -afternoons. “Using means of grace,” he called that. - -However, Dr. Bland did better the second time, Aunt Winifred joined in -the singing, and I enjoyed it, so I will not blame the poor man. I -suppose he was so far lifted above this earth, that he would not have -known whether he was preaching in Greenland’s icy mountains, or on -India’s coral strand. - -When he announced his text, “For our conversation is in Heaven,” Aunt -Winifred and I exchanged glances of content. We had been talking about -heaven on the way to church; at least, till Faith, not finding herself -entertained, interrupted us by some severe speculations as to whether -Maltese kitties were mulattoes, and “why the bell-ringer didn’t jump off -the steeple some night, and see if he couldn’t fly right up, the way -Elijah did.” - -I listened to Dr. Bland as I have not listened for a long time. The -subject was of all subjects nearest my heart. He is a scholarly man, in -his way. He ought to know, I thought, more about it than Aunt Winifred. -Perhaps he could help me. - -His sermon, as nearly as I can recall it, was substantially this. - -“The future life presented a vast theme to our speculation. Theories -‘too numerous to mention,’ had been held concerning it. Pagans had -believed in a coming state of rewards and punishments. What natural -theology had dimly foreshadowed, Revelation had brought in, like a -full-orbed day, with healing on its wings.” I am not positive about the -metaphors. - -“As it was fitting that we should at times turn our thoughts upon the -threatenings of Scripture, it was eminently suitable also that we should -consider its promises. - -“He proposed in this discourse to consider the promise of heaven, the -reward offered by Christ to his good and faithful servants. - -“In the first place: What is heaven?” - -I am not quite clear in my mind what it was, though I tried my best to -find out. As nearly as I can recollect, however,-- - -“Heaven is an eternal state. - -“Heaven is a state of holiness. - -“Heaven is a state of happiness.” - -Having heard these observations before, I will not enlarge as he did -upon them, but leave that for the “vivid imagination” of the green book. - -“In the second place: What will be the employments of heaven? - -“We shall study the character of God. - -“An infinite mind must of necessity be eternally an object of study to -a finite mind. The finite mind must of necessity find in such study -supreme delight. All lesser joys and interests will pale. He felt at -moments, in reflecting on this theme, that that good brother who, on -being asked if he expected to see the dead wife of his youth in heaven, -replied, ‘I expect to be so overwhelmed by the glory of the presence of -God, that it may be thousands of years before I shall think of my -wife,’--he felt that perhaps this brother was near the truth.” - -Poor Mrs. Bland looked exceedingly uncomfortable. - -“We shall also glorify God.” - -He enlarged upon this division, but I have forgotten exactly how. There -was something about adoration, and the harpers harping with their harps, -and the sea of glass, and crying, Worthy the Lamb! and a great deal more -that bewildered and disheartened me so that I could scarcely listen to -it. I do not doubt that we shall glorify God primarily and happily, but -can we not do it in some other way than by harping and praying? - -“We shall moreover love each other with a universal and unselfish -love.” - -“That we shall recognize our friends in heaven, he was inclined to -think, after mature deliberation, was probable. But there would be no -special selfish affections there. In this world we have enmities and -favoritisms. In the world of bliss our hearts would glow with holy love -alike to all other holy hearts.” - -I wonder if he really thought _that_ would make “a world of bliss.” Aunt -Winifred slipped her hand into mine under her cloak. Ah, Dr. Bland, if -you had known how that little soft touch was preaching against you! - -“In the words of an eminent divine, who has long since entered into the -joys of which he spoke: ‘Thus, whenever the mind roves through the -immense region of heaven, it will find, among all its innumerable -millions, not an enemy, not a stranger, not an indifferent heart, not a -reserved bosom. Disguise here, and even concealment, will be unknown. -The soul will have no interests to conceal, _no thoughts to disguise_. A -window will be opened in every breast, and show to every eye the rich -and beautiful furniture within!’ - -“Thirdly: How shall we fit for heaven?” - -He mentioned several ways, among which,-- - -“We should subdue our earthly affections to God. - -“We must not love the creature as the Creator. My son, give _me_ thy -heart. When he removes our friends from the scenes of time (with a -glance in my direction), we should resign ourselves to his will, -remembering that the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away in mercy; -that He is all in all; that He will never leave us nor forsake us; that -_He_ can never change or die.” - -As if that made any difference with the fact, that his best treasures -change or die! - -“In conclusion,-- - -“We infer from our text that our hearts should not be set upon earthly -happiness. (Enlarged.) - -“That the subject of heaven should be often in our thoughts and on our -lips.” (Enlarged.) - -Of course I have not done justice to the filling up of the sermon; to -the illustrations, metaphors, proof-texts, learning, and -eloquence,--for, though Dr. Bland cannot seem to think outside of the -old grooves, a little eloquence really flashes through the tameness of -his style sometimes, and when he was talking about the harpers, etc., -some of his words were well chosen. “To be drowned in light,” I have -somewhere read, “may be very beautiful; it is still to be drowned.” But -I have given the skeleton of the discourse, and I have given the sum of -the impressions that it left on me, an attentive hearer. It is fortunate -that I did not hear it while I was alone; it would have made me -desperate. Going hungry, hopeless, blinded, I came back empty, -uncomforted, groping. I wanted something actual, something pleasant, -about this place into which Roy has gone. He gave me glittering -generalities, cold commonplace, vagueness, unreality, a God and a future -at which I sat and shivered. - -Dr. Bland is a good man. He had, I know, written that sermon with -prayer. I only wish that he could be made to _see_ how it glides over -and sails splendidly away from wants like mine. - -But thanks be to God who has provided a voice to answer me out of the -deeps. - -Auntie and I walked home without any remarks (we overheard Deacon Quirk -observe to a neighbor: “That’s what I call a good gospel sermon, now!”), -sent Faith away to Phœbe, sat down in the parlor, and looked at each -other. - -“Well?” said I. - -“I know it,” said she. - -Upon which we both began to laugh. - -“But did he say the dreadful truth?” - -“Not as I find it in my Bible.” - -“That it is probable, only _probable_ that we shall recognize--” - -“My child, do not be troubled about that. It is not probable, it is -sure. If I could find no proof for it, I should none the less believe -it, as long as I believe in God. He gave you Roy, and the capacity to -love him. He has taught you to sanctify that love through love to Him. -Would it be _like_ Him to create such beautiful and unselfish -loves,--most like the love of heaven of any type we know,--just for our -threescore years and ten of earth? Would it be like Him to suffer two -souls to grow together here, so that the separation of a day is pain, -and then wrench them apart for all eternity? It would be what Madame de -Gasparin calls, ‘fearful irony on the part of God.’” - -“But there are lost loves. There are lost souls.” - -“‘How often would I have gathered you, and ye would not!’ That is not -his work. He would have saved both soul and love. They had their own -way. We were speaking of His redeemed. The object of having this world -at all, you know, is to fit us for another. Of what use will it have -been, if on passing out of it we must throw by forever its gifts, its -lessons, its memories? God links things together better than that. Be -sure, as you are sure of Him, that we shall be _ourselves_ in heaven. -Would you be yourself not to recognize Roy?--consequently, not to love -Roy, for to love and to be separated is misery, and heaven is joy.” - -“I understand. But you said you had other proof.” - -“So I have; plenty of it. If ‘many shall come from the East and from the -West, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and -Jacob,’ will they not be likely to know that they are with Abraham, -Isaac, and Jacob? or will they think it is Shadrach, Meshech, and -Abednego? - -“What is meant by such expressions as ‘risen _together_,’ ‘sitting -_together_ at the right hand of God,’ ‘sitting _together_ in heavenly -places’? If they mean anything, they mean recognitions, friendships, -enjoyments. - -“Did not Peter and the others know Moses when they saw him?--know Elias -when they saw him? Yet these men were dead hundreds of years before the -favored fishermen were born. - -“How was it with those ‘saints which slept and arose’ when Christ hung -dead there in the dark? Were they not seen of many?” - -“But that was a miracle.” - -“They were risen dead, such as you and I shall be some day. The miracle -consisted in their rising then and there. Moreover, did not the beggar -recognize Abraham? and--Well, one might go through the Bible finding it -full of this promise in hints or assertions, in parables or visions. We -are ‘heirs of God,’ ‘joint heirs with Christ’; having suffered with Him, -we shall be ‘glorified _together_.’ Christ himself has said many sure -things: ‘I will come and receive you, that where I am, there ye may be.’ -‘I will that they be with me where I am.’ Using, too, the very type of -Godhead to signify the eternal nearness and eternal love of just such as -you and Roy as John and me, he prays: ‘Holy Father, keep them whom Thou -hast given me, that _they may be one as we are_.’ - -“There is one place, though, where I find what I like better than all -the rest; you remember that old cry wrung from the lips of the stricken -king,--‘I shall go to him; but he will not return to me.’” - -“I never thought before how simple and direct it is; and that, too, in -those old blinded days.” - -“The more I study the Bible,” she said, “and I study not entirely in -ignorance of the commentators and the mysteries, the more perplexed I am -to imagine where the current ideas of our future come from. They -certainly are not in this book of gracious promises. That heaven which -we heard about to-day was Dr. Bland’s, not God’s. ‘It’s aye a wonderfu’ -thing to me,’ as poor Lauderdale said, ‘the way some preachers take it -upon themselves to explain matters to the Almighty!’” - -“But the harps and choirs, the throne, the white robes, are all in -Revelation. Deacon Quirk would put his great brown finger on the verses, -and hold you there triumphantly.” - -“Can’t people tell picture from substance, a metaphor from its meaning? -That book of Revelation is precisely what it professes to be,--a vision; -a symbol. A symbol of something, to be sure, and rich with pleasant -hopes, but still a symbol. Now, I really believe that a large -proportion of Christian church-members, who have studied their Bible, -attended Sabbath schools, listened to sermons all their lives, if you -could fairly come at their most definite idea of the place where they -expect to spend eternity, would own it to be the golden city, with pearl -gates, and jewels in the wall. It never occurs to them, that, if one -picture is literal, another must be. If we are to walk golden streets, -how can we stand on a sea of glass? How can we ‘sit on thrones’? How can -untold millions of us ‘lie in Abraham’s bosom’? - -“But why have given us empty symbols? Why not a little fact?” - -“They are not _empty_ symbols. And why God did not give us actual -descriptions of actual heavenly life, I don’t trouble myself to wonder. -He certainly had his reasons, and that is enough for me. I find from -these symbols, and from his voice in my own heart, many beautiful -things,--I will tell you some more of them at another time,--and, for -the rest, I am content to wait. He loves me, and he loves mine. As long -as we love Him, He will never separate Himself from us, or us from each -other. That, at least, is _sure_.” - -“If that is sure, the rest is of less importance;--yes. But Dr. Bland -said an awful thing!” - -“The quotation from a dead divine?” - -“Yes. That there will be no separate interests, no thoughts to conceal.” - -“Poor good man! He has found out by this time that he should not have -laid down nonsense like that, without qualification or demur, before a -Bible-reading hearer. It was simply _his_ opinion, not David’s, or -Paul’s, or John’s, or Isaiah’s. He had a perfect right to put it in the -form of a conjecture. Nobody would forbid his conjecturing that the -inhabitants of heaven are all deaf and dumb, or wear green glasses, or -shave their heads, if he chose, provided he stated that it was -conjecture, not revelation.” - -“But where does the Bible say that we shall have power to conceal our -thoughts?--and I would rather be annihilated than to spend eternity with -heart laid bare,--the inner temple thrown open to be trampled on by -every passing stranger!” - -“The Bible specifies very little about the minor arrangements of -eternity in any way. But I doubt if, under any circumstances, it would -have occurred to inspired men to inform us that our thoughts shall -continue to be our own. The fact is patent on the face of things. The -dead minister’s supposition would destroy individuality at one fell -swoop. We should be like a man walking down a room lined with mirrors, -who sees himself reflected in all sizes, colors, shades, at all angles -and in all proportions, according to the capacity of the mirror, till he -seems no longer to belong to himself, but to be cut up into ellipses and -octagons and prisms. How soon would he grow frantic in such -companionship, and beg for a corner where he might hide and hush himself -in the dark? - -“That we shall in a higher life be able to do what we cannot in -this,--judge fairly of each other’s _moral_ worth,--is undoubtedly true. -Whatever the Judgment Day may mean, that is the substance of it. But -this promiscuous theory of refraction;--never! - -“Besides, wherever the Bible touches the subject, it premises our -individuality as a matter of course. What would be the use of talking, -if everybody knew the thoughts of everybody else?” - -“You don’t suppose that people talk in heaven?” - -“I don’t suppose anything else. Are we to spend ages of joy, a company -of mutes together? Why not talk?” - -“I supposed we should sing,--but--” - -“Why not talk as well as sing? Does not song involve the faculty of -speech?--unless you would like to make canaries of us.” - -“Ye-es. Why, yes.” - -“There are the visitors at the beautiful Mount of Transfiguration again. -Did not they _talk_ with each other and with Christ? Did not John _talk_ -with the angel who ‘shewed him those things’?” - -“And you mean to say--” - -“I mean to say that if there is such a thing as common sense, you will -talk with Roy as you talked with him here,--only not as you talked with -him here, because there will be no troubles nor sins, no anxieties nor -cares, to talk about; no ugly shades of cross words or little quarrels -to be made up; no fearful looking-for of separation.” - -I laid my head upon her shoulder, and could hardly speak for the comfort -that she gave me. - -“Yes, I believe we shall talk and laugh and joke and play--” - -“Laugh and joke in heaven?” - -“Why not?” - -“But it seems so--so--why, so wicked and irreverent and all that, you -know.” - -Just then Faith, who, mounted out on the kitchen table, was preaching at -Phœbe in comical mimicry of Dr. Bland’s choicest intonations, laughed -out like the splash of a little wave. - -The sound came in at the open door, and we stopped to listen till it had -rippled away. - -“There!” said her mother, “put that child, this very minute, with all -her little sins forgiven, into one of our dear Lord’s many mansions, and -do you suppose that she would be any the less holy or less reverent for -a laugh like that? Is he going to check all the sparkle and blossom of -life when he takes us to himself? I don’t believe any such thing. There -were both sense and Christianity in what somebody wrote on the death of -a humorous poet:-- - - ‘Does nobody laugh there, where he has gone,-- - This man of the smile and the jest?’ - ---provided there was any hope that the poor fellow _had_ gone to heaven; -if not, it was bad philosophy and worse religion. Did not David dance -before the Lord with all his might? A Bible which is full of happy -battle-cries: ‘Rejoice in the Lord! make a joyful noise unto him! Give -thanks unto the Lord, for his mercy endureth!’--a Bible which exhausts -its splendid wealth of rhetoric to make us understand that the coming -life is a life of _joy_, no more threatens to make nuns than mutes of -us. I expect that you will hear some of Roy’s very old jokes, see the -sparkle in his eye, listen to his laughing voice, lighten up the happy -days as gleefully as you may choose; and that--” - -Faith appeared upon the scene just then, with the interesting -information that she had bitten her tongue; so we talked no more. - -How pleasant--how pleasant this is! I never supposed before that God -would let any one laugh in heaven. - -I wonder if Roy has seen the President. Aunt Winifred says she does not -doubt it. She thinks that all the soldiers must have crowded up to meet -him, and “O,” she says, “what a sight to see!” - - - - -VII. - - -May 12th. - -Aunt Winifred has said something about going, but I cannot yet bear to -hear of such a thing. She is to stay a while longer. - - -16th. - -We have been over to-night to the grave. - -She proposed to go by herself, thinking, I saw, with the delicacy with -which she always thinks, that I would rather not be there with another. -Nor should I, nor could I, with any other than this woman. It is -strange. I wished to go there with her. I had a vague, unreasoning -feeling that she would take away some of the bitterness of it, as she -has taken the bitterness of much else. - -It is looking very pleasant there now. The turf has grown fine and -smooth. The low arbor-vitæ hedge and knots of Norway spruce, that father -planted long ago for mother, drop cool, green shadows that stir with the -wind. My English ivy has crept about and about the cross. Roy used to -say that he should fancy a cross to mark the spot where he might lie; I -think he would like this pure, unveined marble. May-flowers cover the -grave now, and steal out among the clover-leaves with a flush like -sunrise. By and by there will be roses, and, in August, August’s own -white lilies. - -We went silently over, and sat silently down on the grass, the -field-path stretching away to the little church behind us, and beyond, -in front, the slope, the flats, the river, the hills cut in purple -distance melting far into the east. The air was thick with perfume. -Golden bees hung giddily over the blush in the grass. In the low -branches that swept the grave a little bird had built her nest. - -Aunt Winifred did not speak to me for a time, nor watch my face. -Presently she laid her hand upon my lap, and I put mine into it. - -“It is very pleasant here,” she said then, in her very pleasant voice. - -“I meant that it should be,” I answered, trying not to let her see my -lips quiver. “At least it must not look neglected. I don’t suppose it -makes any difference to _him_.” - -“I do not feel sure of that.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“I do not feel sure that anything he has left makes no ‘difference’ to -him.” - -“But I don’t understand. He is in heaven. He would be too happy to care -for anything that is going on in this woful world.” - -“Perhaps that is so,” she said, smiling a sweet contradiction to her -words, “but I don’t believe it.” - -“What do you believe?” - -“Many things that I have to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” - -“I have sometimes wondered, for I cannot help it,” I said, “whether he -is shut off from all knowledge of me for all these years till I can go -to him. It will be a great while. It seems hard. Roy would want to know -something, if it were only a little, about me.” - -“I believe that he wants to know, and that he knows, Mary; though, since -the belief must rest on analogy and conjecture, you need not accept it -as demonstrated mathematics,” she answered, with another smile. - -“Roy never forgot me here!” I said, not meaning to sob. - -“That is just it. He was not constituted so that he, remaining himself, -Roy, could forget you. If he goes out into this other life forgetting, -he becomes another than himself. That is a far more unnatural way of -creeping out of the difficulty than to assume that he loves and -remembers. Why not assume that? In fact, why assume anything else? -Neither reason, nor the Bible, nor common sense, forbids it. Instead of -starting with it as an hypothesis to be proved if we can, I lay it down -as one of those probabilities for which Butler would say, ‘the -presumption amounts nearly to certainty’; and if any one can disprove -it, I will hear what he has to say. There!” she broke off, laughing -softly, “that is a sufficient dose of metaphysics for such a simple -thing. It seems to me to lie just here: Roy loved you. Our Father, for -some tender, hidden reason, took him out of your sight for a while. -Though changed much, he can have forgotten nothing. Being _only out of -sight_, you remember, not lost, nor asleep, nor annihilated, he goes on -loving. To love must mean to think of, to care for, to hope for, to pray -for, not less out of a body than in it.” - -“But that must mean--why, that must mean--” - -“That he is near you. I do not doubt it.” - -The sunshine quivered in among the ivy-leaves, and I turned to watch it, -thinking. - -“I do not doubt,” she went on, speaking low,--“I cannot doubt that our -absent dead are very present with us. He said, ‘I am with you alway,’ -knowing the need we have of him, even to the end of the world. He must -understand the need we have of them. I cannot doubt it.” - -I watched her as she sat with her absent eyes turned eastward, and her -peculiar look--I have never seen it on another face--as of one who holds -a happy secret; and while I watched I wondered. - -“There is a reason for it,” she said, rousing as if from a pleasant -dream,--“a good sensible reason, too, it strikes me, independent of -Scriptural or other proof.” - -“What is that?” - -“That God keeps us briskly at work in this world.” - -I did not understand. - -“Altogether too briskly, considering that it is a preparative world, to -intend to put us from it into an idle one. What more natural than that -we shall spend our best energies as we spent them here,--in comforting, -teaching, helping, saving people whose very souls we love better than -our own? In fact, it would be very _un_natural if we did not.” - -“But I thought that God took care of us, and angels, like Gabriel and -the rest, if I ever thought anything about it, which I am inclined to -doubt.” - -“‘God works by the use of means,’ as the preachers say. Why not use Roy -as well as Gabriel? What archangel could understand and reach the -peculiarities of your nature as he could? or, even if understanding, -could so love and bear with you? What is to be done? Will they send Roy -to the planet Jupiter to take care of somebody else’s sister?” - -I laughed in spite of myself; nor did the laugh seem to jar upon the -sacred stillness of the place. Her words were drawing away the -bitterness, as the sun was blotting the dull, dead greens of the ivy -into its glow of golden color. - -“But the Bible, Aunt Winifred.” - -“The Bible does _not_ say a great deal on this point,” she said, “but it -does not contradict me. In fact, it helps me; and, moreover, it would -uphold me in black and white if it weren’t for one little obstacle.” - -“And that?” - -“That frowning ‘original Greek,’ which Gail Hamilton denounces with her -righteous indignation. No sooner do I find a pretty verse that is -exactly what I want, than up hops a commentator, and says, this isn’t -according to text, and means something entirely different; and Barnes -says this, and Stuart believes that, and Olshausen has demonstrated the -other, and very ignorant it is in you, too, not to know it! Here the -other day I ferreted out a sentence in Revelation that seemed to prove -beyond question that angels and redeemed men were the same; where the -angel says to John, you know, ‘Am I not of thy brethren the prophets?’ I -thought that I had discovered a delightful thing which all the Fathers -of the church had overlooked, and went in great glee to your Uncle -Calvin, to be told that something was the matter,--a noun left out, or -some other unanswerable and unreasonable horror, I don’t know what; and -that it didn’t mean that he was of thy brethren the prophets at all! - -“You see, if it could be proved that the Christian dead become angels, -we could have all that we need, direct from God, about--to use the -beautiful old phrase--the communion of saints. From Genesis to -Revelation the Bible is filled with angels who are at work on earth. -They hold sweet converse with Abraham in his tent. They are intrusted to -save the soul of Lot. An angel hears the wail of Hagar. The beautiful -feet of an angel bring the good tidings to maiden Mary. An angel’s -noiseless step guides Peter through the barred and bolted gate. Angels -rolled the stone from the buried Christ, and angels sat there in the -solemn morning,--O Mary! if we could have seen them! - -“Then there is that one question, direct, comprehensive,--we should not -need anything else,--‘Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth -to minister to the heirs of salvation?’ - -“But you see it never seems to have entered those commentators’ heads -that all these beautiful things refer to any but a superior race of -beings, like those from whose ranks Lucifer fell.” - -“How stupid in them!” - -“I take comfort in thinking so; but, to be serious, even admitting that -these passages refer to a superior race, must there not be some -similarity in the laws which govern existence in the heavenly world? -Since these gracious deeds are performed by what we are accustomed to -call ‘spiritual beings,’ why may they not as well be done by people -from this world as from anywhere else? Besides, there is another point, -and a reasonable one, to be made. The word angel in the original[A] -means, strictly, _a messenger_. It applies to any servant of God, -animate or inanimate. An east wind is as much an angel as Michael. -Again, the generic terms, ‘spirits,’ ‘gods,’ ‘sons of God,’ are used -interchangeably for saints and for angels. So, you see, I fancy that I -find a way for you and Roy and me and all of us, straight into the -shining ministry. Mary, Mary, wouldn’t you like to go this very -afternoon?” - - [A] ἄγγελος. - -She lay back in the grass, with her face up-turned to the sky, and drew -a long breath, wearily. I do not think she meant me to hear it. I did -not answer her, for it came over me with such a hopeless thrill, how -good it would be to be taken to Roy, there by his beautiful grave, with -the ivy and the May-flowers and the sunlight and the clover-leaves round -about; and that it could not be, and how long it was to wait,--it came -over me so that I could not speak. - -“There!” she said, suddenly rousing, “what a thoughtless, wicked thing -it was to say! And I meant to give you only the good cheer of a cheery -friend. No, I do not care to go this afternoon, nor any afternoon, till -my Father is ready for me. Wherever he has most for me to do, there I -wish,--yes, I think I _wish_ to stay. He knows best.” - -After a pause, I asked again, “Why did He not tell us more about this -thing,--about their presence with us? You see if I could _know_ it!” - -“The mystery of the Bible lies not so much in what it says, as in what -it does not say,” she replied. “But I suppose that we have been told all -that we can comprehend in this world. Knowledge on one point might -involve knowledge on another, like the links of a chain, till it -stretched far beyond our capacity. At any rate, it is not for me to -break the silence. That is God’s affair. I can only accept the fact. -Nevertheless, as Dr. Chalmers says: ‘It were well for us all could we -carefully draw the line between the secret things which belong to God -and the things which are revealed and belong to us and to our children.’ -Some one else,--Whately, I think,--I remember to have noticed as -speaking about these very subjects to this effect,--that precisely -because we know so little of them, it is the more important that we -‘should endeavor so to dwell on them as to make the most of what little -knowledge we have.’” - -“Aunt Winifred, you are such a comfort!” - -“It needs our best faith,” she said, “to bear this reticence of God. I -cannot help thinking sometimes of a thing Lauderdale said,--I am always -quoting him,--from ‘Son of the Soil,’ you remember: ‘It’s an awfu’ -marvel, beyond my reach, when a word of communication would make a’ the -difference, why it’s no permitted, if it were but to keep a heart from -breaking now and then.’ Think of poor Eugénie de Guèrin, trying to -continue her little journal ‘To Maurice in Heaven,’ till the awful, -answerless stillness shut up the book and laid aside the pen. - -“But then,” she continued, “there is this to remember,--I may have -borrowed the idea, or it may be my own,--that if we could speak to them, -or they to us, there would be no death, for there would be no -separation. The last, the surest, in some cases the only test of loyalty -to God, would thus be taken away. Roman Catholic nature is human nature, -when it comes upon its knees before a saint. Many lives--all such lives -as yours and mine--would become--” - -“Would become what?” - -“One long defiance to the First Commandment.” - -I cannot become used to such words from such quiet lips. Yet they give -me a curious sense of the trustworthiness of her peace. “Founded upon a -rock,” it seems to be. She has done what it takes a lifetime for some of -us to do; what some of us go into eternity, leaving undone; what I am -afraid I shall never do,--sounded her own nature. She knows the worst of -herself, and faces it as fairly, I believe, as anybody can do in this -world. As for the best of herself, she trusts that to Christ, and he -knows it, and we. I hope she, in her sweet humbleness, will know it some -day. - -“I suppose, nevertheless,” she said, “that Roy knows what you are doing -and feeling as well as, perhaps better than, he knew it three months -ago. So he can help you without harming you.” - -I asked her, turning suddenly, how that could be, and yet heaven be -heaven,--how he could see me suffer what I had suffered, could see me -sometimes when I supposed none but God had seen me,--and sing on and be -happy. - -“You are not the first, Mary, and you will not be the last, to ask that -question. I cannot answer it, and I never heard of any who could. I feel -sure only of this,--that he would suffer far less to see you than to -know nothing about you; and that God’s power of inventing happiness is -not to be blocked by an obstacle like this. Perhaps Roy sees the end -from the beginning, and can bear the sight of pain for the peace that he -watches coming to meet you. I do not know,--that does not perplex me -now; it only makes me anxious for one thing.” - -“What is that?” - -“That you and I shall not do anything to make them sorry.” - -“To make them sorry?” - -“Roy would care. Roy would be disappointed to see you make life a -hopeless thing for his sake, or to see you doubt his Saviour.” - -“Do you think _that_?” - -“Some sort of mourning over sin enters that happy life. God himself ‘was -grieved’ forty years long over his wandering people. Among the angels -there has been ‘silence,’ whatever that mysterious pause may mean, just -as there is joy over one sinner that repenteth; another of my -proof-texts that, to show that they are allowed to keep us in sight.” - -“Then you think, you really think, that Roy remembers and loves and -takes care of me; that he has been listening, perhaps, and is--why, you -don’t think he may be _here_?” - -“Yes, I do. Here, close beside you all this time, trying to speak to you -through the blessed sunshine and the flowers, trying to help you, and -sure to love you,--right here, dear. I do not believe God means to send -him away from you, either.” - -My heart was too full to answer her. Seeing how it was, she slipped -away, and, strolling out of sight with her face to the eastern hills, -left me alone. - -And yet I did not seem alone. The low branches swept with a little soft -sigh across the grave; the May-flowers wrapped me in with fragrance -thick as incense; the tiny sparrow turned her soft eyes at me over the -edge of the nest, and chirped contentedly; the “blessed sunshine” talked -with me as it touched the edges of the ivy-leaves to fire. - -I cannot write it even here, how these things stole into my heart and -hushed me. If I had seen him standing by the stainless cross, it would -not have frightened or surprised me. There--not dead or gone, but -_there_--it helps me, and makes me strong! - -“Mamie! little Mamie!” - -O Roy, I will try to bear it all, if you will only stay! - - - - -VIII. - - -May 20. - -The nearer the time has come for Aunt Winifred to go, the more it has -seemed impossible to part with her. I have run away from the thought -like a craven, till she made me face it this morning, by saying -decidedly that she should go on the first of the week. - -I dropped my sewing; the work-basket tipped over, and all my spools -rolled away under the chairs. I had a little time to think while I was -picking them up. - -“There is the rest of my visit at Norwich to be made, you know,” she -said, “and while I am there I shall form some definite plans for the -summer; I have hardly decided what, yet. I had better leave here by the -seven o’clock train, if such an early start will not incommode you.” - -I wound up the last spool, and turned away to the window. There was a -confused, dreary sky of scurrying clouds, and a cold wind was bruising -the apple-buds. I hate a cold wind in May. It made me choke a little, -thinking how I should sit and listen to it after she was gone,--of the -old, blank, comfortless days that must come and go,--of what she had -brought, and what she would take away. I was a bit faint, I think, for a -minute. I had not really thought the prospect through, before. - -“Mary,” she said, “what’s the matter? Come here.” - -I went over, and she drew me into her lap, and I put my arms about her -neck. - -“I can _not_ bear it,” said I, “and that is the matter.” - -She smiled, but her smile faded when she looked at me. - -And then I told her, sobbing, how it was; that I could not go into my -future alone,--I could not do it! that she did not know how weak I -was,--and reckless,--and wicked; that she did not know what she had been -to me. I begged her not to leave me. I begged her to stay and help me -bear my life. - -“My dear! you are as bad as Faith when I put her to bed alone.” - -“But,” I said, “when Faith cries, you go to her, you know.” - -“Are you quite in earnest, Mary?” she asked, after a pause. “You don’t -know very much about me, after all, and there is the child. It is always -an experiment, bringing two families into lifelong relations under one -roof. If I could think it best, you might repent your bargain.” - -“_I_ am not ‘a family,’” I said, feebly trying to laugh. “Aunt Winifred, -if you and Faith only _will_ make this your home, I can never thank you, -never. I shall be entertaining my good angels, and that is the whole of -it.” - -“I have had some thought of not going back,” she said at last, in a low, -constrained voice, as if she were touching something that gave her great -pain, “for Faith’s sake. I should like to educate her in New England, -if--I had intended if we stayed to rent or buy a little home of our own -somewhere, but I had been putting off a decision. We are most weak and -most selfish sometimes when we think ourselves strongest and noblest, -Mary. I love my husband’s people. I think they love me. I was almost -happy with them. It seemed as if I were carrying on his work for him. -That was so pleasant!” - -She put me down out of her arms and walked across the room. - -“I will think the matter over,” she said, by and by, in her natural -tones, “and let you know to-night.” - -She went away up stairs then, and I did not see her again until -to-night. I sent Faith up with her dinner and tea, judging that she -would rather see the child than me. I observed, when the dishes came -down, that she had touched nothing but a cup of coffee. - -I began to understand, as I sat alone in the parlor through the -afternoon, how much I had asked of her. In my selfish distress at losing -her, I had not thought of that. Faces that her husband loved, meadows -and hills and sunsets that he has watched, the home where his last step -sounded and his last word was spoken, the grave where she has laid -him,--this last more than all,--call after her, and cling to her with -yearning closeness. To leave them, is to leave the last faint shadow of -her beautiful past. It hurts, but she is too brave to cry out. - -Tea was over, and Faith in bed, but still she did not come down. I was -sitting by the window, watching a little crescent moon climb over the -hills, and wondering whether I had better go up, when she came in and -stood behind me, and said, attempting to laugh:-- - -“Very impolite in me to run off so, wasn’t it? Cowardly, too, I think. -Well, Mary?” - -“Well, Auntie?” - -“Have you not repented your proposition yet?” - -“You would excel as an inquisitor, Mrs. Forceythe!” - -“Then it shall be as you say; as long as you want us you shall have -us,--Faith and me.” - -I turned to thank her, but could not when I saw her face. It was very -pale; there was something inexpressibly sad about her mouth, and her -eyelids drooped heavily, like one weary from a great struggle. - -Feeling for the moment guilty and ashamed before her, as if I had done -her wrong, “It is going to be very hard for you,” I said. - -“Never mind about that,” she answered, quickly. “We will not talk about -that. I knew, though I did not _wish_ to know, that it was best for -Faith. Your hands about my neck have settled it. Where the work is, -there the laborer must be. It is quite plain now. I have been talking it -over with them all the afternoon; it seems to be what they want.” - -“With _them_”? I started at the words; who had been in her lonely -chamber? Ah, it is simply real to her. Who, indeed, but her Saviour and -her husband? - -She did not seem inclined to talk, and stole away from me presently, and -out of doors; she was wrapped in her blanket shawl, and had thrown a -shimmering white hood over her gray hair. I wondered where she could be -going, and sat still at the window watching her. She opened and shut the -gate softly; and, turning her face towards the churchyard, walked up the -street and out of my sight. - -She feels nearer to him in the resting-place of the dead. Her heart -cries after the grave by which she will never sit and weep again; on -which she will never plant the roses any more. - -As I sat watching and thinking this, the faint light struck her slight -figure and little shimmering hood again, and she walked down the street -and in with steady step. - -When she came up and stood beside me, smiling, with the light knitted -thing thrown back on her shoulders, her face seemed to rise from it as -from a snowy cloud; and for her look,--I wish Raphael could have had it -for one of his rapt Madonnas. - -“Now, Mary,” she said, with the sparkle back again in her voice, “I am -ready to be entertaining, and promise not to play the hermit again very -soon. Shall I sit here on the sofa with you? Yes, my dear, I am happy, -quite happy.” - -So then we took this new promise of home that has come to make my life, -if not joyful, something less than desolate, and analyzed it in its -practical bearings. What a pity that all pretty dreams have to be -analyzed! I had some notion about throwing our little incomes into a -joint family fund, but she put a veto to that; I suppose because mine is -the larger. She prefers to take board for herself and Faith; but, if I -know myself, she shall never be suffered to have the feeling of a -boarder, and I will make her so much at home in my house that she shall -not remember that it is not her own. - -Her visit to Norwich she has decided to put off until the autumn, so -that I shall have her to myself undisturbed all summer. - -I have been looking at Roy’s picture a long time, and wondering how he -would like the new plan. I said something of the sort to her. - -“Why put any ‘would’ in that sentence?” she said, smiling. “It belongs -in the present tense.” - -“Then I am sure he likes it,” I answered,--“he likes it,” and I said the -words over till I was ready to cry for rest in their sweet sound. - - -22d. - -It is Roy’s birthday. But I have not spoken of it. We used to make a -great deal of these little festivals,--but it is of no use to write -about that. - -I am afraid I have been bearing it very badly all day. She noticed my -face, but said nothing till to-night. Mrs. Bland was down stairs, and I -had come away alone up here in the dark. I heard her asking for me, but -would not go down. By and by Aunt Winifred knocked, and I let her in. - -“Mrs. Bland cannot understand why you don’t see her, Mary,” she said, -gently. “You know you have not thanked her for those English violets -that she sent the other day. I only thought I would remind you; she -might feel a little pained.” - -“I can’t to-night,--not to-night, Aunt Winifred. You must excuse me to -her somehow. I don’t want to go down.” - -“Is it that you don’t ‘want to,’ or _is_ it that you can’t?” she said, -in that gentle, motherly way of hers, at which I can never take offence. -“Mary, I wonder if Roy would not a little rather that you would go -down?” - -It might have been Roy himself who spoke. - -I went down. - - - - -IX. - - -June 1. - -Aunt Winifred went to the office this morning, and met Dr. Bland, who -walked home with her. He always likes to talk with her. - -A woman who knows something about fate, free-will, and foreknowledge -absolute, who is not ignorant of politics, and talks intelligently of -Agassiz’s latest fossil, who can understand a German quotation, and has -heard of Strauss and Neander, who can dash her sprightliness ably -against his old dry bones of metaphysics and theology, yet never speak -an accent above that essentially womanly voice of hers, is, I imagine, a -phenomenon in his social experience. - -I was sitting at the window when they came up and stopped at the gate. -Dr. Bland lifted his hat to me in his grave way, talking the while; -somewhat eagerly, too, I could see. Aunt Winifred answered him with a -peculiar smile and a few low words that I could not hear. - -“But, my dear madam,” he said, “the glory of God, you see, the glory of -God is the primary consideration.” - -“But the glory of God _involves_ these lesser glories, as a sidereal -system, though a splendid whole, exists by the multiplied differing of -one star from another star. Ah, Dr. Bland, you make a grand abstraction -out of it, but it makes me cold,”--she shivered, half playfully, half -involuntarily,--“it makes me cold. I am very much alive and human; and -Christ was human God.” - -She came in smiling a little sadly, and stood by me, watching the -minister walk over the hill. - -“How much does that man love his wife and children?” she asked abruptly. - -“A good deal. Why?” - -“I am afraid that he will lose one of them then, before many more years -of his life are past.” - -“What! he hasn’t been telling you that they are consumptive or anything -of the sort?” - -“O dear me, no,” with a merry laugh which died quickly away: “I was only -thinking,--there is trouble in store for him; some intense pain,--if he -is capable of intense pain,--which shall shake his cold, smooth -theorizing to the foundation. He speaks a foreign tongue when he talks -of bereavement, of death, of the future life. No argument could convince -him of that, though, which is the worst of it.” - -“He must think you shockingly heterodox.” - -“I don’t doubt it. We had a little talk this morning, and he regarded me -with an expression of mingled consternation and perplexity that was -curious. He is a very good man. He is not a stupid man. I only wish that -he would stop preaching and teaching things that he knows nothing about. - -“He is only drifting with the tide, though,” she added, “in his views of -this matter. In our recoil from the materialism of the Romish Church, we -have, it seems to me, nearly stranded ourselves on the opposite shore. -Just as, in a rebound from the spirit which would put our Saviour on a -level with Buddha or Mahomet, we have been in danger of forgetting ‘to -begin as the Bible begins,’ with his humanity. It is the grandeur of -inspiration, that it knows how to _balance_ truth.” - -It had been in my mind for several days to ask Aunt Winifred something, -and, feeling in the mood, I made her take off her things and devote -herself to me. My question concerned what we call the “intermediate -state.” - -“I have been expecting that,” she said; “what about it?” - -“What _is_ it?” - -“Life and activity.” - -“We do not go to sleep, of course.” - -“I believe that notion is about exploded, though clear thinkers like -Whately have appeared to advocate it. Where it originated, I do not -know, unless from the frequent comparisons in the Scriptures of death -with sleep, which refer solely, I am convinced, to the condition of -body, and which are voted down by an overwhelming majority of decided -statements relative to the consciousness, happiness, and tangibility of -the life into which we immediately pass.” - -“It is intermediate, in some sense, I suppose.” - -“It waits between two other conditions,--yes; I think the drift of what -we are taught about it leads to that conclusion. I expect to become at -once sinless, but to have a broader Christian character many years -hence; to be happy at once, but to be happier by and by; to find in -myself wonderful new tastes and capacities, which are to be immeasurably -ennobled and enlarged after the Resurrection, whatever that may mean.” - -“What does it mean?” - -“I know no more than you, but you shall hear what I think, presently. I -was going to say that this seems to be plain enough in the Bible. The -angels took Lazarus at once to Abraham. Dives seems to have found no -interval between death and consciousness of suffering.” - -“They always tell you that that is only a parable.” - -“But it must mean _something_. No story in the Bible has been pulled to -pieces and twisted about as that has been. We are in danger of pulling -and twisting all sense out of it. Then Judas, having hanged his wretched -self, went to his own place. Besides, there was Christ’s promise to the -thief.” - -I told her that I had heard Dr. Bland say that we could not place much -dependence on that passage, because “Paradise” did not necessarily mean -heaven. - -“But it meant living, thinking, enjoying; for ‘To-day thou shalt _be -with me_.’ Paul’s beautiful perplexed revery, however, would be enough -if it stood alone; for he did not know whether he would rather stay in -this world, or depart and be with Christ, which is far better. _With -Christ_, you see; and His three mysterious days, which typify our -intermediate state, were over then, and he had ascended to his Father. -Would it be ‘far better’ either to leave this actual tangible life -throbbing with hopes and passions, to leave its busy, Christ-like -working, its quiet joys, its very sorrows which are near and human, for -a nap of several ages, or even for a vague, lazy, half-alive, -disembodied existence?” - -“Disembodied? I supposed, of course, that it was disembodied.” - -“I do not think so. And that brings us to the Resurrection. All the -_tendency_ of Revelation is to show that an embodied state is superior -to a disembodied one. Yet certainly we who love God are promised that -death will lead us into a condition which shall have the advantage of -this: for the good apostle to die ‘was gain.’ I don’t believe, for -instance, that Adam and Eve have been wandering about in a misty -condition all these thousands of years. I suspect that we have some sort -of body immediately after passing out of this, but that there is to -come a mysterious change, equivalent, perhaps, to a re-embodiment, when -our capacities for action will be greatly improved, and that in some -manner this new form will be connected with this ‘garment by the soul -laid by.’” - -“Deacon Quirk expects to rise in his own entire, original body, after it -has lain in the First Church cemetery a proper number of years, under a -black slate headstone, adorned by a willow, and such a ‘cherubim’ as -that poor boy shot,--by the way, if I’ve laughed at that story once, I -have fifty times.” - -“Perhaps Deacon Quirk would admire a work of art that I found stowed -away on the top of your Uncle Calvin’s bookcases. It was an old -woodcut--nobody knows how old--of an interesting skeleton rising from -his grave, and, in a sprightly and modest manner, drawing on his skin, -while Gabriel, with apoplectic cheeks, feet uppermost in the air, was -blowing a good-sized tin trumpet in his ear! - -“No; some of the popular notions of resurrection are simple -physiological impossibilities, from causes ‘too tedious to specify.’ -Imagine, for instance, the resurrection of two Hottentots, one of whom -has happened to make a dinner of the other some fine day. A little -complication there! Or picture the touching scene, when that devoted -husband, King Mausolas, whose widow had him burned and ate the ashes, -should feel moved to institute a search for his body! It is no wonder -that the infidel argument has the best of it, when we attempt to enforce -a natural impossibility. It is worth while to remember that Paul -expressly stated that we shall _not_ rise in our entire earthly bodies. -The simile which he used is the seed sown, dying in, and mingling with, -the ground. How many of its original particles are found in the -full-grown corn?” - -“Yet you believe that _something_ belonging to this body is preserved -for the completion of another?” - -“Certainly. I accept God’s statement about it, which is as plain as -words can make a statement. I do not know, and I do not care to know, -how it is to be effected. God will not be at a loss for a way, any more -than he is at a loss for a way to make his fields blossom every spring. -For aught we know, some invisible compound of an annihilated body may -hover, by a divine decree, around the site of death till it is -wanted,--sufficient to preserve identity as strictly as a body can ever -be said to preserve it; and stranger things have happened. You remember -the old Mohammedan belief in the one little bone which is imperishable. -Prof. Bush’s idea of our triune existence is suggestive, for a notion. -He believed, you know, that it takes a material body, a spiritual body, -and a soul, to make a man. The spiritual body is enclosed within the -material, the soul within the spiritual. Death is simply the slipping -off of the outer body, as a husk slips off from its kernel. The -deathless frame stands ready then for the soul’s untrammelled -occupation. But it is a waste of time to speculate over such useless -fancies, while so many remain that will vitally affect our happiness.” - -It is singular; but I never gave a serious thought--and I have done some -thinking about other matters--to my heavenly body, till that moment, -while I sat listening to her. In fact, till Roy went, the Future was a -miserable, mysterious blank, to be drawn on and on in eternal and -joyless monotony, and to which, at times, annihilation seemed -preferable. I remember, when I was a child, asking father once, if I -were so good that I _had_ to go to heaven, whether, after a hundred -years, God would not let me “die out.” More or less of the disposition -of that same desperate little sinner I suspect has always clung to me. -So I asked Aunt Winifred, in some perplexity, what she supposed our -bodies would be like. - -“It must be nearly all ‘suppose,’” she said, “for we are nowhere -definitely told. But this is certain. They will be as real as these.” - -“But these you can see, you can touch.” - -“What would be the use of having a body that you can’t see and touch? A -body is a _body_, not a spirit. Why should you not, having seen Roy’s -old smile and heard his own voice, clasp his hand again, and feel his -kiss on your happy lips? - -“It is really amusing,” she continued, “to sum up the notions that good -people--excellent people--even thinking people--have of the heavenly -body. Vague visions of floating about in the clouds, of balancing--with -a white robe on, perhaps--in stiff rows about a throne, like the angels -in the old pictures, converging to an apex, or ranged in semi-circles -like so many marbles. Murillo has one charming exception. I always take -a secret delight in that little cherub of his, kicking the clouds, in -the right-hand upper corner of the Immaculate Conception; he seems to -be having a good time of it, in genuine baby-fashion. The truth is, that -the ordinary idea, if sifted accurately, reduces our eternal personality -to--_gas_. - -“Isaac Taylor holds, that, as far as the abstract idea of spirit is -concerned, it may just as reasonably be granite as ether. - -“Mrs. Charles says a pretty thing about this. She thinks these -‘super-spiritualized angels’ very ‘unsatisfactory’ beings, and that ‘the -heart returns with loving obstinacy to the young men in long white -garments’ who sat waiting in the sepulchre. - -“Here again I cling to my conjecture about the word ‘angel’; for then we -should learn emphatically something about our future selves. - -“‘As the angels in heaven,’ or ‘equal unto the angels,’ we are told in -another place,--that may mean simply what it says. At least, if we are -to resemble them in the particular respect of which the words were -spoken,--and that one of the most important which could well be -selected,--it is not unreasonable to infer that we shall resemble them -in others. ‘In the Resurrection,’ by the way, means, in that connection -and in many others, simply future state of existence, without any -reference to the time at which the great bodily change is to come. - -“‘But this is a digression,’ as the novelists say. I was going to say, -that it bewilders me to conjecture where students of the Bible have -discovered the usual foggy nonsense about the corporeity of heaven. - -“If there is anything laid down in plain statement, devoid of metaphor -or parable, simple and unequivocal, it is the definite contradiction of -all that. Paul, in his preface to that sublime apostrophe to death, -repeats and reiterates it, lest we should make a mistake in his meaning. - -“‘There are celestial _bodies_.’ ‘It is raised a spiritual _body_.’ -‘There is a spiritual _body_.’ ‘It _is_ raised in incorruption.’ ‘It -_is_ raised in glory.’ ‘It _is_ raised in power.’ Moses, too, when he -came to the transfigured mount in glory, had as real a _body_ as when he -went into the lonely mount to die.” - -“But they will be different from these?” - -“The glory of the terrestrial is one, the glory of the celestial -another. Take away sin and sickness and misery, and that of itself would -make difference enough.” - -“You do not suppose that we shall look as we look now?” - -“I certainly do. At least, I think it more than possible that the ‘human -form divine,’ or something like it, is to be retained. Not only from the -fact that risen Elijah bore it; and Moses, who, if he had not passed -through his resurrection, does not seem to have looked different from -the other,--I have to use those two poor prophets on all occasions, but, -as we are told of them neither by parable nor picture, they are -important,--and that angels never appeared in any other, but because, in -sinless Eden, God chose it for Adam and Eve. What came in unmarred -beauty direct from His hand cannot be unworthy of His other Paradise -‘beyond the stars.’ It would chime in pleasantly, too, with the idea of -Redemption, that our very bodies, free from all the distortion of guilt, -shall return to something akin to the pure ideal in which He moulded -them. Then there is another reason, and stronger.” - -“What is that?” - -“The human form has been borne and dignified forever by Christ. And, -further than that, He ascended to His Father in it, and lives there in -it as human God to-day.” - -I had never thought of that, and said so. - -“Yes, with the very feet which trod the dusty road to Emmaus; the very -wounded hands which Thomas touched, believing; the very lips which ate -of the broiled fish and honeycomb; the very voice which murmured ‘Mary!’ -in the garden, and which told her that He ascended unto His Father and -her Father, to His God and her God, He ‘was parted from them,’ and was -‘received up into heaven.’ His death and resurrection stand forever the -great prototype of ours. Otherwise, what is the meaning of such -statements as these: ‘When He shall appear, we shall be _like Him_’; -‘The first man (Adam) is of the earth; the second man is the Lord. As we -have borne the image of the earthy, _we shall also bear the image of the -heavenly_’? And what of this, when we are told that our ‘vile bodies,’ -being changed, shall be fashioned ‘_like unto His glorious body_’?” - -I asked her if she inferred from that, that we should have just such -bodies as the freedom from pain and sin would make of these. - -“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,” she said. “There is no -escaping that, even if I had the smallest desire to escape it, which I -have not. Whatever is essentially earthly and temporary in the -arrangements of this world will be out of place and unnecessary there. -Earthly and temporary, flesh and blood certainly are.” - -“Christ said, ‘A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’” - -“A _spirit_ hath not; and who ever said that it did? His body had -something that appeared like them, certainly. That passage, by the way, -has led some ingenious writer on the Chemistry of Heaven to infer that -our bodies there will be like these, minus _blood_! I don’t propose to -spend my time over such investigations. Summing up the meaning of the -story of those last days before the Ascension, and granting the shade of -mystery which hangs over them, I gather this,--that the spiritual body -is real, is tangible, is visible, is human, but that ‘we shall be -changed.’ Some indefinable but thorough change had come over Him. He -could withdraw Himself from the recognition of Mary, and from the -disciples, whose ‘eyes were holden,’ as it pleased Him. He came and went -through barred and bolted doors. He appeared suddenly in a certain -place, without sound of footstep or flutter of garment to announce His -approach. He vanished, and was not, like a cloud. New and wonderful -powers had been given to Him, of which, probably, His little bewildered -group of friends saw but a few illustrations.” - -“And He was yet _man_?” - -“He was Jesus of Nazareth until the sorrowful drama of human life that -He had taken upon Himself was thoroughly finished, from manger to -sepulchre, and from sepulchre to the right hand of His Father.” - -“I like to wonder,” she said, presently, “what we are going to look like -and be like. _Ourselves_, in the first place. ‘It is I Myself,’ Christ -said. Then to be perfectly well, never a sense of pain or -weakness,--imagine how much solid comfort, if one had no other, in being -forever rid of all the ills that flesh is heir to! Beautiful, too, I -suppose we shall be, every one. Have you never had that come over you, -with a thrill of compassionate thankfulness, when you have seen a poor -girl shrinking, as only girls can shrink, under the life-long affliction -of a marred face or form? The loss or presence of beauty is not as -slight a deprivation or blessing as the moralists would make it out. -Your grandmother, who was the most beautiful woman I ever saw, the -belle of the county all her young days, and the model for artists’ fancy -sketching even in her old ones, as modest as a violet and as honest as -the sunshine, used to have the prettiest little way when we girls were -in our teens, and she thought that we must be lectured a bit on youthful -vanity, of adding, in her quiet voice, smoothing down her black silk -apron as she spoke, ‘But still it is a thing to be thankful for, my -dear, to have a _comely countenance_.’ - -“But to return to the track and our future bodies. We shall find them -vastly convenient, undoubtedly, with powers of which there is no -dreaming. Perhaps they will be so one with the soul that to will will be -to do,--hindrance out of the question. I, for instance, sitting here by -you, and thinking that I should like to be in Kansas, would be there. -There is an interesting bit of a hint in Daniel about Gabriel, who, -‘being caused to fly swiftly, touched him about the time of the evening -oblation.’” - -“But do you not make a very material kind of heaven out of such -suppositions?” - -“It depends upon what you mean by ‘material.’ The term does not, to my -thinking, imply degradation, except so far as it is associated with -sin. Dr. Chalmers has the right of it, when he talks about ‘_spiritual -materialism_.’ He says in his sermon on the New Heavens and -Earth,--which, by the way, you should read, and from which I wish a few -more of our preachers would learn something,--that we ‘forget that on -the birth of materialism, when it stood out in the freshness of those -glories which the great Architect of Nature had impressed upon it, that -then the “morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted -for joy.”’ I do not believe in a _gross_ heaven, but I believe in a -_reasonable_ one.” - - -4th. - -We have been devoting ourselves to feminine vanities all day out in the -orchard. Aunt Winifred has been making her summer bonnet, and I some -linen collars. I saw, though she said nothing, that she thought the -_crêpe_ a little gloomy, and I am going to wear these in the mornings to -please her. - -She has an accumulation of work on hand, and in the afternoon I offered -to tuck a little dress for Faith,--the prettiest pink _barège_ affair -pale as a blush rose, and about as delicate. Faith, who had been making -mud-pies in the swamp, and was spattered with black peat from curls to -stockings, looked on approvingly, and wanted it to wear on a flag-root -expedition to-morrow. It seemed to do me good to do something for -somebody after all this lonely and--I suspect--selfish idleness. - - -6th. - -I read a little of Dr. Chalmers to-day, and went laughing to Aunt -Winifred with the first sentence. - -“There is a limit to the revelations of the Bible about futurity, and it -were a mental or spiritual trespass to go beyond it.” - -“Ah! but,” she said, “look a little farther down.” - -And I read, “But while we attempt not to be ‘wise above that which is -written,’ we should attempt, and that most studiously, to be wise _up_ -to that which is written.” - - -8th. - -It occurred to me to-day, that it was a noticeable fact, that, among all -the visits of angels to this world of which we are told, no one seems to -have discovered in any the presence of a dead friend. If redeemed men -are subject to the same laws as they, why did such a thing never happen? -I asked Aunt Winifred, and she said that the question reminded her of -St. Augustine’s lonely cry thirty years after the death of Monica: “Ah, -the dead do not come back; for, had it been possible, there has not been -a night when I should not have seen my mother!” There seemed to be two -reasons, she said, why there should be no exceptions to the law of -silence imposed between us and those who have left us; one of which was, -that we should be overpowered with familiar curiosity about them, which -nobody seems to have dared to express in the presence of angels, and the -secrets of their life God has decreed that it is unlawful to utter. - -“But Lazarus, and Jairus’s little daughter, and the dead raised at the -Crucifixion,--what of them?” I asked. - -“I cannot help conjecturing that they were suffered to forget their -glimpse of spiritual life,” she said. “Since their resurrection was a -miracle, there might be a miracle throughout. At least, their lips must -have been sealed, for not a word of their testimony has been saved. When -Lazarus dined with Simon, after he had come back to life,--and of that -feast we have a minute account in, I believe, every Gospel,--nobody -seems to have asked, or he to have answered, any questions about it. - -“The other reason is a sorrowfully sufficient one. It is that _every_ -lost darling has not gone to heaven. Of all the mercies that our Father -has given, this blessed uncertainty, this long unbroken silence, may be -the dearest. Bitterly hard for you and me, but what are thousands like -you and me weighed against one who stands beside a hopeless grave? Think -a minute what mourners there have been, and _whom_ they have mourned! -Ponder one such solitary instance as that of Vittoria Colonna, -wondering, through her widowed years, if she could ever be ‘good enough’ -to join wicked Pescara in another world! This poor earth holds--God only -knows how many, God make them very few!--Vittorias. Ah, Mary, what right -have we to complain?” - - -9th. - -To-night Aunt Winifred had callers,--Mrs. Quirk and (O Homer -aristocracy!) the butcher’s wife,--and it fell to my lot to put Faith to -bed. - -The little maiden seriously demurred. Cousin Mary was very good,--O yes, -she was good enough,--but her mamma was a great deal gooder; and why -couldn’t little peoples sit up till nine o’clock as well as big peoples, -she should like to know! - -Finally, she came to the gracious conclusion that perhaps I’d _do_, made -me carry her all the way up stairs, and dropped, like a little lump of -lead, half asleep, on my shoulder, before two buttons were unfastened. - -Feeling under some sort of theological obligation to hear her say her -prayers, I pulled her curls a little till she awoke, and went through -with “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pway ve Lord,” triumphantly. I -supposed that was the end, but it seems that she has been also taught -the Lord’s Prayer, which she gave me promptly to understand. - -“O, see here! That isn’t all. I can say Our Father, and you’ve got to -help me a lot!” - -This very soon became a self-evident proposition; but by our united -efforts we managed, after tribulations manifold, to arrive successfully -at “For ever ’n’ ever ’n’ ever ’n’ _A_-men.” - -“Dear me,” she said, jumping up with a yawn, “I think that’s a -_dreadful long-tailed prayer_,--don’t you, Cousin Mary?” - -“Now I must kiss mamma good night,” she announced, when she was tucked -up at last. - -“But mamma kissed you good night before you came up.” - -“O, so she did. Yes, I ’member. Well, it’s papa I’ve got to kiss. I knew -there was somebody.” - -I looked at her in perplexity. - -“Why, there!” she said, “in the upper drawer,--my pretty little papa in -a purple frame. Don’t you know?” - -I went to the bureau-drawer, and found in a case of velvet a small ivory -painting of her father. This I brought, wondering, and the child took it -reverently and kissed the pictured lips. - -“Faith,” I said, as I laid it softly back, “do you always do this?” - -“Do what? Kiss papa good night? O yes, I’ve done that ever since I was a -little girl, you know. I guess I’ve always kissed him pretty much. When -I’m a naughty girl he feels _real_ sorry. He’s gone to heaven. I like -him. O yes, and then, when I’m through kissing, mamma kisses him too.” - - - - -X. - - -June 11. - -I was in her room this afternoon while she was dressing. I like to watch -her brush her beautiful gray hair; it quite alters her face to have it -down; it seems to shrine her in like a cloud, and the outlines of her -cheeks round out, and she grows young. - -“I used to be proud of my hair when I was a girl,” she said with a -slight blush, as she saw me looking at her; “it was all I had to be vain -of, and I made the most of it. Ah well! I was dark-haired three years -ago. - -“O you regular old woman!” she added, smiling at herself in the mirror, -as she twisted the silver coils flashing through her fingers. “Well, -when I am in heaven, I shall have my pretty brown hair again.” - -It seemed odd enough to hear that; then the next minute it did not seem -odd at all, but the most natural thing in the world. - - -June 14. - -She said nothing to me about the anniversary, and, though it has been in -my thoughts all the time, I said nothing to her. I thought that she -would shut herself up for the day, and was rather surprised that she was -about as usual, busily at work, chatting with me, and playing with -Faith. Just after tea, she went away alone for a time, and came back a -little quiet, but that was all. I was for some reason impressed with the -feeling that she kept the day in memory, not so much as the day of her -mourning, as of his release. - -Longing to do something for her, yet not knowing what to do, I went into -the garden while she was away, and, finding some carnations, that shone -like stars in the dying light, I gathered them all, and took them to her -room, and, filling my tiny porphyry vase, left them on the bracket, -under the photograph of Uncle Forceythe that hangs by the window. - -When she found them, she called me, and kissed me. - -“Thank you, dear,” she said, “and thank God too, Mary, for me. That he -should have been happy,--happy and out of pain, for three long beautiful -years! O, think of that!” - -When I was in her room with the flowers, I passed the table on which her -little Bible lay open. A mark of rich ribbon--a black ribbon--fell -across the pages; it bore in silver text these words:-- - - “_Thou shalt have no other gods before me._” - - -20th. - -“I thank thee, my God, the river of Lethe may indeed flow through the -Elysian Fields,--it does not water the Christian’s Paradise.” - -Aunt Winifred was saying that over to herself in a dreamy undertone this -morning, and I happened to hear her. - -“Just a quotation, dear,” she said, smiling, in answer to my look of -inquiry, “I couldn’t originate so pretty a thing. _Isn’t_ it pretty?” - -“Very; but I am not sure that I understand it.” - -“You thought that forgetfulness would be necessary to happiness?” - -“Why,--yes; as far as I had ever thought about it; that is, after our -last ties with this world are broken. It does not seem to me that I -could be happy to remember all that I have suffered and all that I have -sinned here.” - -“But the last of all the sins will be as if it had never been. Christ -takes care of that. No shadow of a sense of guilt can dog you, or affect -your relations to Him or your other friends. The last pain borne, the -last tear, the last sigh, the last lonely hour, the last unsatisfied -dream, forever gone by; why should not the dead past bury its dead?” - -“Then why remember it?” - -“‘Save but to swell the sense of being blest.’ Besides, forgetfulness of -the disagreeable things of this life implies forgetfulness of the -pleasant ones. They are all tangled together.” - -“To be sure. I don’t know that I should like that.” - -“Of course you wouldn’t. Imagine yourself in a state of being where you -and Roy had lost your past; all that you had borne and enjoyed, and -hoped and feared, together; the pretty little memories of your babyhood, -and first ‘half-days’ at school, when he used to trudge along beside -you,--little fellow! how many times I have watched him!--holding you -tight by the apron-sleeve or hat-string, or bits of fat fingers, lest -you should run away or fall. Then the old Academy pranks, out of which -you used to help each other; his little chivalry and elder-brotherly -advice; the mischief in his eyes; some of the ‘Sunday-night talks’; the -first novel that you read and dreamed over together; the college -stories; the chats over the corn-popper by firelight; the earliest, -earnest looking-on into life together, its temptations conquered, its -lessons learned, its disappointments faced together,--always you -two,--would you like to, are you _likely_ to, forget all this? - -“Roy might as well be not Roy, but a strange angel, if you should. -Heaven will be not less heaven, but more, for this pleasant remembering. -So many other and greater and happier memories will fill up the time -then, that after years these things may--probably will--seem smaller -than it seems to us now they can ever be; but they will, I think, be -always dear; just as we look back to our baby-selves with a pitying sort -of fondness, and, though the little creatures are of small enough use to -us now, yet we like to keep good friends with them for old times’ sake. - -“I have no doubt that you and I shall sit down some summer afternoon in -heaven and talk over what we have been saying to-day, and laugh perhaps -at all the poor little dreams we have been dreaming of what has not -entered into the heart of man. You see it is certain to be so much -_better_ than anything that I can think of; which is the comfort of it. -And Roy--” - -“Yes; some more about Roy, please.” - -“Supposing he were to come right into the room now,--and I slipped -out,--and you had him all to yourself again--Now, dear, don’t cry, but -wait a minute!” Her caressing hand fell on my hair. “I did not mean to -hurt you, but to say that your first talk with him, after you stand face -to face, may be like that. - -“Remembering this life is going to help us amazingly, I fancy, to -appreciate the next,” she added, by way of period. “Christ seems to have -thought so, when he called to the minds of those happy people what, in -that unconscious ministering of lowly faith which may never reap its -sheaf in the field where the seed was sown, they had not had the comfort -of finding out before,--‘I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me.’ -And to come again to Abraham in the parable, did he not say, ‘Son, -_remember_ that thou in thy lifetime hadst good things and Lazarus -evil’?” - -“I wonder what it is going to look like,” I said, as soon as I could put -poor Dives out of my mind. - -“Heaven? Eye hath not seen, but I have my fancies. I think I want some -mountains, and very many trees.” - -“Mountains and trees!” - -“Yes; mountains as we see them at sunset and sunrise, or when the maples -are on fire and there are clouds enough to make great purple shadows -chase each other into lakes of light, over the tops and down the -sides,--the _ideal_ of mountains which we catch in rare glimpses, as we -catch the ideal of everything. Trees as they look when the wind cooes -through them on a June afternoon; elms or lindens or pines as cool as -frost, and yellow sunshine trickling through on moss. Trees in a forest -so thick that it shuts out the world, and you walk like one in a -sanctuary. Trees pierced by stars, and trees in a bath of summer moons -to which the thrill of ‘Love’s young dream’ shall cling forever--But -there is no end to one’s fancies. Some water, too, I would like.” - -“There shall be no more sea.” - -“Perhaps not; though, as the sea is the great type of separation and of -destruction, that may be only figurative. But I’m not particular about -the sea, if I can have rivers and little brooks, and fountains of just -the right sort; the fountains of this world don’t please me generally. I -want a little brook to sit and sing to Faith by. O, I forgot! she will -be a large girl probably, won’t she?” - -“Never too large to like to hear your mother sing, will you, Faith?” - -“O no,” said Faith, who bobbed in and out again like a canary, just -then,--“not unless I’m _dreadful_ big, with long dresses and a -waterfall, you know. I s’pose, maybe, I’d have to have little girls -myself to sing to, then. I hope they’ll behave better’n Mary Ann does. -She’s lost her other arm, and all her sawdust is just running out. -Besides, Kitty thought she was a mouse, and ran down cellar with her, -and she’s all shooken up, somehow. She don’t look very pretty.” - -“Flowers, too,” her mother went on, after the interruption. “_Not_ all -amaranth and asphodel, but of variety and color and beauty unimagined; -glorified lilies of the valley, heavenly tea-rose buds, and spiritual -harebells among them. O, how your poor mother used to say,--you know -flowers were her poetry,--coming in weak and worn from her garden in the -early part of her sickness, hands and lap and basket full: ‘Winifred, -if I only supposed I _could_ have some flowers in heaven I shouldn’t be -half so afraid to go!’ I had not thought as much about these things then -as I have now, or I should have known better how to answer her. I should -like, if I had my choice, to have day-lilies and carnations fresh under -my windows all the time.” - -“Under your windows?” - -“Yes. I hope to have a home of my own.” - -“Not a house?” - -“Something not unlike it. In the Father’s house are many mansions. -Sometimes I fancy that those words have a literal meaning which the -simple men who heard them may have understood better than we, and that -Christ is truly ‘preparing’ my home for me. He must be there, too, you -see,--I mean John.” - -I believe that gave me some thoughts that I ought not to have, and so I -made no reply. - -“If we have trees and mountains and flowers and books,” she went on, -smiling, “I don’t see why not have houses as well. Indeed, they seem to -me as supposable as anything can be which is guess-work at the best; for -what a homeless, desolate sort of sensation it gives one to think of -people wandering over the ‘sweet fields beyond the flood’ without a -local habitation and a name. What could be done with the millions who, -from the time of Adam, have been gathering there, unless they lived -under the conditions of organized society? Organized society involves -homes, not unlike the homes of this world. - -“What other arrangement could be as pleasant, or could be pleasant at -all? Robertson’s definition of a church exactly fits. ‘More united in -each other, because more united in God.’ A happy home is the happiest -thing in the world. I do not see why it should not be in any world. I do -not believe that all the little tendernesses of family ties are thrown -by and lost with this life. In fact, Mary, I cannot think that anything -which has in it the elements of permanency is to be lost, but sin. -Eternity cannot be--it cannot be the great blank ocean which most of us -have somehow or other been brought up to feel that it is, which shall -swallow up, in a pitiless, glorified way, all the little brooks of our -delight. So I expect to have my beautiful home, and my husband, and -Faith, as I had them here; with many differences and great ones, but -_mine_ just the same. Unless Faith goes into a home of her own,--the -little creature! I suppose she can’t always be a baby. - -“Do you remember what a pretty little wistful way Charles Lamb has of -wondering about all this? - -“‘Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which -point me to them here,--the “sweet assurance of a look”? Sun, and sky, -and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness -of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fish, and society, ... -and candle-light and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and -jests, and _irony itself_,--do these things go out with life?’” - -“Now, Aunt Winifred!” I said, sitting up straight, “what am I to do with -these beautiful heresies? If Deacon Quirk _should_ hear!” - -“I do not see where the heresy lies. As I hold fast by the Bible, I -cannot be in much danger.” - -“But you don’t glean your conjectures from the Bible.” - -“I conjecture nothing that the Bible contradicts. I do not believe as -truth indisputable anything that the Bible does not give me. But I -reason from analogy about this, as we all do about other matters. Why -should we not have pretty things in heaven? If this ‘bright and -beautiful economy’ of skies and rivers, of grass and sunshine, of hills -and valleys, is not too good for such a place as this world, will there -be any less variety of the bright and beautiful in the next? There is no -reason for supposing that the voice of God will speak to us in -thunder-claps, or that it will not take to itself the thousand gentle, -suggestive tongues of a nature built on the ruins of this, an unmarred -system of beneficence. - -“There is a pretty argument in the fact that just such sunrises, such -opening of buds, such fragrant dropping of fruit, such bells in the -brooks, such dreams at twilight, and such hush of stars, were fit for -Adam and Eve, made holy man and woman. How do we know that the abstract -idea of a heaven needs imply anything very much unlike Eden? There is -some reason as well as poetry in the conception of a ‘Paradise -Regained.’ A ‘new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.’” - -“But how far is it safe to trust to this kind of argument?” - -“Bishop Butler will answer you better than I. Let me see,--Isaac Taylor -says something about that.” - -She went to the bookcase for his “Physical Theory of Another Life,” and, -finding her place, showed me this passage:-- - -“If this often repeated argument from analogy is to be termed, as to the -conclusions it involves, a conjecture merely, we ought then to abandon -altogether every kind of abstract reasoning; nor will it be easy -afterwards to make good any principle of natural theology. In truth, the -very basis of reasoning is shaken by a scepticism so sweeping as this.” - -And in another place:-- - -“None need fear the consequences of such endeavors who have well learned -the prime principle of sound philosophy, namely, not to allow the most -plausible and pleasing conjectures to unsettle our convictions of truth -... resting upon positive evidence. If there be any who frown upon all -such attempts, ... they would do well to consider, that although -individually, and from the constitution of their minds, they may find it -very easy to abstain from every path of excursive meditation, it is not -so with others who almost irresistibly are borne forward to the vast -field of universal contemplation,--a field from which the human mind is -not to be barred, and which is better taken possession of by those who -reverently bow to the authority of Christianity, than left open to -impiety.” - -“Very good,” I said, laying down the book. “But about those trees and -houses, and the rest of your ‘pretty things’? Are they to be like -these?” - -“I don’t suppose that the houses will be made of oak and pine and nailed -together, for instance. But I hope for heavenly types of nature and of -art. _Something that will be to us then what these are now._ That is the -amount of it. They may be as ‘spiritual’ as you please; they will answer -all the purpose to us. As we are not spiritual beings yet, however, I am -under the necessity of calling them by their earthly names. You remember -Plato’s old theory, that the ideal of everything exists eternally in the -mind of God. If that is so,--and I do not see how it can be -otherwise,--then whatever of God is expressed to us in this world by -flower, or blade of grass, or human face, why should not that be -expressed forever in heaven by something corresponding to flower, or -grass, or human face? I do not mean that the heavenly creation will be -less real than these, but more so. Their ‘spirituality is of such a -sort that our gardens and forests and homes are but shadows of them. - -“You don’t know how I amuse myself at night thinking this all over -before I go to sleep; wondering what one thing will be like, and another -thing; planning what I should like; thinking that John has seen it all, -and wondering if he is laughing at me because I know so little about it! -I tell you, Mary, there’s a ‘deal o’ comfort in ’t’ as Phœbe says -about her cup of tea.” - - -July 5. - -Aunt Winifred has been hunting up a Sunday school class for herself and -one for me; which is a venture that I never was persuaded into -undertaking before. She herself is fast becoming acquainted with the -poorer people of the town. - -I find that she is a thoroughly busy Christian, with a certain “week-day -holiness” that is strong and refreshing, like a west wind. Church-going, -and conversations on heaven, by no means exhaust her vitality. - -She told me a pretty thing about her class; it happened the first -Sabbath that she took it. Her scholars are young girls of from fourteen -to eighteen years of age, children of church-members, most of them. She -seemed to have taken their hearts by storm. _She_ says, “They treated me -very prettily, and made me love them at once.” - -Clo Bentley is in the class; Clo is a pretty, soft-eyed little creature, -with a shrinking mouth, and an absorbing passion for music, which she -has always been too poor to gratify. I suspect that her teacher will -make a pet of her. She says that in the course of her lesson, or, in her -words,-- - -“While we were all talking together, somebody pulled my sleeve, and -there was Clo in the corner, with her great brown eyes fixed on me. ‘See -here!’ she said in a whisper, ‘I can’t be good! I would be good if I -could _only_ just have a piano!’ ‘Well, Clo,’ I said, ‘if you will be a -good girl, and go to heaven, I think you will have a piano there, and -play just as much as you care to.’ - -“You ought to have seen the look the child gave me! Delight and fear and -incredulous bewilderment tumbled over each other, as if I had proposed -taking her into a forbidden fairy-land. - -“‘Why, Mrs. Forceythe! Why, they won’t let anybody have a piano up -there! not in _heaven_?’ - -“I laid down the question-book, and asked what kind of place she -supposed that heaven was going to be. - -“‘O,’ she said, with a dreary sigh, ‘I never think about it when I can -help it. I suppose we _shall all just stand there_!’ - -“And you?” I asked of the next, a bright girl with snapping eyes. - -“‘Do you want me to talk good, or tell the truth?’ she answered me. -Having been given to understand that she was not expected to ‘talk good’ -in my class, she said, with an approving, decided nod: ‘Well, then! I -don’t think it’s going to be _anything nice_ anyway. No, I don’t! I told -my last teacher so, and she looked just as shocked, and said I never -should go there as long as I felt so. That made me mad, and I told her I -didn’t see but I should be as well off in one place as another, except -for the fire.’ - -“A silent girl in the corner began at this point to look interested. ‘I -always supposed,’ said she, ‘that you just floated round in heaven--you -know--all together--something like ju-jube paste!’ - -“Whereupon I shut the question-book entirely, and took the talking to -myself for a while. - -“‘But I _never_ thought it was anything like that,’ interrupted little -Clo, presently, her cheeks flushed with excitement. ‘Why, I should like -to go, if it is like that! I never supposed people talked, unless it was -about converting people, and saying your prayers, and all that.’ - -“Now, weren’t those ideas[B] alluring and comforting for young girls in -the blossom of warm human life? They were trying with all their little -hearts to ‘be good,’ too, some of them, and had all of them been to -church and Sunday school all their lives. Never, never, if Jesus Christ -had been Teacher and Preacher to them, would He have pictured their -blessed endless years with Him in such bleak colors. They are not the -hues of His Bible.” - - [B] Facts. - - - - -XI. - - -July 16. - -We took a trip to-day to East Homer for butter. Neither angels nor -principalities could convince Phœbe that any butter but “Stephen -David’s” might, could, would, or should be used in this family. So to -Mr. Stephen David’s, a journey of four miles, I meekly betake myself at -stated periods in the domestic year, burdened with directions about -firkins and half-firkins, pounds and half-pounds, salt and no salt, -churning and “working-over”; some of which I remember and some of which -I forget, and to all of which Phœbe considers me sublimely incapable -of attending. - -The afternoon was perfect, and we took things leisurely, letting the -reins swing from the hook,--an arrangement to which Mr. Tripp’s old gray -was entirely agreeable,--and, leaning back against the buggy-cushions, -wound along among the strong, sweet pine-smells, lazily talking or -lazily silent, as the spirit moved, and as only two people who -thoroughly understand and like each other can talk or be silent. - -We rode home by Deacon Quirk’s, and, as we jogged by, there broke upon -our view a blooming vision of the Deacon himself, at work in his -potato-field with his son and heir, who, by the way, has the reputation -of being the most awkward fellow in the township. - -The amiable church-officer, having caught sight of us, left his work, -and coming up to the fence “in rustic modesty unscared,” guiltless of -coat or vest, his calico shirt-sleeves rolled up to his huge brown -elbows, and his dusty straw hat flapping in the wind, rapped on the -rails with his hoe-handle as a sign for us to stop. - -“Are we in a hurry?” I asked, under my breath. - -“O no,” said Aunt Winifred. “He has somewhat to say unto me, I see by -his eyes. I have been expecting it. Let us hear him out. Good afternoon, -Deacon Quirk.” - -“Good afternoon, ma’am. Pleasant day?” - -She assented to the statement, novel as it was. - -“A very pleasant day,” repeated the Deacon, looking for the first time -in his life, to my knowledge, a little undecided as to what he should -say next. “Remarkable fine day for riding. In a hurry?” - -“Well, not especially. Did you want anything of me?” - -“You’re a church-member, aren’t you, ma’am?” asked the Deacon, abruptly. - -“I am.” - -“Orthodox?” - -“O yes,” with a smile. “You had a reason for asking?” - -“Yes, ma’am; I had, as you might say, a reason for asking.” - -The Deacon laid his hoe on the top of the fence, and his arms across it, -and pushed his hat on the back of his head in a becoming and -argumentative manner. - -“I hope you don’t consider that I’m taking liberties if I have a little -religious conversation with you, Mrs. Forceythe.” - -“It is no offence to me if you are,” replied Mrs. Forceythe, with a -twinkle in her eye; but both twinkle and words glanced off from the -Deacon. - -“My wife was telling me last night,” he began, with an ominous cough, -“that her niece, Clotildy Bentley--Moses Bentley’s daughter, you know, -and one of your sentimental girls that reads poetry, and is easy enough -led away by vain delusions and false doctrine--was under your charge at -Sunday-school. Now Clotildy is intimate with my wife,--who is her aunt -on her mother’s side, and always tries to do her duty by her,--and she -told Mrs. Quirk what you’d been a saying to those young minds on the -Sabbath.” - -He stopped, and observed her impressively, as if he expected to see the -guilty blushes of arraigned heresy covering her amused, attentive face. - -“I hope you will pardon me, ma’am, for repeating it, but Clotildy said -that you told her she should have a pianna in heaven. A _pianna_, -ma’am!” - -“I certainly did,” she said quietly. - -“You did? Well, now, I didn’t believe it, nor I wouldn’t believe it, -till I’d asked you! I thought it warn’t more than fair that I should ask -you, before repeating it, you know. It’s none of my business, Mrs. -Forceythe, any more than that I take a general interest in the -spiritooal welfare of the youth of our Sabbath school; but I am very -much surprised! I am _very_ much surprised!” - -“I am surprised that you should be, Deacon Quirk. Do you believe that -God would take a poor little disappointed girl like Clo, who has been -all her life here forbidden the enjoyment of a perfectly innocent taste, -and keep her in His happy heaven eternal years, without finding means to -gratify it? I don’t.” - -“I tell Clotildy I don’t see what she wants of a pianna-forte,” observed -“Clotildy’s” uncle, sententiously. “She can go to singin’ school, and -she’s been in the choir ever since I have, which is six years come -Christmas. Besides, I don’t think it’s our place to speckylate on the -mysteries of the heavenly spere. My wife told her that she mustn’t -believe any such things as that, which were very irreverent, and -contrary to the Scriptures, and Clo went home crying. She said: ‘It was -so pretty to think about.’ It is very easy to impress these delusions of -fancy on the young.” - -“Pray, Deacon Quirk,” said Aunt Winifred, leaning earnestly forward in -the carriage, “will you tell me what there is ‘irreverent’ or -‘unscriptural’ in the idea that there will be instrumental music in -heaven?” - -“Well,” replied the Deacon after some consideration, “come to think of -it, there will be harps, I suppose. Harpers harping with their harps on -the sea of glass. But I don’t believe there will be any piannas. It’s a -dreadfully material way to talk about that glorious world, to my -thinking.” - -“If you could show me wherein a harp is less ‘material’ than a piano, -perhaps I should agree with you.” - -Deacon Quirk looked rather nonplussed for a minute. - -“What _do_ you suppose people will do in heaven?” she asked again. - -“Glorify God,” said the Deacon, promptly recovering himself,--“glorify -God, and sing Worthy the Lamb! We shall be clothed in white robes with -palms in our hands, and bow before the Great White Throne. We shall be -engaged in such employments as befit sinless creatures in a spiritooal -state of existence.” - -“Now, Deacon Quirk,” replied Aunt Winifred, looking him over from head -to foot,--old straw hat, calico shirt, blue overalls, and cow-hide -boots, coarse, work-worn hands, and “narrow forehead braided -tight,”--“just imagine yourself, will you? taken out of this life this -minute, as you stand here in your potato-field (the Deacon changed his -position with evident uneasiness), and put into another life,--not -anybody else, but yourself, just as you left this spot,--and do you -honestly think that you should be happy to go and put on a white dress -and stand still in a choir with a green branch in one hand and a -singing-book in the other, and sing and pray and never do anything but -sing and pray, this year, next year, and every year forever?” - -“We-ell,” he replied, surprised into a momentary flash of carnal candor, -“I can’t say that I shouldn’t wonder for a minute, maybe, _how Abinadab -would ever get those potatoes hoed without me_.--Abinadab! go back to -your work!” - -The graceful Abinadab had sauntered up during the conversation, and was -listening, hoe in hand and mouth open. He slunk away when his father -spoke, but came up again presently on tiptoe when Aunt Winifred was -talking. There was an interested, intelligent look about his square and -pitifully embarrassed face, which attracted my notice. - -“But then,” proceeded the Deacon, re-enforced by the sudden recollection -of his duties as a father and a church-member, “that couldn’t be a -permanent state of feeling, you know. I expect to be transformed by the -renewing of my mind to appreciate the glories of the New Jerusalem, -descending out of heaven from God. That’s what I expect, marm. Now I -heerd that you told Mrs. Bland, or that Mary told her, or that she heerd -it someway, that you said you supposed there were trees and flowers and -houses and such in heaven. I told my wife I thought your deceased -husband was a Congregational minister, and I didn’t believe you ever -said it; but that’s the rumor.” - -Without deeming it necessary to refer to her “deceased husband,” Aunt -Winifred replied that “rumor” was quite right. - -“Well!” said the Deacon, with severe significance, “_I_ believe in a -spiritooal heaven.” - -I looked him over again,--hat, hoe, shirt, and all; scanned his -obstinate old face with its stupid, good eyes and animal mouth. Then I -glanced at Aunt Winifred as she leaned forward in the afternoon light; -the white, finely cut woman, with her serene smile and rapt, saintly -eyes,--every inch of her, body and soul, refined not only by birth and -training, but by the long nearness of her heart to Christ. - -“Of the earth, earthy. Of the heavens, heavenly.” The two faces -sharpened themselves into two types. Which, indeed, was the better able -to comprehend a “spiritooal heaven”? - -“It is distinctly stated in the Bible, by which I suppose we shall both -agree,” said Aunt Winifred, gently, “that there shall be a _new earth_, -as well as new heavens. It is noticeable, also, that the descriptions of -heaven, although a series of metaphors, are yet singularly earthlike and -tangible ones. Are flowers and skies and trees less ‘spiritual’ than -white dresses and little palm-branches? In fact, where are you going to -get your little branches without trees? What could well be more -suggestive of material modes of living, and material industry, than a -city marked into streets and alleys, paved solidly with gold, walled in -and barred with gates whose jewels are named and counted, and whose very -length and breadth are measured with a celestial surveyor’s chain?” - -“But I think we’d ought to stick to what the Bible says,” answered the -Deacon, stolidly. “If it says golden cities and doesn’t say flowers, it -means cities and doesn’t mean flowers. I dare say you’re a good woman, -Mrs. Forceythe, if you do hold such oncommon doctrine, and I don’t doubt -you mean well enough, but I don’t think that we ought to trouble -ourselves about these mysteries of a future state. _I_’m willing to -trust them to God!” - -The evasion of a fair argument by this self-sufficient spasm of piety -was more than I could calmly stand, and I indulged in a subdued -explosion.--Auntie says it sounded like Fourth of July crackers touched -off under a wet barrel. - -“Deacon Quirk! do you mean to imply that Mrs. Forceythe does not trust -it to God? The truth is, that the existence of such a world as heaven is -a fact from which you shrink. You know you do! She has twenty thoughts -about it where you have one; yet you set up a claim to superior -spirituality!” - -“Mary, Mary, you are a little excited; I fear. God is a spirit, and they -that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth!” - -The relevancy of this last, I confess myself incapable of perceiving, -but the good man seemed to be convinced that he had made a point, and we -rode off leaving him under that blissful delusion. - -“If he _weren’t_ a good man!” I sighed. “But he is, and I must respect -him for it.” - -“Of course you must; nor is he to blame that he is narrow and rough. I -should scarcely have argued as seriously as I did with him, but that, as -I fancy him to be a representative of a class, I wanted to try an -experiment. Isn’t he amusing, though? He is precisely one of Mr. -Stopford Brooke’s men ‘who can understand nothing which is original.’” - -“Are there, or are there not, more of such men in our church than in -others?” - -“Not more proportionately to numbers. But I would not have them thinned -out. The better we do Christ’s work, the more of uneducated, neglected, -or debased mind will be drawn to try and serve Him with us. He sought -out the lame, the halt, the blind, the stupid, the crotchety, the rough, -as well as the equable, the intelligent, the refined. Untrained -Christians in any sect will always have their eccentricities and their -littlenesses, at which the silken judgment of high places, where the -Carpenter’s Son would be a strange guest, will sneer. That never -troubles me. It only raises the question in my mind whether cultivated -Christians generally are sufficiently _cultivators_, scattering their -golden gifts on wayside ground.” - -“Now take Deacon Quirk,” I suggested, when we had ridden along a little -way under the low, green arches of the elms, “and put him into heaven as -you proposed, just as he is, and what _is_ he going to do with himself? -He can dig potatoes and sell them without cheating, and give generously -of their proceeds to foreign missions; but take away his potatoes, and -what would become of him? I don’t know a human being more incapacitated -to live in such a heaven as he believes in.” - -“Very true, and a good, common-sense argument against such a heaven. I -don’t profess to surmise what will be found for him to do, beyond -this,--that it will be some very palpable work that he can understand. -How do we know that he would not be appointed guardian of his poor son -here, to whom I suspect he has not been all that father might be in this -life, and that he would not have his body as well as his soul to look -after, his farm as well as his prayers? to him might be committed the -charge of the dews and the rains and the hundred unseen influences that -are at work on this very potato-field.” - -“But when his son has gone in his turn, and we have all gone, and there -are no more potato-fields? An Eternity remains.” - -“You don’t know that there wouldn’t be any potato-fields; there may be -some kind of agricultural employments even then. To whomsoever a talent -is given, it will be given him wherewith to use it. Besides, by that -time the good Deacon will be immensely changed. I suppose that the -simple transition of death, which rids him of sin and of grossness, will -not only wonderfully refine him, but will have its effect upon his -intellect.” - -“If a talent is given, use will be found for it? Tell me some more about -that.” - -“I fancy many things about it; but of course can feel sure of only the -foundation principle. This life is a great school-house. The wise -Teacher trains in us such gifts as, if we graduate honorably, will be of -most service in the perfect manhood and womanhood that come after. He -sees, as we do not, that a power is sometimes best trained by -repression. ‘We do not always lose an advantage when we dispense with -it,’ Goethe says. But the suffocated lives, like little Clo’s there, -make my heart ache sometimes. I take comfort in thinking how they will -bud and blossom up in the air, by and by. There are a great many of -them. We tread them underfoot in our careless stepping now and then, and -do not see that they have not the elasticity to rise from our touch. -‘Heaven may be a place for those who failed on earth,’ the Country -Parson says.” - -“Then there will be air enough for all?” - -“For all; for those who have had a little bloom in this world, as well. -I suppose the artist will paint his pictures, the poet sing his happy -songs, the orator and author will not find their talents hidden in the -eternal darkness of a grave; the sculptor will use his beautiful gift in -the moulding of some heavenly Carrara; ‘as well the singer as the player -on instruments shall be there.’ Christ said a thing that has grown on me -with new meanings lately:--‘He that _loseth his life for my sake shall -find it_.’ _It_, you see,--not another man’s life, not a strange -compound of powers and pleasures, but his own familiar aspirations. So -we shall best ‘glorify God,’ not less there than here, by doing it in -the peculiar way that He himself marked out for us. But--ah, Mary, you -see it is only the life ‘lost’ for His sake that shall be so -beautifully found. A great man never goes to heaven because he is great. -He must go, as the meanest of his fellow-sinners go, with face towards -Calvary, and every golden treasure used for love of Him who showed him -how.” - -“What would the old Pagans--and modern ones, too, for that matter--say -to that? Wasn’t it Tacitus who announced it as his belief, that -immortality was granted as a special gift to a few superior minds? For -the people who persisted in making up the rest of the world, poor -things! as it could be of little consequence what became of them, they -might die as the brute dieth.” - -“It seems an unbearable thing to me sometimes,” she went on, “the wreck -of a gifted soul. A man who can be, if he chooses, as much better and -happier than the rest of us as the ocean reflects more sky than a -mill-pond, must also be, if he chooses, more wicked and more miserable. -It takes longer to reach sea-shells than river-pebbles. I am compelled -to think, also, that intellectual rank must in heaven bear some -proportion to goodness. There are last and there are first that shall -have changed places. As the tree falleth, there shall it lie, and with -that amount of holiness of which a man leaves this life the possessor, -he must start in another. I have seen great thinkers, ‘foremost men’ in -science, in theology, in the arts, who, I solemnly believe, will turn -aside in heaven,--and will turn humbly and heartily,--to let certain -day-laborers and paupers whom I have known go up before them as kings -and priests unto God.” - -“I believe that. But I was going to ask,--for poor creatures like your -respected niece, who hasn’t a talent, nor even a single absorbing taste, -for one thing above another thing,--what shall she do?” - -“Whatever she liketh best; something very useful, my dear, don’t be -afraid, and very pleasant. Something, too, for which this life has -fitted you; though you may not understand how that can be, better than -did poor Heine on his ‘matrazzen-gruft,’ reading all the books that -treated of his disease. ‘But what good this reading is to do me I don’t -know,’ he said, ‘except that it will qualify me to give lectures in -heaven on the ignorance of doctors on earth about diseases of the spinal -marrow.’” - -“I don’t know how many times I have thought of--I believe it was the -poet Gray, who said that his idea of heaven was to lie on the sofa and -read novels. That touches the lazy part of us, though.” - -“Yes, they will be the active, outgoing, generous elements of our nature -that will be brought into use then, rather than the self-centred and -dreamy ones. Though I suppose that we shall read in heaven,--being -influenced to be better and nobler by good and noble teachers of the -pen, not less there than here.” - -“O think of it! To have books, and music,--and pictures?” - -“All that Art, ‘the handmaid of the Lord,’ can do for us, I have no -doubt will be done. Eternity will never become monotonous. Variety -without end, charms unnumbered within charms, will be devised by -Infinite ingenuity to minister to our delight. Perhaps,--this is just my -fancying,--perhaps there will be whole planets turned into galleries of -art, over which we may wander at will; or into orchestral halls where -the highest possibilities of music will be realized to singer and to -hearer. Do you know, I have sometimes had a flitting notion that music -would be the language of heaven? It certainly differs in some -indescribable manner from the other arts. We have most of us felt it in -our different ways. It always seems to me like the cry of a great, sad -life dragged to use in this world against its will. Pictures and statues -and poems fit themselves to their work more contentedly. Symphony and -song struggle in fetters. That sense of conflict is not good for me. It -is quite as likely to harm as to help. Then perhaps the mysteries of -sidereal systems will be spread out like a child’s map before us. -Perhaps we shall take journeys to Jupiter and to Saturn and to the -glittering haze of nebulæ, and to the site of ruined worlds whose -‘extinct light is yet travelling through space.’ Occupation for -explorers there, you see!” - -“You make me say with little Clo, ‘O, why, I want to go!’ every time I -hear you talk. But there is one thing,--you spoke of families living -together.” - -“Yes.” - -“And you spoke of--your husband. But the Bible--” - -“Says there shall be no marrying nor giving in marriage. I know that. -Nor will there be such marrying or giving in marriage as there is in a -world like this. Christ expressly goes on to state, that we shall be -_as_ the angels in heaven. How do we know what heavenly unions of heart -with heart exist among the angels? It leaves me margin enough to live -and be happy with John forever, and it holds many possibilities for the -settlement of all perplexing questions brought about by the relations of -this world. It is of no use to talk much about them. But it is on that -very verse that I found my unshaken belief that they will be smoothed -out in some natural and happy way, with which each one shall be -content.” - -“But O, there is a great gulf fixed; and on one side one, and on the -other another, and they loved each other.” - -Her face paled,--it always pales, I notice, at the mention of this -mystery,--but her eyes never lost by a shade their steadfast trust. - -“Mary, don’t question me about _that_. That belongs to the unutterable -things. God will take care of it. I _think_ I could leave it to him even -if he brought it for me myself to face. I feel sure that he will make it -all come out right. Perhaps He will be so dear to us, that we could not -love any one who hated him. In some way the void _must_ be filled, for -he shall wipe away tears. But it seems to me that the only thought in -which there can be any _rest_, and in that there _can_, is this: that -Christ, who loves us even as his Father loves him, can be happy in spite -of the existence of a hell. If it is possible to him, surely he can make -it possible to us.” - -“Two things that He has taught us,” she said after a silence, “give me -beautiful assurance that none of these dreams with which I help myself -can be beyond his intention to fulfil. One is, that eye hath not seen -it, nor ear heard it, nor the heart conceived it,--this lavishness of -reward which he is keeping for us. Another is, that ‘I shall be -_satisfied_ when I awake.’” - -“With his likeness.” - -“With his likeness. And about that I have other things to say.” - -But Old Gray stopped at the gate and Phœbe was watching for her -butter, and it was no time to say them then. - - - - -XII. - - -July 22. - -Aunt Winifred has connected herself with our church. I think it was -rather hard for her, breaking the last tie that bound her to her -husband’s people; but she had a feeling, that, if her work is to be done -and her days ended here, she had better take up all such little threads -of influence to make herself one with us. - - -25th. - -To-day what should Deacon Quirk do but make a solemn call on Mrs. -Forceythe, for the purpose of asking--and this with a hint that he -wished he had asked before she became a member of the Homer First -Congregational Church--whether there were truth in the rumors, now rife -about town, that she was a Swedenborgian! - -Aunt Winifred broke out laughing, and laughed merrily. The Deacon -frowned. - -“I used to fancy that I believed in Swedenborg,” she said, as soon as -she could sober down a little. - -The Deacon pricked up his ears, with visions of excommunications and -councils reflected on every feature. - -“Until I read his books,” she finished. - -“Oh!” said the Deacon. He waited for more, but she seemed to consider -the conversation at an end. - -“So then you--if I understand--are _not_ a Swedenborgian, ma’am?” - -“If I were, I certainly should have had no inducement to join myself to -your church,” she replied, with gentle dignity. “I believe, with all my -heart, in the same Bible and the same creed that you believe in, Deacon -Quirk.” - -“And you _live_ your creed, which all such genial Christians do not find -it necessary to do,” I thought, as the Deacon in some perplexity took -his departure, and she returned with a smile to her sewing. - -I suppose the call came about in this way. We had the sewing-circle here -last week, and just before the lamps were lighted, and when people had -dropped their work to group and talk in the corners, Meta Tripp came up -with one or two other girls to Aunt Winifred, and begged “to hear some -of those queer things people said she believed about heaven.” Auntie is -never obtrusive with her views on this or any other matter, but, being -thus urged, she answered a few questions that they put to her, to the -extreme scandal of one or two old ladies, and the secret delight of the -rest. - -“Well,” said little Mrs. Bland, squeezing and kissing her youngest, who -was at that moment vigorously employed in sticking very long -darning-needles into his mother’s waterfall, “I hope there’ll be a great -many babies there. I should be perfectly happy if I always could have -babies to play with!” - -The look that Aunt Winifred shot over at me was worth seeing. - -She merely replied, however, that she supposed all our “highest -aspirations,”--with an indescribable accent to which Mrs. Bland was -safely deaf,--if good ones, would be realized; and added, laughing, that -Swedenborg said that the babies in heaven--who outnumber the grown -people--will be given into the charge of those women especially fond of -them. - -“Swedenborg is suggestive, even if you can’t accept what seem to the -uninitiated to be his natural impossibilities,” she said, after we had -discussed Deacon Quirk awhile. “He says a pretty thing, too, -occasionally. Did I ever read you about the houses?” - -She had not, and I wished to hear, so she found the book on Heaven and -Hell, and read:-- - -“As often as I have spoken with the angels mouth to mouth, so often I -have been with them in their habitations: their habitations are -altogether like the habitations on earth which are called houses, but -more beautiful; in them are parlors, rooms, and chambers in great -numbers; there are also courts, and round about are gardens, -shrubberies, and fields. Palaces of heaven have been seen, which were so -magnificent that they could not be described; above, they glittered as -if they were of pure gold, and below, as if they were of precious -stones; one palace was more splendid than another; within, it was the -same the rooms were ornamented with such decorations as neither words -nor sciences are sufficient to describe. On the side which looked to the -south there were paradises, where all things in like manner glittered, -and in some places the leaves were as of silver, and the fruits as of -gold; and the flowers on their beds presented by colors as it were -rainbows; at the boundaries again were palaces, in which the view -terminated.” - -Aunt Winifred says that our hymns, taken all together, contain the worst -and the best pictures of heaven that we have in any branch of -literature. - -“It seems to me incredible,” she says, “that the Christian Church should -have allowed that beautiful ‘Jerusalem’ in its hymnology so long, with -the ghastly couplet,-- - - ‘Where congregations ne’er break up, - And Sabbaths have no end.’ - -The dullest preachers are sure to give it out, and that when there are -the greatest number of restless children wondering when it will be time -to go home. It is only within ten years that modern hymn books have -altered it, returning in part to the original. - -“I do not think we have chosen the best parts of that hymn for our -‘service of song.’ You never read the whole of it? You don’t know how -pretty it is! It is a relief from the customary palms and choirs. One’s -whole heart is glad of the outlet of its sweet refrain,-- - - ‘Would God that I were there!’ - -before one has half read it. You are quite ready to believe that - - ‘There is no hunger, heat, nor cold, - But _pleasure every way_.’ - -Listen to this:-- - - ‘Thy houses are of ivory, - Thy windows crystal clear, - Thy tiles are made of beaten gold; - O God, that I were there! - - ‘We that are here in banishment - Continually do moan. - - * * * * * - - ‘Our sweet is mixed with bitter gall, - Our pleasure is but pain, - Our joys scarce last the looking on, - Our sorrows still remain. - - ‘But there they live in such delight, - _Such pleasure and such play_, - As that to them a thousand years - Doth seem as yesterday.’ - -And this:-- - - ‘Thy gardens and thy gallant walks - Continually are green; - There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers - As nowhere else are seen. - - ‘There cinnamon, there sugar grows, - There nard and balm abound, - What tongue can tell, or heart conceive - The joys that there are found? - - ‘Quite through the streets, with silver sound, - The flood of life doth flow, - Upon whose banks, on every side, - The wood of life doth grow.’ - -I tell you we may learn something from that grand old Catholic singer. -He is far nearer to the Bible than the innovators on his MSS. Do you not -notice how like his images are to the inspired ones, and yet how -pleasant and natural is the effect of the entire poem? - -“There is nobody like Bonar, though, to sing about heaven. There is one -of his, ‘We shall meet and rest,’--do you know it?” - -I shook my head, and knelt down beside her and watched her face,--it was -quite unconscious of me, the musing face,--while she repeated -dreamily:-- - - “Where the faded flower shall freshen,-- - Freshen nevermore to fade; - Where the shaded sky shall brighten,-- - Brighten nevermore to shade; - Where the sun-blaze never scorches; - Where the star-beams cease to chill; - Where no tempest stirs the echoes - Of the wood, or wave, or hill;.... - Where no shadow shall bewilder; - Where life’s vain parade is o’er; - Where the sleep of sin is broken, - And the dreamer dreams no more; - Where the bond is never severed,-- - Partings, claspings, sob and moan, - Midnight waking, twilight weeping, - Heavy noontide,--all are done; - Where the child has found its mother; - Where the mother finds the child; - Where dear families are gathered, - That were scattered on the wild;.... - Where the hidden wound is healed; - Where the blighted life reblooms; - Where the smitten heart the freshness - Of its buoyant youth resumes;.... - Where we find the joy of loving, - As we never loved before,-- - Loving on, unchilled, unhindered, - Loving once, forevermore.” ... - - -30th. - -Aunt Winifred was weeding her day-lilies this morning, when the gate -creaked timidly, and then swung noisily, and in walked Abinadab Quirk, -with a bouquet of China pinks in the button-hole of his green-gray linen -coat. He had taken evident pains to smarten himself up a little, for his -hair was combed into two horizontal _dabs_ over his ears, and the -green-gray coat and blue-checked shirt-sleeves were quite clean; but he -certainly is the most uncouth specimen of six feet five that it has ever -been my privilege to behold. I feel sorry for him, though. I heard Meta -Tripp laughing at him in Sunday school the other day,--“Quadrangular -Quirk,” she called him, a little too loud, and the poor fellow heard -her. He half turned, blushing fiercely; then slunk down in his corner -with as pitiable a look as is often seen upon a man’s face. - -He came up to Auntie awkwardly,--a part of the scene I saw from the -window, and the rest she told me,--head hanging, and the tiny bouquet -held out. - -“Clo sent these to you,” he stammered out,--“my cousin Clo. I was coming -’long, and she thought, you know,--she’d get me, you see, to--to--that -is, to--bring them. She sent her--that is--let me see. She sent her -respect--ful--respectful--no, her love; that was it. She sent her love -’long with ’em.” - -Mrs. Forceythe dropped her weeds, and held out her white, shapely hands, -wet with the heavy dew, to take the flowers. - -“O, thank you! Clo knows my fancy for pinks. How kind in you to bring -them! Won’t you sit down a few moments? I was just going to rest a -little. Do you like flowers?” - -Abinadab eyed the white hands, as his huge fingers just touched them, -with a sort of awe; and, sighing, sat down on the very edge of the -garden bench beside her. After a singular variety of efforts to take the -most uncomfortable position of which he was capable, he succeeded to his -satisfaction, and, growing then somewhat more at his ease, answered her -question. - -“Flowers are sech _gassy_ things. They just blow out and that’s the end -of ’em. _I_ like machine-shops best.” - -“Ah! well, that is a very useful liking. Do you ever invent machinery -yourself?” - -“Sometimes,” said Abinadab, with a bashful smile. “There’s a little -improvement of mine for carpet-sweepers up before the patent-office now. -Don’t know whether they’ll run it through. Some of the chaps I saw in -Boston told me they thought they would do’t in time; it takes an awful -sight of time. I’m alwers fussing over something of the kind; alwers -did, sence I was a baby; had my little windmills and carts and things; -used to sell ’em to the other young uns. Father don’t like it. He wants -me to stick to the farm. I don’t like farming. I feel like a fish out of -water.--Mrs. Forceythe, marm!” - -He turned on her with an abrupt change of tone, so funny that she could -with difficulty retain her gravity. - -“I heard you saying a sight of queer things the other day about heaven. -Clo, she’s been telling me a sight more. Now, _I_ never believed in -heaven!” - -“Why?” - -“Because I don’t believe,” said the poor fellow, with sullen decision, -“that a benevolent God ever would ha’ made sech a derned awkward chap as -I am!” - -Aunt Winifred replied by stepping into the house, and bringing out a -fine photograph of one of the best of the St. Georges,--a rapt, yet very -manly face, in which the saint and the hero are wonderfully blended. - -“I suppose,” she said, putting it into his hands, “that if you should go -to heaven, you would be as much fairer than that picture as that picture -is fairer than you are now.” - -“No! Why, would I, though? Jim-miny! Why, it would be worth going for, -wouldn’t it?” - -The words were no less reverently spoken than the vague rhapsodies of -his father; for the sullenness left his face, and his eyes--which are -pleasant, and not unmanly, when one fairly sees them--sparkled softly, -like a child’s. - -“Make it all up there, maybe?” musing,--“the girls laughing at you all -your life, and all? That would be the bigger heft of the two then, -wouldn’t it? for they say there ain’t any end to things up there. Why, -so it might be fair in Him after all; more’n fair, perhaps. See here, -Mrs. Forceythe, I’m not a church-member, you know, and father, he’s -dreadful troubled about me; prays over me like a span of ministers, the -old gentleman does, every Sunday night. Now, I don’t want to go to the -other place any more than the next man, and I’ve had my times, too, of -thinking I’d keep steady and say my prayers reg’lar,--it makes a chap -feel on a sight better terms with himself,--but I don’t see how _I_’m -going to wear white frocks and stand up in a choir,--never could sing no -more’n a frog with a cold in his head,--it tires me more now, honest, to -think of it, than it does to do a week’s mowing. Look at me! Do you -s’pose I’m fit for it? Father, he’s always talking about the thrones, -and the wings, and the praises, and the palms, and having new names in -your foreheads, (shouldn’t object to that, though, by any means), till -he drives me into the tool-house, or off on a spree. I tell him if God -hain’t got a place where chaps like me can do something He’s fitted ’em -to do in this world, there’s no use thinking about it anyhow.” - -So Auntie took the honest fellow into her most earnest thought for half -an hour, and argued, and suggested, and reproved, and helped him, as -only she could do; and at the end of it seemed to have worked into his -mind some distinct and not unwelcome ideas of what a Christ-like life -must mean to him, and of the coming heaven which is so much more real to -her than any life outside of it. - -“And then,” she told him, “I imagine that your fancy for machinery will -be employed in some way. Perhaps you will do a great deal more -successful inventing there than you ever will here.” - -“You don’t say so!” said radiant Abinadab. - -“God will give you something to do, certainly, and something that you -will like.” - -“I might turn it to some religious purpose, you know!” said Abinadab, -looking bright. “Perhaps I could help ’em build a church, or hist some -of their pearl gates, or something like!” - -Upon that he said that it was time to be at home and see to the oxen, -and shambled awkwardly away. - -Clo told us this afternoon that he begged the errand and the flowers -from her. She says: “‘Bin thinks there never was anybody like you, Mrs. -Forceythe, and ’Bin isn’t the only one, either.” At which Mrs. Forceythe -smiles absently, thinking--I wonder of what. - - -Monday night. - -I saw as funny and as pretty a bit of a drama this afternoon as I have -seen for a long time. - -Faith had been rolling out in the hot hay ever since three o’clock, with -one of the little Blands, and when the shadows grew long they came in -with flushed cheeks and tumbled hair, to rest and cool upon the -door-steps. I was sitting in the parlor, sewing energetically on some -sun-bonnets for some of Aunt Winifred’s people down town,--I found the -heat to be more bearable if I kept busy,--and could see, unseen, all the -little _tableaux_ into which the two children grouped themselves; a new -one every instant; in the shadow now,--now in a quiver of golden glow; -the wind tossing their hair about, and their chatter chiming down the -hall like bells. - -“O what a funny little sunset there’s going to be behind the -maple-tree,” said the blond-haired Bland, in a pause. - -“Funny enough,” observed Faith, with her superior smile, “but it’s going -to be a great deal funnier up in heaven, I tell you, Molly Bland.” - -“Funny in heaven? Why, Faith!” Molly drew herself up with a religious -air, and looked the image of her father. - -“Yes, to be sure. I’m going to have some little pink blocks made out of -it when I go; pink and yellow and green and purple and--O, so many -blocks! I’m going to have a little red cloud to sail round in, like that -one up over the house, too, I shouldn’t wonder.” - -Molly opened her eyes. - -“O, I don’t believe it!” - -“_You_ don’t know much!” said Miss Faith, superbly. “I shouldn’t s’pose -you would believe it. P’r’aps I’ll have some strawberries too, and some -ginger-snaps,--I’m not going to have any old bread and butter up -there,--O, and some little gold apples, and a lot of playthings; nicer -playthings--why, nicer than they have in the shops in Boston, Molly -Bland! God’s keeping ’em up there a purpose.” - -“Dear me!” said incredulous Molly, “I should just like to know who told -you that much. My mother never told it at me. Did your mother tell it at -you?” - -“O, she told me some of it, and the rest I thinked out myself.” - -“Let’s go and play One Old Cat,” said Molly, with an uncomfortable jump; -“I wish I hadn’t got to go to heaven!” - -“Why, Molly Bland! why, I think heaven’s splendid! I’ve got my papa up -there, you know. ‘Here’s my little girl!’ That’s what he’s going to say. -Mamma, she’ll be there, too, and we’re all going to live in the -prettiest house. I have dreadful hurries to go this afternoon sometimes -when Phœbe’s cross and won’t give me sugar. They don’t let you in, -though, ’nless you’re a good girl.” - -“Who gets it all up?” asked puzzled Molly. - -“Jesus Christ will give me all these beautiful fings,” said Faith, -evidently repeating her mother’s words,--the only catechism that she has -been taught. - -“And what will he do when he sees you?” asked her mother, coming down -the stairs and stepping up behind her. - -“Take me up in His arms and kiss me.” - -“And what will Faith say?” - -“_Fank--you!_” said the child, softly. - -In another minute she was absorbed, body and soul, in the mysteries of -One Old Cat. - -“But I don’t think she will feel much like being naughty for half an -hour to come,” her mother said; “hear how pleasantly her words drop! -Such a talk quiets her, like a hand laid on her head. Mary, sometimes I -think it is His very hand, as much as when He touched those other little -children. I wish Faith to feel at home with Him and His home. Little -thing! I really do not think that she is conscious of any fear of dying; -I do not think it means anything to her but Christ, and her father, and -pink blocks, and a nice time, and never disobeying me, or being cross. -Many a time she wakes me up in the morning talking away to herself, and -when I turn and look at her, she says: ‘O mamma, won’t we go to heaven -to-day, you fink? _When_ will we go, mamma?’” - -“If there had been any pink blocks and ginger-snaps for me when I was at -her age, I should not have prayed every night to ‘die out.’ I think the -horrors of death that children live through, unguessed and unrelieved, -are awful. Faith may thank you all her life that she has escaped them.” - -“I should feel answerable to God for the child’s soul, if I had not -prevented that. I always wanted to know what sort of mother that poor -little thing had, who asked, if she were _very_ good up in heaven, -whether they wouldn’t let her go down to hell Saturday afternoons, and -play a little while!” - -“I know. But think of it,--blocks and ginger-snaps!” - -“I treat Faith just as the Bible treats us, by dealing in _pictures_ of -truth that she can understand. I can make Clo and Abinadab Quirk -comprehend that their pianos and machinery may not be made of literal -rosewood and steel, but will be some synonyme of the thing, which will -answer just such wants of their changed natures as rosewood and steel -must answer now. There will be machinery and pianos in the same sense in -which there will be pearl gates and harps. Whatever enjoyment any or all -of them represent now, something will represent then. - -“But Faith, if I told her that her heavenly ginger-snaps would not be -made of molasses and flour, would have a cry, for fear that she was not -going to have any ginger-snaps at all; so, until she is older, I give -her unqualified ginger-snaps. The principal joy of a child’s life -consists in eating. Faith begins, as soon as the light wanes, to dream -of that gum-drop which she is to have at bedtime. I don’t suppose she -can outgrow that at once by passing out of her little round body. She -must begin where she left off,--nothing but a baby, though it will be as -holy and happy a baby as Christ can make it. When she says: “Mamma, I -shall be hungery and want my dinner, up there,” I never hesitate to tell -her that she shall have her dinner. She would never, in her secret -heart, though she might not have the honesty to say so, expect to be -otherwise than miserable in a dinnerless eternity.” - -“You are not afraid of misleading the child’s fancy?” - -“Not so long as I can keep the two ideas--that Christ is her best -friend, and that heaven is not meant for naughty girls--pre-eminent in -her mind. And I sincerely believe that He would give her the very pink -blocks which she anticipates, no less than He would give back a poet his -lost dreams, or you your brother. He has been a child; perhaps, -incidentally to the unsolved mysteries of atonement, for this very -reason,--that He may know how to ‘prepare their places’ for them, whose -angels do always behold His Father. Ah, you may be sure that, if of such -is the happy Kingdom, He will not scorn to stoop and fit it to their -little needs. - -“There was that poor little fellow whose guinea-pig died,--do you -remember?” - -“Only half; what was it?” - -“‘O mamma,’ he sobbed out, behind his handkerchief, ‘don’t great big -elephants have souls?’ - -“‘No, my son.’ - -“‘Nor camels, mamma?’ - -“‘No.’ - -“‘Nor bears, nor alligators, nor chickens?’ - -“‘O no, dear.’ - -“‘O mamma, mamma! Don’t little CLEAN--_white_--_guinea-pigs_ have -souls?’ - -“I never should have had the heart to say no to that; especially as we -have no positive proof to the contrary. - -“Then that scrap of a boy who lost his little red balloon the morning he -bought it, and, broken-hearted, wanted to know whether it had gone to -heaven. Don’t I suppose if he had been taken there himself that very -minute, that he would have found a little balloon in waiting for him? -How can I help it?” - -“It has a pretty sound. If people would not think it so material and -shocking--” - -“Let people read Martin Luther’s letter to his little boy. There is the -testimony of a pillar in good and regular standing! I don’t think you -need be afraid of my balloon, after that.” - -I remembered that there was a letter of his on heaven, but, not -recalling it distinctly, I hunted for it to-night, and read it over. I -shall copy it, the better to retain it in mind. - -“Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little son. I see with pleasure that -thou learnest well, and prayed diligently. Do so, my son, and continue. -When I come home I will bring thee a pretty fairing. - -“I know a pretty, merry garden wherein are many children. They have -little golden coats, and they gather beautiful apples under the trees, -and pears, cherries, plums, and wheat-plums;--they sing, and jump, and -are merry. They have beautiful little horses, too, with gold bits and -silver saddles. And I asked the man to whom the garden belongs, whose -children they were. And he said: ‘They are the children that love to -pray and to learn, and are good.’ Then said I: ‘Dear man, I have a son, -too; his name is Johnny Luther. May he not also come into this garden -and eat these beautiful apples and pears, and ride these fine horses?’ -Then the man said: ‘If he loves to pray and to learn, and is good, he -shall come into this garden, and Lippus and Jost too; and when they all -come together, they shall have fifes and trumpets, lutes and all sorts -of music, and they shall dance, and shoot with little cross-bows.’ - -“And he showed me a fine meadow there in the garden, made for dancing. -There hung nothing but golden fifes, trumpets, and fine silver -cross-bows. But it was early, and the children had not yet eaten; -therefore I could not wait the dance, and I said to the man: ‘Ah, dear -sir! I will immediately go and write all this to my little son Johnny, -and tell him to pray diligently, and to learn well, and to be good, so -that he also may come to this garden. But he has an Aunt Lehne, he must -bring her with him.’ Then the man said: ‘It shall be so; go, and write -him so.’ - -“Therefore, my dear little son Johnny, learn and pray away! and tell -Lippus and Jost, too that they must learn and pray. And then you shall -come to the garden together. Herewith I commend thee to Almighty God. -And greet Aunt Lehne, and give her a kiss for my sake. - - “Thy dear Father, - - “MARTINUS LUTHER. - -“ANNO 1530.” - - - - -XIII. - - -August 3. - -The summer is sliding quietly away,--my desolate summer which I dreaded; -with the dreams gone from its wild flowers, the crown from its sunsets, -the thrill from its winds and its singing. - -But I have found out a thing. One can live without dreams and crowns and -thrills. - -I have not lost them. They lie under the ivied cross with Roy for a -little while. They will come back to me with him. “Nothing is lost,” she -teaches me. And until they come back, I see--for she shows me--fields -groaning under their white harvest, with laborers very few. Ruth -followed the sturdy reapers, gleaning a little. I, perhaps, can do as -much. The ways in which I must work seem so small and insignificant, so -pitifully trivial sometimes, that I do not even like to write them down -here. In fact, they are so small that, six months ago, I did not see -them at all. Only to be pleasant to old Phœbe, and charitable to -Meta Tripp, and faithful to my _not_ very interesting little scholars, -and a bit watchful of worn-out Mrs. Bland, and--But dear me, I won’t! -They _are_ so little! - -But one’s self becomes of less importance, which seems to be the point. - -It seems very strange to me sometimes, looking back to those desperate -winter days, what a change has come over my thoughts of Roy. Not that he -is any less--O, never any less to me. But it is almost as if she had -raised him from the grave. Why seek ye the living among the dead? Her -soft, compassionate eyes shine with the question every hour. And every -hour he is helping me,--ah, Roy, we understand one another now. - -How he must love Aunt Winifred! How pleasant the days will be when we -can talk her over, and thank her together! - -“To be happy because Roy is happy.” I remember how those first words of -hers struck me. It does not seem to me impossible, now. - - * * * * * - -Aunt Winifred and I laugh at each other for talking so much about -heaven. I see that the green book is filled with my questions and her -answers. The fact is, not that we do not talk as much about mundane -affairs as other people, but that this one thing interests us more. - -If, instead, it had been flounces, or babies, or German philosophy, the -green book would have filled itself just as unconsciously with flounces, -or babies, or German philosophy. This interest in heaven is of course no -sign of especial piety in me, nor could people with young, warm, -uncrushed hopes throbbing through their days be expected to feel the -same. It is only the old principle of, where the treasure is--the heart. - -“How spiritual-minded Mary has grown!” Mrs. Bland observes, regarding me -respectfully. I try in vain to laugh her out of the conviction. If Roy -had not gone before, I should think no more, probably, about the coming -life, than does the minister’s wife herself. - -But now--I cannot help it--that is the reality, this the dream; that the -substance, this the shadow. - -The other day Aunt Winifred and I had a talk which has been of more -value to me than all the rest. - -Faith was in bed; it was a cold, rainy evening; we were secure from -callers; we lighted a few kindlers in the parlor grate; she rolled up -the easy-chair, and I took my cricket at her feet. - -“Paul at the feet of Gamaliel! This is what I call comfort. Now, Auntie, -let us go to heaven awhile.” - -“Very well. What do you want there now?” - -I paused a moment, sobered by a thought that has been growing steadily -upon me of late. - -“Something more, Aunt Winifred. All these other things are beautiful and -dear; but I believe I want--God. - -“You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about -Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleasant -promise, but--I don’t know--there seems to be an outline wanting.” - -She drew my hand up into hers, smiling. - -“I have not done my painting by artistic methods, I know; but it was not -exactly accidental. - -“Tell me, honestly,--is God more to you or less, a more distinct Being -or a more vague one, than He was six months ago? Is He, or is He not, -dearer to you now than then?” - -I thought about it a minute, and then turned my face up to her. - -“Mary, what a light in your eyes! How is it?” - -It came over me slowly, but it came with such a passion of gratitude and -unworthiness, that I scarcely knew how to tell her--that He never has -been to me, in all my life, what he is now at the end of these six -months. He was once an abstract Grandeur which I struggled more in fear -than love to please. He has become a living Presence, dear and real. - - “No dead fact stranded on the shore - Of the oblivious years; - But warm, sweet, tender, even yet - A present help.” ... - -He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the -glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than -we that we should be parted for a while; but He only means it to be a -little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some -summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I -open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the -morning. - -She understood what I could not tell her, and said, “I thought it would -be so.” - -“You, His interpreter, have done it,” I answered her. “His heaven shows -what He is,--don’t you see?--like a friend’s letter. I could no more go -back to my old groping relations to Him, than I could make of you the -dim and somewhat apocryphal Western Auntie that you were before I saw -you.” - -“Which was precisely why I have dealt with this subject as I have,” she -said. “You had all your life been directed to an indefinite heaven, -where the glory of God was to crowd out all individuality and all human -joy from His most individual and human creatures, till the “Glory of -God” had become nothing but a name and a dread to you. So I let those -three words slide by, and tried to bring you to them, as Christ brought -the Twelve to believe in him, ‘for the works’ sake.’ - -“Yes, my child; clinging human loves, stifled longings, cries for rest, -forgotten hopes, shall have their answer. Whatever the bewilderment of -beauties folded away for us in heavenly nature and art, they shall -strive with each other to make us glad. These things have their pleasant -place. But, through eternity, there will be always something beyond and -dearer than the dearest of them. God himself will be first,--naturally -and of necessity, without strain or struggle, _first_.” - -When I sat here last winter with my dead in my house, those words would -have roused in me an agony of wild questionings. I should have beaten -about them and beaten against them, and cried in my honest heart that -they were false. I _knew_ that I loved Roy more than I loved such a -Being as God seemed to me then to be. Now, they strike me as simply and -pleasantly true. The more I love Roy, the more I love Him. He loves us -both. - -“You see it could not be otherwise,” she went on, speaking low. “Where -would you be, or I, or they who seem to us so much dearer and better -than ourselves, if it were not for Jesus Christ? What can heaven be to -us, but a song of the love that is the same to us yesterday, to-day, and -forever,--that, in the mystery of an intensity which we shall perhaps -never understand, could choose death and be glad in the choosing, and, -what is more than that, could live _life_ for us for three-and-thirty -years? - -“I cannot strain my faith--or rather my common sense--to the rhapsodies -with which many people fill heaven. But it seems to me like this: A -friend goes away from us, and it may be seas or worlds that lie between -us, and we love him. He leaves behind him his little keepsakes; a lock -of hair to curl about our fingers; a picture that has caught the trick -of his eyes or smile; a book, a flower, a letter. What we do with the -curling hair, what we say to the picture, what we dream over the flower -and the letter, nobody knows but ourselves. People have risked life for -such mementoes. Yet who loves the senseless gift more than the -giver,--the curl more than the young forehead on which it fell,--the -letter more than the hand which traced it? - -“So it seems to me that we shall learn to see in God the centre of all -possibilities of joy. The greatest of these lesser delights is but the -greater measure of His friendship. They will not mean less of pleasure, -but more of Him. They will not “pale,” as Dr. Bland would say. Human -dearness will wax, not wane, in heaven; but human friends will be loved -for love of Him.” - -“I see; that helps me; like a torch in a dark room. But there will be -shadows in the corners. Do you suppose that we shall ever _fully_ feel -it in the body?” - -“In the body, probably not. We see through a glass so darkly that the -temptation to idolatry is always our greatest. Golden images did not die -with Paganism. At times I fancy that, somewhere between this world and -another, a revelation will come upon us like a flash, of what _sin_ -really is,--such a revelation, lighting up the lurid background of our -past in such colors, that the consciousness of what Christ has done for -us will be for a time as much as heart can bear. After that, the mystery -will be, not how to love Him most, but that we ever _could_ have loved -any creature or thing as much.” - -“We serve God quite as much by active work as by special prayer, here,” -I said after some thought; “how will it be there?” - -“We must be busily at work certainly; but I think there must naturally -be more communion with Him then. Now, this phrase “communion with God” -has been worn, and not always well worn. - -“Prayer means to us, in this life, more often penitent confession than -happy interchange of thought with Him. It is associated, too, with -aching limbs and sleepy eyes, and nights when the lamp goes out. -Obstacles, moral and physical, stand in the way of our knowing exactly -what it may mean in the ideal of it. - -“My best conception of it lies in the _friendship_ of the man Christ -Jesus. I suppose he will bear with him, eternally, the humanity which he -took up with him from the Judean hills. I imagine that we shall see him -in visible form like ourselves, among us, yet not of us; that he, -himself, is “Gott mit ihnen”; that we shall talk with him as a man -talketh with his friend. Perhaps, bowed and hushed at his dear feet, we -shall hear from his own lips the story of Nazareth, of Bethany, of -Golgotha, of the chilly mountains where he used to pray all night long -for us; of the desert places where he hungered; of his cry for -help--think, Mary--_His!_--when there was not one in all the world to -hear it, and there was silence in heaven, while angels strengthened him -and man forsook him. Perhaps his voice--the very voice which has sounded -whispering through our troubled life--“Could ye not watch one -hour?”--shall unfold its perplexed meanings; shall make its rough places -plain; shall show us step by step the merciful way by which he led us -to the hour; shall point out to us, joy by joy, the surprises that he -has been planning for us, just as the old father in the story planned to -surprise his wayward boy come home. - -“And such a ‘communion,’--which is not too much, nor yet enough, to dare -to expect of a God who was the ‘friend’ of Abraham, who ‘walked’ with -Enoch, who did not call fishermen his servants,--_such_ will be that -‘presence of God,’ that ‘adoration,’ on which we have looked from afar -off with despairing eyes that wept, they were so dazzled, and turned -themselves away as from the thing they greatly feared.” - -I think we neither of us cared to talk for a while after this. Something -made me forget even that I was going to see Roy in heaven. -“Three-and-thirty years. Three-and-thirty years.” The words rang -themselves over. - -“It is on the humanity of Christ,” she said after some musing, “that all -my other reasons for hoping for such a heaven as I hope for, rest for -foundation. He knows exactly what we are, for he has been one of us; -exactly what we hope and fear and crave, for he has hoped and feared and -craved, not the less humanly, but only more intensely. - -“‘_If it were not so_,’--do you take in the thoughtful tenderness of -that? A mother, stilling her frightened child in the dark, might speak -just so,--‘_if it were not so, I would have told you_.’ That brooding -love makes room for all that we can want. He has sounded every deep of a -troubled and tempted life. Who so sure as he to understand how to -prepare a place where troubled and tempted lives may grow serene? -Further than this; since he stands as our great Type, no less in death -and after than before it, he answers for us many of these lesser -questions on the event of which so much of our happiness depends. - -“Shall we lose our personality in a vague ocean of ether,--you one puff -of gas, I another?-- - -“He, with his own wounded body, rose and ate and walked and talked. - -“Is all memory of this life to be swept away?-- - -“He, arisen, has forgotten nothing. He waits to meet his disciples at -the old, familiar places; as naturally as if he had never been parted -from them, he falls in with the current of their thoughts. - -“Has any one troubled us with fears that in the glorified crowds of -heaven we may miss a face dearer than all the world to us?-- - -“He made himself known to his friends; Mary, and the two at Emmaus, and -the bewildered group praying and perplexed in their bolted room. - -“Do we weary ourselves with speculations whether human loves can outlive -the shock of death?-- - -“Mary knew how He loved her, when, turning, she heard him call her by -her name. They knew, whose hearts ‘burned within them while he talked -with them by the way, and when he tarried with them, the day being far -spent.’” - -“And for the rest?” - -“For the rest, about which He was silent, we can trust him, and if, -trusting, we please ourselves with fancies, he would be the last to -think it blame to us. There is one promise which grows upon me the more -I study it, ‘He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not also _with -him freely give us all things_?’ Sometimes I wonder if that does not -infold a beautiful _double entendre_, a hint of much that you and I have -conjectured,--as one throws down a hint of a surprise to a child. - -“Then there is that pledge to those who seek first His kingdom: ‘_All -these things shall be added unto you_.’ ‘These things,’ were food and -clothing, were varieties of material delight, and the words were spoken -to men who lived hungry, beggared, and died the death of outcasts. If -this passage could be taken literally, it would be very significant in -its bearing on the future life; for Christ must keep his promise to the -letter, in one world or another. It may be wrenching the verse, not as a -verse, but from the grain of the argument, to insist on the literal -interpretation,--though I am not sure.” - - - - -XIV. - - -August 15. - -I asked the other day, wondering whether all ministers were like Dr. -Bland, what Uncle Forceythe used to believe about heaven. - -“Very much what I do,” she said. “These questions were brought home to -him, early in life, by the death of a very dear sister; he had thought -much about them. I think one of the things that so much attached his -people to him was the way he had of weaving their future life in with -this, till it grew naturally and pleasantly into their frequent thought. -O yes, your uncle supplied me with half of my proof-texts.” - -Aunt Winifred has not looked quite well of late, I fancy; though it may -be only fancy. She has not spoken of it, except one day when I told her -that she looked pale. It was the heat, she said. - - -20th. - -Little Clo came over to-night. I believe she thinks Aunt Winifred the -best friend she has in the world. Auntie has become much attached to -all her scholars, and has a rare power of winning her way into -their confidence. They come to her with all their little -interests,--everything, from saving their souls to trimming a bonnet. -Clo, however, is the favorite, as I predicted. - -She looked a bit blue to-night, as girls will look; in fact, her face -always has a tinge of sadness about it. Aunt Winifred, understanding at -a glance that the child was not in a mood to talk before a third, led -her away into the garden, and they were gone a long time. When it grew -dark, I saw them coming up the path, Clo’s hand locked in her teacher’s, -and her face, which was wet, upturned like a child’s. They strolled to -the gate, lingered a little to talk, and then Clo said good night -without coming in. - -Auntie sat for a while after she had gone, thinking her over, I could -see. - -“Poor thing!” she said at last, half to herself, half to me,--“poor -little foolish thing! This is where the dreadful individuality of a -human soul irks me. There comes a point, beyond which you _can’t_ help -people.” - -“What has happened to Clo?” - -“Nothing, lately. It has been happening for two years. Two miserable -years are an eternity, at Clo’s age. It is the old story,--a summer -boarder; a little flirting; a little dreaming; a little pain; then -autumn, and the nuts dropping on the leaves, and he was gone,--and knew -not what he did,--and the child waked up. There was the future; to bake -and sweep, to go to sewing-circles, and sing in the choir, and bear the -moonlight nights,--and she loved him. She has lived through two years of -it, and she loves him now. Reason will not reach such a passion in a -girl like Clo. I did not tell her that she would put it away with other -girlish things, and laugh at it herself some happy day, as women have -laughed at their young fancies before her; partly because that would be -a certain way of repelling her confidence,--she does not believe it, and -my believing could not make her; partly because I am not quite sure -about it myself. Clo has a good deal of the woman about her; her -introspective life is intense. She may cherish this sweet misery as she -does her musical tastes, till it has struck deep root. There is nothing -in the excellent Mrs. Bentley’s household, nor in Homer anywhere, to -draw the girl out from herself in time to prevent the dream from -becoming a reality.” - -“Poor little thing! What did you say to her?” - -“You ought to have heard what she said to me! I wish I were at liberty -to tell you the whole story. What troubles her most is that it is not -going to help the matter any to die. ‘O Mrs. Forceythe,’ she says, in a -tone that is enough to give the heart-ache, even to such an old woman as -Mrs. Forceythe, ‘O Mrs. Forceythe, what is going to become of me up -there? He never loved me, you see, and he never, never will, and he will -have some beautiful, good wife of his own, and I won’t have _any_body! -For I can’t love anybody else,--I’ve tried; I tried just as hard as I -could to love my cousin ’Bin; he’s real good, and--I’m--afraid ’Bin -likes me, though I guess he likes his carpet-sweepers better. O, -sometimes I think, and think, till it seems as if I could not bear it! I -don’t see how God can _make_ me happy. I wish I could be buried up and -go to sleep, and never have any heaven!’” - -“And you told her--?” - -“That she should have him there. That is, if not himself, -something,--somebody who would so much more than fill his place, that -she would never have a lonely or unloved minute. Her eyes brightened, -and shaded, and pondered, doubting. She ‘didn’t see how it could ever -be.’ I told her not to try and see how, but to leave it to Christ. He -knew all about this little trouble of hers, and he would make it right. - -“‘Will he?’ she questioned, sighing; ‘but there are so many of us! -There’s ’Bin, and a plenty more, and I don’t see how it’s going to be -smoothed out. Everything is in a jumble, Mrs. Forceythe, don’t you see? -for some people _can’t_ like and keep liking so many times.’ Something -came into my mind about the rough places that shall be made plain, and -the crooked things straight. I tried to explain to her, and at last I -kissed away her tears, and sent her home, if not exactly comforted, a -little less miserable, I think, than when she came. Ah, well,--I wonder -myself sometimes about these ‘crooked things’; but, though I wonder, I -never doubt.” - -She finished her sentence somewhat hurriedly, and half started from her -chair, raising both hands with a quick, involuntary motion that -attracted my notice. The lights came in just then, and, unless I am -much mistaken, her face showed paler than usual; but when I asked her if -she felt faint, she said, “O no, I believe I am a little tired, and will -go to bed.” - - -September 1. - -I am glad that the summer is over. This heat has certainly worn on Aunt -Winifred, with that kind of wear which slides people into confirmed -invalidism. I suppose she would bear it in her saintly way, as she bears -everything, but it would be a bitter cup for her. I know she was always -pale, but this is a paleness which-- - - -Night. - -A dreadful thing has happened! - -I was in the middle of my sentence, when I heard a commotion in the -street, and a child’s voice shouting incoherently something about the -doctor, and “_mother’s killed! O, mother’s killed! mother’s burnt to -death!_” I was at the window in time to see a blond-haired girl running -wildly past the house, and to see that it was Molly Bland. - -At the same moment I saw Aunt Winifred snatching her hat from its nail -in the entry. She beckoned to me to follow, and we were half-way over -to the parsonage before I had a distinct thought of what I was about. - -We came upon a horrible scene. Dr. Bland was trying to do everything -alone; there was not a woman in the house to help him, for they have -never been able to keep a servant, and none of the neighbors had had -time to be there before us. The poor husband was growing faint, I think. -Aunt Winifred saw by a look that he could not bear much more, sent him -after Molly for the doctor, and took everything meantime into her own -charge. - -I shall not write down a word of it. It was a sight that, once seen, -will never leave me as long as I live. My nerves are thoroughly shaken -by it, and it must be put out of thought as far as possible. - -It seems that the little boy--the baby--crept into the kitchen by -himself, and began to throw the contents of the match-box on the stove, -“to make a bonfire,” the poor little fellow said. In five minutes his -apron was ablaze. His mother was on the spot at his first cry, and -smothered the little apron, and saved the child, but her dress was -muslin, and everybody was too far off to hear her at first,--and by the -time her husband came in from the garden it was too late. - -She is living yet. Her husband, pacing the room back and forth, and -crouching on his knees by the hour, is praying God to let her die before -the morning. - - -Morning. - -There is no chance of life, the doctor says. But he has been able to -find something that has lessened her sufferings. She lies partially -unconscious. - - -Wednesday night. - -Aunt Winifred and I were over at the parsonage to-night, when she roused -a little from her stupor and recognized us. She spoke to her husband, -and kissed me good by, and asked for the children. They were playing -softly in the next room; we sent for them, and they came in,--the four -unconscious, motherless little things,--with the sunlight in their hair. - -The bitterness of death came into her marred face at sight of them, and -she raised her hands to Auntie--to the only other mother there--with a -sudden helpless cry: “I could bear it, I could bear it, if it weren’t -for _them_. Without any mother all their lives,--such little -things,--and to go away where I can’t do a single _thing_ for them!” - -Aunt Winifred stooped down and spoke low, but decidedly. - -“You _will_ do for them. God knows all about it. He will not send you -away from them. You shall be just as much their mother, every day of -their lives, as you have been here. Perhaps there is something to do for -them which you never could have done here. He sees. He loves them. He -loves you.” - -If I could paint, I might paint the look that struck through and through -that woman’s dying face; but words cannot touch it. If I were Aunt -Winifred, I should bless God on my knees to-night for having shown me -how to give such ease to a soul in death. - - -Thursday morning. - -God is merciful. Mrs. Bland died at five o’clock. - - -10th. - -How such a voice from the heavens shocks one out of the repose of calm -sorrows and of calm joys. This has come and gone so suddenly that I -cannot adjust it to any quiet and trustful thinking yet. - -The whole parish mourns excitedly; for, though they worked their -minister’s wife hard, they loved her well. I cannot talk it over with -the rest. It jars. Horror should never be dissected. Besides, my heart -is too full of those four little children with the sunlight in their -hair and the unconsciousness in their eyes. - - -15th. - -Mrs. Quirk came over to-day in great perplexity. She had just come from -the minister’s. - -“I don’t know what we’re a goin’ to do with him!” she exclaimed in a -gush of impatient, uncomprehending sympathy; “you can’t let a man take -on that way much longer. He’ll worry himself sick, and then we shall -either lose him or have to pay his bills to Europe! Why, he jest stops -in the house, and walks his study up and down, day and night; or else he -jest sets and sets and don’t notice nobody but the children. Now I’ve -jest ben over makin’ him some chicken-pie,--he used to set a sight by my -chicken-pie,--and he made believe to eat it, ’cause I’d ben at the -trouble, I suppose, but how much do you suppose he swallowed? Jest three -mouthfuls! Thinks says I, I won’t spend my time over chicken-pie for the -afflicted agin, and on ironing-day, too! When I knocked at the study -door, he said, ‘Come in, and stopped his walkin’ and turned as quick. - -“‘O,’ says he, ‘good morning. I thought it was Mrs. Forceythe.’ - -“I told him no, I wasn’t Mrs. Forceythe, but I’d come to comfort him in -his sorrer all the same. But that’s the only thing I have agin our -minister. He won’t _be_ comforted. Mary Ann Jacobs, who’s ben there kind -of looking after the children and things for him, you know, sence the -funeral--she says he’s asked three or four times for you, Mrs. -Forceythe. There’s ben plenty of his people in to see him, but you -haven’t ben nigh him, Mary Ann says.” - -“I stayed away because I thought the presence of friends at this time -would be an intrusion,” Auntie said; “but if he would like to see me, -that alters the case. I will go, certainly.” - -“I don’t know,” suggested Mrs. Quirk, looking over the tops of her -spectacles,--“I s’pose it’s proper enough, but you bein’ a widow, you -know, and his wife--” - -Aunt Winifred’s eyes shot fire. She stood up and turned upon Mrs. Quirk -with a look the like of which I presume that worthy lady had never seen -before, and is not likely to see soon again (it gave the beautiful -scorn of a Zenobia to her fair, slight face), moved her lips slightly, -but said nothing, put on her bonnet, and went straight to Dr. Bland’s. - -The minister, they told her, was in his study. She knocked lightly at -the door, and was bidden in a lifeless voice to enter. - -Shades and blinds were drawn, and the glare of the sun quite shut out. -Dr. Bland sat by his study-table, with his face upon his hands. A Bible -lay open before him. It had been lately used; the leaves were wet. - -He raised his head dejectedly, but smiled when he saw who it was. He had -been thinking about her, he said, and was glad that she had come. - -I do not know all that passed between them, but I gather, from such -hints as Auntie in her unconsciousness throws out, that she had things -to say which touched some comfortless places in the man’s heart. No -Greek and Hebrew “original,” no polished dogma, no link in his -stereotyped logic, not one of his eloquent sermons on the future state, -came to his relief. - -These were meant for happy days. They rang cold as steel upon the warm -needs of an afflicted man. Brought face to face, and sharply, with the -blank heaven of his belief, he stood up from before his dead, and groped -about it, and cried out against it in the bitterness of his soul. - -“I had no chance to prepare myself to bow to the will of God,” he said, -his reserved ministerial manner in curious contrast with the caged way -in which he was pacing the room,--“I had no chance. I am taken by -surprise, as by a thief in the night. I had a great deal to say to her, -and there was no time. She could tell me what to do with my poor little -children. I wanted to tell her other things. I wanted to tell -her--Perhaps we all of us have our regrets when the Lord removes our -friends; we may have done or left undone many things; we might have made -them happier. My mind does not rest with assurance in its conceptions of -the heavenly state. If I never can tell her--” - -He stopped abruptly, and paced into the darkest shadows of the shadowed -room, his face turned away. - -“You said once some pleasant things about heaven?” he said at last, half -appealingly, stopping in front of her, hesitating; like a man and like a -minister, hardly ready to come with all the learning of his schools and -commentators and sit at the feet of a woman. - -She talked with him for a time in her unobtrusive way, deferring, when -she honestly could, to his clerical judgment, and careful not to wound -him by any word; but frankly and clearly, as she always talks. - -When she rose to go he thanked her quietly. - -“This is a somewhat novel train of thought to me,” he said; “I hope it -may not prove an unscriptural one. I have been reading the book of -Revelation to-day with these questions especially in mind. We are never -too old to learn. Some passages may be capable of other interpretations -than I have formerly given them. No matter what I _wish_, you see, I -must be guided by the Word of my God.” - -Auntie says that she never respected the man so much as she did when, -hearing those words, she looked up into his haggard face, convulsed with -its human pain and longing. - -“I hope you do not think that _I_ am not guided by the Word of God,” she -answered. “I mean to be.” - -“I know you mean to be,” he said cordially. “I do not say that you are -not. I may come to see that you are, and that you are right. It will be -a peaceful day for me if I can ever quite agree with your methods of -reasoning. But I must think these things over. I thank you once more for -coming. Your sympathy is grateful to me.” - -Just as she closed the door he called her back. - -“See,” he said, with a saddened smile. “At least I shall never preach -_this_ again. It seems to me that life is always undoing for us -something that we have just laboriously done.” - -He held up before her a mass of old blue manuscript, and threw it, as he -spoke, upon the embers left in his grate. It smoked and blazed up and -burned out. - -It was that sermon on heaven of which there is an abstract in this -journal. - - -20th. - -Aunt Winifred hired Mr. Tripp’s gray this afternoon, and drove to East -Homer on some unexplained errand. She did not invite me to go with her, -and Faith, though she teased impressively, was left at home. Her mother -was gone till late,--so late that I had begun to be anxious about her, -and heard through the dark the first sound of the buggy wheels, with -great relief. She looked very tired when I met her at the gate. She had -not been able, she said, to accomplish her errand at East Homer, and -from there had gone to Worcester by railroad, leaving Old Gray at the -East Homer Eagle till her return. She told me nothing more, and I asked -no questions. - - - - -XV. - - -Sunday. - -Faith has behaved like a witch all day. She knocked down three crickets -and six hymn-books in church this morning, and this afternoon horrified -the assembled and devout congregation by turning round in the middle of -the long prayer, and, in a loud and distinct voice, asking Mrs. Quirk -for “‘nother those pepp’mints such as you gave me one Sunday a good many -years ago, you ’member.” After church, her mother tried a few Bible -questions to keep her still. - -“Faith, who was Christ’s father?” - -“Jerusalem!” said Faith, promptly. - -“Where did his parents take Jesus when they fled from Herod?” - -“O, to Europe. Of course I knew that! Everybody goes to Europe.” - -To-night, when her mother had put her to bed, she came down laughing. - -“Faith does seem to have a hard time with the Lord’s Prayer. To-night, -being very sleepy and in a hurry to finish, she proceeded with great -solemnity:--‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; six -days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, and--Oh!’ - -“I was just thinking how amused her father must be.” - -Auntie says many such things. I cannot explain how pleasantly they -strike me, nor how they help me. - - -29th. - -Dr. Bland gave us a good sermon yesterday. There is an indescribable -change in all his sermons. There is a change, too, in the man, and that -something more than the haggardness of grief. I not only respect him and -am sorry for him, but I feel more ready to be taught by him than ever -before. A certain indefinable _humanness_ softens his eyes and tones, -and seems to be creeping into everything that he says. Yet, on the other -hand, his people say that they have never heard him speak such pleasant, -helpful things concerning his and their relations to God. I met him the -other night, coming away from his wife’s grave, and was struck by the -expression of his face. I wondered if he were not slowly finding the -“peaceful day,” of which he told Aunt Winifred. - -She, by the way, has taken another of her mysterious trips to Worcester. - - -30th. - -We were wondering to-day where it will be,--I mean heaven. - -“It is impossible to do more than wonder,” Auntie said, “though we are -explicitly told that there will be new heavens _and_ a new earth, which -seems, if anything can be taken literally in the Bible, to point to this -world as the future home of at least some of us.” - -“Not for all of us, of course?” - -“I don’t feel sure. I know that somebody spent his valuable time in -estimating that all the people who have lived and died upon the earth -would cover it, alive or buried, twice over; but I know that somebody -else claims with equal solemnity to have discovered that they could all -be buried in the State of Pennsylvania! But it would be of little -consequence if we could not all find room here, since there must be -other provision for us.” - -“Why?” - -“Certainly there is ‘a place’ in which we are promised that we shall be -‘with Christ,’ this world being yet the great theatre of human life and -battle-ground of Satan; no place, certainly, in which to confine a happy -soul without prospect of release. The Spiritualistic notion of ‘circles’ -of dead friends revolving over us is to me intolerable. I want my -husband with me when I need him, but I hope he has a place to be happy -in, which is out of this woful world. - -“The old astronomical idea, stars around a sun, and systems around a -centre, and that centre the Throne of God, is not an unreasonable one. -Isaac Taylor, among his various conjectures, inclines, I fancy, to -suppose that the sun of each system is the heaven of that system. Though -the glory of God may be more directly and impressively exhibited in one -place than in another, we may live in different planets, and some of us, -after its destruction and renovation, on this same dear old, happy and -miserable, loved and maltreated earth. I hope I shall be one of them. I -should like to come back and build me a beautiful home in Kansas,--I -mean in what was Kansas,--among the happy people and the familiar, -transfigured spots where John and I worked for God so long together. -That--with my dear Lord to see and speak with every day--would be -‘Heaven our Home.’” - -“There will be no _days_, then?” - -“There will be succession of time. There may not be alternations of -twenty-four hours dark or light, but ‘I use with thee an earthly -language,’ as the wife said in that beautiful little ‘Awakening,’ of -Therrmin’s. Do you remember it? Do read it over, if you haven’t read it -lately. - -“As to our coming back here, there is an echo to Peter’s assertion, in -the idea of a world under a curse, destroyed and regenerated,--the -atonement of Christ reaching, with something more than poetic force, the -very sands of the earth which he trod with bleeding feet to make himself -its Saviour. That makes me feel--don’t you see?--what a taint there is -in sin. If dumb dust is to have such awful cleansing, what must be -needed for you and me? - -“How many pleasant talks we have had about these things, Mary! Well, it -cannot be long, at the longest, before we know, even as we are known.” - -I looked at her smiling white face,--it is always very white now,--and -something struck slowly through me, like a chill. - - -October 16, midnight. - -There is no such thing as sleep at present. Writing is better than -thinking. - -Aunt Winifred went again to Worcester to-day. She said that she had to -buy trimming for Faith’s sack. - -She went alone, as usual, and Faith and I kept each other company -through the afternoon,--she on the floor with Mary Ann, I in the -easy-chair with Macaulay. As the light began to fall level on the floor, -I threw the book aside,--being at the end of a volume,--and, Mary Ann -having exhausted her attractions, I surrendered unconditionally to the -little maiden. - -She took me up garret, and down cellar, on lop of the wood-pile, and -into the apple-trees; I fathomed the mysteries of Old Man’s Castle and -Still Palm; I was her grandmother, I was her baby, I was a rabbit, I was -a chestnut horse, I was a watch-dog, I was a mild-tempered giant, I was -a bear “warranted not to eat little girls,” I was a roaring hippopotamus -and a canary bird, I was Jeff Davis and I was Moses in the bulrushes, -and of what I was, the time faileth me to tell. - -It comes over me with a curious, mingled sense of the ludicrous and the -horrible, that I should have spent the afternoon like a baby and almost -as happily, laughing out with the child, past and future forgotten, the -tremendous risks of “I spy” absorbing all my present; while what was -happening was happening, and what was to come was coming. Not an echo in -the air, not a prophecy in the sunshine, not a note of warning in the -song of the robins that watched me from the apple-boughs! - -As the long, golden afternoon slid away, we came out by the front gate -to watch for the child’s mother. I was tired, and, lying back on the -grass, gave Faith some pink and purple larkspurs, that she might amuse -herself in making a chain of them. The picture that she made sitting -there on the short, dying grass--the light which broke all about her and -over her at the first, creeping slowly down and away to the west, her -little fingers linking the rich, bright flowers tube into tube, the -dimple on her cheek and the love in her eyes--has photographed itself -into my thinking. - -How her voice rang out, when the wheels sounded at last, and the -carriage, somewhat slowly driven, stopped! - -“Mamma, mamma! see what I’ve got for you, mamma!” - -Auntie tried to step from the carriage, and called me: “Mary, can you -help me a little? I am--tired.” - -I went to her, and she leaned heavily on my arm, and we came up the -path. - -“Such a pretty little chain, all for you, mamma,” began Faith, and -stopped, struck by her mother’s look. - -“It has been a long ride, and I am in pain. I believe I will lie right -down on the parlor sofa. Mary, would you be kind enough to give Faith -her supper and put her to bed?” - -Faith’s lip grieved. - -“Cousin Mary isn’t _you_, mamma. I want to be kissed. You haven’t kissed -me.” - -Her mother hesitated for a moment; then kissed her once, twice; put both -arms about her neck; and turned her face to the wall without a word. - -“Mamma is tired, dear,” I said; “come away.” - -She was lying quite still when I had done what was to be done for the -child, and had come back. The room was nearly dark. I sat down on my -cricket by her sofa. - -“Shall Phœbe light the lamp?” - -“Not just yet.” - -“Can’t you drink a cup of tea if I bring it?” - -“Not just yet.” - -“Did you find the sack-trimming?” I ventured, after a pause. - -“I believe so,--yes.” - -She drew a little package from her pocket, held it a moment, then let it -roll to the floor forgotten. When I picked it up, the soft, tissue-paper -wrapper was wet and hot with tears. - -“Mary?” - -“Yes.” - -“I never thought of the little trimming till the last minute. I had -another errand.” - -I waited. - -“I thought at first I would not tell you just yet. But I suppose the -time has come; it will be no more easy to put it off. I have been to -Worcester all these times to see a doctor.” - -I bent my head in the dark, and listened for the rest. - -“He has his reputation; they said he could help me if anybody could. He -thought at first he could. But to-day--Mary, see here.” - -She walked feebly towards the window, where a faint, gray light -struggled in, and opened the bosom of her dress.... - -There was silence between us for a long while after that; she went back -to the sofa, and I took her hand and bowed my face over it, and so we -sat. - -The leaves rustled out of doors. Faith, up stairs, was singing herself -to sleep with a droning sound. - -“He talked of risking an operation,” she said, at length, “but decided -to-day that it was quite useless. I suppose I must give up and be sick -now; I am feeling the reaction from having kept up so long. He thinks I -shall not suffer a very great deal. He thinks he can relieve me, and -that it may be soon over.” - -“There is no chance?” - -“No chance.” - -I took both of her hands, and cried out, I believe, as I did that first -night when she spoke to me of Roy,--“Auntie, Auntie, Auntie!” and tried -to think what I was doing, but only cried out the more. - -“Why, Mary!” she said,--“why, Mary!” and again, as before, she passed -her soft hand to and fro across my hair, till by and by I began to -think, as I had thought before, that I could bear anything which God -who loved us all--who _surely_ loved us all--should send. - -So then, after I had grown still, she began to tell me about it in her -quiet voice, and the leaves rustled, and Faith had sung herself to -sleep, and I listened wondering. For there was no pain in the quiet -voice,--no pain, nor tone of fear. Indeed, it seemed to me that I -detected, through its subdued sadness, a secret, suppressed buoyancy of -satisfaction, with which something struggled. - -“And you?” I asked, turning quickly upon her. - -“I should thank God with all my heart, Mary, if it were not for Faith -and you. But it _is_ for Faith and you. That’s all.” - -When I had locked the front door, and was creeping up here to my room, -my foot crushed something, and a faint, wounded perfume came up. It was -the little pink and purple chain. - - - - -XVI. - - -October 17. - -“The Lord God a’mighty help us! but His ways are past finding out. What -with one thing and another thing, that child without a mother, and you -with the crape not yet rusty for Mr. Roy’l, it doos seem to me as if His -manner of treating folks beats all! But I tell you this, Miss Mary, my -dear; you jest say your prayers reg’lar and _stick to Him_, and He’ll -pull you through, sure!” - -This was what Phœbe said when I told her. - - -November 8. - -To-night, for the first time, Auntie fairly gave up trying to put Faith -to bed. She had insisted on it until now, crawling up by the banisters -like a wounded thing. This time she tottered and sank upon the second -step. She cried out, feebly; “I am afraid I must give it up to Cousin -Mary. Faith!”--the child clung with both hands to her,--“Faith, Faith! -Mother’s little girl!” - -It was the last dear care of motherhood yielded; the last link snapped. -It seemed to be the very bitterness of parting. - -I turned away, that they might bear it together, they two alone. - - -19th. - -Yet I think that took away the sting. - -The days are slipping away now very quietly, and--to her I am sure, and -to me for her sake--very happily. - -She suffers less than I had feared, and she lies upon the bed and -smiles, and Faith comes in and plays about, and the cheery morning -sunshine falls on everything, and when her strong hours come, we have -long talks together, hand clasped in hand. - -Such pleasant talks! We are quite brave to speak of anything, since we -know that what is to be is best just so, and since we fear no parting. I -tell her that Faith and I will soon learn to shut our eyes and think we -see her, and try to make it _almost_ the same, for she will never be -very far away, will she? And then she shakes her head smiling, for it -pleases her, and she kisses me softly. Then we dream of how it will all -be, and how we shall love and try to please each other quite as much as -now. - -“It will be like going around a corner, don’t you see?” she says. “You -will know that I am there all the while, though hidden, and that if you -call me I shall hear.” Then we talk of Faith, and of how I shall comfort -her; that I shall teach her this, and guard her from that, and how I -shall talk with her about heaven and her mother. Sometimes Faith comes -up and wants to know what we are saying, and lays poor Mary Ann, sawdust -and all, upon the pillow, and wants “her toof-ache kissed away.” So -Auntie kisses away the dolly’s “toof-ache”; and kisses the dolly’s -little mother, sometimes with a quiver on her lips, but more often with -a smile in her eyes, and Faith runs back to play, and her laugh ripples -out, and her mother listens--listens-- - -Sometimes, too, we talk of some of the people for whom she cares; of her -husband’s friends; of her scholars, or Dr. Bland, or Clo, or poor ’Bin -Quirk, or of somebody down town whom she was planning to help this -winter. Little Clo comes in as often as she is strong enough to see her, -and sends over untold jellies and blanc-manges, which Faith and I have -to eat. “But don’t let the child know that,” Auntie says. - -But more often we talk of the life which she is so soon to begin; of her -husband and Roy; of what she will try to say to Christ; how much dearer -He has grown to her since she has lain here in pain at His bidding, and -how He helps her, at morning and at eventide and in the night-watches. - -We talk of the trees and the mountains and the lilies in the garden, on -which the glory of the light that is not the light of the sun may shine; -of the “little brooks” by which she longs to sit and sing to Faith; of -the treasures of art which she may fancy to have about her; of the home -in which her husband may be making ready for her coming, and wonder what -he has there, and if he knows how near the time is now. - -But I notice lately that she more often and more quickly wearies of -these things; that she comes back, and comes back again to some loving -thought--as loving as a child’s--of Jesus Christ. He seems to be--as she -once said she tried that He should be to Faith--her “_best_ friend.” - -Sometimes, too, we wonder what it means to pass out of the body, and -what one will be first conscious of. - -“I used to have a very human, and by no means slight, dread of the -physical pain of death,” she said to-day; “but, for some reason or -other, that is slowly leaving me. I imagine that the suffering of any -fatal sickness is worse than the immediate process of dissolution. Then -there is so much beyond it to occupy one’s thoughts. One thing I have -thought much about; it is that, whatever may be our first experience -after leaving the body, it is not likely to be a _revolutionary_ one. It -is more in analogy with God’s dealings that a quiet process, a gentle -accustoming, should open our eyes on the light that would blind if it -came in a flash. Perhaps we shall not see Him,--perhaps we could not -bear it to see Him at once. It may be that the faces of familiar human -friends will be the first to greet us; it may be that the touch of the -human hand dearer than any but His own shall lead us, as we are able, -behind the veil, till we are a little used to the glory and the wonder, -and lead us so to Him. - -“Be that as it may, and be heaven where it may, I am not afraid. With -all my guessing and my studying and my dreaming over these things, I am -only a child in the dark. ‘Nevertheless, I am not afraid of the dark.’ -God bless Mr. Robertson for saying that! I’m going to bless him when I -see him. How pleasant it will be to see him, and some other friends -whose faces I never saw in this world. David, for instance, or Paul, or -Cowper, or President Lincoln, or Mrs. Browning. The only trouble is that -_I_ am nobody to them! However, I fancy that they will let me shake -hands with them. - -“No, I am quite willing to trust all these things to God. - - ‘And what if much be still unknown? - Thy Lord shall teach thee that, - When thou shalt stand before His throne, - Or sit as Mary sat.’ - -I may find them very different from what I have supposed. I know that I -shall find them infinitely _more_ satisfying than I have supposed. As -Schiller said of his philosophy, ‘Perhaps I may be ashamed of my raw -design, at sight of the true original. This may happen; I expect it; but -then, if reality bears no resemblance to my dreams, it will be a more -majestic, a more delightful surprise.’ - -“I believe nothing that God denies. I cannot overrate the beauty of his -promise. So it surely can have done no harm for me to take the comfort -of my fancying till I am there; and what a comfort it has been to me, -God only knows. I could scarcely have borne some things without it.” - -“You are never afraid that anything proving a little different from what -you expect might--” - -“Might disappoint me? No; I have settled that in my heart with God. I do -not _think_ I shall be disappointed. The truth is, he has obviously not -_opened_ the gates which bar heaven from our sight, but he has as -obviously not _shut_ them; they stand ajar, with the Bible and reason in -the way, to keep them from closing; surely we should look in as far as -we can, and surely, if we look with reverence, our eyes will be holden, -that we may not cheat ourselves with mirages. And, as the little Swedish -girl said, the first time she saw the stars: ‘O father, if the _wrong -side_ of heaven is so beautiful, what must the _right side_ be?’” - - -January. - -I write little now, for I am living too much. The days are stealing away -and lessening one by one, and still Faith plays about the room, though -very softly now, and still the cheery sunshine shimmers in, and still we -talk with clasping hands, less often and more pleasantly. Morning and -noon and evening come and go; the snow drifts down and the rain falls -softly; clouds form and break and hurry past the windows; shadows melt -and lights are shattered, and little rainbows are prisoned by the -icicles that hang from the eaves. - -I sit and watch them, and watch the sick-lamp flicker in the night, and -watch the blue morning crawl over the hills; and the old words are -stealing down my thought: _That is the substance, this the shadow; that -the reality, this the dream_. - -I watch her face upon the pillow; the happy secret on its lips; the -smile within its eyes. It is nearly a year now since God sent the face -to me. What it has done for me He knows; what the next year and all the -years are to be without it, He knows, too. - -It is slipping away,--slipping. And I--must--lose it. - -Perhaps I should not have said what I said to-night; but being weak from -watching, and seeing how glad she was to go, seeing how all the peace -was for her, all the pain for us, I cried, “O Auntie, Auntie, why can’t -we go too? Why _can’t_ Faith and I go with you?” - -But she answered me only, “Mary, He knows.” - -We will be brave again to-morrow. A little more sunshine in the room! A -little more of Faith and the dolly! - - -The Sabbath. - -She asked for the child at bedtime to-night, and I laid her down in her -night-dress on her mother’s arm. She kissed her, and said her prayers, -and talked a bit about Mary Ann, and to-morrow, and her snow man. I sat -over by the window in the dusk, and watched a little creamy cloud that -was folding in the moon. Presently their voices grew low, and at last -Faith’s stopped altogether. Then I heard in fragments this:-- - -“Sleepy, dear? But you won’t have many more talks with mamma. Keep awake -just a minute, Faith, and hear--can you hear? Mamma will never, _never_ -forget her little girl; she won’t go away very far; she will always love -you. Will you remember as long as you live? She will always see you, -though you can’t see her, perhaps. Hush, my darling, _don’t_ cry! Isn’t -God naughty? No, God is good; God is always good. He won’t take mamma a -great way off. One more kiss? There! now you may go to sleep. One more! -Come, Cousin Mary.” - - -June 6. - -It is a long time since I have written here. I did not want to open the -book till I was sure that I could open it quietly, and could speak as -she would like to have me speak, of what remains to be written. - -But a very few words will tell it all. - -It happened so naturally and so happily, she was so glad when the time -came, and she made me so glad for her sake, that I cannot grieve. I say -it from my honest heart, I cannot grieve. In the place out of which she -has gone, she has left me peace. I think of something that Miss Procter -said about the opening of that golden gate, - - “round which the kneeling spirits wait. - The halo seems to linger round those kneeling closest to the door: - The joy that lightened from that place shines still upon - the watcher’s face.” - -I think more often of some things that she herself said in the very last -of those pleasant talks, when, turning a leaf in her little Bible, she -pointed out to me the words:-- - -“It is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away, the -Comforter will not come.” - -It was one spring-like night,--the twenty-ninth of March. - -She had been in less pain, and had chatted and laughed more with us than -for many a day. She begged that Faith might stay till dark, and might -bring her Noah’s ark and play down upon the foot of the bed where she -could see her. I sat in the rocking-chair with my face to the window. We -did not light the lamps. - -The night came on slowly. Showery clouds flitted by, but there was a -blaze of golden color behind them. It broke through and scattered them; -it burned them, and melted them; it shot great pink and purple jets up -to the zenith; it fell and lay in amber mist upon the hills. A soft wind -swept by, and darted now and then into the glow, and shifted it about, -color away from color, and back again. - -“See, Faith!” she said softly; “put down the little camel a minute, and -look!” and added after, but neither to the child nor to me, it seemed: -“At eventide there shall be light.” Phœbe knocked presently, and I -went out to see what was wanted, and planned a little for Auntie’s -breakfast, and came back. - -Faith, with her little ark, was still playing quietly upon the bed. I -sat down again in my rocking-chair with my face to the window. Now and -then the child’s voice broke the silence, asking Where should she put -the elephant, and was there room there for the yellow bird? and now and -then her mother answered her, and so presently the skies had faded, and -so the night came on. - -I was thinking that it was Faith’s bedtime, and that I had better light -the lamp, when a few distinct, hurried words from the bed attracted my -attention. - -“Faith, I think you had better kiss mamma now, and get down.” - -There was a change in the voice. I was there in a moment, and lifted the -child from the pillow, where she had crept. But she said, “Wait a -minute, Mary; wait a minute,”--for Faith clung to her, with one hand -upon her cheek, softly patting it. - -I went over and stood by the window. - -It was her mother herself who gently put the little fingers away at -last. - -“Mother’s own little girl! Good night, my darling, my darling.” - -So I took the child away to Phœbe, and came back, and shut the door. - -“I thought you might have some message for Roy,” she said. - -“Now?” - -“Now, I think.” - -We had often talked of this, and she had promised to remember it, -whatever it might be. So I told her--But I will not write what I told -her. - -I saw that she was playing weakly with her wedding-ring, which hung very -loosely below its little worn guard. - -“Take the little guard,” she said, “and keep it for Faith; but bury the -other with me: he put it on; nobody else must take it--” - -The sentence dropped, unfinished. - -I crept up on the bed beside her, for she seemed to wish it. I asked if -I should light the lamp, but she shook her head. The room seemed light, -she said, quite light. She wondered then if Faith were asleep, and if -she would waken early in the morning. - -After that I kissed her, and then we said nothing more, only presently -she asked me to hold her hand. - -It was quite dark when she turned her face at last towards the window. - -“John!” she said,--“why, John!” - - * * * * * - -They came in, with heads uncovered and voices hushed, to see her, in the -days while she was lying down stairs among the flowers. - -Once when I thought that she was alone, I went in,--it was at -twilight,--and turned, startled by a figure that was crouched sobbing on -the floor. - -“O, I want to go too, _I want_ to go too!” it cried. - -“She’s ben there all day long,” said Phœbe, wiping her eyes, “and she -won’t go home for a mouthful of victuals, poor creetur! but she jest -sets there and cries and cries, an’ there’s no stoppin’ of her!” - -It was little Clo. - -At another time, I was there with fresh flowers, when the door opened, -creaking a little, and ’Bin Quirk came in on tiptoe, trying in vain to -still the noise of his new boots. His eyes were red and wet, and he held -out to me timidly a single white carnation. - -“Could you put it somewhere, where it wouldn’t do any harm? I walked way -over to Worcester and back to get it. If you could jest hide it under -the others out of sight, seems to me it would do me a sight of good to -feel it was there, you know.” - -I motioned to him to lay it himself between her fingers. - -“O, I darsn’t. I’m not fit, _I_’m not. She’d rether have you.” - -But I told him that I knew she would be as pleased that he should give -it to her himself as she was when he gave her the China pinks on that -distant summer day. So the great awkward fellow bent down, as simply as -a child, as tenderly as a woman, and left the flower in its place. - -“_She_ liked ’em,” he faltered; “maybe, if what she used to say is all -so, she’ll like ’em now. She liked ’em better than she did machines. -I’ve just got my carpet-sweeper through; I was thinking how pleased -she’d be; I wanted to tell her. If I should go to the good place,--if -ever I do go, it will be just her doin’s,--I’ll tell her then, maybe, -I--” - -He forgot that anybody was there, and, sobbing, hid his face in his -great hands. - - * * * * * - -So we are waiting for the morning when the gates shall open,--Faith and -I. I, from my stiller watches, am not saddened by the music of her life. -I feel sure that her mother wishes it to be a cheery life. I feel sure -that she is showing me, who will have no motherhood by which to show -myself, how to help her little girl. - -And Roy,--ah, well, and Roy,--he knows. Our hour is not yet come. If the -Master will that we should be about His Father’s business, what is that -to us? - - THE END. - - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Gates Ajar, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATES AJAR *** - -***** This file should be named 54230-0.txt or 54230-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/2/3/54230/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Gates Ajar - -Author: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps - -Release Date: February 25, 2017 [EBook #54230] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATES AJAR *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="[Image of the book's cover -unavailable.]" /> -</p> - -<h1>THE GATES AJAR.</h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /><br /> -ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">“Splendor! Immensity! Eternity! Grand words! Great things!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A little definite happiness would be more to the purpose.”<br /></span> -<span class="i15"><span class="smcap">Madame de Gasparin</span><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="c"> -BOSTON:<br /> -JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,<br /> -<span class="smcap">Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.</span><br /> -1873.<br /> -<br /> -Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by<br /> - -FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.,<br /> - -In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.<br /> -<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co.,<br /> -Cambridge.</span></p> - -<div class="blockquott"> -<p> -To my father, whose life, like a perfume from beyond the Gates, -penetrates every life which approaches it, the readers of this little -book will owe whatever pleasant thing they may find within its pages.</p> - -<p class="r"> -E. S. P.<br /> -</p> - -<p><small><span class="smcap">Andover</span>, October 22, 1868.</small></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1"></a>{1}</span></p> - -<h1>T H E G A T E S A J A R.</h1> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" -style="border: 2px black solid;margin:auto auto;max-width:50%; -padding:1%;"> -<tr><td> - -<p class="c"><a href="#I">Chapter I., </a> -<a href="#II">II., </a> -<a href="#III">II., </a> -<a href="#IV">IV., </a> -<a href="#V">V., </a> -<a href="#VI">VI., </a> -<a href="#VII">VII., </a> -<a href="#VIII">VIII., </a> -<a href="#IX">IX., </a> -<a href="#X">X., </a> -<a href="#XI">XI., </a> -<a href="#XII">XII., </a> -<a href="#XIII">XIII., </a> -<a href="#XIV">XIV., </a> -<a href="#XV">XV., </a> -<a href="#XVI">XVI. </a></p></td></tr> -</table> - -<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">O</span>NE week; only one week to-day, this twenty-first of February.</p> - -<p>I have been sitting here in the dark and thinking about it, till it -seems so horribly long and so horribly short; it has been such a week to -live through, and it is such a small part of the weeks that must be -lived through, that I could think no longer, but lighted my lamp and -opened my desk to find something to do.</p> - -<p>I was tossing my paper about,—only my own: the packages in the yellow -envelopes I have not been quite brave enough to open yet,—when I came -across this poor little book in which I used to keep memoranda of the -weather, and my lovers, when I was a school-girl. I turned the leaves, -smiling to see how many blank pages were left, and took up my pen, and -now I am not smiling any more.</p> - -<p>If it had not come exactly as it did, it seems to me as if I could bear -it better. They tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2"></a>{2}</span> me that it should not have been such a shock. -“Your brother had been in the army so long that you should have been -prepared for anything. Everybody knows by what a hair a soldier’s life -is always hanging,” and a great deal more that I am afraid I have not -listened to. I suppose it is all true; but that never makes it any -easier.</p> - -<p>The house feels like a prison. I walk up and down and wonder that I ever -called it home. Something is the matter with the sunsets; they come and -go, and I do not notice them. Something ails the voices of the children, -snowballing down the street; all the music has gone out of them, and -they hurt me like knives. The harmless, happy children!—and Roy loved -the little children.</p> - -<p>Why, it seems to me as if the world were spinning around in the light -and wind and laughter, and God just stretched down His hand one morning -and put it out.</p> - -<p>It was such a dear, pleasant world to be put out!</p> - -<p>It was never dearer or more pleasant than it was on that morning. I had -not been as happy for weeks. I came up from the Post-Office singing to -myself. His letter was so bright<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3"></a>{3}</span> and full of mischief! I had not had -one like it all the winter. I have laid it away by itself, filled with -his jokes and pet names, “Mamie” or “Queen Mamie” every other line, and -signed</p> - -<p class="c"> -“Until next time, your happy<br /> -</p> - -<p class="r"> -<span class="smcap">Roy</span>.”<br /> -</p> - -<p>I wonder if all brothers and sisters keep up the baby-names as we did. I -wonder if I shall ever become used to living without them.</p> - -<p>I read the letter over a great many times, and stopped to tell Mrs. -Bland the news in it, and wondered what had kept it so long on the way, -and wondered if it could be true that he would have a furlough in May. -It seemed too good to be true. If I had been fourteen instead of -twenty-four, I should have jumped up and down and clapped my hands there -in the street. The sky was so bright that I could scarcely turn up my -eyes to look at it. The sunshine was shivered into little lances all -over the glaring white crust. There was a snow-bird chirping and pecking -on the maple-tree as I came in.</p> - -<p>I went up and opened my window; sat down by it and drew a long breath, -and began to count the days till May. I must have sat there as much as -half an hour. I was so happy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4"></a>{4}</span> counting the days that I did not hear the -front gate, and when I looked down a man stood there,—a great, rough -man,—who shouted up that he was in a hurry, and wanted seventy-five -cents for a telegram that he had brought over from East Homer. I believe -I went down and paid him, sent him away, came up here and locked the -door before I read it.</p> - -<p>Phœbe found me here at dinner-time.</p> - -<p>If I could have gone to him, could have busied myself with packing and -journeying, could have been forced to think and plan, could have had the -shadow of a hope of one more look, one word, I suppose I should have -taken it differently. Those two words—“Shot dead”—shut me up and -walled me in, as I think people must feel shut up and walled in, in -Hell. I write the words most solemnly, for I know that there has been -Hell in my heart.</p> - -<p>It is all over now. He came back, and they brought him up the steps, and -I listened to their feet,—so many feet; he used to come bounding in. -They let me see him for a minute, and there was a funeral, and Mrs. -Bland came over, and she and Phœbe attended to everything, I suppose. -I did not notice nor think till we had left him out there in the cold<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5"></a>{5}</span> -and had come back. The windows of his room were opened, and the bitter -wind swept in. The house was still and damp. Nobody was there to welcome -me. Nobody would ever be * * * *</p> - -<p>Poor old Phœbe! I had forgotten her. She was waiting at the kitchen -window in her black bonnet; she took off my things and made me a cup of -tea, and kept at work near me for a little while, wiping her eyes. She -came in just now, when I had left my unfinished sentence to dry, sitting -here with my face in my hands.</p> - -<p>“Laws now, Miss Mary, my dear! This won’t never do,—a rebellin’ agin -Providence, and singein’ your hair on the lamp chimney this way! The -dining-room fire’s goin’ beautiful, and the salmon is toasted to a -brown. Put away them papers and come right along!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6"></a>{6}</span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -February 23d.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Who originated that most exquisite of inquisitions, the condolence -system?</p> - -<p>A solid blow has in itself the elements of its rebound; it arouses the -antagonism of the life on which it falls; its relief is the relief of a -combat.</p> - -<p>But a hundred little needles pricking at us,—what is to be done with -them? The hands hang down, the knees are feeble. We cannot so much as -gasp, because they <i>are</i> little needles.</p> - -<p>I know that there are those who like these calls; but why, in the name -of all sweet pity, must we endure them without respect of persons, as we -would endure a wedding reception or make a party-call?</p> - -<p>Perhaps I write excitedly and hardly. I feel excited and hard.</p> - -<p>I am sure I do not mean to be ungrateful for real sorrowful sympathy, -however imperfectly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7"></a>{7}</span> it may be shown, or that near friends (if one has -them), cannot give, in such a time as this, actual strength, even if -they fail of comfort, by look and tone and love. But it is not near -friends who are apt to wound, nor real sympathy which sharpens the worst -of the needles. It is the fact that all your chance acquaintances feel -called upon to bring their curious eyes and jarring words right into the -silence of your first astonishment; taking you in a round of morning -calls with kid gloves and parasol, and the liberty to turn your heart -about and cut into it at pleasure. You may quiver at every touch, but -there is no escape, because it is “the thing.”</p> - -<p>For instance: Meta Tripp came in this afternoon,—I have refused myself -to everybody but Mrs. Bland, before, but Meta caught me in the parlor, -and there was no escape. She had come, it was plain enough, because she -must, and she had come early, because, she too having lost a brother in -the war, she was expected to be very sorry for me. Very likely she was, -and very likely she did the best she knew how, but she was—not as -uncomfortable as I, but as uncomfortable as she could be, and was -evidently glad when it was over.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8"></a>{8}</span> She observed, as she went out, that I -shouldn’t feel so sad by and by. She felt very sad at first when Jack -died, but everybody got over that after a time. The girls were going to -sew for the Fair next week at Mr. Quirk’s, and she hoped I would exert -myself and come.</p> - -<p>Ah, well:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“First learn to love one living man,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Then mayst thou think upon the dead.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>It is not that the child is to be blamed for not knowing enough to stay -away; but her coming here has made me wonder whether I am different from -other women; why Roy was so much more to me than many brothers are to -many sisters. I think it must be that there never <i>was</i> another like -Roy. Then we have lived together so long, we two alone, since father -died, that he had grown to me, heart of my heart, and life of my life. -It did not seem as if he <i>could</i> be taken, and I be left.</p> - -<p>Besides, I suppose most young women of my age have their dreams, and a -future probable or possible, which makes the very incompleteness of life -sweet, because of the symmetry which is waiting somewhere. But that was -settled so long ago for me that it makes it very different. Roy was all -there was.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9"></a>{9}</span></p> - -<p class="r"> -February 26th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Death and Heaven could not seem very different to a Pagan from what they -seem to me.</p> - -<p>I say this deliberately. It has been deliberately forced upon me. That -of which I had a faint consciousness in the first shock takes shape now. -I do not see how one with such thoughts in her heart as I have had can -possibly be “regenerate,” or stand any chance of ever becoming “one of -the redeemed.” And here I am, what I have been for six years, a member -of an Evangelical church, in good and regular standing!</p> - -<p>The bare, blank sense of physical repulsion from death, which was all -the idea I had of anything when they first brought him home, has not -gone yet. It is horrible. It was cruel. Roy, all I had in the wide -world,—Roy, with the flash in his eyes, with his smile that lighted the -house all up; with his pretty, soft hair that I used to curl and kiss -about my finger, his bounding step, his strong arms that folded me in -and cared for me,—Roy snatched away in an instant by a dreadful God, -and laid out there in the wet and snow,—in the hideous wet and -snow,—never to kiss him, never to see him any more! * * * *<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10"></a>{10}</span></p> - -<p>He was a good boy. Roy was a good boy. He must have gone to Heaven. But -I know nothing about Heaven. It is very far off. In my best and happiest -days, I never liked to think of it. If I were to go there, it could do -me no good, for I should not see Roy. Or if by chance I should see him -standing up among the grand, white angels, he would not be the old dear -Roy. I should grow so tired of singing! Should long and fret for one -little talk,—for I never said good by, and—</p> - -<p>I will stop this.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>A scrap from the German of Bürger, which I came across to-day, shall be -copied here.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Be calm, my child, forget thy woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And think of God and Heaven;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Christ thy Redeemer hath to thee<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Himself for comfort given.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“O mother, mother, what is Heaven?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">O mother, what is Hell?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To be with Wilhelm,—that’s my Heaven;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Without him,—that’s my Hell.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="r"> -February 27th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Miss Meta Tripp, in the ignorance of her little silly heart, has done me -a great mischief.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11"></a>{11}</span>Phœbe prepared me for it, by observing, when she came up yesterday -to dust my room, that “folks was all sayin’ that Mary Cabot”—(Homer is -not an aristocratic town, and Phœbe doffs and dons my title at her -own sweet will)—“that Mary Cabot was dreadful low sence Royal died, and -hadn’t ought to stay shut up by herself, day in and day out. It was -behaving con-trary to the will of Providence, and very bad for her -health, too.” Moreover, Mrs. Bland, who called this morning with her -three babies,—she never is able to stir out of the house without those -children, poor thing!—lingered awkwardly on the door-steps as she went -away, and hoped that Mary my dear wouldn’t take it unkindly, but she did -wish that I would exert myself more to see my friends and receive -comfort in my affliction. She didn’t want to interfere, or bother me, -or—but—people would talk, and—</p> - -<p>My good little minister’s wife broke down all in a blush, at this point -in her “porochial duties” (I more than suspect that her husband had a -hand in the matter), so I took pity on her embarrassment, and said -smiling that I would think about it.</p> - -<p>I see just how the leaven has spread. Miss Meta, a little overwhelmed -and a good deal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12"></a>{12}</span> mystified by her call here, pronounces “poor Mary Cabot -<i>so</i> sad; she wouldn’t talk about Royal; and you couldn’t persuade her -to come to the Fair; and she was so <i>sober!</i>—why, it was dreadful!”</p> - -<p>Therefore, Homer has made up its mind that I shall become resigned in an -arithmetical manner, and comforted according to the Rule of Three.</p> - -<p>I wish I could go away! I wish I could go away and creep into the ground -and die! If nobody need ever speak any more words to me! If anybody only -knew <i>what</i> to say!</p> - -<p>Little Mrs. Bland has been very kind, and I thank her with all my heart. -But she does not know. She does not understand. Her happy heart is bound -up in her little live children. She never laid anybody away under the -snow without a chance to say good by.</p> - -<p>As for the minister, he came, of course, as it was proper that he -should, before the funeral, and once after. He is a very good man, but I -am afraid of him, and I am glad that he has not come again.</p> - -<p class="r"> -Night.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I can only repeat and re-echo what I wrote this noon. If anybody knew -<i>what</i> to say!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13"></a>{13}</span></p> - -<p>Just after supper I heard the door-bell, and, looking out of the window, -I caught a glimpse of Deacon Quirk’s old drab felt hat, on the upper -step. My heart sank, but there was no help for me. I waited for Phœbe -to bring up his name, desperately listening to her heavy steps, and -letting her knock three times before I answered. I confess to having -taken my hair down twice, washed my hands to a most unnecessary extent, -and been a long time brushing my dress; also to forgetting my -handkerchief, and having to go back for it after I was down stairs. -Deacon Quirk looked tired of waiting. I hope he was.</p> - -<p>O, what an ill-natured thing to say! What is coming over me? What would -Roy think? What could he?</p> - -<p>“Good evening, Mary,” said the Deacon, severely, when I went in. -Probably he did not mean to speak severely, but the truth is, I think he -was a little vexed that I had kept him waiting. I said good evening, and -apologized for my delay, and sat down as far from him as I conveniently -could. There was an awful silence.</p> - -<p>“I came in this evening,” said the Deacon, breaking it with a cough, “I -came—hem!—to confer with you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14"></a>{14}</span>—”</p> - -<p>I looked up. “I thought somebody had ought to come,” continued the -Deacon, “to confer with you as a Christian brother on your spiritooal -condition.”</p> - -<p>I opened my eyes.</p> - -<p>“To confer with you on your spiritooal condition,” repeated my visitor. -“I understand that you have had some unfortoonate exercises of mind -under your affliction, and I observed that you absented yourself from -the Communion Table last Sunday.”</p> - -<p>“I did.”</p> - -<p>“Intentionally?”</p> - -<p>“Intentionally.”</p> - -<p>He seemed to expect me to say something more; and, seeing that there was -no help for it, I answered.</p> - -<p>“I did not feel fit to go. I should not have dared to go. God does not -seem to me just now what He used to. He has dealt very bitterly with me. -But, however wicked I may be, I will not mock Him. I think, Deacon -Quirk, that I did right to stay away.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the Deacon, twirling his hat with a puzzled look, “perhaps -you did. But I don’t see the excuse for any such feelings as would make -it necessary. I think it my duty<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15"></a>{15}</span> to tell you, Mary, that I am sorry to -see you in such a rebellious state of mind.”</p> - -<p>I made no reply.</p> - -<p>“Afflictions come from God,” he observed, looking at me as impressively -as if he supposed that I had never heard the statement before. -“Afflictions come from God, and, however afflictin’ or however crushin’ -they may be, it is our duty to submit to them. Glory in triboolation, -St. Paul says; glory in triboolation.”</p> - -<p>I continued silent.</p> - -<p>“I sympathize with you in this sad dispensation,” he proceeded. “Of -course you was very fond of Royal; it’s natural you should be, quite -natural—” He stopped, perplexed, I suppose, by something in my face. -“Yes, it’s very natural; poor human nature sets a great deal by earthly -props and affections. But it’s your duty, as a Christian and a -church-member, to be resigned.”</p> - -<p>I tapped the floor with my foot. I began to think that I could not bear -much more.</p> - -<p>“To be resigned, my dear young friend. To say ‘Abba, Father.’ and pray -that the will of the Lord be done.”</p> - -<p>“Deacon Quirk!” said I. “I am <i>not</i> resigned.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16"></a>{16}</span> I pray the dear Lord with -all my heart to make me so, but I will not say that I am, until I -am,—if ever that time comes. As for those words about the Lord’s will, -I would no more take them on my lips than I would blasphemy, unless I -could speak them honestly,—and that I cannot do. We had better talk of -something else now, had we not?”</p> - -<p>Deacon Quirk looked at me. It struck me that he would look very much so -at a Mormon or a Hottentot, and I wondered whether he were going to -excommunicate me on the spot.</p> - -<p>As soon as he began to speak, however, I saw that he was only -bewildered,—honestly bewildered, and honestly shocked: I do not doubt -that I had said bewildering and shocking things.</p> - -<p>“My friend,” he said solemnly, “I shall pray for you and leave you in -the hands of God. Your brother, whom He has removed from this earthly -life for His own wise—”</p> - -<p>“We will not talk any more about Roy, if you please,” I interrupted; -“<i>he</i> is happy and safe.”</p> - -<p>“Hem!—I hope so,” he replied, moving uneasily in his chair; “I believe -he never made a profession of religion, but there is no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17"></a>{17}</span> limit to the -mercy of God. It is very unsafe for the young to think that they can -rely on a death-bed repentance, but our God is a covenant-keeping God, -and Royal’s mother was a pious woman. If you cannot say with certainty -that he is numbered among the redeemed, you are justified, perhaps, in -hoping so.”</p> - -<p>I turned sharply on him, but words died on my lips. How could I tell the -man of that short, dear letter that came to me in December,—that Roy’s -was no death-bed repentance, but the quiet, natural growth of a life -that had always been the life of the pure in heart; of his manly beliefs -and unselfish motives; of that dawning sense of friendship with Christ -of which he used to speak so modestly, dreading lest he should not be -honest with himself? “Perhaps I ought not to call myself a Christian,” -he wrote,—I learned the words by heart.—“and I shall make no -profession to be such, till I am sure of it, but my life has not seemed -to me for a long time to be my own. ‘Bought with a price’ just expresses -it. I can point to no time at which I was conscious by any revolution of -feeling of ‘experiencing a change of heart,’ but it seems to me that a -man’s heart might be changed for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18"></a>{18}</span> all that. I do not know that it is -necessary for us to be able to watch every footprint of God. The <i>way</i> -is all that concerns us,—to see that we follow it and Him. This I am -sure of; and knocking about in this army life only convinces me of what -I felt in a certain way before,—that it is the only way, and He the -only guide <i>to</i> follow.”</p> - -<p>But how could I say anything of this to Deacon Quirk?—this my sealed -and sacred treasure, of all that Roy left me the dearest. At any rate I -did not. It seemed both obstinate and cruel in him to come there and say -what he had been saying. He might have known that I would not say that -Roy had gone to Heaven, if—why, if there had been the breath of a -doubt. It is a possibility of which I cannot rationally conceive, but I -suppose that his name would never have passed my lips.</p> - -<p>So I turned away from Deacon Quirk, and shut my mouth, and waited for -him to finish. Whether the idea began to struggle into his mind that he -<i>might</i> not have been making a very comforting remark, I cannot say; but -he started very soon to go.</p> - -<p>“Supposing you are right, and Royal was saved at the eleventh hour,” he -said at parting,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19"></a>{19}</span> with one of his stolid efforts to be consolatory, that -are worse than his rebukes, “if he is singing the song of Moses and the -Lamb (he pointed with his big, dingy thumb at the ceiling), <i>he</i> doesn’t -rebel against the doings of Providence. All <i>his</i> affections are subdued -to God,—merged, as you might say,—merged in worshipping before the -great White Throne. He doesn’t think this miser’ble earthly spere of any -importance, compared with that eternal and exceeding weight of glory. In -the appropriate words of the poet,—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘O, not to one created thing<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Shall our embrace be given,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But all our joy shall be in God,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">For only God is Heaven.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">Those are very spiritooal and scripteral lines, and it’s very proper to -reflect how true they are.”</p> - -<p>I saw him go out, and came up here and locked myself in, and have been -walking round and round the room. I must have walked a good while, for I -feel as weak as a baby.</p> - -<p>Can the man in any state of existence be made to comprehend that he has -been holding me on the rack this whole evening?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20"></a>{20}</span></p> - -<p>Yet he came under a strict sense of duty, and in the kindness of all the -heart he has! I know, or I ought to know, that he is a good man,—far -better in the sight of God to-night, I do not doubt, than I am.</p> - -<p>But it hurts,—it cuts,—that thing which he said as he went out; -because I suppose it must be true; because it seems to me greater than I -can bear to have it true.</p> - -<p>Roy, away in that dreadful Heaven, can have no thought of me, cannot -remember how I loved him, how he left me all alone. The singing and the -worshipping must take up all his time. God wants it all. He is a -“Jealous God.” I am nothing any more to Roy.</p> - -<p class="r"> -March 2.<br /> -</p> - -<p>And once I was much,—very much to him!</p> - -<p>His Mamie, his poor Queen Mamie,—dearer, he used to say, than all the -world to him,—I don’t see how he can like it so well up there as to -forget her. Though Roy was a very good boy. But this poor, wicked little -Mamie,—why, I fall to pitying her as if she were some one else, and -wish that some one would cry over her a little. I can’t cry.</p> - -<p>Roy used to say a thing,—I have not the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21"></a>{21}</span> words, but it was like -this,—that one must be either very young or very ungenerous, if one -could find time to pity one’s self.</p> - -<p>I have lain for two nights, with my eyes open all night long. I thought -that perhaps I might see him. I have been praying for a touch, a sign, -only for something to break the silence into which he has gone. But -there is no answer, none. The light burns blue, and I see at last that -it is morning, and go down stairs alone, and so the day begins.</p> - -<p>Something of Mrs. Browning’s has been keeping a dull mechanical time in -my brain all day.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">“God keeps a niche<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Heaven to hold our idols: ... albeit<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He brake them to our faces, and denied<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That our close kisses should impair their white.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>But why must He take them? And why should He keep them there? Shall we -ever see them framed in their glorious gloom? Will He let us touch them -<i>then</i>? Or must we stand like a poor worshipper at a Cathedral, looking -up at his pictured saint afar off upon the other side?</p> - -<p>Has everything stopped just here? Our talks together in the twilight, -our planning and hoping and dreaming together; our<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22"></a>{22}</span> walks and rides and -laughing; our reading and singing and loving,—these then are all gone -out forever?</p> - -<p>God forgive the words! but Heaven will never be Heaven to me without -them.</p> - -<p class="r"> -March 4.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Perhaps I had better not write any more here after this.</p> - -<p>On looking over the leaves, I see that the little green book has become -an outlet for the shallower part of pain.</p> - -<p>Meta Tripp and Deacon Quirk, gossip and sympathy that have buzzed into -my trouble and annoyed me like wasps (we are apt to make more fuss over -a wasp-sting than a sabre-cut), just that proportion of suffering which -alone can ever be put into words,—the surface.</p> - -<p>I begin to understand what I never understood till now,—what people -mean by the luxury of grief. No, I am sure that I never understood it, -because my pride suffered as much as any part of me in that other time. -I would no more have spent two consecutive hours drifting at the mercy -of my thoughts, than I would have put my hand into the furnace<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23"></a>{23}</span> fire. -The right to mourn makes everything different. Then, as to mother, I was -very young when she died, and father, though I loved him, was never to -me what Roy has been.</p> - -<p>This luxury of grief, like all luxuries, is pleasurable. Though, as I -was saying, it is only the shallow part of one’s heart—I imagine that -the deepest hearts have their shallows—which can be filled by it, still -it brings a shallow relief.</p> - -<p>Let it be confessed to this honest book, that, driven to it by -desperation, I found in it a wretched sort of content.</p> - -<p>Being a little stronger now physically, I shall try to be a little -braver; it will do no harm to try. So I seem to see that it was the -content of poison,—salt-water poured between shipwrecked lips.</p> - -<p>At any rate, I mean to put the book away and lock it up. Roy used to say -that he did not believe in journals. I begin to see why.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24"></a>{24}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> - -<p class="r"> -March 7.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I have taken out my book, and am going to write again. But there is an -excellent reason. I have something else than myself to write about.</p> - -<p>This morning Phœbe persuaded me to walk down to the office, “To keep -up my spirits and get some salt pork.”</p> - -<p>She brought my things and put them on me while I was hesitating; tied my -victorine and buttoned my gloves; warmed my boots, and fussed about me -as if I had been a baby. It did me good to be taken care of, and I -thanked her softly; a little more softly than I am apt to speak to -Phœbe.</p> - -<p>“Bless your soul, my dear!” she said, winking briskly, “I don’t want no -thanks. It’s thanks enough jest to see one of your old looks comin’ over -you for a spell, sence—”</p> - -<p>She knocked over a chair with her broom, and left her sentence -unfinished. Phœbe has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25"></a>{25}</span> always had a queer, clinging, superior sort of -love for us both. She dandled us on her knees, and made all our -rag-dolls, and carried us through measles and mumps and the rest. Then -mother’s early death threw all the care upon her. I believe that in her -secret heart she considers me more her child than her mistress. It cost -a great many battles to become established as “Miss Mary.”</p> - -<p>“I should like to know,” she would say, throwing back her great, square -shoulders and towering up in front of me,—“I should like to know if you -s’pose I’m a goin’ to ‘Miss’ anybody that I’ve trotted to Bamberry Cross -as many times as I have you, Mary Cabot! Catch me!”</p> - -<p>I remember how she would insist on calling me “her baby” after I was in -long dresses, and that it mortified me cruelly once when Meta Tripp was -here to tea with some Boston cousins. Poor, good Phœbe! Her rough -love seems worth more to me, now that it is all I have left me in the -world. It occurs to me that I may not have taken notice enough of her -lately. She has done her honest best to comfort me, and she loved Roy, -too.</p> - -<p>But about the letter. I wrapped my face up<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26"></a>{26}</span> closely in the <i>crêpe</i>, so -that, if I met Deacon Quirk, he should not recognize me, and, thinking -that the air was pleasant as I walked, came home with the pork for -Phœbe and a letter for myself. I did not open it; in fact, I forgot -all about it, till I had been at home for half an hour. I cannot bear to -open a letter since that morning when the lances of light fell on the -snow. They have written to me from everywhere,—uncles and cousins and -old school-friends; well-meaning people; saying each the same thing in -the same way,—no, not that exactly, and very likely I should feel hurt -and lonely if they did not write; but sometimes I wish it did not all -have to be read.</p> - -<p>So I did not notice much about my letter this morning, till presently it -occurred to me that what must be done had better be done quickly; so I -drew up my chair to the desk, prepared to read and answer on the spot. -Something about the writing and the signature rather pleased me: it was -dated from Kansas, and was signed with the name of my mother’s youngest -sister, Winifred Forceythe. I will lay the letter in between these two -leaves, for it seems to suit the pleasant, spring-like day;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27"></a>{27}</span> besides, I -took out the green book again on account of it.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="r"> -<span class="smcap">Lawrence, Kansas</span>, February 21.<br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">My dear Child</span>,—I have been thinking how happy you will be by and -by because Roy is happy.</p> - -<p>And yet I know—I understand—</p> - -<p>You have been in all my thoughts, and they have been such pitiful, -tender thoughts, that I cannot help letting you know that somebody -is sorry for you. For the rest, the heart knoweth its own, and I -am, after all, too much of a stranger to my sister’s child to -intermeddle.</p> - -<p>So my letter dies upon my pen. You cannot bear words yet. How -should I dare to fret you with them? I can only reach you by my -silence, and leave you with the Heart that bled and broke for you -and Roy.</p> - -<p class="r"> -<span style="margin-right: 12em;">Your Aunt,</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">Winifred Forceythe</span>.<br /> -</p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="r"> -<span class="smcap">Postscript</span>, February 23.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I open my letter to add, that I am thinking of coming to New -England with Faith,—you know Faith and I have nobody but each -other<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28"></a>{28}</span> now. Indeed, I may be on my way by the time this reaches -you. It is just possible that I may not come back to the West. I -shall be for a time at your uncle Calvin’s, and then my husband’s -friends think that they must have me. I should like to see you for -a day or two, but if you do not care to see me, say so. If you let -me come because you think you must, I shall find it out from your -face in an hour. I should like to be something to you, or do -something for you; but if I cannot, I would rather not come.</p></div> - -<p>I like that letter.</p> - -<p>I have written to her to come, and in such a way that I think she will -understand me to mean what I say. I have not seen her since I was a -child. I know that she was very much younger than my mother; that she -spent her young ladyhood teaching at the South;—grandfather had enough -with which to support her, but I have heard it said that she preferred -to take care of herself;—that she finally married a poor minister, -whose sermons people liked, but whose coat was shockingly shabby; that -she left the comforts and elegances and friends of New England to go to -the West and bury<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29"></a>{29}</span> herself in an unheard-of little place with him (I -think she must have loved him); that he afterwards settled in Lawrence; -that there, after they had been married some childless years, this -little Faith was born; and that there Uncle Forceythe died about three -years ago; that is about all I know of her. I suppose her share of -Grandfather Burleigh’s little property supports her respectably. I -understand that she has been living a sort of missionary life among her -husband’s people since his death, and that they think they shall never -see her like again. It is they who keep her from coming home again, -Uncle Calvin’s wife told me once; they and one other thing,—her -husband’s grave.</p> - -<p>I hope she will come to see me. I notice one strange thing about her -letter. She does not use the ugly words “death” and “dying.” I don’t -know exactly what she put in their places, but something that had a -pleasant sound.</p> - -<p>“To be happy because Roy is happy.” I wonder if she really thinks it is -possible.</p> - -<p>I wonder what makes the words chase me about.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30"></a>{30}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -May 5.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I am afraid that my brave resolutions are all breaking down.</p> - -<p>The stillness of the May days is creeping into everything; the days in -which the furlough was to come; in which the bitter Peace has come -instead, and in which he would have been at home, never to go away from -me any more.</p> - -<p>The lazy winds are choking me. Their faint sweetness makes me sick. The -moist, rich loam is ploughed in the garden; the grass, more golden than -green, springs in the warm hollow by the front gate; the great maple, -just reaching up to tap at the window, blazes and bows under its weight -of scarlet blossoms. I cannot bear their perfume; it comes up in great -breaths, when the window is opened. I wish that little cricket, just -waked from his winter’s nap, would not sit there on the sill and chirp -at me. I hate the bluebirds flashing in and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31"></a>{31}</span> out of the carmine cloud -that the maple makes, and singing, singing, everywhere.</p> - -<p>It is easy to understand how Bianca heard “The nightingales sing through -her head,” how she could call them “Owl-like birds,” who sang “for -spite,” who sang “for hate,” who sang “for doom.”</p> - -<p>Most of all I hate the maple. I wish winter were back again to fold it -away in white, with its bare, black fingers only to come tapping at the -window. “Roy’s maple” we used to call it. How much fun he had out of -that old tree!</p> - -<p>As far back as I can remember, we never considered spring to be -officially introduced till we had had a fight with the red blossoms. Roy -used to pelt me well; but with that pretty chivalry of his, which was -rare in such a little fellow, which developed afterwards into that rarer -treatment of women, of which every one speaks who speaks of him, he -would stop the play the instant it threatened roughness. I used to be -glad, though, that I had strength and courage enough to make it some fun -to him.</p> - -<p>The maple is full of pictures of Roy. Roy not yet over the dignity of -his first boots, aiming<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32"></a>{32}</span> for the cross-barred branch, coming to the -ground with a terrible wrench on his ankle, straight up again before -anybody could stop him, and sitting there on the ugly, swaying bough as -white as a sheet, to wave his cap,—“There, I meant to do it, and I -have!” Roy, chopping off the twigs for kindling-wood in his mud oven, -and sending his hatchet right through the parlor window. Roy cutting -leaves for me, and then pulling all my wreaths down over my nose every -time I put them on! Roy making me jump half-way across the room with a -sudden thump on my window, and, looking out, I would see him with his -hat off and hair blown from his forehead, framed in by the scented -blossoms, or the quivering green, or the flame of blood-red leaves. But -there is no end to them if I begin.</p> - -<p>I had planned, if he came this week, to strip the richest branches, and -fill his room.</p> - -<p class="r"> -May 6.<br /> -</p> - -<p>The May-day stillness, the lazy winds, the sweetness in the air, are all -gone. A miserable northeasterly storm has set in. The garden loam is a -mass of mud; the golden grass is drenched; the poor little cricket is -drowned<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33"></a>{33}</span> in a mud-puddle; the bluebirds are huddled among the leaves, -with their heads under their drabbled wings, and the maple blossoms, -dull and shrunken, drip against the glass.</p> - -<p>It begins to be evident that it will never do for me to live alone. Yet -who is there in the wide world that I could bear to bring here—into -Roy’s place?</p> - -<p>A little old-fashioned book, bound in green and gold, attracted my -attention this morning while I was dusting the library. It proved to be -my mother’s copy of “Elia,”—one that father had given her, I saw by the -fly-leaf, in their early engagement days. It is some time since I have -read Charles Lamb; indeed, since the middle of February I have read -nothing of any sort. Phœbe dries the Journal for me every night, and -sometimes I glance at the Telegraphic Summary, and sometimes I don’t.</p> - -<p>“You used to be fond enough of books,” Mrs. Bland says, looking -puzzled,—“regular blue-stocking, Mr. Bland called you (no personal -objection to you, of course, my dear, but he <i>doesn’t</i> like literary -women, which is a great comfort to me). Why don’t you read and divert -yourself now?”</p> - -<p>But my brain, like the rest of me, seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34"></a>{34}</span> be crushed. I could not -follow three pages of history with attention. Shakespeare, Wordsworth, -Whittier, Mrs. Browning, are filled with Roy’s marks,—and so down the -shelf. Besides, poetry strikes as nothing else does, deep into the roots -of things. One finds everywhere some strain at the fibres of one’s -heart. A mind must be healthily reconciled to actual life, before a -poet—at least most poets—can help it. We must learn to bear and to -work, before we can spare strength to dream.</p> - -<p>To hymns and hymn-like poems, exception should be made. Some of them are -like soft hands stealing into ours in the dark, and holding us fast -without a spoken word. I do not know how many times Whittier’s “Psalm,” -and that old cry of Cowper’s, “God moves in a mysterious way,” have -quieted me,—just the sound of the words; when I was too wild to take in -their meaning, and too wicked to believe them if I had.</p> - -<p>As to novels, (by the way, Meta Tripp sent me over four yesterday -afternoon, among which notice “Aurora Floyd” and “Uncle Silas,”) the -author of “Rutledge” expresses my feeling about them precisely. I do not -remember her exact words, but they are not unlike these.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35"></a>{35}</span> “She had far -outlived the passion of ordinary novels; and the few which struck the -depths of her experience gave her more pain than pleasure.”</p> - -<p>However, I took up poor “Elia” this morning, and stumbled upon “Dream -Children,” to which, for pathos and symmetry, I have read few things -superior in the language. Years ago, I almost knew it by heart, but it -has slipped out of memory with many other things of late. Any book, if -it be one of those which Lamb calls “books which <i>are</i> books,” put -before us at different periods of life, will unfold to us new -meanings,—wheels within wheels, delicate springs of purpose to which, -at the last reading, we were stone-blind; gems which perhaps the author -ignorantly cut and polished.</p> - -<p>A sentence in this “Dream Children,” which at eighteen I passed by with -a compassionate sort of wonder, only thinking that it gave me “the -blues” to read it, and that I was glad Roy was alive, I have seized upon -and learned all over again now. I write it down to the dull music of the -rain.</p> - -<p>“And how, when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed -as if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36"></a>{36}</span> is betwixt -life and death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at -first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not -cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if -I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how -much I had loved him. I missed his kindness and I missed his crossness, -and wished him to be alive again to be quarrelling with him (for we -quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again.”</p> - -<p>How still the house is! I can hear the coach rumbling away at the -half-mile corner, coming up from the evening train. A little arrow of -light has just cut the gray gloom of the West.</p> - -<p class="r"> -Ten o’clock.<br /> -</p> - -<p>The coach to which I sat listening rumbled up to the gate and stopped. -Puzzled for the moment, and feeling as inhospitable as I knew how, I -went down to the door. The driver was already on the steps, with a -bundle in his arms that proved to be a rather minute child; and a lady, -veiled, was just stepping from the carriage into the rain. Of course I -came to my senses at that, and, calling to Phœbe that Mrs. Forceythe -had come, sent her out an umbrella.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37"></a>{37}</span></p> - -<p>She surprised me by running lightly up the steps. I had imagined a -somewhat advanced age and a sedate amount of infirmities, to be -necessary concomitants of aunthood. She came in all sparkling with -rain-drops, and, gently pushing aside the hand with which I was trying -to pay her driver, said, laughing:—</p> - -<p>“Here we are, bag and baggage, you see, ‘big trunk, little trunk,’ &c., -&c. You did not expect me? Ah, my letter missed then. It is too bad to -take you by storm in this way. Come, Faith! No, don’t trouble about the -trunks just now. Shall I go right in here?”</p> - -<p>Her voice had a sparkle in it, like the drops on her veil, but it was -low and very sweet. I took her in by the dining-room fire, and was -turning to take off the little girl’s things, when a soft hand stayed -me, and I saw that she had drawn off the wet veil. A face somewhat pale -looked down at me,—she is taller than I,—with large, compassionate -eyes.</p> - -<p>“I am too wet to kiss you, but I must have a look,” she said, smiling. -“That will do. You are like your mother, very like.”</p> - -<p>I don’t know what possessed me, whether it was the sudden, sweet feeling -of kinship with something alive, or whether it was her face or her -voice, or all together, but I said:—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38"></a>{38}</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t think you are too wet to be kissed,” and threw my arms about -her neck,—I am not of the kissing kind, either, and I had on my new -bombazine, and she <i>was</i> very wet.</p> - -<p>I thought she looked pleased.</p> - -<p>Phœbe was sent to open the register in the blue room, and as soon as -it was warm I went up with them, leading Faith by the hand. I am unused -to children, and she kept stepping on my dress, and spinning around and -tipping over, in the most astonishing manner. It strikingly reminded me -of a top at the last gasp. Her mother observed that she was tired and -sleepy. Phœbe was waiting around awkwardly up stairs, with fresh -towels on her arm. Aunt Winifred turned and held out her hand.</p> - -<p>“Well, Phœbe, I am glad to see you. This is Phœbe, I am sure? You -have altered with everything else since I was here before. You keep -bright and well, I hope, and take good care of Miss Mary?”</p> - -<p>It was a simple enough thing, to be sure, her taking the trouble to -notice the old servant with whom she had scarcely ever exchanged a -half-dozen words; but I liked it. I liked the way, too, in which it was -done. It reminded me of Roy’s fine, well-bred manner towards his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39"></a>{39}</span> -inferiors,—always cordial, yet always appropriate; I have heard that -our mother had much the same.</p> - -<p>I tried to make things look as pleasant as I could down stairs, while -they were making ready for tea. The grate was raked up a little, a -bright supper-cloth laid on the table, and the curtains drawn. Phœbe -mixed a hasty cake of some sort, and brought out the heavier pieces of -silver,—tea-pot, &c., which I do not use when I am alone, because it is -so much trouble to take care of them, and because I like the little -Wedgwood set that Roy had for his chocolate.</p> - -<p>“How pleasant!” said Aunt Winifred, as she sat down with Faith in a high -chair beside her. Phœbe had a great hunt up garret for that chair; it -has been stowed away there since it and I parted company. “How pleasant -everything is here! I believe in bright dining-rooms. There is an -indescribable dinginess to most that I have seen, which tends to -anything but thankfulness. Homesick, Faith? No; that’s right. I don’t -think we shall be homesick at Cousin Mary’s.”</p> - -<p>If she had not said that, the probabilities are that they would have -been, for I have fallen<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40"></a>{40}</span> quite out of the way of active housekeeping, -and have almost forgotten how to entertain a friend. But I do not want -her good opinion wasted, and mean they shall have a good time if I can -make it for them.</p> - -<p>It was a little hard at first to see her opposite me at the table; it -was Roy’s place.</p> - -<p>While she was sitting there in the light, with the dust and weariness of -travel brushed away a little, I was able to make up my mind what this -aunt of mine looks like.</p> - -<p>She is young, then, to begin with, and I find it necessary to reiterate -the fact, in order to get it into my stupid brain. The cape and -spectacles, the little old woman’s shawl and invalid’s walk, for which I -had prepared myself, persist in hovering before my bewildered eyes, -ready to drop down on her at a moment’s notice. Just thirty-five she is -by her own showing; older than I, to be sure; but as we passed in front -of the mirror together, once to-night, I could not see half that -difference between us. The peace of her face and the pain of mine -contrast sharply, and give me an old, worn look, beside her. After all, -though, to one who had seen much of life, hers would be the true -maturity perhaps,—the maturity of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41"></a>{41}</span> repose. A look in her eyes once or -twice gave me the impression that she thinks me rather young, though she -is far too wise and delicate to show it. I don’t like to be treated like -a girl. I mean to find out what she does think.</p> - -<p>My eyes have been on her face the whole evening, and I believe it is the -sweetest face—woman’s face—that I have ever seen. Yet she is far from -being a beautiful woman. It is difficult to say what makes the -impression; scarcely any feature is accurate, yet the <i>tout ensemble</i> -seems to have no fault. Her hair, which must have been bright bronze -once, has grown gray—quite gray—before its time. I really do not know -of what color her eyes are; blue, perhaps, most frequently, but they -change with every word that she speaks; when quiet, they have a curious, -far-away look, and a steady, lambent light shines through them. Her -mouth is well cut and delicate, yet you do not so much notice that as -its expression. It looks as if it held a happy secret, with which, -however near one may come to her, one can never intermeddle. Yet there -are lines about it and on her forehead, which are proof plain enough -that she has not always floated on summer seas. She yet wears her -widow’s black, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42"></a>{42}</span> relieves it pleasantly by white at the throat and -wrists. Take her altogether, I like to look at her.</p> - -<p>Faith is a round, rolling, rollicking little piece of mischief, with -three years and a half of experience in this very happy world. She has -black eyes and a pretty chin, funny little pink hands all covered with -dimples, and a dimple in one cheek besides. She has tipped over two -tumblers of water, scratched herself all over playing with the cat, and -set her apron on fire already since she has been here. I stand in some -awe of her; but, after I have become initiated, I think that we shall be -very good friends.</p> - -<p>“Of all names in the catalogue,” I said to her mother, when she came -down into the parlor after putting her to bed, “Faith seems to be about -the <i>most</i> inappropriate for this solid-bodied, twinkling little bairn -of yours, with her pretty red cheeks, and such an appetite for supper!”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, laughing, “there is nothing <i>spirituelle</i> about Faith. -But she means just that to me. I could not call her anything else. Her -father gave her the name.” Her face changed, but did not sadden; a -quietness<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43"></a>{43}</span> crept into it and into her voice, but that was all.</p> - -<p>“I will tell you about it sometime,—perhaps,” she added, rising and -standing by the fire. “Faith looks like him.” Her eyes assumed their -distant look, “like the eyes of those who see the dead,” and gazed -away,—so far away, into the fire, that I felt that she would not be -listening to anything that I might say, and therefore said nothing.</p> - -<p>We spent the evening chatting cosily. After the fire had died down in -the grate (I had Phœbe light a pine-knot there, because I noticed -that Aunt Winifred fancied the blaze in the dining-room), we drew up our -chairs into the corner by the register, and roasted away to our hearts’ -content. A very bad habit, to sit over the register, and Aunt Winifred -says she shall undertake to break me of it. We talked about everything -under the sun,—uncles, aunts, cousins, Kansas and Connecticut, the -surrenders and the assassination, books, pictures, music, and Faith,—O, -and Phœbe and the cat. Aunt Winifred talks well, and does not gossip -nor exhaust her resources; one feels always that she has material in -reserve on any subject that is worth talking about.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44"></a>{44}</span></p> - -<p>For one thing I thank her with all my heart: she never spoke of Roy.</p> - -<p>Upon reflection, I find that I have really passed a pleasant evening.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>She knocked at my door just now, after I had written the last sentence, -and had put away the book for the night. Thinking that it was Phœbe, -I called, “Come in,” and did not turn. She had come to the bureau where -I stood unbraiding my hair, and touched my arm, before I saw who it was. -She had on a crimson dressing-gown of warm flannel, and her hair hung -down on her shoulders. Although so gray, her hair is massive yet, and -coils finely when she is dressed.