{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_54230/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_54230","id":"gutenberg_54230","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54230","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian fiction","Future life -- Fiction","Spiritualism -- Fiction"],"text":"THE GATES AJAR.\n\n                                  BY\n\n                       ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.\n\n      \u201cSplendor! Immensity! Eternity! Grand words! Great things!\n     A little definite happiness would be more to the purpose.\u201d\n                                    MADAME DE GASPARIN\n\n                                BOSTON:\n                     JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,\n           LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.\n                                 1873.\n\n      Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by\n\n                        FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.,\n\nIn the Clerk\u2019s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.\n\n               UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO.,\n                              CAMBRIDGE.\n\n\n\n\n  To my father, whose life, like a perfume from beyond the Gates,\n  penetrates every life which approaches it, the readers of this little\n  book will owe whatever pleasant thing they may find within its pages.\n\nE. S. P.\n\nANDOVER, October 22, 1868.\n\n\n\n\n                            THE GATES AJAR.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nOne week; only one week to-day, this twenty-first of February.\n\nI have been sitting here in the dark and thinking about it, till it\nseems so horribly long and so horribly short; it has been such a week to\nlive through, and it is such a small part of the weeks that must be\nlived through, that I could think no longer, but lighted my lamp and\nopened my desk to find something to do.\n\nI was tossing my paper about,--only my own: the packages in the yellow\nenvelopes I have not been quite brave enough to open yet,--when I came\nacross this poor little book in which I used to keep memoranda of the\nweather, and my lovers, when I was a school-girl. I turned the leaves,\nsmiling to see how many blank pages were left, and took up my pen, and\nnow I am not smiling any more.\n\nIf it had not come exactly as it did, it seems to me as if I could bear\nit better. They tell me that it should not have been such a shock.\n\u201cYour brother had been in the army so long that you should have been\nprepared for anything. Everybody knows by what a hair a soldier\u2019s life\nis always hanging,\u201d and a great deal more that I am afraid I have not\nlistened to. I suppose it is all true; but that never makes it any\neasier.\n\nThe house feels like a prison. I walk up and down and wonder that I ever\ncalled it home. Something is the matter with the sunsets; they come and\ngo, and I do not notice them. Something ails the voices of the children,\nsnowballing down the street; all the music has gone out of them, and\nthey hurt me like knives. The harmless, happy children!--and Roy loved\nthe little children.\n\nWhy, it seems to me as if the world were spinning around in the light\nand wind and laughter, and God just stretched down His hand one morning\nand put it out.\n\nIt was such a dear, pleasant world to be put out!\n\nIt was never dearer or more pleasant than it was on that morning. I had\nnot been as happy for weeks. I came up from the Post-Office singing to\nmyself. His letter was so bright and full of mischief! I had not had\none like it all the winter. I have laid it away by itself, filled with\nhis jokes and pet names, \u201cMamie\u201d or \u201cQueen Mamie\u201d every other line, and\nsigned\n\n                     \u201cUntil next time, your happy\n\n                                             ROY.\u201d\n\nI wonder if all brothers and sisters keep up the baby-names as we did. I\nwonder if I shall ever become used to living without them.\n\nI read the letter over a great many times, and stopped to tell Mrs.\nBland the news in it, and wondered what had kept it so long on the way,\nand wondered if it could be true that he would have a furlough in May.\nIt seemed too good to be true. If I had been fourteen instead of\ntwenty-four, I should have jumped up and down and clapped my hands there\nin the street. The sky was so bright that I could scarcely turn up my\neyes to look at it. The sunshine was shivered into little lances all\nover the glaring white crust. There was a snow-bird chirping and pecking\non the maple-tree as I came in.