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I thought you would not be in bed, -and I came in to say,—let me sit somewhere else at the breakfast-table, -if you like. I saw that I had taken ‘the vacant place.’ Good night, my -dear.”</p> - -<p>It was such a little thing! I wonder how many people would have noticed -it or taken the trouble to speak of it. The quick perception, the -unusual delicacy,—these too are like Roy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45"></a>{45}</span></p> - -<p>I almost wish that she had stayed a little longer. I almost think that I -could bear to have her speak to me about him.</p> - -<p>Faith, in the next room, seems to have wakened from a frightened dream, -and I can hear their voices through the wall. Her mother is soothing and -singing to her in the broken words of some old lullaby with which -Phœbe used to sing Roy and me to sleep, years and years ago. The -unfamiliar, home-like sound is pleasant in the silent house. Phœbe, -on her way to bed, is stopping on the garret-stairs to listen to it. -Even the cat comes mewing up to the door, and purring as I have not -heard the creature purr since the old Sunday-night singing, hushed so -long ago.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46"></a>{46}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -May 7.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I was awakened and nearly smothered this morning by a pillow thrown -directly at my head.</p> - -<p>Somewhat unaccustomed, in the respectable, old maid’s life that I lead, -to such a pleasant little method of salutation, I jerked myself upright, -and stared. There stood Faith in her night-dress, laughing as if she -would suffocate, and her mother in search of her was just knocking at -the open door.</p> - -<p>“She insisted on going to wake Cousin Mary, and wouldn’t be washed till -I let her; but I stipulated that she should kiss you softly on both your -eyes.”</p> - -<p>“I did,” said Faith, stoutly; “I kissed her eyes, both two of ’em, and -her nose, and her mouth and her neck; then I pulled her hair, and then I -spinched her; but I thought she’d have to be banged a little. <i>Wasn’t</i> -it a bang, though!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47"></a>{47}</span>”</p> - -<p>It really did me good to begin the day with a hearty laugh. The days -usually look so long and blank at the beginning, that I can hardly make -up my mind to step out into them. Faith’s pillow was the famous pebble -in the pond, to which authors of original imagination invariably resort; -I felt its little circles widening out all through the day. I wonder if -Aunt Winifred thought of that. She thinks of many things.</p> - -<p>For instance, afraid apparently that I should think I was afflicted with -one of those professional visitors who hold that a chance relationship -justifies them in imposing on one from the beginning to the end of the -chapter, she managed to make me understand, this morning, that she was -expecting to go back to Uncle Forceythe’s brother on Saturday. I was -surprised at myself to find that this proposition struck me with dismay. -I insisted with all my heart on keeping her for a week at the least, and -sent forth a fiat that her trunks should be unpacked.</p> - -<p>We have had a quiet, homelike day. Faith found her way to the orchard, -and installed herself there for the day, overhauling the muddy grass -with her bare hands to find<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48"></a>{48}</span> dandelions. She came in at dinner-time as -brown as a little nut, with her hat hanging down her neck, her apron -torn, and just about as dirty as I should suppose it possible for a -clean child to succeed in making herself. Her mother, however, seemed to -be quite used to it, and the expedition with which she made her -presentable I regard as a stroke of genius.</p> - -<p>While Faith was disposed of, and the house still, auntie and I took our -knitting and spent a regular old woman’s morning at the south window in -the dining-room. In the afternoon Mrs. Bland came over, babies and all, -and sent up her card to Mrs. Forceythe.</p> - -<p>Supper-time came, and still there had not been a word of Roy. I began to -wonder at, while I respected, this unusual silence.</p> - -<p>While her mother was putting Faith to bed, I went into my room alone, -for a few moments’ quiet. An early dark had fallen, for it had clouded -up just before sunset. The dull, gray sky and narrow horizon shut down -and crowded in everything. A soldier from the village, who has just come -home, was walking down the street with his wife and sister. The crickets -were chirping in the meadows. The faint breath of the maple came up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49"></a>{49}</span></p> - -<p>I sat down by the window, and hid my face in both my hands. I must have -sat there some time, for I had quite forgotten that I had company to -entertain, when the door softly opened and shut, and some one came and -sat down on the couch beside me. I did not speak, for I could not, and, -the first I knew, a gentle arm crept about me, and she had gathered me -into her lap and laid my head on her shoulder, as she might have -gathered Faith.</p> - -<p>“There,” she said, in her low, lulling voice, “now tell Auntie all about -it.”</p> - -<p>I don’t know what it was, whether the voice, or touch, or words, but it -came so suddenly,—and nobody had held me for so long,—that everything -seemed to break up and unlock in a minute, and I threw up my hands and -cried. I don’t know how long I cried.</p> - -<p>She passed her hand softly to and fro across my hair, brushing it away -from my temples, while they throbbed and burned; but she did not speak. -By and by I sobbed out:—</p> - -<p>“Auntie, Auntie, Auntie!” as Faith sobs out in the dark. It seemed to me -that I must have help or die.</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear. I understand. I know how<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50"></a>{50}</span> hard it is. And you have been -bearing it alone so long! I am going to help you, and you must tell me -all you can.”</p> - -<p>The strong, decided words, “I am going to help you,” gave me the first -faint hope I have had, that I <i>could</i> be helped, and I could tell -her—it was not sacrilege—the pent-up story of these weeks. All the -time her hand went softly to and fro across my hair.</p> - -<p>Presently, when I was weak and faint with the new comfort of my tears, -“Aunt Winifred,” I said, “I don’t know what it means to be resigned; I -don’t know what it <i>means</i>!”</p> - -<p>Still her hand passed softly to and fro across my hair.</p> - -<p>“To have everything stop all at once! without giving me any time to -learn to bear it. Why, you do not know,—it is just as if a great black -gate had swung to and barred out the future, and barred out him, and -left me all alone in any world that I can ever live in, forever and -forever.”</p> - -<p>“My child,” she said, with emphasis solemn and low upon the words,—“my -child, I <i>do</i> know. I think you forget—my husband.”</p> - -<p>I had forgotten. How could I? We are most selfishly blinded by our own -griefs. No<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51"></a>{51}</span> other form than ours ever seems to walk with us in the -furnace. Her few words made me feel, as I could not have felt if she had -said more, that this woman who was going to help me had suffered too; -had suffered perhaps more than I,—that, if I sat as a little child at -her feet, she could teach me through the kinship of her pain.</p> - -<p>“O my dear,” she said, and held me close, “I have trodden every step of -it before you,—every single step.”</p> - -<p>“But you never were so wicked about it! You never felt—why, I have been -<i>afraid</i> I should hate God! You never were so wicked as that.”</p> - -<p>Low under her breath she answered “Yes,”—this sweet, saintly woman who -had come to me in the dark as an angel might.</p> - -<p>Then, turning suddenly, her voice trembled and broke:—</p> - -<p>“Mary, Mary, do you think He <i>could</i> have lived those thirty-three -years, and be cruel to you now? Think that over and over; only that. It -may be the only thought you dare to have,—it was all I dared to have -once,—but cling to it; <i>cling with both hands</i>, Mary, and keep it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52"></a>{52}</span>”</p> - -<p>I only put both hands about her neck and clung there; but I hope—it -seems, as if I clung a little to the thought besides; it was as new and -sweet to me as if I had never heard of it in all my life; and it has not -left me yet.</p> - -<p>“And then, my dear,” she said, when she had let me cry a little longer, -“when you have once found out that Roy’s God loves you more than Roy -does, the rest comes more easily. It will not be as long to wait as it -seems now. It isn’t as if you never were going to see him again.”</p> - -<p>I looked up bewildered.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, dear?”</p> - -<p>“Why, do you think I shall see him,—really see him?”</p> - -<p>“Mary Cabot,” she said abruptly, turning to look at me, “who has been -talking to you about this thing?”</p> - -<p>“Deacon Quirk,” I answered faintly,—“Deacon Quirk and Dr. Bland.”</p> - -<p>She put her other arm around me with a quick movement, as if she would -shield me from Deacon Quirk and Dr. Bland.</p> - -<p>“Do I think you will see him again? You might as well ask me if I -thought God made<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53"></a>{53}</span> you and made Roy, and gave you to each other. See him! -Why, of course you will see him as you saw him here.”</p> - -<p>“As I saw him here! Why, here I looked into his eyes, I saw him smile, I -touched him. Why, Aunt Winifred, Roy is an angel!”</p> - -<p>She patted my hand with a little, soft, comforting laugh.</p> - -<p>“But he is not any the less Roy for that,—not any the less your own -real Roy, who will love you and wait for you and be very glad to see -you, as he used to love and wait and be glad when you came home from a -journey on a cold winter night.”</p> - -<p>“And he met me at the door, and led me in where it was light and warm!” -I sobbed.</p> - -<p>“So he will meet you at the door in this other home, and lead you into -the light and the warmth. And cannot that make the cold and dark a -little shorter? Think a minute!”</p> - -<p>“But there is God,—I thought we went to Heaven to worship Him, and—”</p> - -<p>“Shall you worship more heartily or less, for having Roy again? Did Mary -love the Master more or less, after Lazarus came back? Why, my child, -where did you get your ideas of God? Don’t you suppose He <i>knows</i> how -you love Roy?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54"></a>{54}</span>”</p> - -<p>I drank in the blessed words without doubt or argument. I was too -thirsty to doubt or argue. Some other time I may ask her how she knows -this beautiful thing, but not now. All I can do now is to take it into -my heart and hold it there.</p> - -<p>Roy my own again,—not only to look at standing up among the -singers,—but close to me; somehow or other to be as near as—to be -nearer than—he was here, <i>really</i> mine again! I shall never let this -go.</p> - -<p>After we had talked awhile, and when it came time to say good night, I -told her a little about my conversation with Deacon Quirk, and what I -said to him about the Lord’s will. I did not know but that she would -blame me.</p> - -<p>“Some time,” she said, turning her great, compassionate eyes on me,—I -could feel them in the dark,—and smiling, “you will find out all at -once, in a happy moment, that you can say those words with all your -heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength; it will come, -even in this world, if you will only let it. But, until it does, you do -right, quite right, not to scorch your altar with a false -burnt-offering. God is not a God to be mocked. He would rather have only -the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55"></a>{55}</span> cry: ‘I believe; help mine unbelief,’ and wait till you can say -the rest.</p> - -<p>“It has often grated on my ears,” she added, “to hear people speak those -words unworthily. They seem to me the most solemn words that the Bible -contains, or that Christian experience can utter. As far as my -observation goes, the good people—for they are good people—who use -them when they ought to know better are of two sorts. They are people in -actual agony, bewildered, racked with rebellious doubts, unaccustomed to -own even to themselves the secret seethings of sin; really persuaded -that because it is a Christian duty to have no will but the Lord’s, they -are under obligations to affirm that they have no will but the Lord’s. -Or else they are people who know no more about this pain of bereavement -than a child. An affliction has passed over them, put them into -mourning, made them feel uncomfortable till the funeral was over, or -even caused them a shallow sort of grief, of which each week evaporates -a little, till it is gone. These mourners air their trouble the longest, -prate loudest about resignation, and have the most to say to you or me -about our ‘rebellious state of mind.’ Poor things! One<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56"></a>{56}</span> can hardly be -vexed at them for pity. Think of being made so!”</p> - -<p>“There is still another class of the cheerfully resigned,” I suggested, -“who are even more ready than these to tell you of your desperate -wickedness—”</p> - -<p>“People who have never had even the semblance of a trouble in all their -lives,” she interrupted. “Yes. I was going to speak of them. Of all -miserable comforters, they are the most arrogant.”</p> - -<p>“As to real instant submission,” she said presently, “there <i>is</i> some of -it in the world. There are sweet, rare lives capable of great loves and -great pains, which yet are kept so attuned to the life of Christ, that -the cry in the Garden comes scarcely less honestly from their lips, than -from his. Such, like the St. John, are but one among the Twelve. Such, -it will do you and me good, dear, at least to remember.”</p> - -<p>“Such,” I thought when I was left alone, “you new dear friend of mine, -who have come with such a blessed coming into my lonely days,—such you -must be now, whatever you were once.”</p> - -<p>If I should tell her that, how she would open her soft eyes!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57"></a>{57}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -May 9.<br /> -</p> - -<p>As I was looking over the green book last night, Aunt Winifred came up -behind me and softly laid a bunch of violets down between the leaves.</p> - -<p>By an odd contrast, the contented, passionless things fell against those -two verses that were copied from the German, and completely covered them -from sight. I lifted the flowers, and held up the page for her to see.</p> - -<p>As she read, her face altered strangely; her eyes dilated, her lip -quivered, a flush shot over her checks and dyed her forehead up to the -waves of her hair. I turned away quickly, feeling that I had committed a -rudeness in watching her, and detecting in her, however involuntarily, -some far, inner sympathy, or shadow of a long-past sympathy, with the -desperate words.</p> - -<p>“Mary,” she said, laying down the book, “I believe Satan wrote that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58"></a>{58}</span>”</p> - -<p>She laughed a little then, nervously, and paled back into her quiet, -peaceful self.</p> - -<p>“I mean that he inspired it. They are wicked words. You must not read -them over. You will outgrow them sometime with a beautiful growth of -trust and love. Let them alone till that time comes. See, I will blot -them out of sight for you with colors as blue as heaven,—the <i>real</i> -heaven, where God <i>will</i> be loved the most.”</p> - -<p>She shook apart the thick, sweet nosegay, and, taking a half-dozen of -the little blossoms, pinned them, dripping with fragrant dew, upon the -lines. There I shall let them stay, and, since she wishes it, I shall -not lift them to see the reckless words till I can do it safely.</p> - -<p>This afternoon Aunt Winifred has been telling me about herself. Somewhat -more, or of a different kind, I should imagine, from what she has told -most people. She seems to love me a little, not in a proper kind of way, -because I happen to be her niece, but for my own sake. It surprises me -to find how pleased I am that she should.</p> - -<p>That Kansas life must have been very hard to her, in contrast as it was -with the smooth elegance of her girlhood; she was very young,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59"></a>{59}</span> too, when -she undertook it. I said something of the sort to her.</p> - -<p>“They have been the hardest and the easiest, the saddest and the -happiest, years of all my life,” she answered.</p> - -<p>I pondered the words in my heart, while I listened to her story. She -gave me vivid pictures of the long, bright bridal journey, overshadowed -with a very mundane weariness of jolting coaches and railway accidents -before its close; of the little neglected hamlet which waited for them, -twenty miles from a post-office and thirty from a school-house; of the -parsonage, a log-hut among log-huts, distinguished and adorned by a -little lath and plastering, glass windows, and a doorstep;—they drew in -sight of it at the close of a tired day, with a red sunset lying low on -the flats.</p> - -<p>Uncle Forceythe wanted mission-work, and mission-work he found here -with—I should say with a vengeance, if the expression were exactly -suited to an elegantly constructed and reflective journal.</p> - -<p>“My heart sank for a moment, I confess,” she said, “but it never would -do, you know, to let him suspect that, so I smiled away as well as I -knew how, shook hands with one or two<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60"></a>{60}</span> women in red calico who had been -‘slicking up inside,’ they said; went in by the fire,—it was really a -pleasant fire,—and, as soon as they had left us alone, I climbed into -John’s lap, and, with both arms around his neck, told him that I knew we -should be very happy. And I said—”</p> - -<p>“Said what?”</p> - -<p>She blushed a little, like a girl.</p> - -<p>“I believe I said I should be happy in Patagonia,—with him. I made him -laugh at last, and say that my face and words were like a beautiful -prophecy. And, Mary, if they were, it was beautifully fulfilled. In the -roughest times,—times of ragged clothes and empty flour-barrels, of -weakness and sickness and quack doctors, of cold and discouragement, of -prairie fires and guerillas,—from trouble to trouble, from year’s end -to year’s end, we were happy together, we two. As long as we could have -each other, and as long as we could be about our Master’s business, we -felt as if we did not dare to ask for anything more, lest it should seem -that we were ungrateful for such wealth of mercy.”</p> - -<p>It would take too long to write out here the half that she told me, -though I wish I could,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61"></a>{61}</span> for it interested me more than any story that I -have ever read.</p> - -<p>After years of Christ-like toiling to help those rough old farmers and -wicked bushwhackers to Heaven, the call to Lawrence came, and it seemed -to Uncle Forceythe that he had better go. It was a pleasant, influential -parish, and there, though not less hard at work, they found fewer rubs -and more comforts; there Faith came, and there were their pleasant days, -till the war.—I held my breath to hear her tell about Quantrell’s raid. -There, too, Uncle wasted through that death-in-life, consumption; there -he “fell on sleep,” she said, and there she buried him.</p> - -<p>She gave me no further description of his death than those words, and -she spoke them with her far-away, tearless eyes looking off through the -window, and after she had spoken she was still for a time.</p> - -<p>The heart knoweth its own bitterness; that grew distinct to me, as I -sat, shut out by her silence. Yet there was nothing bitter about her -face.</p> - -<p>“Faith was six months old when he went,” she said presently. “We had -never named her: Baby was name enough at first for such<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62"></a>{62}</span> a wee thing; -then she was the only one, and had come so late, that it seemed to mean -more to us than to most to have a baby all to ourselves, and we liked -the sound of the word. When it became quite certain that John must go, -we used to talk it over, and he said that he would like to name her, but -what, he did not tell me.</p> - -<p>“At last, one night, after he had lain for a while thinking with closed -eyes, he bade me bring the child to him. The sun was setting, I -remember, and the moon was rising. He had had a hard day; the life was -all scorched out of the air. I moved the bed up by the window, that he -might have the breath of the rising wind. Baby was wide awake, cooing -softly to herself in the cradle, her bits of damp curls clinging to her -head, and her pink feet in her hands. I took her up and brought her just -as she was, and knelt down by the bed. The street was still. We could -hear the frogs chanting a mile away. He lifted her little hands upon his -own, and said—no matter about the words—but he told me that as he left -the child, so he left the name, in my sacred charge,—that he had chosen -it for me,—that, when he was out of sight, it might help me to have it -often on my lips.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63"></a>{63}</span></p> - -<p>“So there in the sunset and the moonrise, we two alone together, he -baptized her, and we gave our little girl to God.”</p> - -<p>When she had said this, she rose and went over to the window, and stood -with her face from me. By and by, “It was the fourteenth,” she said, as -if musing to herself,—“the fourteenth of June.”</p> - -<p>I remember now that Uncle Forceythe died on the fourteenth of June. It -may have been that the words of that baptismal blessing were the last -that they heard, either child or mother.</p> - -<p class="r"> -May 10.<br /> -</p> - -<p>It has been a pleasant day; the air shines like transparent gold; the -wind sweeps like somebody’s strong arms over the flowers, and gathers up -a crowd of perfumes that wander up and down about one. The church bells -have rung out like silver all day. Those bells—especially the Second -Advent at the further end of the village—are positively ghastly when it -rains.</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred was dressed bright and early for church. I, in morning -dress and slippers, sighed and demurred.</p> - -<p>“Auntie, <i>do</i> you expect to hear anything new?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64"></a>{64}</span>”</p> - -<p>“Judging from your diagnosis of Dr. Bland,—no.”</p> - -<p>“To be edified, refreshed, strengthened, or instructed?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps not.”</p> - -<p>“Bored, then?”</p> - -<p>“Not exactly.”</p> - -<p>“What do you expect?”</p> - -<p>“There are the prayers and singing. Generally one can, if one tries, -wring a little devotion from the worst of them. As to a minister, if he -is good and commonplace, young and earnest and ignorant, and I, whom he -cannot help one step on the way to Heaven, consequently stay at home, -Deacon Quirk, whom he might carry a mile or two, by and by stays at home -also. If there is to be a ‘building fitly joined together,’ each stone -must do its part of the upholding. I feel better to go half a day -always. I never compel Faith to go, but I never have a chance, for she -teases not to be left at home.”</p> - -<p>“I think it’s splendid to go to church most the time,” put in Faith, who -was squatted on the carpet, counting sugared caraway seeds,—“all but -the sermon. That isn’t splendid. I don’t like the gre-at big prayers ’n’ -things,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65"></a>{65}</span> I like caramary seeds, though; mother always gives ’em to me in -meeting ’cause I’m a good girl. Don’t you wish <i>you</i> were a good girl, -Cousin Mary, so’s you could have some? Besides, I’ve got on my best hat -and my button-boots. Besides, there used to be a real funny little boy -up in meeting at home, and he gave me a little tin dorg once over the -top the pew. Only mother made me give it back. O, you ought to seen the -man that preached down at Uncle Calvin’s! I tell you he was a bully old -minister,—<i>he banged the Bible like everything</i>!”</p> - -<p>“There’s a devotional spirit for you!” I said to her mother.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she answered, laughing, “it is better than that she should be -left to play dolls and eat preserves, and be punished for disobedience. -Sunday would invariably become a guilty sort of holiday at that rate. -Now, caraways or ‘bully old ministers’ notwithstanding, she carries to -bed with her a dim notion that this has been holy time and pleasant -time. Besides, the associations of a church-going childhood, if I can -manage them genially, will be a help to her when she is older. Come, -Faith! go and pull off Cousin<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66"></a>{66}</span> Mary’s slippers, and bring down her -boots, and then she’ll have to go to church. No, I <i>didn’t</i> say that you -might tickle her feet!”</p> - -<p>Feeling the least bit sorry that I had set the example of a stay-at-home -Christian before the child, I went directly up stairs to make ready, and -we started after all in good season.</p> - -<p>Dr. Bland was in the pulpit. I observed that he looked—as indeed did -the congregation bodily—with some curiosity into our slip, where it has -been a rare occurrence of late to find me, and where the light, falling -through the little stained glass oriel, touched Aunt Winifred’s -thoughtful smile. I wondered whether Dr. Bland thought it was wicked for -people to smile in church. No, of course he has too much sense. I wonder -what it is about Dr. Bland that always suggests such questions.</p> - -<p>It has been very warm all day,—that aggravating, unseasonable heat, -which is apt to come in spasms in the early part of May, and which, in -thick spring alpaca and heavy sack, one finds intolerable. The -thermometer stood at 75° on the church porch; every window was shut, and -everybody’s fan was fluttering<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67"></a>{67}</span> Now, with this sight before him, what -should our observant minister do, but give out as his first hymn: “Thine -earthly Sabbaths.” “Thine earthly Sabbaths” would be a beautiful hymn, -if it were not for those lines about the weather:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“No midnight shade, <i>no clouded sun</i>,<br /></span> -<span class="i1"><i>But sacred, high, eternal noon</i>”!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">There was a great hot sunbeam striking directly on my black bonnet. My -fan was broken. I gasped for air. The choir went over and over and -<i>over</i> the words, spinning them into one of those indescribable tunes, -in which everybody seems to be trying to get through first. I don’t know -what they called them,—they always remind me of a game of “Tag.”</p> - -<p>I looked at Aunt Winifred. She took it more coolly than I, but an amused -little smile played over her face. She told me after church that she had -repeatedly heard that hymn given out at noon of an intense July day. Her -husband, she said, used to save it for the winter, or for cloudy -afternoons. “Using means of grace,” he called that.</p> - -<p>However, Dr. Bland did better the second time, Aunt Winifred joined in -the singing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68"></a>{68}</span> and I enjoyed it, so I will not blame the poor man. I -suppose he was so far lifted above this earth, that he would not have -known whether he was preaching in Greenland’s icy mountains, or on -India’s coral strand.</p> - -<p>When he announced his text, “For our conversation is in Heaven,” Aunt -Winifred and I exchanged glances of content. We had been talking about -heaven on the way to church; at least, till Faith, not finding herself -entertained, interrupted us by some severe speculations as to whether -Maltese kitties were mulattoes, and “why the bell-ringer didn’t jump off -the steeple some night, and see if he couldn’t fly right up, the way -Elijah did.”</p> - -<p>I listened to Dr. Bland as I have not listened for a long time. The -subject was of all subjects nearest my heart. He is a scholarly man, in -his way. He ought to know, I thought, more about it than Aunt Winifred. -Perhaps he could help me.</p> - -<p>His sermon, as nearly as I can recall it, was substantially this.</p> - -<p>“The future life presented a vast theme to our speculation. Theories -‘too numerous to mention,’ had been held concerning it. Pagans had -believed in a coming state of rewards<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69"></a>{69}</span> and punishments. What natural -theology had dimly foreshadowed, Revelation had brought in, like a -full-orbed day, with healing on its wings.” I am not positive about the -metaphors.</p> - -<p>“As it was fitting that we should at times turn our thoughts upon the -threatenings of Scripture, it was eminently suitable also that we should -consider its promises.</p> - -<p>“He proposed in this discourse to consider the promise of heaven, the -reward offered by Christ to his good and faithful servants.</p> - -<p>“In the first place: What is heaven?”</p> - -<p>I am not quite clear in my mind what it was, though I tried my best to -find out. As nearly as I can recollect, however,—</p> - -<p>“Heaven is an eternal state.</p> - -<p>“Heaven is a state of holiness.</p> - -<p>“Heaven is a state of happiness.”</p> - -<p>Having heard these observations before, I will not enlarge as he did -upon them, but leave that for the “vivid imagination” of the green book.</p> - -<p>“In the second place: What will be the employments of heaven?</p> - -<p>“We shall study the character of God.</p> - -<p>“An infinite mind must of necessity be eternally<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70"></a>{70}</span> an object of study to -a finite mind. The finite mind must of necessity find in such study -supreme delight. All lesser joys and interests will pale. He felt at -moments, in reflecting on this theme, that that good brother who, on -being asked if he expected to see the dead wife of his youth in heaven, -replied, ‘I expect to be so overwhelmed by the glory of the presence of -God, that it may be thousands of years before I shall think of my -wife,’—he felt that perhaps this brother was near the truth.”</p> - -<p>Poor Mrs. Bland looked exceedingly uncomfortable.</p> - -<p>“We shall also glorify God.”</p> - -<p>He enlarged upon this division, but I have forgotten exactly how. There -was something about adoration, and the harpers harping with their harps, -and the sea of glass, and crying, Worthy the Lamb! and a great deal more -that bewildered and disheartened me so that I could scarcely listen to -it. I do not doubt that we shall glorify God primarily and happily, but -can we not do it in some other way than by harping and praying?</p> - -<p>“We shall moreover love each other with a universal and unselfish -love.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71"></a>{71}</span>”</p> - -<p>“That we shall recognize our friends in heaven, he was inclined to -think, after mature deliberation, was probable. But there would be no -special selfish affections there. In this world we have enmities and -favoritisms. In the world of bliss our hearts would glow with holy love -alike to all other holy hearts.”</p> - -<p>I wonder if he really thought <i>that</i> would make “a world of bliss.” Aunt -Winifred slipped her hand into mine under her cloak. Ah, Dr. Bland, if -you had known how that little soft touch was preaching against you!</p> - -<p>“In the words of an eminent divine, who has long since entered into the -joys of which he spoke: ‘Thus, whenever the mind roves through the -immense region of heaven, it will find, among all its innumerable -millions, not an enemy, not a stranger, not an indifferent heart, not a -reserved bosom. Disguise here, and even concealment, will be unknown. -The soul will have no interests to conceal, <i>no thoughts to disguise</i>. A -window will be opened in every breast, and show to every eye the rich -and beautiful furniture within!’</p> - -<p>“Thirdly: How shall we fit for heaven?”</p> - -<p>He mentioned several ways, among which,—</p> - -<p>“We should subdue our earthly affections to God.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72"></a>{72}</span></p> - -<p>“We must not love the creature as the Creator. My son, give <i>me</i> thy -heart. When he removes our friends from the scenes of time (with a -glance in my direction), we should resign ourselves to his will, -remembering that the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away in mercy; -that He is all in all; that He will never leave us nor forsake us; that -<i>He</i> can never change or die.”</p> - -<p>As if that made any difference with the fact, that his best treasures -change or die!</p> - -<p>“In conclusion,—</p> - -<p>“We infer from our text that our hearts should not be set upon earthly -happiness. (Enlarged.)</p> - -<p>“That the subject of heaven should be often in our thoughts and on our -lips.” (Enlarged.)</p> - -<p>Of course I have not done justice to the filling up of the sermon; to -the illustrations, metaphors, proof-texts, learning, and -eloquence,—for, though Dr. Bland cannot seem to think outside of the -old grooves, a little eloquence really flashes through the tameness of -his style sometimes, and when he was talking about the harpers, etc., -some of his words were well chosen. “To be drowned in light,” I have -somewhere read, “may be very beautiful;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73"></a>{73}</span> it is still to be drowned.” But -I have given the skeleton of the discourse, and I have given the sum of -the impressions that it left on me, an attentive hearer. It is fortunate -that I did not hear it while I was alone; it would have made me -desperate. Going hungry, hopeless, blinded, I came back empty, -uncomforted, groping. I wanted something actual, something pleasant, -about this place into which Roy has gone. He gave me glittering -generalities, cold commonplace, vagueness, unreality, a God and a future -at which I sat and shivered.</p> - -<p>Dr. Bland is a good man. He had, I know, written that sermon with -prayer. I only wish that he could be made to <i>see</i> how it glides over -and sails splendidly away from wants like mine.</p> - -<p>But thanks be to God who has provided a voice to answer me out of the -deeps.</p> - -<p>Auntie and I walked home without any remarks (we overheard Deacon Quirk -observe to a neighbor: “That’s what I call a good gospel sermon, now!”), -sent Faith away to Phœbe, sat down in the parlor, and looked at each -other.</p> - -<p>“Well?” said I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74"></a>{74}</span></p> - -<p>“I know it,” said she.</p> - -<p>Upon which we both began to laugh.</p> - -<p>“But did he say the dreadful truth?”</p> - -<p>“Not as I find it in my Bible.”</p> - -<p>“That it is probable, only <i>probable</i> that we shall recognize—”</p> - -<p>“My child, do not be troubled about that. It is not probable, it is -sure. If I could find no proof for it, I should none the less believe -it, as long as I believe in God. He gave you Roy, and the capacity to -love him. He has taught you to sanctify that love through love to Him. -Would it be <i>like</i> Him to create such beautiful and unselfish -loves,—most like the love of heaven of any type we know,—just for our -threescore years and ten of earth? Would it be like Him to suffer two -souls to grow together here, so that the separation of a day is pain, -and then wrench them apart for all eternity? It would be what Madame de -Gasparin calls, ‘fearful irony on the part of God.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“But there are lost loves. There are lost souls.”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>How often would I have gathered you, and ye would not!’ That is not -his work. He would have saved both soul and love.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75"></a>{75}</span> They had their own -way. We were speaking of His redeemed. The object of having this world -at all, you know, is to fit us for another. Of what use will it have -been, if on passing out of it we must throw by forever its gifts, its -lessons, its memories? God links things together better than that. Be -sure, as you are sure of Him, that we shall be <i>ourselves</i> in heaven. -Would you be yourself not to recognize Roy?—consequently, not to love -Roy, for to love and to be separated is misery, and heaven is joy.”</p> - -<p>“I understand. But you said you had other proof.”</p> - -<p>“So I have; plenty of it. If ‘many shall come from the East and from the -West, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and -Jacob,’ will they not be likely to know that they are with Abraham, -Isaac, and Jacob? or will they think it is Shadrach, Meshech, and -Abednego?</p> - -<p>“What is meant by such expressions as ‘risen <i>together</i>,’ ‘sitting -<i>together</i> at the right hand of God,’ ‘sitting <i>together</i> in heavenly -places’? If they mean anything, they mean recognitions, friendships, -enjoyments.</p> - -<p>“Did not Peter and the others know Moses<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76"></a>{76}</span> when they saw him?—know Elias -when they saw him? Yet these men were dead hundreds of years before the -favored fishermen were born.</p> - -<p>“How was it with those ‘saints which slept and arose’ when Christ hung -dead there in the dark? Were they not seen of many?”</p> - -<p>“But that was a miracle.”</p> - -<p>“They were risen dead, such as you and I shall be some day. The miracle -consisted in their rising then and there. Moreover, did not the beggar -recognize Abraham? and—Well, one might go through the Bible finding it -full of this promise in hints or assertions, in parables or visions. We -are ‘heirs of God,’ ‘joint heirs with Christ’; having suffered with Him, -we shall be ‘glorified <i>together</i>.’ Christ himself has said many sure -things: ‘I will come and receive you, that where I am, there ye may be.’ -‘I will that they be with me where I am.’ Using, too, the very type of -Godhead to signify the eternal nearness and eternal love of just such as -you and Roy as John and me, he prays: ‘Holy Father, keep them whom Thou -hast given me, that <i>they may be one as we are</i>.’</p> - -<p>“There is one place, though, where I find<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77"></a>{77}</span> what I like better than all -the rest; you remember that old cry wrung from the lips of the stricken -king,—‘I shall go to him; but he will not return to me.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“I never thought before how simple and direct it is; and that, too, in -those old blinded days.”</p> - -<p>“The more I study the Bible,” she said, “and I study not entirely in -ignorance of the commentators and the mysteries, the more perplexed I am -to imagine where the current ideas of our future come from. They -certainly are not in this book of gracious promises. That heaven which -we heard about to-day was Dr. Bland’s, not God’s. ‘It’s aye a wonderfu’ -thing to me,’ as poor Lauderdale said, ‘the way some preachers take it -upon themselves to explain matters to the Almighty!’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“But the harps and choirs, the throne, the white robes, are all in -Revelation. Deacon Quirk would put his great brown finger on the verses, -and hold you there triumphantly.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t people tell picture from substance, a metaphor from its meaning? -That book of Revelation is precisely what it professes to be,—a vision; -a symbol. A symbol of something, to be sure, and rich with pleasant -hopes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78"></a>{78}</span> but still a symbol. Now, I really believe that a large -proportion of Christian church-members, who have studied their Bible, -attended Sabbath schools, listened to sermons all their lives, if you -could fairly come at their most definite idea of the place where they -expect to spend eternity, would own it to be the golden city, with pearl -gates, and jewels in the wall. It never occurs to them, that, if one -picture is literal, another must be. If we are to walk golden streets, -how can we stand on a sea of glass? How can we ‘sit on thrones’? How can -untold millions of us ‘lie in Abraham’s bosom’?</p> - -<p>“But why have given us empty symbols? Why not a little fact?”</p> - -<p>“They are not <i>empty</i> symbols. And why God did not give us actual -descriptions of actual heavenly life, I don’t trouble myself to wonder. -He certainly had his reasons, and that is enough for me. I find from -these symbols, and from his voice in my own heart, many beautiful -things,—I will tell you some more of them at another time,—and, for -the rest, I am content to wait. He loves me, and he loves mine. As long -as we love Him, He will never separate Himself from us, or us from each -other. That, at least, is <i>sure</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79"></a>{79}</span>”</p> - -<p>“If that is sure, the rest is of less importance;—yes. But Dr. Bland -said an awful thing!”</p> - -<p>“The quotation from a dead divine?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. That there will be no separate interests, no thoughts to conceal.”</p> - -<p>“Poor good man! He has found out by this time that he should not have -laid down nonsense like that, without qualification or demur, before a -Bible-reading hearer. It was simply <i>his</i> opinion, not David’s, or -Paul’s, or John’s, or Isaiah’s. He had a perfect right to put it in the -form of a conjecture. Nobody would forbid his conjecturing that the -inhabitants of heaven are all deaf and dumb, or wear green glasses, or -shave their heads, if he chose, provided he stated that it was -conjecture, not revelation.”</p> - -<p>“But where does the Bible say that we shall have power to conceal our -thoughts?—and I would rather be annihilated than to spend eternity with -heart laid bare,—the inner temple thrown open to be trampled on by -every passing stranger!”</p> - -<p>“The Bible specifies very little about the minor arrangements of -eternity in any way. But I doubt if, under any circumstances, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80"></a>{80}</span> would -have occurred to inspired men to inform us that our thoughts shall -continue to be our own. The fact is patent on the face of things. The -dead minister’s supposition would destroy individuality at one fell -swoop. We should be like a man walking down a room lined with mirrors, -who sees himself reflected in all sizes, colors, shades, at all angles -and in all proportions, according to the capacity of the mirror, till he -seems no longer to belong to himself, but to be cut up into ellipses and -octagons and prisms. How soon would he grow frantic in such -companionship, and beg for a corner where he might hide and hush himself -in the dark?</p> - -<p>“That we shall in a higher life be able to do what we cannot in -this,—judge fairly of each other’s <i>moral</i> worth,—is undoubtedly true. -Whatever the Judgment Day may mean, that is the substance of it. But -this promiscuous theory of refraction;—never!</p> - -<p>“Besides, wherever the Bible touches the subject, it premises our -individuality as a matter of course. What would be the use of talking, -if everybody knew the thoughts of everybody else?”</p> - -<p>“You don’t suppose that people talk in heaven?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81"></a>{81}</span>”</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose anything else. Are we to spend ages of joy, a company -of mutes together? Why not talk?”</p> - -<p>“I supposed we should sing,—but—”</p> - -<p>“Why not talk as well as sing? Does not song involve the faculty of -speech?—unless you would like to make canaries of us.”</p> - -<p>“Ye-es. Why, yes.”</p> - -<p>“There are the visitors at the beautiful Mount of Transfiguration again. -Did not they <i>talk</i> with each other and with Christ? Did not John <i>talk</i> -with the angel who ‘shewed him those things’?”</p> - -<p>“And you mean to say—”</p> - -<p>“I mean to say that if there is such a thing as common sense, you will -talk with Roy as you talked with him here,—only not as you talked with -him here, because there will be no troubles nor sins, no anxieties nor -cares, to talk about; no ugly shades of cross words or little quarrels -to be made up; no fearful looking-for of separation.”</p> - -<p>I laid my head upon her shoulder, and could hardly speak for the comfort -that she gave me.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I believe we shall talk and laugh and joke and play<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82"></a>{82}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“Laugh and joke in heaven?”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“But it seems so—so—why, so wicked and irreverent and all that, you -know.”</p> - -<p>Just then Faith, who, mounted out on the kitchen table, was preaching at -Phœbe in comical mimicry of Dr. Bland’s choicest intonations, laughed -out like the splash of a little wave.</p> - -<p>The sound came in at the open door, and we stopped to listen till it had -rippled away.</p> - -<p>“There!” said her mother, “put that child, this very minute, with all -her little sins forgiven, into one of our dear Lord’s many mansions, and -do you suppose that she would be any the less holy or less reverent for -a laugh like that? Is he going to check all the sparkle and blossom of -life when he takes us to himself? I don’t believe any such thing. There -were both sense and Christianity in what somebody wrote on the death of -a humorous poet:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Does nobody laugh there, where he has gone,—<br /></span> -<span class="i3">This man of the smile and the jest?’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">—provided there was any hope that the poor fellow <i>had</i> gone to heaven; -if not, it was bad philosophy and worse religion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83"></a>{83}</span> Did not David dance -before the Lord with all his might? A Bible which is full of happy -battle-cries: ‘Rejoice in the Lord! make a joyful noise unto him! Give -thanks unto the Lord, for his mercy endureth!’—a Bible which exhausts -its splendid wealth of rhetoric to make us understand that the coming -life is a life of <i>joy</i>, no more threatens to make nuns than mutes of -us. I expect that you will hear some of Roy’s very old jokes, see the -sparkle in his eye, listen to his laughing voice, lighten up the happy -days as gleefully as you may choose; and that—”</p> - -<p>Faith appeared upon the scene just then, with the interesting -information that she had bitten her tongue; so we talked no more.</p> - -<p>How pleasant—how pleasant this is! I never supposed before that God -would let any one laugh in heaven.</p> - -<p>I wonder if Roy has seen the President. Aunt Winifred says she does not -doubt it. She thinks that all the soldiers must have crowded up to meet -him, and “O,” she says, “what a sight to see!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84"></a>{84}</span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -May 12th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred has said something about going, but I cannot yet bear to -hear of such a thing. She is to stay a while longer.</p> - -<p class="r"> -16th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>We have been over to-night to the grave.</p> - -<p>She proposed to go by herself, thinking, I saw, with the delicacy with -which she always thinks, that I would rather not be there with another. -Nor should I, nor could I, with any other than this woman. It is -strange. I wished to go there with her. I had a vague, unreasoning -feeling that she would take away some of the bitterness of it, as she -has taken the bitterness of much else.</p> - -<p>It is looking very pleasant there now. The turf has grown fine and -smooth. The low arbor-vitæ hedge and knots of Norway spruce, that father -planted long ago for mother, drop cool, green shadows that stir with the -wind. My English ivy has crept about and about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85"></a>{85}</span> cross. Roy used to -say that he should fancy a cross to mark the spot where he might lie; I -think he would like this pure, unveined marble. May-flowers cover the -grave now, and steal out among the clover-leaves with a flush like -sunrise. By and by there will be roses, and, in August, August’s own -white lilies.</p> - -<p>We went silently over, and sat silently down on the grass, the -field-path stretching away to the little church behind us, and beyond, -in front, the slope, the flats, the river, the hills cut in purple -distance melting far into the east. The air was thick with perfume. -Golden bees hung giddily over the blush in the grass. In the low -branches that swept the grave a little bird had built her nest.</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred did not speak to me for a time, nor watch my face. -Presently she laid her hand upon my lap, and I put mine into it.</p> - -<p>“It is very pleasant here,” she said then, in her very pleasant voice.</p> - -<p>“I meant that it should be,” I answered, trying not to let her see my -lips quiver. “At least it must not look neglected. I don’t suppose it -makes any difference to <i>him</i>.”</p> - -<p>“I do not feel sure of that.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86"></a>{86}</span>”</p> - -<p>“I do not feel sure that anything he has left makes no ‘difference’ to -him.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t understand. He is in heaven. He would be too happy to care -for anything that is going on in this woful world.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps that is so,” she said, smiling a sweet contradiction to her -words, “but I don’t believe it.”</p> - -<p>“What do you believe?”</p> - -<p>“Many things that I have to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”</p> - -<p>“I have sometimes wondered, for I cannot help it,” I said, “whether he -is shut off from all knowledge of me for all these years till I can go -to him. It will be a great while. It seems hard. Roy would want to know -something, if it were only a little, about me.”</p> - -<p>“I believe that he wants to know, and that he knows, Mary; though, since -the belief must rest on analogy and conjecture, you need not accept it -as demonstrated mathematics,” she answered, with another smile.</p> - -<p>“Roy never forgot me here!” I said, not meaning to sob.</p> - -<p>“That is just it. He was not constituted so that he, remaining himself, -Roy, could forget you. If he goes out into this other life<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87"></a>{87}</span> forgetting, -he becomes another than himself. That is a far more unnatural way of -creeping out of the difficulty than to assume that he loves and -remembers. Why not assume that? In fact, why assume anything else? -Neither reason, nor the Bible, nor common sense, forbids it. Instead of -starting with it as an hypothesis to be proved if we can, I lay it down -as one of those probabilities for which Butler would say, ‘the -presumption amounts nearly to certainty’; and if any one can disprove -it, I will hear what he has to say. There!” she broke off, laughing -softly, “that is a sufficient dose of metaphysics for such a simple -thing. It seems to me to lie just here: Roy loved you. Our Father, for -some tender, hidden reason, took him out of your sight for a while. -Though changed much, he can have forgotten nothing. Being <i>only out of -sight</i>, you remember, not lost, nor asleep, nor annihilated, he goes on -loving. To love must mean to think of, to care for, to hope for, to pray -for, not less out of a body than in it.”</p> - -<p>“But that must mean—why, that must mean—”</p> - -<p>“That he is near you. I do not doubt it.”</p> - -<p>The sunshine quivered in among the ivy-leaves, and I turned to watch it, -thinking.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88"></a>{88}</span></p> - -<p>“I do not doubt,” she went on, speaking low,—“I cannot doubt that our -absent dead are very present with us. He said, ‘I am with you alway,’ -knowing the need we have of him, even to the end of the world. He must -understand the need we have of them. I cannot doubt it.”</p> - -<p>I watched her as she sat with her absent eyes turned eastward, and her -peculiar look—I have never seen it on another face—as of one who holds -a happy secret; and while I watched I wondered.</p> - -<p>“There is a reason for it,” she said, rousing as if from a pleasant -dream,—“a good sensible reason, too, it strikes me, independent of -Scriptural or other proof.”</p> - -<p>“What is that?”</p> - -<p>“That God keeps us briskly at work in this world.”</p> - -<p>I did not understand.</p> - -<p>“Altogether too briskly, considering that it is a preparative world, to -intend to put us from it into an idle one. What more natural than that -we shall spend our best energies as we spent them here,—in comforting, -teaching, helping, saving people whose very souls we love better than -our own? In fact, it would be very <i>un</i>natural if we did not.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89"></a>{89}</span>”</p> - -<p>“But I thought that God took care of us, and angels, like Gabriel and -the rest, if I ever thought anything about it, which I am inclined to -doubt.”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>God works by the use of means,’ as the preachers say. Why not use Roy -as well as Gabriel? What archangel could understand and reach the -peculiarities of your nature as he could? or, even if understanding, -could so love and bear with you? What is to be done? Will they send Roy -to the planet Jupiter to take care of somebody else’s sister?”</p> - -<p>I laughed in spite of myself; nor did the laugh seem to jar upon the -sacred stillness of the place. Her words were drawing away the -bitterness, as the sun was blotting the dull, dead greens of the ivy -into its glow of golden color.</p> - -<p>“But the Bible, Aunt Winifred.”</p> - -<p>“The Bible does <i>not</i> say a great deal on this point,” she said, “but it -does not contradict me. In fact, it helps me; and, moreover, it would -uphold me in black and white if it weren’t for one little obstacle.”</p> - -<p>“And that?”</p> - -<p>“That frowning ‘original Greek,’ which Gail Hamilton denounces with her -righteous indignation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90"></a>{90}</span> No sooner do I find a pretty verse that is -exactly what I want, than up hops a commentator, and says, this isn’t -according to text, and means something entirely different; and Barnes -says this, and Stuart believes that, and Olshausen has demonstrated the -other, and very ignorant it is in you, too, not to know it! Here the -other day I ferreted out a sentence in Revelation that seemed to prove -beyond question that angels and redeemed men were the same; where the -angel says to John, you know, ‘Am I not of thy brethren the prophets?’ I -thought that I had discovered a delightful thing which all the Fathers -of the church had overlooked, and went in great glee to your Uncle -Calvin, to be told that something was the matter,—a noun left out, or -some other unanswerable and unreasonable horror, I don’t know what; and -that it didn’t mean that he was of thy brethren the prophets at all!</p> - -<p>“You see, if it could be proved that the Christian dead become angels, -we could have all that we need, direct from God, about—to use the -beautiful old phrase—the communion of saints. From Genesis to -Revelation the Bible is filled with angels who are at work on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91"></a>{91}</span> earth. -They hold sweet converse with Abraham in his tent. They are intrusted to -save the soul of Lot. An angel hears the wail of Hagar. The beautiful -feet of an angel bring the good tidings to maiden Mary. An angel’s -noiseless step guides Peter through the barred and bolted gate. Angels -rolled the stone from the buried Christ, and angels sat there in the -solemn morning,—O Mary! if we could have seen them!</p> - -<p>“Then there is that one question, direct, comprehensive,—we should not -need anything else,—‘Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth -to minister to the heirs of salvation?’</p> - -<p>“But you see it never seems to have entered those commentators’ heads -that all these beautiful things refer to any but a superior race of -beings, like those from whose ranks Lucifer fell.”</p> - -<p>“How stupid in them!”</p> - -<p>“I take comfort in thinking so; but, to be serious, even admitting that -these passages refer to a superior race, must there not be some -similarity in the laws which govern existence in the heavenly world? -Since these gracious deeds are performed by what we are accustomed to -call ‘spiritual beings,’ why may they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92"></a>{92}</span> not as well be done by people -from this world as from anywhere else? Besides, there is another point, -and a reasonable one, to be made. The word angel in the original<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> -means, strictly, <i>a messenger</i>. It applies to any servant of God, -animate or inanimate. An east wind is as much an angel as Michael. -Again, the generic terms, ‘spirits,’ ‘gods,’ ‘sons of God,’ are used -interchangeably for saints and for angels. So, you see, I fancy that I -find a way for you and Roy and me and all of us, straight into the -shining ministry. Mary, Mary, wouldn’t you like to go this very -afternoon?”</p> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> ἄγγελος.</p></div> - -<p>She lay back in the grass, with her face up-turned to the sky, and drew -a long breath, wearily. I do not think she meant me to hear it. I did -not answer her, for it came over me with such a hopeless thrill, how -good it would be to be taken to Roy, there by his beautiful grave, with -the ivy and the May-flowers and the sunlight and the clover-leaves round -about; and that it could not be, and how long it was to wait,—it came -over me so that I could not speak.</p> - -<p>“There!” she said, suddenly rousing, “what a thoughtless, wicked thing -it was to say!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93"></a>{93}</span> And I meant to give you only the good cheer of a cheery -friend. No, I do not care to go this afternoon, nor any afternoon, till -my Father is ready for me. Wherever he has most for me to do, there I -wish,—yes, I think I <i>wish</i> to stay. He knows best.”</p> - -<p>After a pause, I asked again, “Why did He not tell us more about this -thing,—about their presence with us? You see if I could <i>know</i> it!”</p> - -<p>“The mystery of the Bible lies not so much in what it says, as in what -it does not say,” she replied. “But I suppose that we have been told all -that we can comprehend in this world. Knowledge on one point might -involve knowledge on another, like the links of a chain, till it -stretched far beyond our capacity. At any rate, it is not for me to -break the silence. That is God’s affair. I can only accept the fact. -Nevertheless, as Dr. Chalmers says: ‘It were well for us all could we -carefully draw the line between the secret things which belong to God -and the things which are revealed and belong to us and to our children.’ -Some one else,—Whately, I think,—I remember to have noticed as -speaking about these very subjects to this effect,—that precisely -because we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94"></a>{94}</span> know so little of them, it is the more important that we -‘should endeavor so to dwell on them as to make the most of what little -knowledge we have.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Aunt Winifred, you are such a comfort!”</p> - -<p>“It needs our best faith,” she said, “to bear this reticence of God. I -cannot help thinking sometimes of a thing Lauderdale said,—I am always -quoting him,—from ‘Son of the Soil,’ you remember: ‘It’s an awfu’ -marvel, beyond my reach, when a word of communication would make a’ the -difference, why it’s no permitted, if it were but to keep a heart from -breaking now and then.’ Think of poor Eugénie de Guèrin, trying to -continue her little journal ‘To Maurice in Heaven,’ till the awful, -answerless stillness shut up the book and laid aside the pen.</p> - -<p>“But then,” she continued, “there is this to remember,—I may have -borrowed the idea, or it may be my own,—that if we could speak to them, -or they to us, there would be no death, for there would be no -separation. The last, the surest, in some cases the only test of loyalty -to God, would thus be taken away. Roman Catholic nature is human nature, -when it comes upon its knees<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95"></a>{95}</span> before a saint. Many lives—all such lives -as yours and mine—would become—”</p> - -<p>“Would become what?”</p> - -<p>“One long defiance to the First Commandment.”</p> - -<p>I cannot become used to such words from such quiet lips. Yet they give -me a curious sense of the trustworthiness of her peace. “Founded upon a -rock,” it seems to be. She has done what it takes a lifetime for some of -us to do; what some of us go into eternity, leaving undone; what I am -afraid I shall never do,—sounded her own nature. She knows the worst of -herself, and faces it as fairly, I believe, as anybody can do in this -world. As for the best of herself, she trusts that to Christ, and he -knows it, and we. I hope she, in her sweet humbleness, will know it some -day.