\n\nI went up and opened my window; sat down by it and drew a long breath,\nand began to count the days till May. I must have sat there as much as\nhalf an hour. I was so happy counting the days that I did not hear the\nfront gate, and when I looked down a man stood there,--a great, rough\nman,--who shouted up that he was in a hurry, and wanted seventy-five\ncents for a telegram that he had brought over from East Homer. I believe\nI went down and paid him, sent him away, came up here and locked the\ndoor before I read it.\n\nPh\u0153be found me here at dinner-time.\n\nIf I could have gone to him, could have busied myself with packing and\njourneying, could have been forced to think and plan, could have had the\nshadow of a hope of one more look, one word, I suppose I should have\ntaken it differently. Those two words--\u201cShot dead\u201d--shut me up and\nwalled me in, as I think people must feel shut up and walled in, in\nHell. I write the words most solemnly, for I know that there has been\nHell in my heart.\n\nIt is all over now. He came back, and they brought him up the steps, and\nI listened to their feet,--so many feet; he used to come bounding in.\nThey let me see him for a minute, and there was a funeral, and Mrs.\nBland came over, and she and Ph\u0153be attended to everything, I suppose.\nI did not notice nor think till we had left him out there in the cold\nand had come back. The windows of his room were opened, and the bitter\nwind swept in. The house was still and damp. Nobody was there to welcome\nme. Nobody would ever be * * * *\n\nPoor old Ph\u0153be! I had forgotten her. She was waiting at the kitchen\nwindow in her black bonnet; she took off my things and made me a cup of\ntea, and kept at work near me for a little while, wiping her eyes. She\ncame in just now, when I had left my unfinished sentence to dry, sitting\nhere with my face in my hands.\n\n\u201cLaws now, Miss Mary, my dear! This won\u2019t never do,--a rebellin\u2019 agin\nProvidence, and singein\u2019 your hair on the lamp chimney this way! The\ndining-room fire\u2019s goin\u2019 beautiful, and the salmon is toasted to a\nbrown. Put away them papers and come right along!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nFebruary 23d.\n\nWho originated that most exquisite of inquisitions, the condolence\nsystem?\n\nA solid blow has in itself the elements of its rebound; it arouses the\nantagonism of the life on which it falls; its relief is the relief of a\ncombat.\n\nBut a hundred little needles pricking at us,--what is to be done with\nthem? The hands hang down, the knees are feeble. We cannot so much as\ngasp, because they _are_ little needles.\n\nI know that there are those who like these calls; but why, in the name\nof all sweet pity, must we endure them without respect of persons, as we\nwould endure a wedding reception or make a party-call?\n\nPerhaps I write excitedly and hardly. I feel excited and hard.\n\nI am sure I do not mean to be ungrateful for real sorrowful sympathy,\nhowever imperfectly it may be shown, or that near friends (if one has\nthem), cannot give, in such a time as this, actual strength, even if\nthey fail of comfort, by look and tone and love. But it is not near\nfriends who are apt to wound, nor real sympathy which sharpens the worst\nof the needles. It is the fact that all your chance acquaintances feel\ncalled upon to bring their curious eyes and jarring words right into the\nsilence of your first astonishment; taking you in a round of morning\ncalls with kid gloves and parasol, and the liberty to turn your heart\nabout and cut into it at pleasure. You may quiver at every touch, but\nthere is no escape, because it is \u201cthe thing.\u201d\n\nFor instance: Meta Tripp came in this afternoon,--I have refused myself\nto everybody but Mrs. Bland, before, but Meta caught me in the parlor,\nand there was no escape. She had come, it was plain enough, because she\nmust, and she had come early, because, she too having lost a brother in\nthe war, she was expected to be very sorry for me. Very likely she was,\nand very likely she did the best she knew how, but she was--not as\nuncomfortable as I, but as uncomfortable as she could be, and was\nevidently glad when it was over. She observed, as she went out, that I\nshouldn\u2019t feel so sad by and by. She felt very sad at first when Jack\ndied, but everybody got over that after a time. The girls were going to\nsew for the Fair next week at Mr. Quirk\u2019s, and she hoped I would exert\nmyself and come.\n\nAh, well:--\n\n    \u201cFirst learn to love one living man,\n     Then mayst thou think upon the dead.\u201d\n\nIt is not that the child is to be blamed for not knowing enough to stay\naway; but her coming here has made me wonder whether I am different from\nother women; why Roy was so much more to me than many brothers are to\nmany sisters. I think it must be that there never _was_ another like\nRoy. Then we have lived together so long, we two alone, since father\ndied, that he had grown to me, heart of my heart, and life of my life.