</p> - -<p>“I suppose, nevertheless,” she said, “that Roy knows what you are doing -and feeling as well as, perhaps better than, he knew it three months -ago. So he can help you without harming you.”</p> - -<p>I asked her, turning suddenly, how that could be, and yet heaven be -heaven,—how he could see me suffer what I had suffered, could see me -sometimes when I supposed none but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96"></a>{96}</span> God had seen me,—and sing on and be -happy.</p> - -<p>“You are not the first, Mary, and you will not be the last, to ask that -question. I cannot answer it, and I never heard of any who could. I feel -sure only of this,—that he would suffer far less to see you than to -know nothing about you; and that God’s power of inventing happiness is -not to be blocked by an obstacle like this. Perhaps Roy sees the end -from the beginning, and can bear the sight of pain for the peace that he -watches coming to meet you. I do not know,—that does not perplex me -now; it only makes me anxious for one thing.”</p> - -<p>“What is that?”</p> - -<p>“That you and I shall not do anything to make them sorry.”</p> - -<p>“To make them sorry?”</p> - -<p>“Roy would care. Roy would be disappointed to see you make life a -hopeless thing for his sake, or to see you doubt his Saviour.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think <i>that</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Some sort of mourning over sin enters that happy life. God himself ‘was -grieved’ forty years long over his wandering people. Among the angels -there has been ‘silence,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97"></a>{97}</span>’ whatever that mysterious pause may mean, just -as there is joy over one sinner that repenteth; another of my -proof-texts that, to show that they are allowed to keep us in sight.”</p> - -<p>“Then you think, you really think, that Roy remembers and loves and -takes care of me; that he has been listening, perhaps, and is—why, you -don’t think he may be <i>here</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do. Here, close beside you all this time, trying to speak to you -through the blessed sunshine and the flowers, trying to help you, and -sure to love you,—right here, dear. I do not believe God means to send -him away from you, either.”</p> - -<p>My heart was too full to answer her. Seeing how it was, she slipped -away, and, strolling out of sight with her face to the eastern hills, -left me alone.</p> - -<p>And yet I did not seem alone. The low branches swept with a little soft -sigh across the grave; the May-flowers wrapped me in with fragrance -thick as incense; the tiny sparrow turned her soft eyes at me over the -edge of the nest, and chirped contentedly; the “blessed sunshine” talked -with me as it touched the edges of the ivy-leaves to fire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98"></a>{98}</span></p> - -<p>I cannot write it even here, how these things stole into my heart and -hushed me. If I had seen him standing by the stainless cross, it would -not have frightened or surprised me. There—not dead or gone, but -<i>there</i>—it helps me, and makes me strong!</p> - -<p>“Mamie! little Mamie!”</p> - -<p>O Roy, I will try to bear it all, if you will only stay!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99"></a>{99}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -May 20.<br /> -</p> - -<p>The nearer the time has come for Aunt Winifred to go, the more it has -seemed impossible to part with her. I have run away from the thought -like a craven, till she made me face it this morning, by saying -decidedly that she should go on the first of the week.</p> - -<p>I dropped my sewing; the work-basket tipped over, and all my spools -rolled away under the chairs. I had a little time to think while I was -picking them up.</p> - -<p>“There is the rest of my visit at Norwich to be made, you know,” she -said, “and while I am there I shall form some definite plans for the -summer; I have hardly decided what, yet. I had better leave here by the -seven o’clock train, if such an early start will not incommode you.”</p> - -<p>I wound up the last spool, and turned away to the window. There was a -confused, dreary sky of scurrying clouds, and a cold wind was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span> bruising -the apple-buds. I hate a cold wind in May. It made me choke a little, -thinking how I should sit and listen to it after she was gone,—of the -old, blank, comfortless days that must come and go,—of what she had -brought, and what she would take away. I was a bit faint, I think, for a -minute. I had not really thought the prospect through, before.</p> - -<p>“Mary,” she said, “what’s the matter? Come here.”</p> - -<p>I went over, and she drew me into her lap, and I put my arms about her -neck.</p> - -<p>“I can <i>not</i> bear it,” said I, “and that is the matter.”</p> - -<p>She smiled, but her smile faded when she looked at me.</p> - -<p>And then I told her, sobbing, how it was; that I could not go into my -future alone,—I could not do it! that she did not know how weak I -was,—and reckless,—and wicked; that she did not know what she had been -to me. I begged her not to leave me. I begged her to stay and help me -bear my life.</p> - -<p>“My dear! you are as bad as Faith when I put her to bed alone.”</p> - -<p>“But,” I said, “when Faith cries, you go to her, you know.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span>”</p> - -<p>“Are you quite in earnest, Mary?” she asked, after a pause. “You don’t -know very much about me, after all, and there is the child. It is always -an experiment, bringing two families into lifelong relations under one -roof. If I could think it best, you might repent your bargain.”</p> - -<p>“<i>I</i> am not ‘a family,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> I said, feebly trying to laugh. “Aunt Winifred, -if you and Faith only <i>will</i> make this your home, I can never thank you, -never. I shall be entertaining my good angels, and that is the whole of -it.”</p> - -<p>“I have had some thought of not going back,” she said at last, in a low, -constrained voice, as if she were touching something that gave her great -pain, “for Faith’s sake. I should like to educate her in New England, -if—I had intended if we stayed to rent or buy a little home of our own -somewhere, but I had been putting off a decision. We are most weak and -most selfish sometimes when we think ourselves strongest and noblest, -Mary. I love my husband’s people. I think they love me. I was almost -happy with them. It seemed as if I were carrying on his work for him. -That was so pleasant!”</p> - -<p>She put me down out of her arms and walked across the room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span></p> - -<p>“I will think the matter over,” she said, by and by, in her natural -tones, “and let you know to-night.”</p> - -<p>She went away up stairs then, and I did not see her again until -to-night. I sent Faith up with her dinner and tea, judging that she -would rather see the child than me. I observed, when the dishes came -down, that she had touched nothing but a cup of coffee.</p> - -<p>I began to understand, as I sat alone in the parlor through the -afternoon, how much I had asked of her. In my selfish distress at losing -her, I had not thought of that. Faces that her husband loved, meadows -and hills and sunsets that he has watched, the home where his last step -sounded and his last word was spoken, the grave where she has laid -him,—this last more than all,—call after her, and cling to her with -yearning closeness. To leave them, is to leave the last faint shadow of -her beautiful past. It hurts, but she is too brave to cry out.</p> - -<p>Tea was over, and Faith in bed, but still she did not come down. I was -sitting by the window, watching a little crescent moon climb over the -hills, and wondering whether I had better go up, when she came in and -stood behind me, and said, attempting to laugh:—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span></p> - -<p>“Very impolite in me to run off so, wasn’t it? Cowardly, too, I think. -Well, Mary?”</p> - -<p>“Well, Auntie?”</p> - -<p>“Have you not repented your proposition yet?”</p> - -<p>“You would excel as an inquisitor, Mrs. Forceythe!”</p> - -<p>“Then it shall be as you say; as long as you want us you shall have -us,—Faith and me.”</p> - -<p>I turned to thank her, but could not when I saw her face. It was very -pale; there was something inexpressibly sad about her mouth, and her -eyelids drooped heavily, like one weary from a great struggle.</p> - -<p>Feeling for the moment guilty and ashamed before her, as if I had done -her wrong, “It is going to be very hard for you,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Never mind about that,” she answered, quickly. “We will not talk about -that. I knew, though I did not <i>wish</i> to know, that it was best for -Faith. Your hands about my neck have settled it. Where the work is, -there the laborer must be. It is quite plain now. I have been talking it -over with them all the afternoon; it seems to be what they want.”</p> - -<p>“With <i>them</i>”? I started at the words; who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span> had been in her lonely -chamber? Ah, it is simply real to her. Who, indeed, but her Saviour and -her husband?</p> - -<p>She did not seem inclined to talk, and stole away from me presently, and -out of doors; she was wrapped in her blanket shawl, and had thrown a -shimmering white hood over her gray hair. I wondered where she could be -going, and sat still at the window watching her. She opened and shut the -gate softly; and, turning her face towards the churchyard, walked up the -street and out of my sight.</p> - -<p>She feels nearer to him in the resting-place of the dead. Her heart -cries after the grave by which she will never sit and weep again; on -which she will never plant the roses any more.</p> - -<p>As I sat watching and thinking this, the faint light struck her slight -figure and little shimmering hood again, and she walked down the street -and in with steady step.</p> - -<p>When she came up and stood beside me, smiling, with the light knitted -thing thrown back on her shoulders, her face seemed to rise from it as -from a snowy cloud; and for her look,—I wish Raphael could have had it -for one of his rapt Madonnas.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span></p> - -<p>“Now, Mary,” she said, with the sparkle back again in her voice, “I am -ready to be entertaining, and promise not to play the hermit again very -soon. Shall I sit here on the sofa with you? Yes, my dear, I am happy, -quite happy.”</p> - -<p>So then we took this new promise of home that has come to make my life, -if not joyful, something less than desolate, and analyzed it in its -practical bearings. What a pity that all pretty dreams have to be -analyzed! I had some notion about throwing our little incomes into a -joint family fund, but she put a veto to that; I suppose because mine is -the larger. She prefers to take board for herself and Faith; but, if I -know myself, she shall never be suffered to have the feeling of a -boarder, and I will make her so much at home in my house that she shall -not remember that it is not her own.</p> - -<p>Her visit to Norwich she has decided to put off until the autumn, so -that I shall have her to myself undisturbed all summer.</p> - -<p>I have been looking at Roy’s picture a long time, and wondering how he -would like the new plan. I said something of the sort to her.</p> - -<p>“Why put any ‘would’ in that sentence?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span>” she said, smiling. “It belongs -in the present tense.”</p> - -<p>“Then I am sure he likes it,” I answered,—“he likes it,” and I said the -words over till I was ready to cry for rest in their sweet sound.</p> - -<p class="r"> -22d.<br /> -</p> - -<p>It is Roy’s birthday. But I have not spoken of it. We used to make a -great deal of these little festivals,—but it is of no use to write -about that.</p> - -<p>I am afraid I have been bearing it very badly all day. She noticed my -face, but said nothing till to-night. Mrs. Bland was down stairs, and I -had come away alone up here in the dark. I heard her asking for me, but -would not go down. By and by Aunt Winifred knocked, and I let her in.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Bland cannot understand why you don’t see her, Mary,” she said, -gently. “You know you have not thanked her for those English violets -that she sent the other day. I only thought I would remind you; she -might feel a little pained.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t to-night,—not to-night, Aunt Winifred. You must excuse me to -her somehow. I don’t want to go down.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a>{107}</span>”</p> - -<p>“Is it that you don’t ‘want to,’ or <i>is</i> it that you can’t?” she said, -in that gentle, motherly way of hers, at which I can never take offence. -“Mary, I wonder if Roy would not a little rather that you would go -down?”</p> - -<p>It might have been Roy himself who spoke.</p> - -<p>I went down.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a>{108}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -June 1.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred went to the office this morning, and met Dr. Bland, who -walked home with her. He always likes to talk with her.</p> - -<p>A woman who knows something about fate, free-will, and foreknowledge -absolute, who is not ignorant of politics, and talks intelligently of -Agassiz’s latest fossil, who can understand a German quotation, and has -heard of Strauss and Neander, who can dash her sprightliness ably -against his old dry bones of metaphysics and theology, yet never speak -an accent above that essentially womanly voice of hers, is, I imagine, a -phenomenon in his social experience.</p> - -<p>I was sitting at the window when they came up and stopped at the gate. -Dr. Bland lifted his hat to me in his grave way, talking the while; -somewhat eagerly, too, I could see. Aunt Winifred answered him with a -peculiar smile and a few low words that I could not hear.</p> - -<p>“But, my dear madam,” he said, “the glory<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>{109}</span> of God, you see, the glory of -God is the primary consideration.”</p> - -<p>“But the glory of God <i>involves</i> these lesser glories, as a sidereal -system, though a splendid whole, exists by the multiplied differing of -one star from another star. Ah, Dr. Bland, you make a grand abstraction -out of it, but it makes me cold,”—she shivered, half playfully, half -involuntarily,—“it makes me cold. I am very much alive and human; and -Christ was human God.”</p> - -<p>She came in smiling a little sadly, and stood by me, watching the -minister walk over the hill.</p> - -<p>“How much does that man love his wife and children?” she asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>“A good deal. Why?”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid that he will lose one of them then, before many more years -of his life are past.”</p> - -<p>“What! he hasn’t been telling you that they are consumptive or anything -of the sort?”</p> - -<p>“O dear me, no,” with a merry laugh which died quickly away: “I was only -thinking,—there is trouble in store for him; some intense pain,—if he -is capable of intense pain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>{110}</span>—which shall shake his cold, smooth -theorizing to the foundation. He speaks a foreign tongue when he talks -of bereavement, of death, of the future life. No argument could convince -him of that, though, which is the worst of it.”</p> - -<p>“He must think you shockingly heterodox.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t doubt it. We had a little talk this morning, and he regarded me -with an expression of mingled consternation and perplexity that was -curious. He is a very good man. He is not a stupid man. I only wish that -he would stop preaching and teaching things that he knows nothing about.</p> - -<p>“He is only drifting with the tide, though,” she added, “in his views of -this matter. In our recoil from the materialism of the Romish Church, we -have, it seems to me, nearly stranded ourselves on the opposite shore. -Just as, in a rebound from the spirit which would put our Saviour on a -level with Buddha or Mahomet, we have been in danger of forgetting ‘to -begin as the Bible begins,’ with his humanity. It is the grandeur of -inspiration, that it knows how to <i>balance</i> truth.”</p> - -<p>It had been in my mind for several days to ask Aunt Winifred something, -and, feeling in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>{111}</span> the mood, I made her take off her things and devote -herself to me. My question concerned what we call the “intermediate -state.”</p> - -<p>“I have been expecting that,” she said; “what about it?”</p> - -<p>“What <i>is</i> it?”</p> - -<p>“Life and activity.”</p> - -<p>“We do not go to sleep, of course.”</p> - -<p>“I believe that notion is about exploded, though clear thinkers like -Whately have appeared to advocate it. Where it originated, I do not -know, unless from the frequent comparisons in the Scriptures of death -with sleep, which refer solely, I am convinced, to the condition of -body, and which are voted down by an overwhelming majority of decided -statements relative to the consciousness, happiness, and tangibility of -the life into which we immediately pass.”</p> - -<p>“It is intermediate, in some sense, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“It waits between two other conditions,—yes; I think the drift of what -we are taught about it leads to that conclusion. I expect to become at -once sinless, but to have a broader Christian character many years -hence; to be happy at once, but to be happier by and by;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a>{112}</span> to find in -myself wonderful new tastes and capacities, which are to be immeasurably -ennobled and enlarged after the Resurrection, whatever that may mean.”</p> - -<p>“What does it mean?”</p> - -<p>“I know no more than you, but you shall hear what I think, presently. I -was going to say that this seems to be plain enough in the Bible. The -angels took Lazarus at once to Abraham. Dives seems to have found no -interval between death and consciousness of suffering.”</p> - -<p>“They always tell you that that is only a parable.”</p> - -<p>“But it must mean <i>something</i>. No story in the Bible has been pulled to -pieces and twisted about as that has been. We are in danger of pulling -and twisting all sense out of it. Then Judas, having hanged his wretched -self, went to his own place. Besides, there was Christ’s promise to the -thief.”</p> - -<p>I told her that I had heard Dr. Bland say that we could not place much -dependence on that passage, because “Paradise” did not necessarily mean -heaven.</p> - -<p>“But it meant living, thinking, enjoying; for ‘To-day thou shalt <i>be -with me</i>.’ Paul’s beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>{113}</span> perplexed revery, however, would be enough -if it stood alone; for he did not know whether he would rather stay in -this world, or depart and be with Christ, which is far better. <i>With -Christ</i>, you see; and His three mysterious days, which typify our -intermediate state, were over then, and he had ascended to his Father. -Would it be ‘far better’ either to leave this actual tangible life -throbbing with hopes and passions, to leave its busy, Christ-like -working, its quiet joys, its very sorrows which are near and human, for -a nap of several ages, or even for a vague, lazy, half-alive, -disembodied existence?”</p> - -<p>“Disembodied? I supposed, of course, that it was disembodied.”</p> - -<p>“I do not think so. And that brings us to the Resurrection. All the -<i>tendency</i> of Revelation is to show that an embodied state is superior -to a disembodied one. Yet certainly we who love God are promised that -death will lead us into a condition which shall have the advantage of -this: for the good apostle to die ‘was gain.’ I don’t believe, for -instance, that Adam and Eve have been wandering about in a misty -condition all these thousands of years. I suspect that we have some sort -of body<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>{114}</span> immediately after passing out of this, but that there is to -come a mysterious change, equivalent, perhaps, to a re-embodiment, when -our capacities for action will be greatly improved, and that in some -manner this new form will be connected with this ‘garment by the soul -laid by.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Deacon Quirk expects to rise in his own entire, original body, after it -has lain in the First Church cemetery a proper number of years, under a -black slate headstone, adorned by a willow, and such a ‘cherubim’ as -that poor boy shot,—by the way, if I’ve laughed at that story once, I -have fifty times.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps Deacon Quirk would admire a work of art that I found stowed -away on the top of your Uncle Calvin’s bookcases. It was an old -woodcut—nobody knows how old—of an interesting skeleton rising from -his grave, and, in a sprightly and modest manner, drawing on his skin, -while Gabriel, with apoplectic cheeks, feet uppermost in the air, was -blowing a good-sized tin trumpet in his ear!</p> - -<p>“No; some of the popular notions of resurrection are simple -physiological impossibilities, from causes ‘too tedious to specify.’ -Imagine, for instance, the resurrection of two Hottentots, one of whom -has happened to make a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>{115}</span> dinner of the other some fine day. A little -complication there! Or picture the touching scene, when that devoted -husband, King Mausolas, whose widow had him burned and ate the ashes, -should feel moved to institute a search for his body! It is no wonder -that the infidel argument has the best of it, when we attempt to enforce -a natural impossibility. It is worth while to remember that Paul -expressly stated that we shall <i>not</i> rise in our entire earthly bodies. -The simile which he used is the seed sown, dying in, and mingling with, -the ground. How many of its original particles are found in the -full-grown corn?”</p> - -<p>“Yet you believe that <i>something</i> belonging to this body is preserved -for the completion of another?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. I accept God’s statement about it, which is as plain as -words can make a statement. I do not know, and I do not care to know, -how it is to be effected. God will not be at a loss for a way, any more -than he is at a loss for a way to make his fields blossom every spring. -For aught we know, some invisible compound of an annihilated body may -hover, by a divine decree, around the site of death till it is -wanted,—sufficient to preserve identity<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a>{116}</span> as strictly as a body can ever -be said to preserve it; and stranger things have happened. You remember -the old Mohammedan belief in the one little bone which is imperishable. -Prof. Bush’s idea of our triune existence is suggestive, for a notion. -He believed, you know, that it takes a material body, a spiritual body, -and a soul, to make a man. The spiritual body is enclosed within the -material, the soul within the spiritual. Death is simply the slipping -off of the outer body, as a husk slips off from its kernel. The -deathless frame stands ready then for the soul’s untrammelled -occupation. But it is a waste of time to speculate over such useless -fancies, while so many remain that will vitally affect our happiness.”</p> - -<p>It is singular; but I never gave a serious thought—and I have done some -thinking about other matters—to my heavenly body, till that moment, -while I sat listening to her. In fact, till Roy went, the Future was a -miserable, mysterious blank, to be drawn on and on in eternal and -joyless monotony, and to which, at times, annihilation seemed -preferable. I remember, when I was a child, asking father once, if I -were so good that I <i>had</i> to go to heaven, whether, after a hundred -years, God<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>{117}</span> would not let me “die out.” More or less of the disposition -of that same desperate little sinner I suspect has always clung to me. -So I asked Aunt Winifred, in some perplexity, what she supposed our -bodies would be like.</p> - -<p>“It must be nearly all ‘suppose,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> she said, “for we are nowhere -definitely told. But this is certain. They will be as real as these.”</p> - -<p>“But these you can see, you can touch.”</p> - -<p>“What would be the use of having a body that you can’t see and touch? A -body is a <i>body</i>, not a spirit. Why should you not, having seen Roy’s -old smile and heard his own voice, clasp his hand again, and feel his -kiss on your happy lips?</p> - -<p>“It is really amusing,” she continued, “to sum up the notions that good -people—excellent people—even thinking people—have of the heavenly -body. Vague visions of floating about in the clouds, of balancing—with -a white robe on, perhaps—in stiff rows about a throne, like the angels -in the old pictures, converging to an apex, or ranged in semi-circles -like so many marbles. Murillo has one charming exception. I always take -a secret delight in that little cherub of his, kicking the clouds, in -the right-hand upper corner of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>{118}</span> the Immaculate Conception; he seems to -be having a good time of it, in genuine baby-fashion. The truth is, that -the ordinary idea, if sifted accurately, reduces our eternal personality -to—<i>gas</i>.</p> - -<p>“Isaac Taylor holds, that, as far as the abstract idea of spirit is -concerned, it may just as reasonably be granite as ether.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Charles says a pretty thing about this. She thinks these -‘super-spiritualized angels’ very ‘unsatisfactory’ beings, and that ‘the -heart returns with loving obstinacy to the young men in long white -garments’ who sat waiting in the sepulchre.</p> - -<p>“Here again I cling to my conjecture about the word ‘angel’; for then we -should learn emphatically something about our future selves.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>As the angels in heaven,’ or ‘equal unto the angels,’ we are told in -another place,—that may mean simply what it says. At least, if we are -to resemble them in the particular respect of which the words were -spoken,—and that one of the most important which could well be -selected,—it is not unreasonable to infer that we shall resemble them -in others. ‘In the Resurrection,’ by the way, means, in that connection -and in many others, simply<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>{119}</span> future state of existence, without any -reference to the time at which the great bodily change is to come.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>But this is a digression,’ as the novelists say. I was going to say, -that it bewilders me to conjecture where students of the Bible have -discovered the usual foggy nonsense about the corporeity of heaven.</p> - -<p>“If there is anything laid down in plain statement, devoid of metaphor -or parable, simple and unequivocal, it is the definite contradiction of -all that. Paul, in his preface to that sublime apostrophe to death, -repeats and reiterates it, lest we should make a mistake in his meaning.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>There are celestial <i>bodies</i>.’ ‘It is raised a spiritual <i>body</i>.’ -‘There is a spiritual <i>body</i>.’ ‘It <i>is</i> raised in incorruption.’ ‘It -<i>is</i> raised in glory.’ ‘It <i>is</i> raised in power.’ Moses, too, when he -came to the transfigured mount in glory, had as real a <i>body</i> as when he -went into the lonely mount to die.”</p> - -<p>“But they will be different from these?”</p> - -<p>“The glory of the terrestrial is one, the glory of the celestial -another. Take away sin and sickness and misery, and that of itself would -make difference enough.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>{120}</span>”</p> - -<p>“You do not suppose that we shall look as we look now?”</p> - -<p>“I certainly do. At least, I think it more than possible that the ‘human -form divine,’ or something like it, is to be retained. Not only from the -fact that risen Elijah bore it; and Moses, who, if he had not passed -through his resurrection, does not seem to have looked different from -the other,—I have to use those two poor prophets on all occasions, but, -as we are told of them neither by parable nor picture, they are -important,—and that angels never appeared in any other, but because, in -sinless Eden, God chose it for Adam and Eve. What came in unmarred -beauty direct from His hand cannot be unworthy of His other Paradise -‘beyond the stars.’ It would chime in pleasantly, too, with the idea of -Redemption, that our very bodies, free from all the distortion of guilt, -shall return to something akin to the pure ideal in which He moulded -them. Then there is another reason, and stronger.”</p> - -<p>“What is that?”</p> - -<p>“The human form has been borne and dignified forever by Christ. And, -further than that, He ascended to His Father in it, and lives there in -it as human God to-day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a>{121}</span>”</p> - -<p>I had never thought of that, and said so.</p> - -<p>“Yes, with the very feet which trod the dusty road to Emmaus; the very -wounded hands which Thomas touched, believing; the very lips which ate -of the broiled fish and honeycomb; the very voice which murmured ‘Mary!’ -in the garden, and which told her that He ascended unto His Father and -her Father, to His God and her God, He ‘was parted from them,’ and was -‘received up into heaven.’ His death and resurrection stand forever the -great prototype of ours. Otherwise, what is the meaning of such -statements as these: ‘When He shall appear, we shall be <i>like Him</i>’; -‘The first man (Adam) is of the earth; the second man is the Lord. As we -have borne the image of the earthy, <i>we shall also bear the image of the -heavenly</i>’? And what of this, when we are told that our ‘vile bodies,’ -being changed, shall be fashioned ‘<i>like unto His glorious body</i>’?”</p> - -<p>I asked her if she inferred from that, that we should have just such -bodies as the freedom from pain and sin would make of these.</p> - -<p>“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,” she said. “There is no -escaping that, even if I had the smallest desire to escape<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>{122}</span> it, which I -have not. Whatever is essentially earthly and temporary in the -arrangements of this world will be out of place and unnecessary there. -Earthly and temporary, flesh and blood certainly are.”</p> - -<p>“Christ said, ‘A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“A <i>spirit</i> hath not; and who ever said that it did? His body had -something that appeared like them, certainly. That passage, by the way, -has led some ingenious writer on the Chemistry of Heaven to infer that -our bodies there will be like these, minus <i>blood</i>! I don’t propose to -spend my time over such investigations. Summing up the meaning of the -story of those last days before the Ascension, and granting the shade of -mystery which hangs over them, I gather this,—that the spiritual body -is real, is tangible, is visible, is human, but that ‘we shall be -changed.’ Some indefinable but thorough change had come over Him. He -could withdraw Himself from the recognition of Mary, and from the -disciples, whose ‘eyes were holden,’ as it pleased Him. He came and went -through barred and bolted doors. He appeared suddenly in a certain -place, without sound of footstep or flutter<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>{123}</span> of garment to announce His -approach. He vanished, and was not, like a cloud. New and wonderful -powers had been given to Him, of which, probably, His little bewildered -group of friends saw but a few illustrations.”</p> - -<p>“And He was yet <i>man</i>?”</p> - -<p>“He was Jesus of Nazareth until the sorrowful drama of human life that -He had taken upon Himself was thoroughly finished, from manger to -sepulchre, and from sepulchre to the right hand of His Father.”</p> - -<p>“I like to wonder,” she said, presently, “what we are going to look like -and be like. <i>Ourselves</i>, in the first place. ‘It is I Myself,’ Christ -said. Then to be perfectly well, never a sense of pain or -weakness,—imagine how much solid comfort, if one had no other, in being -forever rid of all the ills that flesh is heir to! Beautiful, too, I -suppose we shall be, every one. Have you never had that come over you, -with a thrill of compassionate thankfulness, when you have seen a poor -girl shrinking, as only girls can shrink, under the life-long affliction -of a marred face or form? The loss or presence of beauty is not as -slight a deprivation or blessing as the moralists would make it out. -Your grandmother, who was the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>{124}</span> beautiful woman I ever saw, the -belle of the county all her young days, and the model for artists’ fancy -sketching even in her old ones, as modest as a violet and as honest as -the sunshine, used to have the prettiest little way when we girls were -in our teens, and she thought that we must be lectured a bit on youthful -vanity, of adding, in her quiet voice, smoothing down her black silk -apron as she spoke, ‘But still it is a thing to be thankful for, my -dear, to have a <i>comely countenance</i>.’</p> - -<p>“But to return to the track and our future bodies. We shall find them -vastly convenient, undoubtedly, with powers of which there is no -dreaming. Perhaps they will be so one with the soul that to will will be -to do,—hindrance out of the question. I, for instance, sitting here by -you, and thinking that I should like to be in Kansas, would be there. -There is an interesting bit of a hint in Daniel about Gabriel, who, -‘being caused to fly swiftly, touched him about the time of the evening -oblation.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“But do you not make a very material kind of heaven out of such -suppositions?”</p> - -<p>“It depends upon what you mean by ‘material.’ The term does not, to my -thinking, imply<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a>{125}</span> degradation, except so far as it is associated with -sin. Dr. Chalmers has the right of it, when he talks about ‘<i>spiritual -materialism</i>.’ He says in his sermon on the New Heavens and -Earth,—which, by the way, you should read, and from which I wish a few -more of our preachers would learn something,—that we ‘forget that on -the birth of materialism, when it stood out in the freshness of those -glories which the great Architect of Nature had impressed upon it, that -then the “morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted -for joy.”<span class="lftspc">’</span> I do not believe in a <i>gross</i> heaven, but I believe in a -<i>reasonable</i> one.”</p> - -<p class="r"> -4th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>We have been devoting ourselves to feminine vanities all day out in the -orchard. Aunt Winifred has been making her summer bonnet, and I some -linen collars. I saw, though she said nothing, that she thought the -<i>crêpe</i> a little gloomy, and I am going to wear these in the mornings to -please her.</p> - -<p>She has an accumulation of work on hand, and in the afternoon I offered -to tuck a little dress for Faith,—the prettiest pink <i>barège</i> affair -pale as a blush rose, and about as delicate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>{126}</span> Faith, who had been making -mud-pies in the swamp, and was spattered with black peat from curls to -stockings, looked on approvingly, and wanted it to wear on a flag-root -expedition to-morrow. It seemed to do me good to do something for -somebody after all this lonely and—I suspect—selfish idleness.</p> - -<p class="r"> -6th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I read a little of Dr. Chalmers to-day, and went laughing to Aunt -Winifred with the first sentence.</p> - -<p>“There is a limit to the revelations of the Bible about futurity, and it -were a mental or spiritual trespass to go beyond it.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! but,” she said, “look a little farther down.”</p> - -<p>And I read, “But while we attempt not to be ‘wise above that which is -written,’ we should attempt, and that most studiously, to be wise <i>up</i> -to that which is written.”</p> - -<p class="r"> -8th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>It occurred to me to-day, that it was a noticeable fact, that, among all -the visits of angels to this world of which we are told, no one seems to -have discovered in any the presence of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>{127}</span> dead friend. If redeemed men -are subject to the same laws as they, why did such a thing never happen? -I asked Aunt Winifred, and she said that the question reminded her of -St. Augustine’s lonely cry thirty years after the death of Monica: “Ah, -the dead do not come back; for, had it been possible, there has not been -a night when I should not have seen my mother!” There seemed to be two -reasons, she said, why there should be no exceptions to the law of -silence imposed between us and those who have left us; one of which was, -that we should be overpowered with familiar curiosity about them, which -nobody seems to have dared to express in the presence of angels, and the -secrets of their life God has decreed that it is unlawful to utter.</p> - -<p>“But Lazarus, and Jairus’s little daughter, and the dead raised at the -Crucifixion,—what of them?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“I cannot help conjecturing that they were suffered to forget their -glimpse of spiritual life,” she said. “Since their resurrection was a -miracle, there might be a miracle throughout. At least, their lips must -have been sealed, for not a word of their testimony has been saved. When -Lazarus dined with Simon, after he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>{128}</span> had come back to life,—and of that -feast we have a minute account in, I believe, every Gospel,—nobody -seems to have asked, or he to have answered, any questions about it.</p> - -<p>“The other reason is a sorrowfully sufficient one. It is that <i>every</i> -lost darling has not gone to heaven. Of all the mercies that our Father -has given, this blessed uncertainty, this long unbroken silence, may be -the dearest. Bitterly hard for you and me, but what are thousands like -you and me weighed against one who stands beside a hopeless grave? Think -a minute what mourners there have been, and <i>whom</i> they have mourned! -Ponder one such solitary instance as that of Vittoria Colonna, -wondering, through her widowed years, if she could ever be ‘good enough’ -to join wicked Pescara in another world! This poor earth holds—God only -knows how many, God make them very few!—Vittorias. Ah, Mary, what right -have we to complain?”</p> - -<p class="r"> -9th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>To-night Aunt Winifred had callers,—Mrs. Quirk and (O Homer -aristocracy!) the butcher’s wife,—and it fell to my lot to put Faith to -bed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>{129}</span></p> - -<p>The little maiden seriously demurred. Cousin Mary was very good,—O yes, -she was good enough,—but her mamma was a great deal gooder; and why -couldn’t little peoples sit up till nine o’clock as well as big peoples, -she should like to know!</p> - -<p>Finally, she came to the gracious conclusion that perhaps I’d <i>do</i>, made -me carry her all the way up stairs, and dropped, like a little lump of -lead, half asleep, on my shoulder, before two buttons were unfastened.</p> - -<p>Feeling under some sort of theological obligation to hear her say her -prayers, I pulled her curls a little till she awoke, and went through -with “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pway ve Lord,” triumphantly. I -supposed that was the end, but it seems that she has been also taught -the Lord’s Prayer, which she gave me promptly to understand.</p> - -<p>“O, see here! That isn’t all. I can say Our Father, and you’ve got to -help me a lot!”</p> - -<p>This very soon became a self-evident proposition; but by our united -efforts we managed, after tribulations manifold, to arrive successfully -at “For ever ’n’ ever ’n’ ever ’n’ <i>A</i>-men.”</p> - -<p>“Dear me,” she said, jumping up with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>{130}</span> yawn, “I think that’s a -<i>dreadful long-tailed prayer</i>,—don’t you, Cousin Mary?”</p> - -<p>“Now I must kiss mamma good night,” she announced, when she was tucked -up at last.</p> - -<p>“But mamma kissed you good night before you came up.”</p> - -<p>“O, so she did. Yes, I ’member. Well, it’s papa I’ve got to kiss. I knew -there was somebody.”</p> - -<p>I looked at her in perplexity.</p> - -<p>“Why, there!” she said, “in the upper drawer,—my pretty little papa in -a purple frame. Don’t you know?”</p> - -<p>I went to the bureau-drawer, and found in a case of velvet a small ivory -painting of her father. This I brought, wondering, and the child took it -reverently and kissed the pictured lips.</p> - -<p>“Faith,” I said, as I laid it softly back, “do you always do this?”</p> - -<p>“Do what? Kiss papa good night? O yes, I’ve done that ever since I was a -little girl, you know. I guess I’ve always kissed him pretty much. When -I’m a naughty girl he feels <i>real</i> sorry. He’s gone to heaven. I like -him. O yes, and then, when I’m through kissing, mamma kisses him too.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a>{131}</span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -June 11.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I was in her room this afternoon while she was dressing. I like to watch -her brush her beautiful gray hair; it quite alters her face to have it -down; it seems to shrine her in like a cloud, and the outlines of her -cheeks round out, and she grows young.</p> - -<p>“I used to be proud of my hair when I was a girl,” she said with a -slight blush, as she saw me looking at her; “it was all I had to be vain -of, and I made the most of it. Ah well! I was dark-haired three years -ago.</p> - -<p>“O you regular old woman!” she added, smiling at herself in the mirror, -as she twisted the silver coils flashing through her fingers. “Well, -when I am in heaven, I shall have my pretty brown hair again.”</p> - -<p>It seemed odd enough to hear that; then the next minute it did not seem -odd at all, but the most natural thing in the world.</p> - -<p class="r"> -June 14.<br /> -</p> - -<p>She said nothing to me about the anniversary, and, though it has been in -my thoughts<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a>{132}</span> all the time, I said nothing to her. I thought that she -would shut herself up for the day, and was rather surprised that she was -about as usual, busily at work, chatting with me, and playing with -Faith. Just after tea, she went away alone for a time, and came back a -little quiet, but that was all. I was for some reason impressed with the -feeling that she kept the day in memory, not so much as the day of her -mourning, as of his release.</p> - -<p>Longing to do something for her, yet not knowing what to do, I went into -the garden while she was away, and, finding some carnations, that shone -like stars in the dying light, I gathered them all, and took them to her -room, and, filling my tiny porphyry vase, left them on the bracket, -under the photograph of Uncle Forceythe that hangs by the window.</p> - -<p>When she found them, she called me, and kissed me.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, dear,” she said, “and thank God too, Mary, for me. That he -should have been happy,—happy and out of pain, for three long beautiful -years! O, think of that!”</p> - -<p>When I was in her room with the flowers, I passed the table on which her -little Bible lay open. A mark of rich ribbon—a black ribbon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a>{133}</span>—fell -across the pages; it bore in silver text these words:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<i>Thou shalt have no other gods before me.</i>”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="r"> -20th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>“I thank thee, my God, the river of Lethe may indeed flow through the -Elysian Fields,—it does not water the Christian’s Paradise.”</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred was saying that over to herself in a dreamy undertone this -morning, and I happened to hear her.</p> - -<p>“Just a quotation, dear,” she said, smiling, in answer to my look of -inquiry, “I couldn’t originate so pretty a thing. <i>Isn’t</i> it pretty?”</p> - -<p>“Very; but I am not sure that I understand it.”</p> - -<p>“You thought that forgetfulness would be necessary to happiness?”</p> - -<p>“Why,—yes; as far as I had ever thought about it; that is, after our -last ties with this world are broken. It does not seem to me that I -could be happy to remember all that I have suffered and all that I have -sinned here.”</p> - -<p>“But the last of all the sins will be as if it had never been. Christ -takes care of that. No shadow of a sense of guilt can dog you, or affect -your relations to Him or your other<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a>{134}</span> friends. The last pain borne, the -last tear, the last sigh, the last lonely hour, the last unsatisfied -dream, forever gone by; why should not the dead past bury its dead?”</p> - -<p>“Then why remember it?”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Save but to swell the sense of being blest.’ Besides, forgetfulness of -the disagreeable things of this life implies forgetfulness of the -pleasant ones. They are all tangled together.”</p> - -<p>“To be sure. I don’t know that I should like that.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you wouldn’t. Imagine yourself in a state of being where you -and Roy had lost your past; all that you had borne and enjoyed, and -hoped and feared, together; the pretty little memories of your babyhood, -and first ‘half-days’ at school, when he used to trudge along beside -you,—little fellow! how many times I have watched him!—holding you -tight by the apron-sleeve or hat-string, or bits of fat fingers, lest -you should run away or fall. Then the old Academy pranks, out of which -you used to help each other; his little chivalry and elder-brotherly -advice; the mischief in his eyes; some of the ‘Sunday-night talks’; the -first novel that you read and dreamed over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>{135}</span> together; the college -stories; the chats over the corn-popper by firelight; the earliest, -earnest looking-on into life together, its temptations conquered, its -lessons learned, its disappointments faced together,—always you -two,—would you like to, are you <i>likely</i> to, forget all this?</p> - -<p>“Roy might as well be not Roy, but a strange angel, if you should. -Heaven will be not less heaven, but more, for this pleasant remembering. -So many other and greater and happier memories will fill up the time -then, that after years these things may—probably will—seem smaller -than it seems to us now they can ever be; but they will, I think, be -always dear; just as we look back to our baby-selves with a pitying sort -of fondness, and, though the little creatures are of small enough use to -us now, yet we like to keep good friends with them for old times’ sake.</p> - -<p>“I have no doubt that you and I shall sit down some summer afternoon in -heaven and talk over what we have been saying to-day, and laugh perhaps -at all the poor little dreams we have been dreaming of what has not -entered into the heart of man. You see it is certain to be so much -<i>better</i> than anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>{136}</span> that I can think of; which is the comfort of it. -And Roy—”</p> - -<p>“Yes; some more about Roy, please.”</p> - -<p>“Supposing he were to come right into the room now,—and I slipped -out,—and you had him all to yourself again—Now, dear, don’t cry, but -wait a minute!” Her caressing hand fell on my hair. “I did not mean to -hurt you, but to say that your first talk with him, after you stand face -to face, may be like that.</p> - -<p>“Remembering this life is going to help us amazingly, I fancy, to -appreciate the next,” she added, by way of period. “Christ seems to have -thought so, when he called to the minds of those happy people what, in -that unconscious ministering of lowly faith which may never reap its -sheaf in the field where the seed was sown, they had not had the comfort -of finding out before,—‘I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me.’ -And to come again to Abraham in the parable, did he not say, ‘Son, -<i>remember</i> that thou in thy lifetime hadst good things and Lazarus -evil’?”</p> - -<p>“I wonder what it is going to look like,” I said, as soon as I could put -poor Dives out of my mind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a>{137}</span></p> - -<p>“Heaven? Eye hath not seen, but I have my fancies. I think I want some -mountains, and very many trees.”</p> - -<p>“Mountains and trees!”</p> - -<p>“Yes; mountains as we see them at sunset and sunrise, or when the maples -are on fire and there are clouds enough to make great purple shadows -chase each other into lakes of light, over the tops and down the -sides,—the <i>ideal</i> of mountains which we catch in rare glimpses, as we -catch the ideal of everything. Trees as they look when the wind cooes -through them on a June afternoon; elms or lindens or pines as cool as -frost, and yellow sunshine trickling through on moss. Trees in a forest -so thick that it shuts out the world, and you walk like one in a -sanctuary. Trees pierced by stars, and trees in a bath of summer moons -to which the thrill of ‘Love’s young dream’ shall cling forever—But -there is no end to one’s fancies. Some water, too, I would like.”</p> - -<p>“There shall be no more sea.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps not; though, as the sea is the great type of separation and of -destruction, that may be only figurative. But I’m not particular about -the sea, if I can have rivers<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a>{138}</span> and little brooks, and fountains of just -the right sort; the fountains of this world don’t please me generally. I -want a little brook to sit and sing to Faith by. O, I forgot! she will -be a large girl probably, won’t she?”</p> - -<p>“Never too large to like to hear your mother sing, will you, Faith?”</p> - -<p>“O no,” said Faith, who bobbed in and out again like a canary, just -then,—“not unless I’m <i>dreadful</i> big, with long dresses and a -waterfall, you know. I s’pose, maybe, I’d have to have little girls -myself to sing to, then. I hope they’ll behave better’n Mary Ann does. -She’s lost her other arm, and all her sawdust is just running out. -Besides, Kitty thought she was a mouse, and ran down cellar with her, -and she’s all shooken up, somehow. She don’t look very pretty.”</p> - -<p>“Flowers, too,” her mother went on, after the interruption. “<i>Not</i> all -amaranth and asphodel, but of variety and color and beauty unimagined; -glorified lilies of the valley, heavenly tea-rose buds, and spiritual -harebells among them. O, how your poor mother used to say,—you know -flowers were her poetry,—coming in weak and worn from her garden in the -early part of her sickness, hands and lap and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a>{139}</span> basket full: ‘Winifred, -if I only supposed I <i>could</i> have some flowers in heaven I shouldn’t be -half so afraid to go!’ I had not thought as much about these things then -as I have now, or I should have known better how to answer her. I should -like, if I had my choice, to have day-lilies and carnations fresh under -my windows all the time.”</p> - -<p>“Under your windows?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I hope to have a home of my own.”</p> - -<p>“Not a house?”</p> - -<p>“Something not unlike it. In the Father’s house are many mansions. -Sometimes I fancy that those words have a literal meaning which the -simple men who heard them may have understood better than we, and that -Christ is truly ‘preparing’ my home for me. He must be there, too, you -see,—I mean John.”</p> - -<p>I believe that gave me some thoughts that I ought not to have, and so I -made no reply.</p> - -<p>“If we have trees and mountains and flowers and books,” she went on, -smiling, “I don’t see why not have houses as well. Indeed, they seem to -me as supposable as anything can be which is guess-work at the best; for -what a homeless, desolate sort of sensation it gives one to think of -people wandering over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a>{140}</span> the ‘sweet fields beyond the flood’ without a -local habitation and a name. What could be done with the millions who, -from the time of Adam, have been gathering there, unless they lived -under the conditions of organized society? Organized society involves -homes, not unlike the homes of this world.</p> - -<p>“What other arrangement could be as pleasant, or could be pleasant at -all? Robertson’s definition of a church exactly fits. ‘More united in -each other, because more united in God.’ A happy home is the happiest -thing in the world. I do not see why it should not be in any world. I do -not believe that all the little tendernesses of family ties are thrown -by and lost with this life. In fact, Mary, I cannot think that anything -which has in it the elements of permanency is to be lost, but sin. -Eternity cannot be—it cannot be the great blank ocean which most of us -have somehow or other been brought up to feel that it is, which shall -swallow up, in a pitiless, glorified way, all the little brooks of our -delight. So I expect to have my beautiful home, and my husband, and -Faith, as I had them here; with many differences and great ones, but -<i>mine</i> just the same. Unless Faith goes into a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a>{141}</span> home of her own,—the -little creature! I suppose she can’t always be a baby.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember what a pretty little wistful way Charles Lamb has of -wondering about all this?</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which -point me to them here,—the “sweet assurance of a look”? Sun, and sky, -and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness -of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fish, and society, ... -and candle-light and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and -jests, and <i>irony itself</i>,—do these things go out with life?’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Now, Aunt Winifred!” I said, sitting up straight, “what am I to do with -these beautiful heresies? If Deacon Quirk <i>should</i> hear!”</p> - -<p>“I do not see where the heresy lies. As I hold fast by the Bible, I -cannot be in much danger.”</p> - -<p>“But you don’t glean your conjectures from the Bible.”</p> - -<p>“I conjecture nothing that the Bible contradicts. I do not believe as -truth indisputable anything that the Bible does not give me. But I -reason from analogy about this, as we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a>{142}</span> all do about other matters. Why -should we not have pretty things in heaven? If this ‘bright and -beautiful economy’ of skies and rivers, of grass and sunshine, of hills -and valleys, is not too good for such a place as this world, will there -be any less variety of the bright and beautiful in the next? There is no -reason for supposing that the voice of God will speak to us in -thunder-claps, or that it will not take to itself the thousand gentle, -suggestive tongues of a nature built on the ruins of this, an unmarred -system of beneficence.</p> - -<p>“There is a pretty argument in the fact that just such sunrises, such -opening of buds, such fragrant dropping of fruit, such bells in the -brooks, such dreams at twilight, and such hush of stars, were fit for -Adam and Eve, made holy man and woman. How do we know that the abstract -idea of a heaven needs imply anything very much unlike Eden? There is -some reason as well as poetry in the conception of a ‘Paradise -Regained.’ A ‘new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“But how far is it safe to trust to this kind of argument?”</p> - -<p>“Bishop Butler will answer you better than I. Let me see,—Isaac Taylor -says something about that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a>{143}</span>”</p> - -<p>She went to the bookcase for his “Physical Theory of Another Life,” and, -finding her place, showed me this passage:—</p> - -<p>“If this often repeated argument from analogy is to be termed, as to the -conclusions it involves, a conjecture merely, we ought then to abandon -altogether every kind of abstract reasoning; nor will it be easy -afterwards to make good any principle of natural theology. In truth, the -very basis of reasoning is shaken by a scepticism so sweeping as this.”</p> - -<p>And in another place:—</p> - -<p>“None need fear the consequences of such endeavors who have well learned -the prime principle of sound philosophy, namely, not to allow the most -plausible and pleasing conjectures to unsettle our convictions of truth -... resting upon positive evidence. If there be any who frown upon all -such attempts, ... they would do well to consider, that although -individually, and from the constitution of their minds, they may find it -very easy to abstain from every path of excursive meditation, it is not -so with others who almost irresistibly are borne forward to the vast -field of universal contemplation,—a field from which the human mind is -not to be barred, and which is better<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a>{144}</span> taken possession of by those who -reverently bow to the authority of Christianity, than left open to -impiety.”</p> - -<p>“Very good,” I said, laying down the book. “But about those trees and -houses, and the rest of your ‘pretty things’? Are they to be like -these?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose that the houses will be made of oak and pine and nailed -together, for instance. But I hope for heavenly types of nature and of -art. <i>Something that will be to us then what these are now.</i> That is the -amount of it. They may be as ‘spiritual’ as you please; they will answer -all the purpose to us. As we are not spiritual beings yet, however, I am -under the necessity of calling them by their earthly names. You remember -Plato’s old theory, that the ideal of everything exists eternally in the -mind of God. If that is so,—and I do not see how it can be -otherwise,—then whatever of God is expressed to us in this world by -flower, or blade of grass, or human face, why should not that be -expressed forever in heaven by something corresponding to flower, or -grass, or human face? I do not mean that the heavenly creation will be -less real than these, but more so. Their ‘spirituality<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a>{145}</span> is of such a -sort that our gardens and forests and homes are but shadows of them.</p> - -<p>“You don’t know how I amuse myself at night thinking this all over -before I go to sleep; wondering what one thing will be like, and another -thing; planning what I should like; thinking that John has seen it all, -and wondering if he is laughing at me because I know so little about it! -I tell you, Mary, there’s a ‘deal o’ comfort in ’t’ as Phœbe says -about her cup of tea.”</p> - -<p class="r"> -July 5.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred has been hunting up a Sunday school class for herself and -one for me; which is a venture that I never was persuaded into -undertaking before. She herself is fast becoming acquainted with the -poorer people of the town.</p> - -<p>I find that she is a thoroughly busy Christian, with a certain “week-day -holiness” that is strong and refreshing, like a west wind. Church-going, -and conversations on heaven, by no means exhaust her vitality.</p> - -<p>She told me a pretty thing about her class; it happened the first -Sabbath that she took it. Her scholars are young girls of from fourteen -to eighteen years of age, children of church-members,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a>{146}</span> most of them. She -seemed to have taken their hearts by storm. <i>She</i> says, “They treated me -very prettily, and made me love them at once.”</p> - -<p>Clo Bentley is in the class; Clo is a pretty, soft-eyed little creature, -with a shrinking mouth, and an absorbing passion for music, which she -has always been too poor to gratify. I suspect that her teacher will -make a pet of her. She says that in the course of her lesson, or, in her -words,—</p> - -<p>“While we were all talking together, somebody pulled my sleeve, and -there was Clo in the corner, with her great brown eyes fixed on me. ‘See -here!’ she said in a whisper, ‘I can’t be good! I would be good if I -could <i>only</i> just have a piano!’ ‘Well, Clo,’ I said, ‘if you will be a -good girl, and go to heaven, I think you will have a piano there, and -play just as much as you care to.’</p> - -<p>“You ought to have seen the look the child gave me! Delight and fear and -incredulous bewilderment tumbled over each other, as if I had proposed -taking her into a forbidden fairy-land.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Why, Mrs. Forceythe! Why, they won’t let anybody have a piano up -there! not in <i>heaven</i>?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a>{147}</span>’</p> - -<p>“I laid down the question-book, and asked what kind of place she -supposed that heaven was going to be.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>O,’ she said, with a dreary sigh, ‘I never think about it when I can -help it. I suppose we <i>shall all just stand there</i>!’