\nIt did not seem as if he _could_ be taken, and I be left.\n\nBesides, I suppose most young women of my age have their dreams, and a\nfuture probable or possible, which makes the very incompleteness of life\nsweet, because of the symmetry which is waiting somewhere. But that was\nsettled so long ago for me that it makes it very different. Roy was all\nthere was.\n\n\nFebruary 26th.\n\nDeath and Heaven could not seem very different to a Pagan from what they\nseem to me.\n\nI say this deliberately. It has been deliberately forced upon me. That\nof which I had a faint consciousness in the first shock takes shape now.\nI do not see how one with such thoughts in her heart as I have had can\npossibly be \u201cregenerate,\u201d or stand any chance of ever becoming \u201cone of\nthe redeemed.\u201d And here I am, what I have been for six years, a member\nof an Evangelical church, in good and regular standing!\n\nThe bare, blank sense of physical repulsion from death, which was all\nthe idea I had of anything when they first brought him home, has not\ngone yet. It is horrible. It was cruel. Roy, all I had in the wide\nworld,--Roy, with the flash in his eyes, with his smile that lighted the\nhouse all up; with his pretty, soft hair that I used to curl and kiss\nabout my finger, his bounding step, his strong arms that folded me in\nand cared for me,--Roy snatched away in an instant by a dreadful God,\nand laid out there in the wet and snow,--in the hideous wet and\nsnow,--never to kiss him, never to see him any more! * * * *\n\nHe was a good boy. Roy was a good boy. He must have gone to Heaven. But\nI know nothing about Heaven. It is very far off. In my best and happiest\ndays, I never liked to think of it. If I were to go there, it could do\nme no good, for I should not see Roy. Or if by chance I should see him\nstanding up among the grand, white angels, he would not be the old dear\nRoy. I should grow so tired of singing! Should long and fret for one\nlittle talk,--for I never said good by, and--\n\nI will stop this.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA scrap from the German of B\u00fcrger, which I came across to-day, shall be\ncopied here.\n\n    \u201cBe calm, my child, forget thy woe,\n     And think of God and Heaven;\n     Christ thy Redeemer hath to thee\n     Himself for comfort given.\n\n    \u201cO mother, mother, what is Heaven?\n     O mother, what is Hell?\n     To be with Wilhelm,--that\u2019s my Heaven;\n     Without him,--that\u2019s my Hell.\u201d\n\n\nFebruary 27th.\n\nMiss Meta Tripp, in the ignorance of her little silly heart, has done me\na great mischief.\n\nPh\u0153be prepared me for it, by observing, when she came up yesterday\nto dust my room, that \u201cfolks was all sayin\u2019 that Mary Cabot\u201d--(Homer is\nnot an aristocratic town, and Ph\u0153be doffs and dons my title at her\nown sweet will)--\u201cthat Mary Cabot was dreadful low sence Royal died, and\nhadn\u2019t ought to stay shut up by herself, day in and day out. It was\nbehaving con-trary to the will of Providence, and very bad for her\nhealth, too.\u201d Moreover, Mrs. Bland, who called this morning with her\nthree babies,--she never is able to stir out of the house without those\nchildren, poor thing!--lingered awkwardly on the door-steps as she went\naway, and hoped that Mary my dear wouldn\u2019t take it unkindly, but she did\nwish that I would exert myself more to see my friends and receive\ncomfort in my affliction. She didn\u2019t want to interfere, or bother me,\nor--but--people would talk, and--\n\nMy good little minister\u2019s wife broke down all in a blush, at this point\nin her \u201cporochial duties\u201d (I more than suspect that her husband had a\nhand in the matter), so I took pity on her embarrassment, and said\nsmiling that I would think about it.\n\nI see just how the leaven has spread. Miss Meta, a little overwhelmed\nand a good deal mystified by her call here, pronounces \u201cpoor Mary Cabot\n_so_ sad; she wouldn\u2019t talk about Royal; and you couldn\u2019t persuade her\nto come to the Fair; and she was so _sober!_--why, it was dreadful!\u201d\n\nTherefore, Homer has made up its mind that I shall become resigned in an\narithmetical manner, and comforted according to the Rule of Three.\n\nI wish I could go away! I wish I could go away and creep into the ground\nand die! If nobody need ever speak any more words to me! If anybody only\nknew _what_ to say!\n\nLittle Mrs. Bland has been very kind, and I thank her with all my heart.\nBut she does not know. She does not understand. Her happy heart is bound\nup in her little live children. She never laid anybody away under the\nsnow without a chance to say good by.\n\nAs for the minister, he came, of course, as it was proper that he\nshould, before the funeral, and once after. He is a very good man, but I\nam afraid of him, and I am glad that he has not come again.\n\n\nNight.\n\nI can only repeat and re-echo what I wrote this noon. If anybody knew\n_what_ to say!\n\nJust after supper I heard the door-bell, and, looking out of the window,\nI caught a glimpse of Deacon Quirk\u2019s old drab felt hat, on the upper\nstep. My heart sank, but there was no help for me. I waited for Ph\u0153be\nto bring up his name, desperately listening to her heavy steps, and\nletting her knock three times before I answered. I confess to having\ntaken my hair down twice, washed my hands to a most unnecessary extent,\nand been a long time brushing my dress; also to forgetting my\nhandkerchief, and having to go back for it after I was down stairs.\nDeacon Quirk looked tired of waiting. I hope he was.\n\nO, what an ill-natured thing to say! What is coming over me? What would\nRoy think? What could he?\n\n\u201cGood evening, Mary,\u201d said the Deacon, severely, when I went in.\nProbably he did not mean to speak severely, but the truth is, I think he\nwas a little vexed that I had kept him waiting. I said good evening, and\napologized for my delay, and sat down as far from him as I conveniently\ncould. There was an awful silence.\n\n\u201cI came in this evening,\u201d said the Deacon, breaking it with a cough, \u201cI\ncame--hem!--to confer with you--\u201d\n\nI looked up. \u201cI thought somebody had ought to come,\u201d continued the\nDeacon, \u201cto confer with you as a Christian brother on your spiritooal\ncondition.\u201d\n\nI opened my eyes.\n\n\u201cTo confer with you on your spiritooal condition,\u201d repeated my visitor.\n\u201cI understand that you have had some unfortoonate exercises of mind\nunder your affliction, and I observed that you absented yourself from\nthe Communion Table last Sunday.\u201d\n\n\u201cI did.\u201d\n\n\u201cIntentionally?\u201d\n\n\u201cIntentionally.\u201d\n\nHe seemed to expect me to say something more; and, seeing that there was\nno help for it, I answered.\n\n\u201cI did not feel fit to go. I should not have dared to go. God does not\nseem to me just now what He used to. He has dealt very bitterly with me.\nBut, however wicked I may be, I will not mock Him. I think, Deacon\nQuirk, that I did right to stay away.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said the Deacon, twirling his hat with a puzzled look, \u201cperhaps\nyou did. But I don\u2019t see the excuse for any such feelings as would make\nit necessary. I think it my duty to tell you, Mary, that I am sorry to\nsee you in such a rebellious state of mind.\u201d\n\nI made no reply.\n\n\u201cAfflictions come from God,\u201d he observed, looking at me as impressively\nas if he supposed that I had never heard the statement before.\n\u201cAfflictions come from God, and, however afflictin\u2019 or however crushin\u2019\nthey may be, it is our duty to submit to them. Glory in triboolation,\nSt. Paul says; glory in triboolation.\u201d\n\nI continued silent.\n\n\u201cI sympathize with you in this sad dispensation,\u201d he proceeded. \u201cOf\ncourse you was very fond of Royal; it\u2019s natural you should be, quite\nnatural--\u201d He stopped, perplexed, I suppose, by something in my face.\n\u201cYes, it\u2019s very natural; poor human nature sets a great deal by earthly\nprops and affections. But it\u2019s your duty, as a Christian and a\nchurch-member, to be resigned.\u201d\n\nI tapped the floor with my foot. I began to think that I could not bear\nmuch more.\n\n\u201cTo be resigned, my dear young friend. To say \u2018Abba, Father.\u2019 and pray\nthat the will of the Lord be done.\u201d\n\n\u201cDeacon Quirk!\u201d said I. \u201cI am _not_ resigned. I pray the dear Lord with\nall my heart to make me so, but I will not say that I am, until I\nam,--if ever that time comes. As for those words about the Lord\u2019s will,\nI would no more take them on my lips than I would blasphemy, unless I\ncould speak them honestly,--and that I cannot do. We had better talk of\nsomething else now, had we not?\u201d\n\nDeacon Quirk looked at me. It struck me that he would look very much so\nat a Mormon or a Hottentot, and I wondered whether he were going to\nexcommunicate me on the spot.\n\nAs soon as he began to speak, however, I saw that he was only\nbewildered,--honestly bewildered, and honestly shocked: I do not doubt\nthat I had said bewildering and shocking things.