</p> - -<p>“And you?” I asked of the next, a bright girl with snapping eyes.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Do you want me to talk good, or tell the truth?’ she answered me. -Having been given to understand that she was not expected to ‘talk good’ -in my class, she said, with an approving, decided nod: ‘Well, then! I -don’t think it’s going to be <i>anything nice</i> anyway. No, I don’t! I told -my last teacher so, and she looked just as shocked, and said I never -should go there as long as I felt so. That made me mad, and I told her I -didn’t see but I should be as well off in one place as another, except -for the fire.’</p> - -<p>“A silent girl in the corner began at this point to look interested. ‘I -always supposed,’ said she, ‘that you just floated round in heaven—you -know—all together—something like ju-jube paste!’</p> - -<p>“Whereupon I shut the question-book entirely, and took the talking to -myself for a while.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a>{148}</span></p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>But I <i>never</i> thought it was anything like that,’ interrupted little -Clo, presently, her cheeks flushed with excitement. ‘Why, I should like -to go, if it is like that! I never supposed people talked, unless it was -about converting people, and saying your prayers, and all that.’</p> - -<p>“Now, weren’t those ideas<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> alluring and comforting for young girls in -the blossom of warm human life? They were trying with all their little -hearts to ‘be good,’ too, some of them, and had all of them been to -church and Sunday school all their lives. Never, never, if Jesus Christ -had been Teacher and Preacher to them, would He have pictured their -blessed endless years with Him in such bleak colors. They are not the -hues of His Bible.”</p> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Facts.</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a>{149}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -July 16.<br /> -</p> - -<p>We took a trip to-day to East Homer for butter. Neither angels nor -principalities could convince Phœbe that any butter but “Stephen -David’s” might, could, would, or should be used in this family. So to -Mr. Stephen David’s, a journey of four miles, I meekly betake myself at -stated periods in the domestic year, burdened with directions about -firkins and half-firkins, pounds and half-pounds, salt and no salt, -churning and “working-over”; some of which I remember and some of which -I forget, and to all of which Phœbe considers me sublimely incapable -of attending.</p> - -<p>The afternoon was perfect, and we took things leisurely, letting the -reins swing from the hook,—an arrangement to which Mr. Tripp’s old gray -was entirely agreeable,—and, leaning back against the buggy-cushions, -wound along among the strong, sweet pine-smells, lazily talking or -lazily silent, as the spirit moved, and as only two people who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a>{150}</span> -thoroughly understand and like each other can talk or be silent.</p> - -<p>We rode home by Deacon Quirk’s, and, as we jogged by, there broke upon -our view a blooming vision of the Deacon himself, at work in his -potato-field with his son and heir, who, by the way, has the reputation -of being the most awkward fellow in the township.</p> - -<p>The amiable church-officer, having caught sight of us, left his work, -and coming up to the fence “in rustic modesty unscared,” guiltless of -coat or vest, his calico shirt-sleeves rolled up to his huge brown -elbows, and his dusty straw hat flapping in the wind, rapped on the -rails with his hoe-handle as a sign for us to stop.</p> - -<p>“Are we in a hurry?” I asked, under my breath.</p> - -<p>“O no,” said Aunt Winifred. “He has somewhat to say unto me, I see by -his eyes. I have been expecting it. Let us hear him out. Good afternoon, -Deacon Quirk.”</p> - -<p>“Good afternoon, ma’am. Pleasant day?”</p> - -<p>She assented to the statement, novel as it was.</p> - -<p>“A very pleasant day,” repeated the Deacon, looking for the first time -in his life, to my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a>{151}</span> knowledge, a little undecided as to what he should -say next. “Remarkable fine day for riding. In a hurry?”</p> - -<p>“Well, not especially. Did you want anything of me?”</p> - -<p>“You’re a church-member, aren’t you, ma’am?” asked the Deacon, abruptly.</p> - -<p>“I am.”</p> - -<p>“Orthodox?”</p> - -<p>“O yes,” with a smile. “You had a reason for asking?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, ma’am; I had, as you might say, a reason for asking.”</p> - -<p>The Deacon laid his hoe on the top of the fence, and his arms across it, -and pushed his hat on the back of his head in a becoming and -argumentative manner.</p> - -<p>“I hope you don’t consider that I’m taking liberties if I have a little -religious conversation with you, Mrs. Forceythe.”</p> - -<p>“It is no offence to me if you are,” replied Mrs. Forceythe, with a -twinkle in her eye; but both twinkle and words glanced off from the -Deacon.</p> - -<p>“My wife was telling me last night,” he began, with an ominous cough, -“that her niece, Clotildy Bentley—Moses Bentley’s daughter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a>{152}</span> you know, -and one of your sentimental girls that reads poetry, and is easy enough -led away by vain delusions and false doctrine—was under your charge at -Sunday-school. Now Clotildy is intimate with my wife,—who is her aunt -on her mother’s side, and always tries to do her duty by her,—and she -told Mrs. Quirk what you’d been a saying to those young minds on the -Sabbath.”</p> - -<p>He stopped, and observed her impressively, as if he expected to see the -guilty blushes of arraigned heresy covering her amused, attentive face.</p> - -<p>“I hope you will pardon me, ma’am, for repeating it, but Clotildy said -that you told her she should have a pianna in heaven. A <i>pianna</i>, -ma’am!”</p> - -<p>“I certainly did,” she said quietly.</p> - -<p>“You did? Well, now, I didn’t believe it, nor I wouldn’t believe it, -till I’d asked you! I thought it warn’t more than fair that I should ask -you, before repeating it, you know. It’s none of my business, Mrs. -Forceythe, any more than that I take a general interest in the -spiritooal welfare of the youth of our Sabbath school; but I am very -much surprised! I am <i>very</i> much surprised!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a>{153}</span>”</p> - -<p>“I am surprised that you should be, Deacon Quirk. Do you believe that -God would take a poor little disappointed girl like Clo, who has been -all her life here forbidden the enjoyment of a perfectly innocent taste, -and keep her in His happy heaven eternal years, without finding means to -gratify it? I don’t.”</p> - -<p>“I tell Clotildy I don’t see what she wants of a pianna-forte,” observed -“Clotildy’s” uncle, sententiously. “She can go to singin’ school, and -she’s been in the choir ever since I have, which is six years come -Christmas. Besides, I don’t think it’s our place to speckylate on the -mysteries of the heavenly spere. My wife told her that she mustn’t -believe any such things as that, which were very irreverent, and -contrary to the Scriptures, and Clo went home crying. She said: ‘It was -so pretty to think about.’ It is very easy to impress these delusions of -fancy on the young.”</p> - -<p>“Pray, Deacon Quirk,” said Aunt Winifred, leaning earnestly forward in -the carriage, “will you tell me what there is ‘irreverent’ or -‘unscriptural’ in the idea that there will be instrumental music in -heaven?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” replied the Deacon after some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a>{154}</span> consideration, “come to think of -it, there will be harps, I suppose. Harpers harping with their harps on -the sea of glass. But I don’t believe there will be any piannas. It’s a -dreadfully material way to talk about that glorious world, to my -thinking.”</p> - -<p>“If you could show me wherein a harp is less ‘material’ than a piano, -perhaps I should agree with you.”</p> - -<p>Deacon Quirk looked rather nonplussed for a minute.</p> - -<p>“What <i>do</i> you suppose people will do in heaven?” she asked again.</p> - -<p>“Glorify God,” said the Deacon, promptly recovering himself,—“glorify -God, and sing Worthy the Lamb! We shall be clothed in white robes with -palms in our hands, and bow before the Great White Throne. We shall be -engaged in such employments as befit sinless creatures in a spiritooal -state of existence.”</p> - -<p>“Now, Deacon Quirk,” replied Aunt Winifred, looking him over from head -to foot,—old straw hat, calico shirt, blue overalls, and cow-hide -boots, coarse, work-worn hands, and “narrow forehead braided -tight,”—“just imagine yourself, will you? taken out of this life this -minute, as you stand here in your potato-field<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a>{155}</span> (the Deacon changed his -position with evident uneasiness), and put into another life,—not -anybody else, but yourself, just as you left this spot,—and do you -honestly think that you should be happy to go and put on a white dress -and stand still in a choir with a green branch in one hand and a -singing-book in the other, and sing and pray and never do anything but -sing and pray, this year, next year, and every year forever?”</p> - -<p>“We-ell,” he replied, surprised into a momentary flash of carnal candor, -“I can’t say that I shouldn’t wonder for a minute, maybe, <i>how Abinadab -would ever get those potatoes hoed without me</i>.—Abinadab! go back to -your work!”</p> - -<p>The graceful Abinadab had sauntered up during the conversation, and was -listening, hoe in hand and mouth open. He slunk away when his father -spoke, but came up again presently on tiptoe when Aunt Winifred was -talking. There was an interested, intelligent look about his square and -pitifully embarrassed face, which attracted my notice.</p> - -<p>“But then,” proceeded the Deacon, re-enforced by the sudden recollection -of his duties as a father and a church-member, “that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a>{156}</span> couldn’t be a -permanent state of feeling, you know. I expect to be transformed by the -renewing of my mind to appreciate the glories of the New Jerusalem, -descending out of heaven from God. That’s what I expect, marm. Now I -heerd that you told Mrs. Bland, or that Mary told her, or that she heerd -it someway, that you said you supposed there were trees and flowers and -houses and such in heaven. I told my wife I thought your deceased -husband was a Congregational minister, and I didn’t believe you ever -said it; but that’s the rumor.”</p> - -<p>Without deeming it necessary to refer to her “deceased husband,” Aunt -Winifred replied that “rumor” was quite right.</p> - -<p>“Well!” said the Deacon, with severe significance, “<i>I</i> believe in a -spiritooal heaven.”</p> - -<p>I looked him over again,—hat, hoe, shirt, and all; scanned his -obstinate old face with its stupid, good eyes and animal mouth. Then I -glanced at Aunt Winifred as she leaned forward in the afternoon light; -the white, finely cut woman, with her serene smile and rapt, saintly -eyes,—every inch of her, body and soul, refined not only by birth and -training, but by the long nearness of her heart to Christ.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a>{157}</span></p> - -<p>“Of the earth, earthy. Of the heavens, heavenly.” The two faces -sharpened themselves into two types. Which, indeed, was the better able -to comprehend a “spiritooal heaven”?</p> - -<p>“It is distinctly stated in the Bible, by which I suppose we shall both -agree,” said Aunt Winifred, gently, “that there shall be a <i>new earth</i>, -as well as new heavens. It is noticeable, also, that the descriptions of -heaven, although a series of metaphors, are yet singularly earthlike and -tangible ones. Are flowers and skies and trees less ‘spiritual’ than -white dresses and little palm-branches? In fact, where are you going to -get your little branches without trees? What could well be more -suggestive of material modes of living, and material industry, than a -city marked into streets and alleys, paved solidly with gold, walled in -and barred with gates whose jewels are named and counted, and whose very -length and breadth are measured with a celestial surveyor’s chain?”</p> - -<p>“But I think we’d ought to stick to what the Bible says,” answered the -Deacon, stolidly. “If it says golden cities and doesn’t say flowers, it -means cities and doesn’t mean<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a>{158}</span> flowers. I dare say you’re a good woman, -Mrs. Forceythe, if you do hold such oncommon doctrine, and I don’t doubt -you mean well enough, but I don’t think that we ought to trouble -ourselves about these mysteries of a future state. <i>I</i>’m willing to -trust them to God!”</p> - -<p>The evasion of a fair argument by this self-sufficient spasm of piety -was more than I could calmly stand, and I indulged in a subdued -explosion.—Auntie says it sounded like Fourth of July crackers touched -off under a wet barrel.</p> - -<p>“Deacon Quirk! do you mean to imply that Mrs. Forceythe does not trust -it to God? The truth is, that the existence of such a world as heaven is -a fact from which you shrink. You know you do! She has twenty thoughts -about it where you have one; yet you set up a claim to superior -spirituality!”</p> - -<p>“Mary, Mary, you are a little excited; I fear. God is a spirit, and they -that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth!”</p> - -<p>The relevancy of this last, I confess myself incapable of perceiving, -but the good man seemed to be convinced that he had made a point, and we -rode off leaving him under that blissful delusion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a>{159}</span></p> - -<p>“If he <i>weren’t</i> a good man!” I sighed. “But he is, and I must respect -him for it.”</p> - -<p>“Of course you must; nor is he to blame that he is narrow and rough. I -should scarcely have argued as seriously as I did with him, but that, as -I fancy him to be a representative of a class, I wanted to try an -experiment. Isn’t he amusing, though? He is precisely one of Mr. -Stopford Brooke’s men ‘who can understand nothing which is original.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Are there, or are there not, more of such men in our church than in -others?”</p> - -<p>“Not more proportionately to numbers. But I would not have them thinned -out. The better we do Christ’s work, the more of uneducated, neglected, -or debased mind will be drawn to try and serve Him with us. He sought -out the lame, the halt, the blind, the stupid, the crotchety, the rough, -as well as the equable, the intelligent, the refined. Untrained -Christians in any sect will always have their eccentricities and their -littlenesses, at which the silken judgment of high places, where the -Carpenter’s Son would be a strange guest, will sneer. That never -troubles me. It only raises the question in my mind whether cultivated -Christians generally are sufficiently<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a>{160}</span> <i>cultivators</i>, scattering their -golden gifts on wayside ground.”</p> - -<p>“Now take Deacon Quirk,” I suggested, when we had ridden along a little -way under the low, green arches of the elms, “and put him into heaven as -you proposed, just as he is, and what <i>is</i> he going to do with himself? -He can dig potatoes and sell them without cheating, and give generously -of their proceeds to foreign missions; but take away his potatoes, and -what would become of him? I don’t know a human being more incapacitated -to live in such a heaven as he believes in.”</p> - -<p>“Very true, and a good, common-sense argument against such a heaven. I -don’t profess to surmise what will be found for him to do, beyond -this,—that it will be some very palpable work that he can understand. -How do we know that he would not be appointed guardian of his poor son -here, to whom I suspect he has not been all that father might be in this -life, and that he would not have his body as well as his soul to look -after, his farm as well as his prayers? to him might be committed the -charge of the dews and the rains and the hundred unseen influences that -are at work on this very potato-field.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>{161}</span>”</p> - -<p>“But when his son has gone in his turn, and we have all gone, and there -are no more potato-fields? An Eternity remains.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know that there wouldn’t be any potato-fields; there may be -some kind of agricultural employments even then. To whomsoever a talent -is given, it will be given him wherewith to use it. Besides, by that -time the good Deacon will be immensely changed. I suppose that the -simple transition of death, which rids him of sin and of grossness, will -not only wonderfully refine him, but will have its effect upon his -intellect.”</p> - -<p>“If a talent is given, use will be found for it? Tell me some more about -that.”</p> - -<p>“I fancy many things about it; but of course can feel sure of only the -foundation principle. This life is a great school-house. The wise -Teacher trains in us such gifts as, if we graduate honorably, will be of -most service in the perfect manhood and womanhood that come after. He -sees, as we do not, that a power is sometimes best trained by -repression. ‘We do not always lose an advantage when we dispense with -it,’ Goethe says. But the suffocated lives, like little Clo’s there, -make my heart ache sometimes. I take comfort in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a>{162}</span> thinking how they will -bud and blossom up in the air, by and by. There are a great many of -them. We tread them underfoot in our careless stepping now and then, and -do not see that they have not the elasticity to rise from our touch. -‘Heaven may be a place for those who failed on earth,’ the Country -Parson says.”</p> - -<p>“Then there will be air enough for all?”</p> - -<p>“For all; for those who have had a little bloom in this world, as well. -I suppose the artist will paint his pictures, the poet sing his happy -songs, the orator and author will not find their talents hidden in the -eternal darkness of a grave; the sculptor will use his beautiful gift in -the moulding of some heavenly Carrara; ‘as well the singer as the player -on instruments shall be there.’ Christ said a thing that has grown on me -with new meanings lately:—‘He that <i>loseth his life for my sake shall -find it</i>.’ <i>It</i>, you see,—not another man’s life, not a strange -compound of powers and pleasures, but his own familiar aspirations. So -we shall best ‘glorify God,’ not less there than here, by doing it in -the peculiar way that He himself marked out for us. But—ah, Mary, you -see it is only the life ‘lost’ for His sake that shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a>{163}</span> be so -beautifully found. A great man never goes to heaven because he is great. -He must go, as the meanest of his fellow-sinners go, with face towards -Calvary, and every golden treasure used for love of Him who showed him -how.”</p> - -<p>“What would the old Pagans—and modern ones, too, for that matter—say -to that? Wasn’t it Tacitus who announced it as his belief, that -immortality was granted as a special gift to a few superior minds? For -the people who persisted in making up the rest of the world, poor -things! as it could be of little consequence what became of them, they -might die as the brute dieth.”</p> - -<p>“It seems an unbearable thing to me sometimes,” she went on, “the wreck -of a gifted soul. A man who can be, if he chooses, as much better and -happier than the rest of us as the ocean reflects more sky than a -mill-pond, must also be, if he chooses, more wicked and more miserable. -It takes longer to reach sea-shells than river-pebbles. I am compelled -to think, also, that intellectual rank must in heaven bear some -proportion to goodness. There are last and there are first that shall -have changed places. As the tree falleth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a>{164}</span> there shall it lie, and with -that amount of holiness of which a man leaves this life the possessor, -he must start in another. I have seen great thinkers, ‘foremost men’ in -science, in theology, in the arts, who, I solemnly believe, will turn -aside in heaven,—and will turn humbly and heartily,—to let certain -day-laborers and paupers whom I have known go up before them as kings -and priests unto God.”</p> - -<p>“I believe that. But I was going to ask,—for poor creatures like your -respected niece, who hasn’t a talent, nor even a single absorbing taste, -for one thing above another thing,—what shall she do?”</p> - -<p>“Whatever she liketh best; something very useful, my dear, don’t be -afraid, and very pleasant. Something, too, for which this life has -fitted you; though you may not understand how that can be, better than -did poor Heine on his ‘matrazzen-gruft,’ reading all the books that -treated of his disease. ‘But what good this reading is to do me I don’t -know,’ he said, ‘except that it will qualify me to give lectures in -heaven on the ignorance of doctors on earth about diseases of the spinal -marrow.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t know how many times I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a>{165}</span> thought of—I believe it was the -poet Gray, who said that his idea of heaven was to lie on the sofa and -read novels. That touches the lazy part of us, though.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, they will be the active, outgoing, generous elements of our nature -that will be brought into use then, rather than the self-centred and -dreamy ones. Though I suppose that we shall read in heaven,—being -influenced to be better and nobler by good and noble teachers of the -pen, not less there than here.”</p> - -<p>“O think of it! To have books, and music,—and pictures?”</p> - -<p>“All that Art, ‘the handmaid of the Lord,’ can do for us, I have no -doubt will be done. Eternity will never become monotonous. Variety -without end, charms unnumbered within charms, will be devised by -Infinite ingenuity to minister to our delight. Perhaps,—this is just my -fancying,—perhaps there will be whole planets turned into galleries of -art, over which we may wander at will; or into orchestral halls where -the highest possibilities of music will be realized to singer and to -hearer. Do you know, I have sometimes had a flitting notion that music -would be the language of heaven? It certainly differs in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a>{166}</span> some -indescribable manner from the other arts. We have most of us felt it in -our different ways. It always seems to me like the cry of a great, sad -life dragged to use in this world against its will. Pictures and statues -and poems fit themselves to their work more contentedly. Symphony and -song struggle in fetters. That sense of conflict is not good for me. It -is quite as likely to harm as to help. Then perhaps the mysteries of -sidereal systems will be spread out like a child’s map before us. -Perhaps we shall take journeys to Jupiter and to Saturn and to the -glittering haze of nebulæ, and to the site of ruined worlds whose -‘extinct light is yet travelling through space.’ Occupation for -explorers there, you see!”</p> - -<p>“You make me say with little Clo, ‘O, why, I want to go!’ every time I -hear you talk. But there is one thing,—you spoke of families living -together.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And you spoke of—your husband. But the Bible—”</p> - -<p>“Says there shall be no marrying nor giving in marriage. I know that. -Nor will there be such marrying or giving in marriage as there is in a -world like this. Christ expressly goes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a>{167}</span> on to state, that we shall be -<i>as</i> the angels in heaven. How do we know what heavenly unions of heart -with heart exist among the angels? It leaves me margin enough to live -and be happy with John forever, and it holds many possibilities for the -settlement of all perplexing questions brought about by the relations of -this world. It is of no use to talk much about them. But it is on that -very verse that I found my unshaken belief that they will be smoothed -out in some natural and happy way, with which each one shall be -content.”</p> - -<p>“But O, there is a great gulf fixed; and on one side one, and on the -other another, and they loved each other.”</p> - -<p>Her face paled,—it always pales, I notice, at the mention of this -mystery,—but her eyes never lost by a shade their steadfast trust.</p> - -<p>“Mary, don’t question me about <i>that</i>. That belongs to the unutterable -things. God will take care of it. I <i>think</i> I could leave it to him even -if he brought it for me myself to face. I feel sure that he will make it -all come out right. Perhaps He will be so dear to us, that we could not -love any one who hated him. In some way the void <i>must</i> be filled, for -he shall wipe away tears. But it seems to me that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>{168}</span> only thought in -which there can be any <i>rest</i>, and in that there <i>can</i>, is this: that -Christ, who loves us even as his Father loves him, can be happy in spite -of the existence of a hell. If it is possible to him, surely he can make -it possible to us.”</p> - -<p>“Two things that He has taught us,” she said after a silence, “give me -beautiful assurance that none of these dreams with which I help myself -can be beyond his intention to fulfil. One is, that eye hath not seen -it, nor ear heard it, nor the heart conceived it,—this lavishness of -reward which he is keeping for us. Another is, that ‘I shall be -<i>satisfied</i> when I awake.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“With his likeness.”</p> - -<p>“With his likeness. And about that I have other things to say.”</p> - -<p>But Old Gray stopped at the gate and Phœbe was watching for her -butter, and it was no time to say them then.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a>{169}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -July 22.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred has connected herself with our church. I think it was -rather hard for her, breaking the last tie that bound her to her -husband’s people; but she had a feeling, that, if her work is to be done -and her days ended here, she had better take up all such little threads -of influence to make herself one with us.</p> - -<p class="r"> -25th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>To-day what should Deacon Quirk do but make a solemn call on Mrs. -Forceythe, for the purpose of asking—and this with a hint that he -wished he had asked before she became a member of the Homer First -Congregational Church—whether there were truth in the rumors, now rife -about town, that she was a Swedenborgian!</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred broke out laughing, and laughed merrily. The Deacon -frowned.</p> - -<p>“I used to fancy that I believed in Swedenborg,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>{170}</span>” she said, as soon as -she could sober down a little.</p> - -<p>The Deacon pricked up his ears, with visions of excommunications and -councils reflected on every feature.</p> - -<p>“Until I read his books,” she finished.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” said the Deacon. He waited for more, but she seemed to consider -the conversation at an end.</p> - -<p>“So then you—if I understand—are <i>not</i> a Swedenborgian, ma’am?”</p> - -<p>“If I were, I certainly should have had no inducement to join myself to -your church,” she replied, with gentle dignity. “I believe, with all my -heart, in the same Bible and the same creed that you believe in, Deacon -Quirk.”</p> - -<p>“And you <i>live</i> your creed, which all such genial Christians do not find -it necessary to do,” I thought, as the Deacon in some perplexity took -his departure, and she returned with a smile to her sewing.</p> - -<p>I suppose the call came about in this way. We had the sewing-circle here -last week, and just before the lamps were lighted, and when people had -dropped their work to group and talk in the corners, Meta Tripp came up -with one or two other girls to Aunt Winifred, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a>{171}</span> begged “to hear some -of those queer things people said she believed about heaven.” Auntie is -never obtrusive with her views on this or any other matter, but, being -thus urged, she answered a few questions that they put to her, to the -extreme scandal of one or two old ladies, and the secret delight of the -rest.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said little Mrs. Bland, squeezing and kissing her youngest, who -was at that moment vigorously employed in sticking very long -darning-needles into his mother’s waterfall, “I hope there’ll be a great -many babies there. I should be perfectly happy if I always could have -babies to play with!”</p> - -<p>The look that Aunt Winifred shot over at me was worth seeing.</p> - -<p>She merely replied, however, that she supposed all our “highest -aspirations,”—with an indescribable accent to which Mrs. Bland was -safely deaf,—if good ones, would be realized; and added, laughing, that -Swedenborg said that the babies in heaven—who outnumber the grown -people—will be given into the charge of those women especially fond of -them.</p> - -<p>“Swedenborg is suggestive, even if you can’t accept what seem to the -uninitiated to be his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a>{172}</span> natural impossibilities,” she said, after we had -discussed Deacon Quirk awhile. “He says a pretty thing, too, -occasionally. Did I ever read you about the houses?”</p> - -<p>She had not, and I wished to hear, so she found the book on Heaven and -Hell, and read:—</p> - -<p>“As often as I have spoken with the angels mouth to mouth, so often I -have been with them in their habitations: their habitations are -altogether like the habitations on earth which are called houses, but -more beautiful; in them are parlors, rooms, and chambers in great -numbers; there are also courts, and round about are gardens, -shrubberies, and fields. Palaces of heaven have been seen, which were so -magnificent that they could not be described; above, they glittered as -if they were of pure gold, and below, as if they were of precious -stones; one palace was more splendid than another; within, it was the -same the rooms were ornamented with such decorations as neither words -nor sciences are sufficient to describe. On the side which looked to the -south there were paradises, where all things in like manner glittered, -and in some places the leaves were as of silver, and the fruits<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a>{173}</span> as of -gold; and the flowers on their beds presented by colors as it were -rainbows; at the boundaries again were palaces, in which the view -terminated.”</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred says that our hymns, taken all together, contain the worst -and the best pictures of heaven that we have in any branch of -literature.</p> - -<p>“It seems to me incredible,” she says, “that the Christian Church should -have allowed that beautiful ‘Jerusalem’ in its hymnology so long, with -the ghastly couplet,—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Where congregations ne’er break up,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And Sabbaths have no end.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">The dullest preachers are sure to give it out, and that when there are -the greatest number of restless children wondering when it will be time -to go home. It is only within ten years that modern hymn books have -altered it, returning in part to the original.</p> - -<p>“I do not think we have chosen the best parts of that hymn for our -‘service of song.’ You never read the whole of it? You don’t know how -pretty it is! It is a relief from the customary palms and choirs. One’s -whole heart is glad of the outlet of its sweet refrain,—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Would God that I were there!’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a>{174}</span></p> - -<p class="nind">before one has half read it. You are quite ready to believe that</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘There is no hunger, heat, nor cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But <i>pleasure every way</i>.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">Listen to this:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="iq">‘Thy houses are of ivory,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thy windows crystal clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy tiles are made of beaten gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O God, that I were there!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="iq">‘We that are here in banishment<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Continually do moan.<br /></span> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">. . . . . . . . . .</span><br /> -<span class="iq">‘Our sweet is mixed with bitter gall,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our pleasure is but pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our joys scarce last the looking on,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our sorrows still remain.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="iq">‘But there they live in such delight,<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Such pleasure and such play</i>,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As that to them a thousand years<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Doth seem as yesterday.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">And this:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Thy gardens and thy gallant walks<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Continually are green;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers<br /></span> -<span class="i3">As nowhere else are seen.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘There cinnamon, there sugar grows,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">There nard and balm abound,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">What tongue can tell, or heart conceive<br /></span> -<span class="i3">The joys that there are found?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a>{175}</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Quite through the streets, with silver sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">The flood of life doth flow,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Upon whose banks, on every side,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">The wood of life doth grow.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">I tell you we may learn something from that grand old Catholic singer. -He is far nearer to the Bible than the innovators on his MSS. Do you not -notice how like his images are to the inspired ones, and yet how -pleasant and natural is the effect of the entire poem?</p> - -<p>“There is nobody like Bonar, though, to sing about heaven. There is one -of his, ‘We shall meet and rest,’—do you know it?”</p> - -<p>I shook my head, and knelt down beside her and watched her face,—it was -quite unconscious of me, the musing face,—while she repeated -dreamily:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Where the faded flower shall freshen,—<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Freshen nevermore to fade;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where the shaded sky shall brighten,—<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Brighten nevermore to shade;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where the sun-blaze never scorches;<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Where the star-beams cease to chill;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where no tempest stirs the echoes<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Of the wood, or wave, or hill;....<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where no shadow shall bewilder;<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Where life’s vain parade is o’er;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where the sleep of sin is broken,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And the dreamer dreams no more;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a>{176}</span><br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where the bond is never severed,—<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Partings, claspings, sob and moan,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Midnight waking, twilight weeping,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Heavy noontide,—all are done;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where the child has found its mother;<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Where the mother finds the child;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where dear families are gathered,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">That were scattered on the wild;....<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where the hidden wound is healed;<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Where the blighted life reblooms;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where the smitten heart the freshness<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Of its buoyant youth resumes;....<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Where we find the joy of loving,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">As we never loved before,—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Loving on, unchilled, unhindered,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Loving once, forevermore.” ...<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="r"> -30th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred was weeding her day-lilies this morning, when the gate -creaked timidly, and then swung noisily, and in walked Abinadab Quirk, -with a bouquet of China pinks in the button-hole of his green-gray linen -coat. He had taken evident pains to smarten himself up a little, for his -hair was combed into two horizontal <i>dabs</i> over his ears, and the -green-gray coat and blue-checked shirt-sleeves were quite clean; but he -certainly is the most uncouth specimen of six feet five that it has ever -been my privilege to behold. I feel sorry for him, though. I heard Meta -Tripp laughing at him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a>{177}</span> in Sunday school the other day,—“Quadrangular -Quirk,” she called him, a little too loud, and the poor fellow heard -her. He half turned, blushing fiercely; then slunk down in his corner -with as pitiable a look as is often seen upon a man’s face.</p> - -<p>He came up to Auntie awkwardly,—a part of the scene I saw from the -window, and the rest she told me,—head hanging, and the tiny bouquet -held out.</p> - -<p>“Clo sent these to you,” he stammered out,—“my cousin Clo. I was coming -’long, and she thought, you know,—she’d get me, you see, to—to—that -is, to—bring them. She sent her—that is—let me see. She sent her -respect—ful—respectful—no, her love; that was it. She sent her love -’long with ’em.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Forceythe dropped her weeds, and held out her white, shapely hands, -wet with the heavy dew, to take the flowers.</p> - -<p>“O, thank you! Clo knows my fancy for pinks. How kind in you to bring -them! Won’t you sit down a few moments? I was just going to rest a -little. Do you like flowers?”</p> - -<p>Abinadab eyed the white hands, as his huge fingers just touched them, -with a sort of awe; and, sighing, sat down on the very edge of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a>{178}</span> -garden bench beside her. After a singular variety of efforts to take the -most uncomfortable position of which he was capable, he succeeded to his -satisfaction, and, growing then somewhat more at his ease, answered her -question.</p> - -<p>“Flowers are sech <i>gassy</i> things. They just blow out and that’s the end -of ’em. <i>I</i> like machine-shops best.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! well, that is a very useful liking. Do you ever invent machinery -yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes,” said Abinadab, with a bashful smile. “There’s a little -improvement of mine for carpet-sweepers up before the patent-office now. -Don’t know whether they’ll run it through. Some of the chaps I saw in -Boston told me they thought they would do’t in time; it takes an awful -sight of time. I’m alwers fussing over something of the kind; alwers -did, sence I was a baby; had my little windmills and carts and things; -used to sell ’em to the other young uns. Father don’t like it. He wants -me to stick to the farm. I don’t like farming. I feel like a fish out of -water.—Mrs. Forceythe, marm!”</p> - -<p>He turned on her with an abrupt change of tone, so funny that she could -with difficulty retain her gravity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a>{179}</span></p> - -<p>“I heard you saying a sight of queer things the other day about heaven. -Clo, she’s been telling me a sight more. Now, <i>I</i> never believed in -heaven!”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because I don’t believe,” said the poor fellow, with sullen decision, -“that a benevolent God ever would ha’ made sech a derned awkward chap as -I am!”</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred replied by stepping into the house, and bringing out a -fine photograph of one of the best of the St. Georges,—a rapt, yet very -manly face, in which the saint and the hero are wonderfully blended.</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” she said, putting it into his hands, “that if you should go -to heaven, you would be as much fairer than that picture as that picture -is fairer than you are now.”</p> - -<p>“No! Why, would I, though? Jim-miny! Why, it would be worth going for, -wouldn’t it?”</p> - -<p>The words were no less reverently spoken than the vague rhapsodies of -his father; for the sullenness left his face, and his eyes—which are -pleasant, and not unmanly, when one fairly sees them—sparkled softly, -like a child’s.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a>{180}</span></p> - -<p>“Make it all up there, maybe?” musing,—“the girls laughing at you all -your life, and all? That would be the bigger heft of the two then, -wouldn’t it? for they say there ain’t any end to things up there. Why, -so it might be fair in Him after all; more’n fair, perhaps. See here, -Mrs. Forceythe, I’m not a church-member, you know, and father, he’s -dreadful troubled about me; prays over me like a span of ministers, the -old gentleman does, every Sunday night. Now, I don’t want to go to the -other place any more than the next man, and I’ve had my times, too, of -thinking I’d keep steady and say my prayers reg’lar,—it makes a chap -feel on a sight better terms with himself,—but I don’t see how <i>I</i>’m -going to wear white frocks and stand up in a choir,—never could sing no -more’n a frog with a cold in his head,—it tires me more now, honest, to -think of it, than it does to do a week’s mowing. Look at me! Do you -s’pose I’m fit for it? Father, he’s always talking about the thrones, -and the wings, and the praises, and the palms, and having new names in -your foreheads, (shouldn’t object to that, though, by any means), till -he drives me into the tool-house, or off on a spree. I tell him if God -hain’t got<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a>{181}</span> a place where chaps like me can do something He’s fitted ’em -to do in this world, there’s no use thinking about it anyhow.”</p> - -<p>So Auntie took the honest fellow into her most earnest thought for half -an hour, and argued, and suggested, and reproved, and helped him, as -only she could do; and at the end of it seemed to have worked into his -mind some distinct and not unwelcome ideas of what a Christ-like life -must mean to him, and of the coming heaven which is so much more real to -her than any life outside of it.</p> - -<p>“And then,” she told him, “I imagine that your fancy for machinery will -be employed in some way. Perhaps you will do a great deal more -successful inventing there than you ever will here.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t say so!” said radiant Abinadab.</p> - -<p>“God will give you something to do, certainly, and something that you -will like.”</p> - -<p>“I might turn it to some religious purpose, you know!” said Abinadab, -looking bright. “Perhaps I could help ’em build a church, or hist some -of their pearl gates, or something like!”</p> - -<p>Upon that he said that it was time to be at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a>{182}</span> home and see to the oxen, -and shambled awkwardly away.</p> - -<p>Clo told us this afternoon that he begged the errand and the flowers -from her. She says: “<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Bin thinks there never was anybody like you, Mrs. -Forceythe, and ’Bin isn’t the only one, either.” At which Mrs. Forceythe -smiles absently, thinking—I wonder of what.</p> - -<p class="r"> -Monday night.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I saw as funny and as pretty a bit of a drama this afternoon as I have -seen for a long time.</p> - -<p>Faith had been rolling out in the hot hay ever since three o’clock, with -one of the little Blands, and when the shadows grew long they came in -with flushed cheeks and tumbled hair, to rest and cool upon the -door-steps. I was sitting in the parlor, sewing energetically on some -sun-bonnets for some of Aunt Winifred’s people down town,—I found the -heat to be more bearable if I kept busy,—and could see, unseen, all the -little <i>tableaux</i> into which the two children grouped themselves; a new -one every instant; in the shadow now,—now in a quiver of golden glow; -the wind tossing their hair about, and their chatter chiming down the -hall like bells.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a>{183}</span></p> - -<p>“O what a funny little sunset there’s going to be behind the -maple-tree,” said the blond-haired Bland, in a pause.</p> - -<p>“Funny enough,” observed Faith, with her superior smile, “but it’s going -to be a great deal funnier up in heaven, I tell you, Molly Bland.”</p> - -<p>“Funny in heaven? Why, Faith!” Molly drew herself up with a religious -air, and looked the image of her father.</p> - -<p>“Yes, to be sure. I’m going to have some little pink blocks made out of -it when I go; pink and yellow and green and purple and—O, so many -blocks! I’m going to have a little red cloud to sail round in, like that -one up over the house, too, I shouldn’t wonder.”</p> - -<p>Molly opened her eyes.</p> - -<p>“O, I don’t believe it!”</p> - -<p>“<i>You</i> don’t know much!” said Miss Faith, superbly. “I shouldn’t s’pose -you would believe it. P’r’aps I’ll have some strawberries too, and some -ginger-snaps,—I’m not going to have any old bread and butter up -there,—O, and some little gold apples, and a lot of playthings; nicer -playthings—why, nicer than they have in the shops in Boston, Molly -Bland! God’s keeping ’em up there a purpose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a>{184}</span>”</p> - -<p>“Dear me!” said incredulous Molly, “I should just like to know who told -you that much. My mother never told it at me. Did your mother tell it at -you?”</p> - -<p>“O, she told me some of it, and the rest I thinked out myself.”</p> - -<p>“Let’s go and play One Old Cat,” said Molly, with an uncomfortable jump; -“I wish I hadn’t got to go to heaven!”</p> - -<p>“Why, Molly Bland! why, I think heaven’s splendid! I’ve got my papa up -there, you know. ‘Here’s my little girl!’ That’s what he’s going to say. -Mamma, she’ll be there, too, and we’re all going to live in the -prettiest house. I have dreadful hurries to go this afternoon sometimes -when Phœbe’s cross and won’t give me sugar. They don’t let you in, -though, ’nless you’re a good girl.”</p> - -<p>“Who gets it all up?” asked puzzled Molly.</p> - -<p>“Jesus Christ will give me all these beautiful fings,” said Faith, -evidently repeating her mother’s words,—the only catechism that she has -been taught.</p> - -<p>“And what will he do when he sees you?” asked her mother, coming down -the stairs and stepping up behind her.</p> - -<p>“Take me up in His arms and kiss me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a>{185}</span>”</p> - -<p>“And what will Faith say?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Fank—you!</i>” said the child, softly.</p> - -<p>In another minute she was absorbed, body and soul, in the mysteries of -One Old Cat.</p> - -<p>“But I don’t think she will feel much like being naughty for half an -hour to come,” her mother said; “hear how pleasantly her words drop! -Such a talk quiets her, like a hand laid on her head. Mary, sometimes I -think it is His very hand, as much as when He touched those other little -children. I wish Faith to feel at home with Him and His home. Little -thing! I really do not think that she is conscious of any fear of dying; -I do not think it means anything to her but Christ, and her father, and -pink blocks, and a nice time, and never disobeying me, or being cross. -Many a time she wakes me up in the morning talking away to herself, and -when I turn and look at her, she says: ‘O mamma, won’t we go to heaven -to-day, you fink? <i>When</i> will we go, mamma?’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“If there had been any pink blocks and ginger-snaps for me when I was at -her age, I should not have prayed every night to ‘die out.’ I think the -horrors of death that children live through, unguessed and unrelieved,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a>{186}</span> -are awful. Faith may thank you all her life that she has escaped them.”</p> - -<p>“I should feel answerable to God for the child’s soul, if I had not -prevented that. I always wanted to know what sort of mother that poor -little thing had, who asked, if she were <i>very</i> good up in heaven, -whether they wouldn’t let her go down to hell Saturday afternoons, and -play a little while!”</p> - -<p>“I know. But think of it,—blocks and ginger-snaps!”</p> - -<p>“I treat Faith just as the Bible treats us, by dealing in <i>pictures</i> of -truth that she can understand. I can make Clo and Abinadab Quirk -comprehend that their pianos and machinery may not be made of literal -rosewood and steel, but will be some synonyme of the thing, which will -answer just such wants of their changed natures as rosewood and steel -must answer now. There will be machinery and pianos in the same sense in -which there will be pearl gates and harps. Whatever enjoyment any or all -of them represent now, something will represent then.</p> - -<p>“But Faith, if I told her that her heavenly ginger-snaps would not be -made of molasses and flour, would have a cry, for fear that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a>{187}</span> was not -going to have any ginger-snaps at all; so, until she is older, I give -her unqualified ginger-snaps. The principal joy of a child’s life -consists in eating. Faith begins, as soon as the light wanes, to dream -of that gum-drop which she is to have at bedtime. I don’t suppose she -can outgrow that at once by passing out of her little round body. She -must begin where she left off,—nothing but a baby, though it will be as -holy and happy a baby as Christ can make it. When she says: “Mamma, I -shall be hungery and want my dinner, up there,” I never hesitate to tell -her that she shall have her dinner. She would never, in her secret -heart, though she might not have the honesty to say so, expect to be -otherwise than miserable in a dinnerless eternity.”</p> - -<p>“You are not afraid of misleading the child’s fancy?”</p> - -<p>“Not so long as I can keep the two ideas—that Christ is her best -friend, and that heaven is not meant for naughty girls—pre-eminent in -her mind. And I sincerely believe that He would give her the very pink -blocks which she anticipates, no less than He would give back a poet his -lost dreams, or you your brother. He has been a child; perhaps, -incidentally<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a>{188}</span> to the unsolved mysteries of atonement, for this very -reason,—that He may know how to ‘prepare their places’ for them, whose -angels do always behold His Father. Ah, you may be sure that, if of such -is the happy Kingdom, He will not scorn to stoop and fit it to their -little needs.</p> - -<p>“There was that poor little fellow whose guinea-pig died,—do you -remember?”</p> - -<p>“Only half; what was it?”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>O mamma,’ he sobbed out, behind his handkerchief, ‘don’t great big -elephants have souls?’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>No, my son.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Nor camels, mamma?’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>No.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Nor bears, nor alligators, nor chickens?’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>O no, dear.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>O mamma, mamma! Don’t little <small>CLEAN</small>—<i>white</i>—<i>guinea-pigs</i> have -souls?’</p> - -<p>“I never should have had the heart to say no to that; especially as we -have no positive proof to the contrary.</p> - -<p>“Then that scrap of a boy who lost his little red balloon the morning he -bought it, and, broken-hearted, wanted to know whether it had gone to -heaven. Don’t I suppose if he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a>{189}</span> had been taken there himself that very -minute, that he would have found a little balloon in waiting for him? -How can I help it?”</p> - -<p>“It has a pretty sound. If people would not think it so material and -shocking—”</p> - -<p>“Let people read Martin Luther’s letter to his little boy. There is the -testimony of a pillar in good and regular standing! I don’t think you -need be afraid of my balloon, after that.”</p> - -<p>I remembered that there was a letter of his on heaven, but, not -recalling it distinctly, I hunted for it to-night, and read it over. I -shall copy it, the better to retain it in mind.</p> - -<p>“Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little son. I see with pleasure that -thou learnest well, and prayed diligently. Do so, my son, and continue. -When I come home I will bring thee a pretty fairing.</p> - -<p>“I know a pretty, merry garden wherein are many children. They have -little golden coats, and they gather beautiful apples under the trees, -and pears, cherries, plums, and wheat-plums;—they sing, and jump, and -are merry. They have beautiful little horses, too, with gold bits and -silver saddles. And I asked the man to whom the garden belongs, whose -children<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a>{190}</span> they were. And he said: ‘They are the children that love to -pray and to learn, and are good.’ Then said I: ‘Dear man, I have a son, -too; his name is Johnny Luther. May he not also come into this garden -and eat these beautiful apples and pears, and ride these fine horses?’ -Then the man said: ‘If he loves to pray and to learn, and is good, he -shall come into this garden, and Lippus and Jost too; and when they all -come together, they shall have fifes and trumpets, lutes and all sorts -of music, and they shall dance, and shoot with little cross-bows.’</p> - -<p>“And he showed me a fine meadow there in the garden, made for dancing. -There hung nothing but golden fifes, trumpets, and fine silver -cross-bows. But it was early, and the children had not yet eaten; -therefore I could not wait the dance, and I said to the man: ‘Ah, dear -sir! I will immediately go and write all this to my little son Johnny, -and tell him to pray diligently, and to learn well, and to be good, so -that he also may come to this garden. But he has an Aunt Lehne, he must -bring her with him.’ Then the man said: ‘It shall be so; go, and write -him so.’</p> - -<p>“Therefore, my dear little son Johnny, learn<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a>{191}</span> and pray away! and tell -Lippus and Jost, too that they must learn and pray. And then you shall -come to the garden together. Herewith I commend thee to Almighty God. -And greet Aunt Lehne, and give her a kiss for my sake.</p> - -<p class="c"> -“Thy dear Father,<br /> -</p> - -<p class="tr"> -“<span class="smcap">Martinus Luther</span>.<br /> -</p> - -<p><small>“<span class="smcap">Anno</span> 1530.</small><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a>{192}</span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -August 3.<br /> -</p> - -<p>The summer is sliding quietly away,—my desolate summer which I dreaded; -with the dreams gone from its wild flowers, the crown from its sunsets, -the thrill from its winds and its singing.</p> - -<p>But I have found out a thing. One can live without dreams and crowns and -thrills.</p> - -<p>I have not lost them. They lie under the ivied cross with Roy for a -little while. They will come back to me with him. “Nothing is lost,” she -teaches me. And until they come back, I see—for she shows me—fields -groaning under their white harvest, with laborers very few. Ruth -followed the sturdy reapers, gleaning a little. I, perhaps, can do as -much. The ways in which I must work seem so small and insignificant, so -pitifully trivial sometimes, that I do not even like to write them down -here. In fact, they are so small that, six months ago, I did not see -them at all. Only to be pleasant to old Phœbe, and charitable to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a>{193}</span> -Meta Tripp, and faithful to my <i>not</i> very interesting little scholars, -and a bit watchful of worn-out Mrs. Bland, and—But dear me, I won’t! -They <i>are</i> so little!</p> - -<p>But one’s self becomes of less importance, which seems to be the point.</p> - -<p>It seems very strange to me sometimes, looking back to those desperate -winter days, what a change has come over my thoughts of Roy. Not that he -is any less—O, never any less to me. But it is almost as if she had -raised him from the grave. Why seek ye the living among the dead? Her -soft, compassionate eyes shine with the question every hour. And every -hour he is helping me,—ah, Roy, we understand one another now.</p> - -<p>How he must love Aunt Winifred! How pleasant the days will be when we -can talk her over, and thank her together!</p> - -<p>“To be happy because Roy is happy.” I remember how those first words of -hers struck me. It does not seem to me impossible, now.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred and I laugh at each other for talking so much about -heaven. I see that the green book is filled with my questions and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a>{194}</span> her -answers. The fact is, not that we do not talk as much about mundane -affairs as other people, but that this one thing interests us more.</p> - -<p>If, instead, it had been flounces, or babies, or German philosophy, the -green book would have filled itself just as unconsciously with flounces, -or babies, or German philosophy. This interest in heaven is of course no -sign of especial piety in me, nor could people with young, warm, -uncrushed hopes throbbing through their days be expected to feel the -same. It is only the old principle of, where the treasure is—the heart.</p> - -<p>“How spiritual-minded Mary has grown!” Mrs. Bland observes, regarding me -respectfully. I try in vain to laugh her out of the conviction. If Roy -had not gone before, I should think no more, probably, about the coming -life, than does the minister’s wife herself.</p> - -<p>But now—I cannot help it—that is the reality, this the dream; that the -substance, this the shadow.</p> - -<p>The other day Aunt Winifred and I had a talk which has been of more -value to me than all the rest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>{195}</span></p> - -<p>Faith was in bed; it was a cold, rainy evening; we were secure from -callers; we lighted a few kindlers in the parlor grate; she rolled up -the easy-chair, and I took my cricket at her feet.</p> - -<p>“Paul at the feet of Gamaliel! This is what I call comfort. Now, Auntie, -let us go to heaven awhile.”</p> - -<p>“Very well. What do you want there now?”</p> - -<p>I paused a moment, sobered by a thought that has been growing steadily -upon me of late.</p> - -<p>“Something more, Aunt Winifred. All these other things are beautiful and -dear; but I believe I want—God.</p> - -<p>“You have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about -Him. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleasant -promise, but—I don’t know—there seems to be an outline wanting.”</p> - -<p>She drew my hand up into hers, smiling.</p> - -<p>“I have not done my painting by artistic methods, I know; but it was not -exactly accidental.</p> - -<p>“Tell me, honestly,—is God more to you or less, a more distinct Being -or a more vague<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a>{196}</span> one, than He was six months ago? Is He, or is He not, -dearer to you now than then?”</p> - -<p>I thought about it a minute, and then turned my face up to her.</p> - -<p>“Mary, what a light in your eyes! How is it?”</p> - -<p>It came over me slowly, but it came with such a passion of gratitude and -unworthiness, that I scarcely knew how to tell her—that He never has -been to me, in all my life, what he is now at the end of these six -months. He was once an abstract Grandeur which I struggled more in fear -than love to please. He has become a living Presence, dear and real.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“No dead fact stranded on the shore<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Of the oblivious years;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But warm, sweet, tender, even yet<br /></span> -<span class="i3">A present help.” ...