\n\n\u201cMy friend,\u201d he said solemnly, \u201cI shall pray for you and leave you in\nthe hands of God. Your brother, whom He has removed from this earthly\nlife for His own wise--\u201d\n\n\u201cWe will not talk any more about Roy, if you please,\u201d I interrupted;\n\u201c_he_ is happy and safe.\u201d\n\n\u201cHem!--I hope so,\u201d he replied, moving uneasily in his chair; \u201cI believe\nhe never made a profession of religion, but there is no limit to the\nmercy of God. It is very unsafe for the young to think that they can\nrely on a death-bed repentance, but our God is a covenant-keeping God,\nand Royal\u2019s mother was a pious woman. If you cannot say with certainty\nthat he is numbered among the redeemed, you are justified, perhaps, in\nhoping so.\u201d\n\nI turned sharply on him, but words died on my lips. How could I tell the\nman of that short, dear letter that came to me in December,--that Roy\u2019s\nwas no death-bed repentance, but the quiet, natural growth of a life\nthat had always been the life of the pure in heart; of his manly beliefs\nand unselfish motives; of that dawning sense of friendship with Christ\nof which he used to speak so modestly, dreading lest he should not be\nhonest with himself? \u201cPerhaps I ought not to call myself a Christian,\u201d\nhe wrote,--I learned the words by heart.--\u201cand I shall make no\nprofession to be such, till I am sure of it, but my life has not seemed\nto me for a long time to be my own. \u2018Bought with a price\u2019 just expresses\nit. I can point to no time at which I was conscious by any revolution of\nfeeling of \u2018experiencing a change of heart,\u2019 but it seems to me that a\nman\u2019s heart might be changed for all that. I do not know that it is\nnecessary for us to be able to watch every footprint of God. The _way_\nis all that concerns us,--to see that we follow it and Him. This I am\nsure of; and knocking about in this army life only convinces me of what\nI felt in a certain way before,--that it is the only way, and He the\nonly guide _to_ follow.\u201d\n\nBut how could I say anything of this to Deacon Quirk?--this my sealed\nand sacred treasure, of all that Roy left me the dearest. At any rate I\ndid not. It seemed both obstinate and cruel in him to come there and say\nwhat he had been saying. He might have known that I would not say that\nRoy had gone to Heaven, if--why, if there had been the breath of a\ndoubt. It is a possibility of which I cannot rationally conceive, but I\nsuppose that his name would never have passed my lips.\n\nSo I turned away from Deacon Quirk, and shut my mouth, and waited for\nhim to finish. Whether the idea began to struggle into his mind that he\n_might_ not have been making a very comforting remark, I cannot say; but\nhe started very soon to go.\n\n\u201cSupposing you are right, and Royal was saved at the eleventh hour,\u201d he\nsaid at parting, with one of his stolid efforts to be consolatory, that\nare worse than his rebukes, \u201cif he is singing the song of Moses and the\nLamb (he pointed with his big, dingy thumb at the ceiling), _he_ doesn\u2019t\nrebel against the doings of Providence. All _his_ affections are subdued\nto God,--merged, as you might say,--merged in worshipping before the\ngreat White Throne. He doesn\u2019t think this miser\u2019ble earthly spere of any\nimportance, compared with that eternal and exceeding weight of glory. In\nthe appropriate words of the poet,--\n\n    \u2018O, not to one created thing\n       Shall our embrace be given,\n     But all our joy shall be in God,\n       For only God is Heaven.\u2019\n\nThose are very spiritooal and scripteral lines, and it\u2019s very proper to\nreflect how true they are.\u201d\n\nI saw him go out, and came up here and locked myself in, and have been\nwalking round and round the room. I must have walked a good while, for I\nfeel as weak as a baby.\n\nCan the man in any state of existence be made to comprehend that he has\nbeen holding me on the rack this whole evening?\n\nYet he came under a strict sense of duty, and in the kindness of all the\nheart he has! I know, or I ought to know, that he is a good man,--far\nbetter in the sight of God to-night, I do not doubt, than I am.\n\nBut it hurts,--it cuts,--that thing which he said as he went out;\nbecause I suppose it must be true; because it seems to me greater than I\ncan bear to have it true.\n\nRoy, away in that dreadful Heaven, can have no thought of me, cannot\nremember how I loved him, how he left me all alone. The singing and the\nworshipping must take up all his time. God wants it all. He is a\n\u201cJealous God.\u201d I am nothing any more to Roy.\n\n\nMarch 2.\n\nAnd once I was much,--very much to him!\n\nHis Mamie, his poor Queen Mamie,--dearer, he used to say, than all the\nworld to him,--I don\u2019t see how he can like it so well up there as to\nforget her. Though Roy was a very good boy. But this poor, wicked little\nMamie,--why, I fall to pitying her as if she were some one else, and\nwish that some one would cry over her a little. I can\u2019t cry.\n\nRoy used to say a thing,--I have not the words, but it was like\nthis,--that one must be either very young or very ungenerous, if one\ncould find time to pity one\u2019s self.\n\nI have lain for two nights, with my eyes open all night long. I thought\nthat perhaps I might see him. I have been praying for a touch, a sign,\nonly for something to break the silence into which he has gone. But\nthere is no answer, none. The light burns blue, and I see at last that\nit is morning, and go down stairs alone, and so the day begins.\n\nSomething of Mrs. Browning\u2019s has been keeping a dull mechanical time in\nmy brain all day.\n\n                          \u201cGod keeps a niche\n    In Heaven to hold our idols: ... albeit\n    He brake them to our faces, and denied\n    That our close kisses should impair their white.\u201d\n\nBut why must He take them? And why should He keep them there? Shall we\never see them framed in their glorious gloom? Will He let us touch them\n_then_? Or must we stand like a poor worshipper at a Cathedral, looking\nup at his pictured saint afar off upon the other side?\n\nHas everything stopped just here? Our talks together in the twilight,\nour planning and hoping and dreaming together; our walks and rides and\nlaughing; our reading and singing and loving,--these then are all gone\nout forever?\n\nGod forgive the words! but Heaven will never be Heaven to me without\nthem.\n\n\nMarch 4.\n\nPerhaps I had better not write any more here after this.\n\nOn looking over the leaves, I see that the little green book has become\nan outlet for the shallower part of pain.\n\nMeta Tripp and Deacon Quirk, gossip and sympathy that have buzzed into\nmy trouble and annoyed me like wasps (we are apt to make more fuss over\na wasp-sting than a sabre-cut), just that proportion of suffering which\nalone can ever be put into words,--the surface.\n\nI begin to understand what I never understood till now,--what people\nmean by the luxury of grief. No, I am sure that I never understood it,\nbecause my pride suffered as much as any part of me in that other time.\nI would no more have spent two consecutive hours drifting at the mercy\nof my thoughts, than I would have put my hand into the furnace fire.\nThe right to mourn makes everything different. Then, as to mother, I was\nvery young when she died, and father, though I loved him, was never to\nme what Roy has been.\n\nThis luxury of grief, like all luxuries, is pleasurable. Though, as I\nwas saying, it is only the shallow part of one\u2019s heart--I imagine that\nthe deepest hearts have their shallows--which can be filled by it, still\nit brings a shallow relief.\n\nLet it be confessed to this honest book, that, driven to it by\ndesperation, I found in it a wretched sort of content.\n\nBeing a little stronger now physically, I shall try to be a little\nbraver; it will do no harm to try. So I seem to see that it was the\ncontent of poison,--salt-water poured between shipwrecked lips.\n\nAt any rate, I mean to put the book away and lock it up. Roy used to say\nthat he did not believe in journals. I begin to see why.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nMarch 7.\n\nI have taken out my book, and am going to write again. But there is an\nexcellent reason. I have something else than myself to write about.\n\nThis morning Ph\u0153be persuaded me to walk down to the office, \u201cTo keep\nup my spirits and get some salt pork.\u201d\n\nShe brought my things and put them on me while I was hesitating; tied my\nvictorine and buttoned my gloves; warmed my boots, and fussed about me\nas if I had been a baby. It did me good to be taken care of, and I\nthanked her softly; a little more softly than I am apt to speak to\nPh\u0153be.\n\n\u201cBless your soul, my dear!\u201d she said, winking briskly, \u201cI don\u2019t want no\nthanks. It\u2019s thanks enough jest to see one of your old looks comin\u2019 over\nyou for a spell, sence--\u201d\n\nShe knocked over a chair with her broom, and left her sentence\nunfinished. Ph\u0153be has always had a queer, clinging, superior sort of\nlove for us both. She dandled us on her knees, and made all our\nrag-dolls, and carried us through measles and mumps and the rest. Then\nmother\u2019s early death threw all the care upon her. I believe that in her\nsecret heart she considers me more her child than her mistress. It cost\na great many battles to become established as \u201cMiss Mary.\u201d\n\n\u201cI should like to know,\u201d she would say, throwing back her great, square\nshoulders and towering up in front of me,--\u201cI should like to know if you\ns\u2019pose I\u2019m a goin\u2019 to \u2018Miss\u2019 anybody that I\u2019ve trotted to Bamberry Cross\nas many times as I have you, Mary Cabot! Catch me!