<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>He was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the -glare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than -we that we should be parted for a while; but He only means it to be a -little while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some -summer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I -open them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the -morning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a>{197}</span></p> - -<p>She understood what I could not tell her, and said, “I thought it would -be so.”</p> - -<p>“You, His interpreter, have done it,” I answered her. “His heaven shows -what He is,—don’t you see?—like a friend’s letter. I could no more go -back to my old groping relations to Him, than I could make of you the -dim and somewhat apocryphal Western Auntie that you were before I saw -you.”</p> - -<p>“Which was precisely why I have dealt with this subject as I have,” she -said. “You had all your life been directed to an indefinite heaven, -where the glory of God was to crowd out all individuality and all human -joy from His most individual and human creatures, till the “Glory of -God” had become nothing but a name and a dread to you. So I let those -three words slide by, and tried to bring you to them, as Christ brought -the Twelve to believe in him, ‘for the works’ sake.’</p> - -<p>“Yes, my child; clinging human loves, stifled longings, cries for rest, -forgotten hopes, shall have their answer. Whatever the bewilderment of -beauties folded away for us in heavenly nature and art, they shall -strive with each other to make us glad. These things have their pleasant -place. But, through eternity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a>{198}</span> there will be always something beyond and -dearer than the dearest of them. God himself will be first,—naturally -and of necessity, without strain or struggle, <i>first</i>.”</p> - -<p>When I sat here last winter with my dead in my house, those words would -have roused in me an agony of wild questionings. I should have beaten -about them and beaten against them, and cried in my honest heart that -they were false. I <i>knew</i> that I loved Roy more than I loved such a -Being as God seemed to me then to be. Now, they strike me as simply and -pleasantly true. The more I love Roy, the more I love Him. He loves us -both.</p> - -<p>“You see it could not be otherwise,” she went on, speaking low. “Where -would you be, or I, or they who seem to us so much dearer and better -than ourselves, if it were not for Jesus Christ? What can heaven be to -us, but a song of the love that is the same to us yesterday, to-day, and -forever,—that, in the mystery of an intensity which we shall perhaps -never understand, could choose death and be glad in the choosing, and, -what is more than that, could live <i>life</i> for us for three-and-thirty -years?</p> - -<p>“I cannot strain my faith—or rather my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a>{199}</span> common sense—to the rhapsodies -with which many people fill heaven. But it seems to me like this: A -friend goes away from us, and it may be seas or worlds that lie between -us, and we love him. He leaves behind him his little keepsakes; a lock -of hair to curl about our fingers; a picture that has caught the trick -of his eyes or smile; a book, a flower, a letter. What we do with the -curling hair, what we say to the picture, what we dream over the flower -and the letter, nobody knows but ourselves. People have risked life for -such mementoes. Yet who loves the senseless gift more than the -giver,—the curl more than the young forehead on which it fell,—the -letter more than the hand which traced it?</p> - -<p>“So it seems to me that we shall learn to see in God the centre of all -possibilities of joy. The greatest of these lesser delights is but the -greater measure of His friendship. They will not mean less of pleasure, -but more of Him. They will not “pale,” as Dr. Bland would say. Human -dearness will wax, not wane, in heaven; but human friends will be loved -for love of Him.”</p> - -<p>“I see; that helps me; like a torch in a dark room. But there will be -shadows in the corners.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a>{200}</span> Do you suppose that we shall ever <i>fully</i> feel -it in the body?”</p> - -<p>“In the body, probably not. We see through a glass so darkly that the -temptation to idolatry is always our greatest. Golden images did not die -with Paganism. At times I fancy that, somewhere between this world and -another, a revelation will come upon us like a flash, of what <i>sin</i> -really is,—such a revelation, lighting up the lurid background of our -past in such colors, that the consciousness of what Christ has done for -us will be for a time as much as heart can bear. After that, the mystery -will be, not how to love Him most, but that we ever <i>could</i> have loved -any creature or thing as much.”</p> - -<p>“We serve God quite as much by active work as by special prayer, here,” -I said after some thought; “how will it be there?”</p> - -<p>“We must be busily at work certainly; but I think there must naturally -be more communion with Him then. Now, this phrase “communion with God” -has been worn, and not always well worn.</p> - -<p>“Prayer means to us, in this life, more often penitent confession than -happy interchange of thought with Him. It is associated, too, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a>{201}</span> -aching limbs and sleepy eyes, and nights when the lamp goes out. -Obstacles, moral and physical, stand in the way of our knowing exactly -what it may mean in the ideal of it.</p> - -<p>“My best conception of it lies in the <i>friendship</i> of the man Christ -Jesus. I suppose he will bear with him, eternally, the humanity which he -took up with him from the Judean hills. I imagine that we shall see him -in visible form like ourselves, among us, yet not of us; that he, -himself, is “Gott mit ihnen”; that we shall talk with him as a man -talketh with his friend. Perhaps, bowed and hushed at his dear feet, we -shall hear from his own lips the story of Nazareth, of Bethany, of -Golgotha, of the chilly mountains where he used to pray all night long -for us; of the desert places where he hungered; of his cry for -help—think, Mary—<i>His!</i>—when there was not one in all the world to -hear it, and there was silence in heaven, while angels strengthened him -and man forsook him. Perhaps his voice—the very voice which has sounded -whispering through our troubled life—“Could ye not watch one -hour?”—shall unfold its perplexed meanings; shall make its rough places -plain; shall show us step by step the merciful way<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a>{202}</span> by which he led us -to the hour; shall point out to us, joy by joy, the surprises that he -has been planning for us, just as the old father in the story planned to -surprise his wayward boy come home.</p> - -<p>“And such a ‘communion,’—which is not too much, nor yet enough, to dare -to expect of a God who was the ‘friend’ of Abraham, who ‘walked’ with -Enoch, who did not call fishermen his servants,—<i>such</i> will be that -‘presence of God,’ that ‘adoration,’ on which we have looked from afar -off with despairing eyes that wept, they were so dazzled, and turned -themselves away as from the thing they greatly feared.”</p> - -<p>I think we neither of us cared to talk for a while after this. Something -made me forget even that I was going to see Roy in heaven. -“Three-and-thirty years. Three-and-thirty years.” The words rang -themselves over.</p> - -<p>“It is on the humanity of Christ,” she said after some musing, “that all -my other reasons for hoping for such a heaven as I hope for, rest for -foundation. He knows exactly what we are, for he has been one of us; -exactly what we hope and fear and crave, for he has hoped and feared and -craved, not the less humanly, but only more intensely.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a>{203}</span></p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span><i>If it were not so</i>,’—do you take in the thoughtful tenderness of -that? A mother, stilling her frightened child in the dark, might speak -just so,—‘<i>if it were not so, I would have told you</i>.’ That brooding -love makes room for all that we can want. He has sounded every deep of a -troubled and tempted life. Who so sure as he to understand how to -prepare a place where troubled and tempted lives may grow serene? -Further than this; since he stands as our great Type, no less in death -and after than before it, he answers for us many of these lesser -questions on the event of which so much of our happiness depends.</p> - -<p>“Shall we lose our personality in a vague ocean of ether,—you one puff -of gas, I another?—</p> - -<p>“He, with his own wounded body, rose and ate and walked and talked.</p> - -<p>“Is all memory of this life to be swept away?—</p> - -<p>“He, arisen, has forgotten nothing. He waits to meet his disciples at -the old, familiar places; as naturally as if he had never been parted -from them, he falls in with the current of their thoughts.</p> - -<p>“Has any one troubled us with fears that in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a>{204}</span> the glorified crowds of -heaven we may miss a face dearer than all the world to us?—</p> - -<p>“He made himself known to his friends; Mary, and the two at Emmaus, and -the bewildered group praying and perplexed in their bolted room.</p> - -<p>“Do we weary ourselves with speculations whether human loves can outlive -the shock of death?—</p> - -<p>“Mary knew how He loved her, when, turning, she heard him call her by -her name. They knew, whose hearts ‘burned within them while he talked -with them by the way, and when he tarried with them, the day being far -spent.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“And for the rest?”</p> - -<p>“For the rest, about which He was silent, we can trust him, and if, -trusting, we please ourselves with fancies, he would be the last to -think it blame to us. There is one promise which grows upon me the more -I study it, ‘He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not also <i>with -him freely give us all things</i>?’ Sometimes I wonder if that does not -infold a beautiful <i>double entendre</i>, a hint of much that you and I have -conjectured,—as one throws down a hint of a surprise to a child.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a>{205}</span></p> - -<p>“Then there is that pledge to those who seek first His kingdom: ‘<i>All -these things shall be added unto you</i>.’ ‘These things,’ were food and -clothing, were varieties of material delight, and the words were spoken -to men who lived hungry, beggared, and died the death of outcasts. If -this passage could be taken literally, it would be very significant in -its bearing on the future life; for Christ must keep his promise to the -letter, in one world or another. It may be wrenching the verse, not as a -verse, but from the grain of the argument, to insist on the literal -interpretation,—though I am not sure.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a>{206}</span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -August 15.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I asked the other day, wondering whether all ministers were like Dr. -Bland, what Uncle Forceythe used to believe about heaven.</p> - -<p>“Very much what I do,” she said. “These questions were brought home to -him, early in life, by the death of a very dear sister; he had thought -much about them. I think one of the things that so much attached his -people to him was the way he had of weaving their future life in with -this, till it grew naturally and pleasantly into their frequent thought. -O yes, your uncle supplied me with half of my proof-texts.”</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred has not looked quite well of late, I fancy; though it may -be only fancy. She has not spoken of it, except one day when I told her -that she looked pale. It was the heat, she said.</p> - -<p class="r"> -20th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Little Clo came over to-night. I believe she thinks Aunt Winifred the -best friend she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a>{207}</span> has in the world. Auntie has become much attached to -all her scholars, and has a rare power of winning her way into their -confidence. They come to her with all their little -interests,—everything, from saving their souls to trimming a bonnet. -Clo, however, is the favorite, as I predicted.</p> - -<p>She looked a bit blue to-night, as girls will look; in fact, her face -always has a tinge of sadness about it. Aunt Winifred, understanding at -a glance that the child was not in a mood to talk before a third, led -her away into the garden, and they were gone a long time. When it grew -dark, I saw them coming up the path, Clo’s hand locked in her teacher’s, -and her face, which was wet, upturned like a child’s. They strolled to -the gate, lingered a little to talk, and then Clo said good night -without coming in.</p> - -<p>Auntie sat for a while after she had gone, thinking her over, I could -see.</p> - -<p>“Poor thing!” she said at last, half to herself, half to me,—“poor -little foolish thing! This is where the dreadful individuality of a -human soul irks me. There comes a point, beyond which you <i>can’t</i> help -people.”</p> - -<p>“What has happened to Clo?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a>{208}</span>”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, lately. It has been happening for two years. Two miserable -years are an eternity, at Clo’s age. It is the old story,—a summer -boarder; a little flirting; a little dreaming; a little pain; then -autumn, and the nuts dropping on the leaves, and he was gone,—and knew -not what he did,—and the child waked up. There was the future; to bake -and sweep, to go to sewing-circles, and sing in the choir, and bear the -moonlight nights,—and she loved him. She has lived through two years of -it, and she loves him now. Reason will not reach such a passion in a -girl like Clo. I did not tell her that she would put it away with other -girlish things, and laugh at it herself some happy day, as women have -laughed at their young fancies before her; partly because that would be -a certain way of repelling her confidence,—she does not believe it, and -my believing could not make her; partly because I am not quite sure -about it myself. Clo has a good deal of the woman about her; her -introspective life is intense. She may cherish this sweet misery as she -does her musical tastes, till it has struck deep root. There is nothing -in the excellent Mrs. Bentley’s household, nor in Homer anywhere, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a>{209}</span> -draw the girl out from herself in time to prevent the dream from -becoming a reality.”</p> - -<p>“Poor little thing! What did you say to her?”</p> - -<p>“You ought to have heard what she said to me! I wish I were at liberty -to tell you the whole story. What troubles her most is that it is not -going to help the matter any to die. ‘O Mrs. Forceythe,’ she says, in a -tone that is enough to give the heart-ache, even to such an old woman as -Mrs. Forceythe, ‘O Mrs. Forceythe, what is going to become of me up -there? He never loved me, you see, and he never, never will, and he will -have some beautiful, good wife of his own, and I won’t have <i>any</i>body! -For I can’t love anybody else,—I’ve tried; I tried just as hard as I -could to love my cousin ’Bin; he’s real good, and—I’m—afraid ’Bin -likes me, though I guess he likes his carpet-sweepers better. O, -sometimes I think, and think, till it seems as if I could not bear it! I -don’t see how God can <i>make</i> me happy. I wish I could be buried up and -go to sleep, and never have any heaven!’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“And you told her—?”</p> - -<p>“That she should have him there. That is, if not himself, -something,—somebody who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a>{210}</span> would so much more than fill his place, that -she would never have a lonely or unloved minute. Her eyes brightened, -and shaded, and pondered, doubting. She ‘didn’t see how it could ever -be.’ I told her not to try and see how, but to leave it to Christ. He -knew all about this little trouble of hers, and he would make it right.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Will he?’ she questioned, sighing; ‘but there are so many of us! -There’s ’Bin, and a plenty more, and I don’t see how it’s going to be -smoothed out. Everything is in a jumble, Mrs. Forceythe, don’t you see? -for some people <i>can’t</i> like and keep liking so many times.’ Something -came into my mind about the rough places that shall be made plain, and -the crooked things straight. I tried to explain to her, and at last I -kissed away her tears, and sent her home, if not exactly comforted, a -little less miserable, I think, than when she came. Ah, well,—I wonder -myself sometimes about these ‘crooked things’; but, though I wonder, I -never doubt.”</p> - -<p>She finished her sentence somewhat hurriedly, and half started from her -chair, raising both hands with a quick, involuntary motion that -attracted my notice. The lights came in just<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a>{211}</span> then, and, unless I am -much mistaken, her face showed paler than usual; but when I asked her if -she felt faint, she said, “O no, I believe I am a little tired, and will -go to bed.”</p> - -<p class="r"> -September 1.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I am glad that the summer is over. This heat has certainly worn on Aunt -Winifred, with that kind of wear which slides people into confirmed -invalidism. I suppose she would bear it in her saintly way, as she bears -everything, but it would be a bitter cup for her. I know she was always -pale, but this is a paleness which—</p> - -<p class="r"> -Night.<br /> -</p> - -<p>A dreadful thing has happened!</p> - -<p>I was in the middle of my sentence, when I heard a commotion in the -street, and a child’s voice shouting incoherently something about the -doctor, and “<i>mother’s killed! O, mother’s killed! mother’s burnt to -death!</i>” I was at the window in time to see a blond-haired girl running -wildly past the house, and to see that it was Molly Bland.</p> - -<p>At the same moment I saw Aunt Winifred snatching her hat from its nail -in the entry. She beckoned to me to follow, and we were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a>{212}</span> half-way over -to the parsonage before I had a distinct thought of what I was about.</p> - -<p>We came upon a horrible scene. Dr. Bland was trying to do everything -alone; there was not a woman in the house to help him, for they have -never been able to keep a servant, and none of the neighbors had had -time to be there before us. The poor husband was growing faint, I think. -Aunt Winifred saw by a look that he could not bear much more, sent him -after Molly for the doctor, and took everything meantime into her own -charge.</p> - -<p>I shall not write down a word of it. It was a sight that, once seen, -will never leave me as long as I live. My nerves are thoroughly shaken -by it, and it must be put out of thought as far as possible.</p> - -<p>It seems that the little boy—the baby—crept into the kitchen by -himself, and began to throw the contents of the match-box on the stove, -“to make a bonfire,” the poor little fellow said. In five minutes his -apron was ablaze. His mother was on the spot at his first cry, and -smothered the little apron, and saved the child, but her dress was -muslin, and everybody was too far off to hear her at first,—and by the -time her husband came in from the garden it was too late.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a>{213}</span></p> - -<p>She is living yet. Her husband, pacing the room back and forth, and -crouching on his knees by the hour, is praying God to let her die before -the morning.</p> - -<p class="r"> -Morning.<br /> -</p> - -<p>There is no chance of life, the doctor says. But he has been able to -find something that has lessened her sufferings. She lies partially -unconscious.</p> - -<p class="r"> -Wednesday night.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred and I were over at the parsonage to-night, when she roused -a little from her stupor and recognized us. She spoke to her husband, -and kissed me good by, and asked for the children. They were playing -softly in the next room; we sent for them, and they came in,—the four -unconscious, motherless little things,—with the sunlight in their hair.</p> - -<p>The bitterness of death came into her marred face at sight of them, and -she raised her hands to Auntie—to the only other mother there—with a -sudden helpless cry: “I could bear it, I could bear it, if it weren’t -for <i>them</i>. Without any mother all their lives,—such little -things,—and to go away where I can’t do a single <i>thing</i> for them!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a>{214}</span>”</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred stooped down and spoke low, but decidedly.</p> - -<p>“You <i>will</i> do for them. God knows all about it. He will not send you -away from them. You shall be just as much their mother, every day of -their lives, as you have been here. Perhaps there is something to do for -them which you never could have done here. He sees. He loves them. He -loves you.”</p> - -<p>If I could paint, I might paint the look that struck through and through -that woman’s dying face; but words cannot touch it. If I were Aunt -Winifred, I should bless God on my knees to-night for having shown me -how to give such ease to a soul in death.</p> - -<p class="r"> -Thursday morning.<br /> -</p> - -<p>God is merciful. Mrs. Bland died at five o’clock.</p> - -<p class="r"> -10th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>How such a voice from the heavens shocks one out of the repose of calm -sorrows and of calm joys. This has come and gone so suddenly that I -cannot adjust it to any quiet and trustful thinking yet.</p> - -<p>The whole parish mourns excitedly; for, though they worked their -minister’s wife hard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a>{215}</span> they loved her well. I cannot talk it over with -the rest. It jars. Horror should never be dissected. Besides, my heart -is too full of those four little children with the sunlight in their -hair and the unconsciousness in their eyes.</p> - -<p class="r"> -15th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Mrs. Quirk came over to-day in great perplexity. She had just come from -the minister’s.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what we’re a goin’ to do with him!” she exclaimed in a -gush of impatient, uncomprehending sympathy; “you can’t let a man take -on that way much longer. He’ll worry himself sick, and then we shall -either lose him or have to pay his bills to Europe! Why, he jest stops -in the house, and walks his study up and down, day and night; or else he -jest sets and sets and don’t notice nobody but the children. Now I’ve -jest ben over makin’ him some chicken-pie,—he used to set a sight by my -chicken-pie,—and he made believe to eat it, ’cause I’d ben at the -trouble, I suppose, but how much do you suppose he swallowed? Jest three -mouthfuls! Thinks says I, I won’t spend my time over chicken-pie for the -afflicted agin, and on ironing-day, too! When I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a>{216}</span> knocked at the study -door, he said, ‘Come in, and stopped his walkin’ and turned as quick.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>O,’ says he, ‘good morning. I thought it was Mrs. Forceythe.’</p> - -<p>“I told him no, I wasn’t Mrs. Forceythe, but I’d come to comfort him in -his sorrer all the same. But that’s the only thing I have agin our -minister. He won’t <i>be</i> comforted. Mary Ann Jacobs, who’s ben there kind -of looking after the children and things for him, you know, sence the -funeral—she says he’s asked three or four times for you, Mrs. -Forceythe. There’s ben plenty of his people in to see him, but you -haven’t ben nigh him, Mary Ann says.”</p> - -<p>“I stayed away because I thought the presence of friends at this time -would be an intrusion,” Auntie said; “but if he would like to see me, -that alters the case. I will go, certainly.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” suggested Mrs. Quirk, looking over the tops of her -spectacles,—“I s’pose it’s proper enough, but you bein’ a widow, you -know, and his wife—”</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred’s eyes shot fire. She stood up and turned upon Mrs. Quirk -with a look the like of which I presume that worthy lady had never seen -before, and is not likely to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a>{217}</span> soon again (it gave the beautiful -scorn of a Zenobia to her fair, slight face), moved her lips slightly, -but said nothing, put on her bonnet, and went straight to Dr. Bland’s.</p> - -<p>The minister, they told her, was in his study. She knocked lightly at -the door, and was bidden in a lifeless voice to enter.</p> - -<p>Shades and blinds were drawn, and the glare of the sun quite shut out. -Dr. Bland sat by his study-table, with his face upon his hands. A Bible -lay open before him. It had been lately used; the leaves were wet.</p> - -<p>He raised his head dejectedly, but smiled when he saw who it was. He had -been thinking about her, he said, and was glad that she had come.</p> - -<p>I do not know all that passed between them, but I gather, from such -hints as Auntie in her unconsciousness throws out, that she had things -to say which touched some comfortless places in the man’s heart. No -Greek and Hebrew “original,” no polished dogma, no link in his -stereotyped logic, not one of his eloquent sermons on the future state, -came to his relief.</p> - -<p>These were meant for happy days. They rang cold as steel upon the warm -needs of an afflicted man. Brought face to face, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a>{218}</span> sharply, with the -blank heaven of his belief, he stood up from before his dead, and groped -about it, and cried out against it in the bitterness of his soul.</p> - -<p>“I had no chance to prepare myself to bow to the will of God,” he said, -his reserved ministerial manner in curious contrast with the caged way -in which he was pacing the room,—“I had no chance. I am taken by -surprise, as by a thief in the night. I had a great deal to say to her, -and there was no time. She could tell me what to do with my poor little -children. I wanted to tell her other things. I wanted to tell -her—Perhaps we all of us have our regrets when the Lord removes our -friends; we may have done or left undone many things; we might have made -them happier. My mind does not rest with assurance in its conceptions of -the heavenly state. If I never can tell her—”</p> - -<p>He stopped abruptly, and paced into the darkest shadows of the shadowed -room, his face turned away.</p> - -<p>“You said once some pleasant things about heaven?” he said at last, half -appealingly, stopping in front of her, hesitating; like a man and like a -minister, hardly ready to come with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a>{219}</span> all the learning of his schools and -commentators and sit at the feet of a woman.</p> - -<p>She talked with him for a time in her unobtrusive way, deferring, when -she honestly could, to his clerical judgment, and careful not to wound -him by any word; but frankly and clearly, as she always talks.</p> - -<p>When she rose to go he thanked her quietly.</p> - -<p>“This is a somewhat novel train of thought to me,” he said; “I hope it -may not prove an unscriptural one. I have been reading the book of -Revelation to-day with these questions especially in mind. We are never -too old to learn. Some passages may be capable of other interpretations -than I have formerly given them. No matter what I <i>wish</i>, you see, I -must be guided by the Word of my God.”</p> - -<p>Auntie says that she never respected the man so much as she did when, -hearing those words, she looked up into his haggard face, convulsed with -its human pain and longing.</p> - -<p>“I hope you do not think that <i>I</i> am not guided by the Word of God,” she -answered. “I mean to be.”</p> - -<p>“I know you mean to be,” he said cordially. “I do not say that you are -not. I may come to see that you are, and that you are right.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a>{220}</span> It will be -a peaceful day for me if I can ever quite agree with your methods of -reasoning. But I must think these things over. I thank you once more for -coming. Your sympathy is grateful to me.”</p> - -<p>Just as she closed the door he called her back.</p> - -<p>“See,” he said, with a saddened smile. “At least I shall never preach -<i>this</i> again. It seems to me that life is always undoing for us -something that we have just laboriously done.”</p> - -<p>He held up before her a mass of old blue manuscript, and threw it, as he -spoke, upon the embers left in his grate. It smoked and blazed up and -burned out.</p> - -<p>It was that sermon on heaven of which there is an abstract in this -journal.</p> - -<p class="r"> -20th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred hired Mr. Tripp’s gray this afternoon, and drove to East -Homer on some unexplained errand. She did not invite me to go with her, -and Faith, though she teased impressively, was left at home. Her mother -was gone till late,—so late that I had begun to be anxious about her, -and heard through the dark the first sound of the buggy wheels, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a>{221}</span> -great relief. She looked very tired when I met her at the gate. She had -not been able, she said, to accomplish her errand at East Homer, and -from there had gone to Worcester by railroad, leaving Old Gray at the -East Homer Eagle till her return. She told me nothing more, and I asked -no questions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a>{222}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -Sunday.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Faith has behaved like a witch all day. She knocked down three crickets -and six hymn-books in church this morning, and this afternoon horrified -the assembled and devout congregation by turning round in the middle of -the long prayer, and, in a loud and distinct voice, asking Mrs. Quirk -for “<span class="lftspc">‘</span>nother those pepp’mints such as you gave me one Sunday a good many -years ago, you ’member.” After church, her mother tried a few Bible -questions to keep her still.</p> - -<p>“Faith, who was Christ’s father?”</p> - -<p>“Jerusalem!” said Faith, promptly.</p> - -<p>“Where did his parents take Jesus when they fled from Herod?”</p> - -<p>“O, to Europe. Of course I knew that! Everybody goes to Europe.”</p> - -<p>To-night, when her mother had put her to bed, she came down laughing.</p> - -<p>“Faith does seem to have a hard time with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a>{223}</span> the Lord’s Prayer. To-night, -being very sleepy and in a hurry to finish, she proceeded with great -solemnity:—‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; six -days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, and—Oh!’</p> - -<p>“I was just thinking how amused her father must be.”</p> - -<p>Auntie says many such things. I cannot explain how pleasantly they -strike me, nor how they help me.</p> - -<p class="r"> -29th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Dr. Bland gave us a good sermon yesterday. There is an indescribable -change in all his sermons. There is a change, too, in the man, and that -something more than the haggardness of grief. I not only respect him and -am sorry for him, but I feel more ready to be taught by him than ever -before. A certain indefinable <i>humanness</i> softens his eyes and tones, -and seems to be creeping into everything that he says. Yet, on the other -hand, his people say that they have never heard him speak such pleasant, -helpful things concerning his and their relations to God. I met him the -other night, coming away from his wife’s grave, and was struck by the -expression of his face. I wondered if he were not slowly finding<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a>{224}</span> the -“peaceful day,” of which he told Aunt Winifred.</p> - -<p>She, by the way, has taken another of her mysterious trips to Worcester.</p> - -<p class="r"> -30th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>We were wondering to-day where it will be,—I mean heaven.</p> - -<p>“It is impossible to do more than wonder,” Auntie said, “though we are -explicitly told that there will be new heavens <i>and</i> a new earth, which -seems, if anything can be taken literally in the Bible, to point to this -world as the future home of at least some of us.”</p> - -<p>“Not for all of us, of course?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t feel sure. I know that somebody spent his valuable time in -estimating that all the people who have lived and died upon the earth -would cover it, alive or buried, twice over; but I know that somebody -else claims with equal solemnity to have discovered that they could all -be buried in the State of Pennsylvania! But it would be of little -consequence if we could not all find room here, since there must be -other provision for us.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly there is ‘a place’ in which we are promised that we shall be -‘with Christ,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a>{225}</span>’ this world being yet the great theatre of human life and -battle-ground of Satan; no place, certainly, in which to confine a happy -soul without prospect of release. The Spiritualistic notion of ‘circles’ -of dead friends revolving over us is to me intolerable. I want my -husband with me when I need him, but I hope he has a place to be happy -in, which is out of this woful world.</p> - -<p>“The old astronomical idea, stars around a sun, and systems around a -centre, and that centre the Throne of God, is not an unreasonable one. -Isaac Taylor, among his various conjectures, inclines, I fancy, to -suppose that the sun of each system is the heaven of that system. Though -the glory of God may be more directly and impressively exhibited in one -place than in another, we may live in different planets, and some of us, -after its destruction and renovation, on this same dear old, happy and -miserable, loved and maltreated earth. I hope I shall be one of them. I -should like to come back and build me a beautiful home in Kansas,—I -mean in what was Kansas,—among the happy people and the familiar, -transfigured spots where John and I worked for God so long together. -That—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a>{226}</span>with my dear Lord to see and speak with every day—would be -‘Heaven our Home.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“There will be no <i>days</i>, then?”</p> - -<p>“There will be succession of time. There may not be alternations of -twenty-four hours dark or light, but ‘I use with thee an earthly -language,’ as the wife said in that beautiful little ‘Awakening,’ of -Therrmin’s. Do you remember it? Do read it over, if you haven’t read it -lately.</p> - -<p>“As to our coming back here, there is an echo to Peter’s assertion, in -the idea of a world under a curse, destroyed and regenerated,—the -atonement of Christ reaching, with something more than poetic force, the -very sands of the earth which he trod with bleeding feet to make himself -its Saviour. That makes me feel—don’t you see?—what a taint there is -in sin. If dumb dust is to have such awful cleansing, what must be -needed for you and me?</p> - -<p>“How many pleasant talks we have had about these things, Mary! Well, it -cannot be long, at the longest, before we know, even as we are known.”</p> - -<p>I looked at her smiling white face,—it is always very white now,—and -something struck slowly through me, like a chill.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a>{227}</span></p> - -<p class="r"> -October 16, midnight.<br /> -</p> - -<p>There is no such thing as sleep at present. Writing is better than -thinking.</p> - -<p>Aunt Winifred went again to Worcester to-day. She said that she had to -buy trimming for Faith’s sack.</p> - -<p>She went alone, as usual, and Faith and I kept each other company -through the afternoon,—she on the floor with Mary Ann, I in the -easy-chair with Macaulay. As the light began to fall level on the floor, -I threw the book aside,—being at the end of a volume,—and, Mary Ann -having exhausted her attractions, I surrendered unconditionally to the -little maiden.</p> - -<p>She took me up garret, and down cellar, on lop of the wood-pile, and -into the apple-trees; I fathomed the mysteries of Old Man’s Castle and -Still Palm; I was her grandmother, I was her baby, I was a rabbit, I was -a chestnut horse, I was a watch-dog, I was a mild-tempered giant, I was -a bear “warranted not to eat little girls,” I was a roaring hippopotamus -and a canary bird, I was Jeff Davis and I was Moses in the bulrushes, -and of what I was, the time faileth me to tell.</p> - -<p>It comes over me with a curious, mingled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a>{228}</span> sense of the ludicrous and the -horrible, that I should have spent the afternoon like a baby and almost -as happily, laughing out with the child, past and future forgotten, the -tremendous risks of “I spy” absorbing all my present; while what was -happening was happening, and what was to come was coming. Not an echo in -the air, not a prophecy in the sunshine, not a note of warning in the -song of the robins that watched me from the apple-boughs!</p> - -<p>As the long, golden afternoon slid away, we came out by the front gate -to watch for the child’s mother. I was tired, and, lying back on the -grass, gave Faith some pink and purple larkspurs, that she might amuse -herself in making a chain of them. The picture that she made sitting -there on the short, dying grass—the light which broke all about her and -over her at the first, creeping slowly down and away to the west, her -little fingers linking the rich, bright flowers tube into tube, the -dimple on her cheek and the love in her eyes—has photographed itself -into my thinking.</p> - -<p>How her voice rang out, when the wheels sounded at last, and the -carriage, somewhat slowly driven, stopped!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a>{229}</span></p> - -<p>“Mamma, mamma! see what I’ve got for you, mamma!”</p> - -<p>Auntie tried to step from the carriage, and called me: “Mary, can you -help me a little? I am—tired.”</p> - -<p>I went to her, and she leaned heavily on my arm, and we came up the -path.</p> - -<p>“Such a pretty little chain, all for you, mamma,” began Faith, and -stopped, struck by her mother’s look.</p> - -<p>“It has been a long ride, and I am in pain. I believe I will lie right -down on the parlor sofa. Mary, would you be kind enough to give Faith -her supper and put her to bed?”</p> - -<p>Faith’s lip grieved.</p> - -<p>“Cousin Mary isn’t <i>you</i>, mamma. I want to be kissed. You haven’t kissed -me.”</p> - -<p>Her mother hesitated for a moment; then kissed her once, twice; put both -arms about her neck; and turned her face to the wall without a word.</p> - -<p>“Mamma is tired, dear,” I said; “come away.”</p> - -<p>She was lying quite still when I had done what was to be done for the -child, and had come back. The room was nearly dark. I sat down on my -cricket by her sofa.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a>{230}</span></p> - -<p>“Shall Phœbe light the lamp?”</p> - -<p>“Not just yet.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t you drink a cup of tea if I bring it?”</p> - -<p>“Not just yet.”</p> - -<p>“Did you find the sack-trimming?” I ventured, after a pause.</p> - -<p>“I believe so,—yes.”</p> - -<p>She drew a little package from her pocket, held it a moment, then let it -roll to the floor forgotten. When I picked it up, the soft, tissue-paper -wrapper was wet and hot with tears.</p> - -<p>“Mary?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I never thought of the little trimming till the last minute. I had -another errand.”</p> - -<p>I waited.</p> - -<p>“I thought at first I would not tell you just yet. But I suppose the -time has come; it will be no more easy to put it off. I have been to -Worcester all these times to see a doctor.”</p> - -<p>I bent my head in the dark, and listened for the rest.</p> - -<p>“He has his reputation; they said he could help me if anybody could. He -thought at first he could. But to-day—Mary, see here.”</p> - -<p>She walked feebly towards the window,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a>{231}</span> where a faint, gray light -struggled in, and opened the bosom of her dress....</p> - -<p>There was silence between us for a long while after that; she went back -to the sofa, and I took her hand and bowed my face over it, and so we -sat.</p> - -<p>The leaves rustled out of doors. Faith, up stairs, was singing herself -to sleep with a droning sound.</p> - -<p>“He talked of risking an operation,” she said, at length, “but decided -to-day that it was quite useless. I suppose I must give up and be sick -now; I am feeling the reaction from having kept up so long. He thinks I -shall not suffer a very great deal. He thinks he can relieve me, and -that it may be soon over.”</p> - -<p>“There is no chance?”</p> - -<p>“No chance.”</p> - -<p>I took both of her hands, and cried out, I believe, as I did that first -night when she spoke to me of Roy,—“Auntie, Auntie, Auntie!” and tried -to think what I was doing, but only cried out the more.</p> - -<p>“Why, Mary!” she said,—“why, Mary!” and again, as before, she passed -her soft hand to and fro across my hair, till by and by I began to -think, as I had thought before, that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a>{232}</span> could bear anything which God -who loved us all—who <i>surely</i> loved us all—should send.</p> - -<p>So then, after I had grown still, she began to tell me about it in her -quiet voice, and the leaves rustled, and Faith had sung herself to -sleep, and I listened wondering. For there was no pain in the quiet -voice,—no pain, nor tone of fear. Indeed, it seemed to me that I -detected, through its subdued sadness, a secret, suppressed buoyancy of -satisfaction, with which something struggled.</p> - -<p>“And you?” I asked, turning quickly upon her.</p> - -<p>“I should thank God with all my heart, Mary, if it were not for Faith -and you. But it <i>is</i> for Faith and you. That’s all.”</p> - -<p>When I had locked the front door, and was creeping up here to my room, -my foot crushed something, and a faint, wounded perfume came up. It was -the little pink and purple chain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a>{233}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI.</h2> - -<p class="r"> -October 17.<br /> -</p> - -<p>“The Lord God a’mighty help us! but His ways are past finding out. What -with one thing and another thing, that child without a mother, and you -with the crape not yet rusty for Mr. Roy’l, it doos seem to me as if His -manner of treating folks beats all! But I tell you this, Miss Mary, my -dear; you jest say your prayers reg’lar and <i>stick to Him</i>, and He’ll -pull you through, sure!”</p> - -<p>This was what Phœbe said when I told her.</p> - -<p class="r"> -November 8.<br /> -</p> - -<p>To-night, for the first time, Auntie fairly gave up trying to put Faith -to bed. She had insisted on it until now, crawling up by the banisters -like a wounded thing. This time she tottered and sank upon the second -step. She cried out, feebly; “I am afraid I must give it up to Cousin -Mary. Faith!”—the child clung with both hands to her,—“Faith, Faith! -Mother’s little girl!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a>{234}</span>”</p> - -<p>It was the last dear care of motherhood yielded; the last link snapped. -It seemed to be the very bitterness of parting.</p> - -<p>I turned away, that they might bear it together, they two alone.</p> - -<p class="r"> -19th.<br /> -</p> - -<p>Yet I think that took away the sting.</p> - -<p>The days are slipping away now very quietly, and—to her I am sure, and -to me for her sake—very happily.</p> - -<p>She suffers less than I had feared, and she lies upon the bed and -smiles, and Faith comes in and plays about, and the cheery morning -sunshine falls on everything, and when her strong hours come, we have -long talks together, hand clasped in hand.</p> - -<p>Such pleasant talks! We are quite brave to speak of anything, since we -know that what is to be is best just so, and since we fear no parting. I -tell her that Faith and I will soon learn to shut our eyes and think we -see her, and try to make it <i>almost</i> the same, for she will never be -very far away, will she? And then she shakes her head smiling, for it -pleases her, and she kisses me softly. Then we dream of how it will all -be, and how we shall love and try to please each other quite as much as -now.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a>{235}</span></p> - -<p>“It will be like going around a corner, don’t you see?” she says. “You -will know that I am there all the while, though hidden, and that if you -call me I shall hear.” Then we talk of Faith, and of how I shall comfort -her; that I shall teach her this, and guard her from that, and how I -shall talk with her about heaven and her mother. Sometimes Faith comes -up and wants to know what we are saying, and lays poor Mary Ann, sawdust -and all, upon the pillow, and wants “her toof-ache kissed away.” So -Auntie kisses away the dolly’s “toof-ache”; and kisses the dolly’s -little mother, sometimes with a quiver on her lips, but more often with -a smile in her eyes, and Faith runs back to play, and her laugh ripples -out, and her mother listens—listens—</p> - -<p>Sometimes, too, we talk of some of the people for whom she cares; of her -husband’s friends; of her scholars, or Dr. Bland, or Clo, or poor ’Bin -Quirk, or of somebody down town whom she was planning to help this -winter. Little Clo comes in as often as she is strong enough to see her, -and sends over untold jellies and blanc-manges, which Faith and I have -to eat. “But don’t let the child know that,” Auntie says.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a>{236}</span></p> - -<p>But more often we talk of the life which she is so soon to begin; of her -husband and Roy; of what she will try to say to Christ; how much dearer -He has grown to her since she has lain here in pain at His bidding, and -how He helps her, at morning and at eventide and in the night-watches.</p> - -<p>We talk of the trees and the mountains and the lilies in the garden, on -which the glory of the light that is not the light of the sun may shine; -of the “little brooks” by which she longs to sit and sing to Faith; of -the treasures of art which she may fancy to have about her; of the home -in which her husband may be making ready for her coming, and wonder what -he has there, and if he knows how near the time is now.</p> - -<p>But I notice lately that she more often and more quickly wearies of -these things; that she comes back, and comes back again to some loving -thought—as loving as a child’s—of Jesus Christ. He seems to be—as she -once said she tried that He should be to Faith—her “<i>best</i> friend.”</p> - -<p>Sometimes, too, we wonder what it means to pass out of the body, and -what one will be first conscious of.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a>{237}</span></p> - -<p>“I used to have a very human, and by no means slight, dread of the -physical pain of death,” she said to-day; “but, for some reason or -other, that is slowly leaving me. I imagine that the suffering of any -fatal sickness is worse than the immediate process of dissolution. Then -there is so much beyond it to occupy one’s thoughts. One thing I have -thought much about; it is that, whatever may be our first experience -after leaving the body, it is not likely to be a <i>revolutionary</i> one. It -is more in analogy with God’s dealings that a quiet process, a gentle -accustoming, should open our eyes on the light that would blind if it -came in a flash. Perhaps we shall not see Him,—perhaps we could not -bear it to see Him at once. It may be that the faces of familiar human -friends will be the first to greet us; it may be that the touch of the -human hand dearer than any but His own shall lead us, as we are able, -behind the veil, till we are a little used to the glory and the wonder, -and lead us so to Him.</p> - -<p>“Be that as it may, and be heaven where it may, I am not afraid. With -all my guessing and my studying and my dreaming over these things, I am -only a child in the dark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a>{238}</span> ‘Nevertheless, I am not afraid of the dark.’ -God bless Mr. Robertson for saying that! I’m going to bless him when I -see him. How pleasant it will be to see him, and some other friends -whose faces I never saw in this world. David, for instance, or Paul, or -Cowper, or President Lincoln, or Mrs. Browning. The only trouble is that -<i>I</i> am nobody to them! However, I fancy that they will let me shake -hands with them.</p> - -<p>“No, I am quite willing to trust all these things to God.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘And what if much be still unknown?<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Thy Lord shall teach thee that,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">When thou shalt stand before His throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Or sit as Mary sat.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">I may find them very different from what I have supposed. I know that I -shall find them infinitely <i>more</i> satisfying than I have supposed. As -Schiller said of his philosophy, ‘Perhaps I may be ashamed of my raw -design, at sight of the true original. This may happen; I expect it; but -then, if reality bears no resemblance to my dreams, it will be a more -majestic, a more delightful surprise.’</p> - -<p>“I believe nothing that God denies. I cannot overrate the beauty of his -promise. So<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a>{239}</span> it surely can have done no harm for me to take the comfort -of my fancying till I am there; and what a comfort it has been to me, -God only knows. I could scarcely have borne some things without it.”</p> - -<p>“You are never afraid that anything proving a little different from what -you expect might—”</p> - -<p>“Might disappoint me? No; I have settled that in my heart with God. I do -not <i>think</i> I shall be disappointed. The truth is, he has obviously not -<i>opened</i> the gates which bar heaven from our sight, but he has as -obviously not <i>shut</i> them; they stand ajar, with the Bible and reason in -the way, to keep them from closing; surely we should look in as far as -we can, and surely, if we look with reverence, our eyes will be holden, -that we may not cheat ourselves with mirages. And, as the little Swedish -girl said, the first time she saw the stars: ‘O father, if the <i>wrong -side</i> of heaven is so beautiful, what must the <i>right side</i> be?’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p class="r"> -January.<br /> -</p> - -<p>I write little now, for I am living too much. The days are stealing away -and lessening one by one, and still Faith plays about the room,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a>{240}</span> though -very softly now, and still the cheery sunshine shimmers in, and still we -talk with clasping hands, less often and more pleasantly. Morning and -noon and evening come and go; the snow drifts down and the rain falls -softly; clouds form and break and hurry past the windows; shadows melt -and lights are shattered, and little rainbows are prisoned by the -icicles that hang from the eaves.</p> - -<p>I sit and watch them, and watch the sick-lamp flicker in the night, and -watch the blue morning crawl over the hills; and the old words are -stealing down my thought: <i>That is the substance, this the shadow; that -the reality, this the dream</i>.</p> - -<p>I watch her face upon the pillow; the happy secret on its lips; the -smile within its eyes. It is nearly a year now since God sent the face -to me. What it has done for me He knows; what the next year and all the -years are to be without it, He knows, too.</p> - -<p>It is slipping away,—slipping. And I—must—lose it.</p> - -<p>Perhaps I should not have said what I said to-night; but being weak from -watching, and seeing how glad she was to go, seeing how all the peace -was for her, all the pain for us, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a>{241}</span> cried, “O Auntie, Auntie, why can’t -we go too? Why <i>can’t</i> Faith and I go with you?”</p> - -<p>But she answered me only, “Mary, He knows.”</p> - -<p>We will be brave again to-morrow. A little more sunshine in the room! A -little more of Faith and the dolly!</p> - -<p class="r"> -The Sabbath.<br /> -</p> - -<p>She asked for the child at bedtime to-night, and I laid her down in her -night-dress on her mother’s arm. She kissed her, and said her prayers, -and talked a bit about Mary Ann, and to-morrow, and her snow man. I sat -over by the window in the dusk, and watched a little creamy cloud that -was folding in the moon. Presently their voices grew low, and at last -Faith’s stopped altogether. Then I heard in fragments this:—</p> - -<p>“Sleepy, dear? But you won’t have many more talks with mamma. Keep awake -just a minute, Faith, and hear—can you hear? Mamma will never, <i>never</i> -forget her little girl; she won’t go away very far; she will always love -you. Will you remember as long as you live? She will always see you, -though you can’t see her, perhaps. Hush, my darling, <i>don’t</i> cry! Isn’t -God naughty? No, God is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a>{242}</span> good; God is always good. He won’t take mamma a -great way off. One more kiss? There! now you may go to sleep. One more! -Come, Cousin Mary.”</p> - -<p class="r"> -June 6.<br /> -</p> - -<p>It is a long time since I have written here. I did not want to open the -book till I was sure that I could open it quietly, and could speak as -she would like to have me speak, of what remains to be written.</p> - -<p>But a very few words will tell it all.</p> - -<p>It happened so naturally and so happily, she was so glad when the time -came, and she made me so glad for her sake, that I cannot grieve. I say -it from my honest heart, I cannot grieve. In the place out of which she -has gone, she has left me peace. I think of something that Miss Procter -said about the opening of that golden gate,</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">“round which the kneeling spirits wait.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The halo seems to linger round those kneeling closest to the door:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The joy that lightened from that place shines still upon the watcher’s face.”<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">I think more often of some things that she herself said in the very last -of those pleasant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a>{243}</span> talks, when, turning a leaf in her little Bible, she -pointed out to me the words:—</p> - -<p>“It is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away, the -Comforter will not come.”</p> - -<p>It was one spring-like night,—the twenty-ninth of March.</p> - -<p>She had been in less pain, and had chatted and laughed more with us than -for many a day. She begged that Faith might stay till dark, and might -bring her Noah’s ark and play down upon the foot of the bed where she -could see her. I sat in the rocking-chair with my face to the window. We -did not light the lamps.</p> - -<p>The night came on slowly. Showery clouds flitted by, but there was a -blaze of golden color behind them. It broke through and scattered them; -it burned them, and melted them; it shot great pink and purple jets up -to the zenith; it fell and lay in amber mist upon the hills. A soft wind -swept by, and darted now and then into the glow, and shifted it about, -color away from color, and back again.</p> - -<p>“See, Faith!” she said softly; “put down the little camel a minute, and -look!” and added after, but neither to the child nor to me,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a>{244}</span> it seemed: -“At eventide there shall be light.” Phœbe knocked presently, and I -went out to see what was wanted, and planned a little for Auntie’s -breakfast, and came back.</p> - -<p>Faith, with her little ark, was still playing quietly upon the bed. I -sat down again in my rocking-chair with my face to the window. Now and -then the child’s voice broke the silence, asking Where should she put -the elephant, and was there room there for the yellow bird? and now and -then her mother answered her, and so presently the skies had faded, and -so the night came on.</p> - -<p>I was thinking that it was Faith’s bedtime, and that I had better light -the lamp, when a few distinct, hurried words from the bed attracted my -attention.</p> - -<p>“Faith, I think you had better kiss mamma now, and get down.”</p> - -<p>There was a change in the voice. I was there in a moment, and lifted the -child from the pillow, where she had crept. But she said, “Wait a -minute, Mary; wait a minute,”—for Faith clung to her, with one hand -upon her cheek, softly patting it.</p> - -<p>I went over and stood by the window.</p> - -<p>It was her mother herself who gently put the little fingers away at -last.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a>{245}</span></p> - -<p>“Mother’s own little girl! Good night, my darling, my darling.”</p> - -<p>So I took the child away to Phœbe, and came back, and shut the door.</p> - -<p>“I thought you might have some message for Roy,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Now?”</p> - -<p>“Now, I think.”</p> - -<p>We had often talked of this, and she had promised to remember it, -whatever it might be. So I told her—But I will not write what I told -her.</p> - -<p>I saw that she was playing weakly with her wedding-ring, which hung very -loosely below its little worn guard.</p> - -<p>“Take the little guard,” she said, “and keep it for Faith; but bury the -other with me: he put it on; nobody else must take it—”</p> - -<p>The sentence dropped, unfinished.</p> - -<p>I crept up on the bed beside her, for she seemed to wish it. I asked if -I should light the lamp, but she shook her head. The room seemed light, -she said, quite light. She wondered then if Faith were asleep, and if -she would waken early in the morning.</p> - -<p>After that I kissed her, and then we said nothing more, only presently -she asked me to hold her hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a>{246}</span></p> - -<p>It was quite dark when she turned her face at last towards the window.</p> - -<p>“John!” she said,—“why, John!”</p> - -<p class="astc">* * * * *</p> - -<p>They came in, with heads uncovered and voices hushed, to see her, in the -days while she was lying down stairs among the flowers.</p> - -<p>Once when I thought that she was alone, I went in,—it was at -twilight,—and turned, startled by a figure that was crouched sobbing on -the floor.</p> - -<p>“O, I want to go too, <i>I want</i> to go too!” it cried.</p> - -<p>“She’s ben there all day long,” said Phœbe, wiping her eyes, “and she -won’t go home for a mouthful of victuals, poor creetur! but she jest -sets there and cries and cries, an’ there’s no stoppin’ of her!”</p> - -<p>It was little Clo.</p> - -<p>At another time, I was there with fresh flowers, when the door opened, -creaking a little, and ’Bin Quirk came in on tiptoe, trying in vain to -still the noise of his new boots. His eyes were red and wet, and he held -out to me timidly a single white carnation.</p> - -<p>“Could you put it somewhere, where it wouldn’t do any harm? I walked way -over<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a>{247}</span> to Worcester and back to get it. If you could jest hide it under -the others out of sight, seems to me it would do me a sight of good to -feel it was there, you know.”</p> - -<p>I motioned to him to lay it himself between her fingers.</p> - -<p>“O, I darsn’t. I’m not fit, <i>I</i>’m not. She’d rether have you.”</p> - -<p>But I told him that I knew she would be as pleased that he should give -it to her himself as she was when he gave her the China pinks on that -distant summer day. So the great awkward fellow bent down, as simply as -a child, as tenderly as a woman, and left the flower in its place.</p> - -<p>“<i>She</i> liked ’em,” he faltered; “maybe, if what she used to say is all -so, she’ll like ’em now. She liked ’em better than she did machines. -I’ve just got my carpet-sweeper through; I was thinking how pleased -she’d be; I wanted to tell her. If I should go to the good place,—if -ever I do go, it will be just her doin’s,—I’ll tell her then, maybe, -I—”</p> - -<p>He forgot that anybody was there, and, sobbing, hid his face in his -great hands.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>So we are waiting for the morning when<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a>{248}</span> the gates shall open,—Faith and -I. I, from my stiller watches, am not saddened by the music of her life. -I feel sure that her mother wishes it to be a cheery life. I feel sure -that she is showing me, who will have no motherhood by which to show -myself, how to help her little girl.</p> - -<p>And Roy,—ah, well, and Roy,—he knows. Our hour is not yet come. If the -Master will that we should be about His Father’s business, what is that -to us?</p> - -<p class="c">THE END.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Gates Ajar, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATES AJAR *** - -***** This file should be named 54230-h.htm or 54230-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/2/3/54230/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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