\u201d\n\nI remember how she would insist on calling me \u201cher baby\u201d after I was in\nlong dresses, and that it mortified me cruelly once when Meta Tripp was\nhere to tea with some Boston cousins. Poor, good Ph\u0153be! Her rough\nlove seems worth more to me, now that it is all I have left me in the\nworld. It occurs to me that I may not have taken notice enough of her\nlately. She has done her honest best to comfort me, and she loved Roy,\ntoo.\n\nBut about the letter. I wrapped my face up closely in the _cr\u00eape_, so\nthat, if I met Deacon Quirk, he should not recognize me, and, thinking\nthat the air was pleasant as I walked, came home with the pork for\nPh\u0153be and a letter for myself. I did not open it; in fact, I forgot\nall about it, till I had been at home for half an hour. I cannot bear to\nopen a letter since that morning when the lances of light fell on the\nsnow. They have written to me from everywhere,--uncles and cousins and\nold school-friends; well-meaning people; saying each the same thing in\nthe same way,--no, not that exactly, and very likely I should feel hurt\nand lonely if they did not write; but sometimes I wish it did not all\nhave to be read.\n\nSo I did not notice much about my letter this morning, till presently it\noccurred to me that what must be done had better be done quickly; so I\ndrew up my chair to the desk, prepared to read and answer on the spot.\nSomething about the writing and the signature rather pleased me: it was\ndated from Kansas, and was signed with the name of my mother\u2019s youngest\nsister, Winifred Forceythe. I will lay the letter in between these two\nleaves, for it seems to suit the pleasant, spring-like day; besides, I\ntook out the green book again on account of it.\n\nLAWRENCE, KANSAS, February 21.\n\n     MY DEAR CHILD,--I have been thinking how happy you will be by and\n     by because Roy is happy.\n\n     And yet I know--I understand--\n\n     You have been in all my thoughts, and they have been such pitiful,\n     tender thoughts, that I cannot help letting you know that somebody\n     is sorry for you. For the rest, the heart knoweth its own, and I\n     am, after all, too much of a stranger to my sister\u2019s child to\n     intermeddle.\n\n     So my letter dies upon my pen. You cannot bear words yet. How\n     should I dare to fret you with them? I can only reach you by my\n     silence, and leave you with the Heart that bled and broke for you\n     and Roy.\n\nYour Aunt,\n\nWINIFRED FORCEYTHE.\n\nPOSTSCRIPT, February 23.\n\n     I open my letter to add, that I am thinking of coming to New\n     England with Faith,--you know Faith and I have nobody but each\n     other now. Indeed, I may be on my way by the time this reaches\n     you. It is just possible that I may not come back to the West. I\n     shall be for a time at your uncle Calvin\u2019s, and then my husband\u2019s\n     friends think that they must have me. I should like to see you for\n     a day or two, but if you do not care to see me, say so. If you let\n     me come because you think you must, I shall find it out from your\n     face in an hour. I should like to be something to you, or do\n     something for you; but if I cannot, I would rather not come.\n\nI like that letter.\n\nI have written to her to come, and in such a way that I think she will\nunderstand me to mean what I say. I have not seen her since I was a\nchild. I know that she was very much younger than my mother; that she\nspent her young ladyhood teaching at the South;--grandfather had enough\nwith which to support her, but I have heard it said that she preferred\nto take care of herself;--that she finally married a poor minister,\nwhose sermons people liked, but whose coat was shockingly shabby; that\nshe left the comforts and elegances and friends of New England to go to\nthe West and bury herself in an unheard-of little place with him (I\nthink she must have loved him); that he afterwards settled in Lawrence;\nthat there, after they had been married some childless years, this\nlittle Faith was born; and that there Uncle Forceythe died about three\nyears ago; that is about all I know of her. I suppose her share of\nGrandfather Burleigh\u2019s little property supports her respectably. I\nunderstand that she has been living a sort of missionary life among her\nhusband\u2019s people since his death, and that they think they shall never\nsee her like again. It is they who keep her from coming home again,\nUncle Calvin\u2019s wife told me once; they and one other thing,--her\nhusband\u2019s grave.\n\nI hope she will come to see me. I notice one strange thing about her\nletter. She does not use the ugly words \u201cdeath\u201d and \u201cdying.\u201d I don\u2019t\nknow exactly what she put in their places, but something that had a\npleasant sound.\n\n\u201cTo be happy because Roy is happy.\u201d I wonder if she really thinks it is\npossible.\n\nI wonder what makes the words chase me about.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nMay 5.\n\nI am afraid that my brave resolutions are all breaking down.\n\nThe stillness of the May days is creeping into everything; the days in\nwhich the furlough was to come; in which the bitter Peace has come\ninstead, and in which he would have been at home, never to go away from\nme any more.\n\nThe lazy winds are choking me. Their faint sweetness makes me sick. The\nmoist, rich loam is ploughed in the garden; the grass, more golden than\ngreen, springs in the warm hollow by the front gate; the great maple,\njust reaching up to tap at the window, blazes and bows under its weight\nof scarlet blossoms. I cannot bear their perfume; it comes up in great\nbreaths, when the window is opened. I wish that little cricket, just\nwaked from his winter\u2019s nap, would not sit there on the sill and chirp\nat me. I hate the bluebirds flashing in and out of the carmine cloud\nthat the maple makes, and singing, singing, everywhere.\n\nIt is easy to understand how Bianca heard \u201cThe nightingales sing through\nher head,\u201d how she could call them \u201cOwl-like birds,\u201d who sang \u201cfor\nspite,\u201d who sang \u201cfor hate,\u201d who sang \u201cfor doom.\u201d\n\nMost of all I hate the maple. I wish winter were back again to fold it\naway in white, with its bare, black fingers only to come tapping at the\nwindow. \u201cRoy\u2019s maple\u201d we used to call it. How much fun he had out of\nthat old tree!\n\nAs far back as I can remember, we never considered spring to be\nofficially introduced till we had had a fight with the red blossoms. Roy\nused to pelt me well; but with that pretty chivalry of his, which was\nrare in such a little fellow, which developed afterwards into that rarer\ntreatment of women, of which every one speaks who speaks of him, he\nwould stop the play the instant it threatened roughness. I used to be\nglad, though, that I had strength and courage enough to make it some fun\nto him.\n\nThe maple is full of pictures of Roy. Roy not yet over the dignity of\nhis first boots, aiming for the cross-barred branch, coming to the\nground with a terrible wrench on his ankle, straight up again before\nanybody could stop him, and sitting there on the ugly, swaying bough as\nwhite as a sheet, to wave his cap,--\u201cThere, I meant to do it, and I\nhave!\u201d Roy, chopping off the twigs for kindling-wood in his mud oven,\nand sending his hatchet right through the parlor window. Roy cutting\nleaves for me, and then pulling all my wreaths down over my nose every\ntime I put them on! Roy making me jump half-way across the room with a\nsudden thump on my window, and, looking out, I would see him with his\nhat off and hair blown from his forehead, framed in by the scented\nblossoms, or the quivering green, or the flame of blood-red leaves. But\nthere is no end to them if I begin.\n\nI had planned, if he came this week, to strip the richest branches, and\nfill his room.\n\n\nMay 6.\n\nThe May-day stillness, the lazy winds, the sweetness in the air, are all\ngone. A miserable northeasterly storm has set in. The garden loam is a\nmass of mud; the golden grass is drenched; the poor little cricket is\ndrowned in a mud-puddle; the bluebirds are huddled among the leaves,\nwith their heads under their drabbled wings, and the maple blossoms,\ndull and shrunken, drip against the glass.\n\nIt begins to be evident that it will never do for me to live alone. Yet\nwho is there in the wide world that I could bear to bring here--into\nRoy\u2019s place?\n\nA little old-fashioned book, bound in green and gold, attracted my\nattention this morning while I was dusting the library. It proved to be\nmy mother\u2019s copy of \u201cElia,\u201d--one that father had given her, I saw by the\nfly-leaf, in their early engagement days. It is some time since I have\nread Charles Lamb; indeed, since the middle of February I have read\nnothing of any sort. Ph\u0153be dries the Journal for me every night, and\nsometimes I glance at the Telegraphic Summary, and sometimes I don\u2019t.\n\n\u201cYou used to be fond enough of books,\u201d Mrs. Bland says, looking\npuzzled,--\u201cregular blue-stocking, Mr. Bland called you (no personal\nobjection to you, of course, my dear, but he _doesn\u2019t_ like literary\nwomen, which is a great comfort to me). Why don\u2019t you read and divert\nyourself now?\u201d\n\nBut my brain, like the rest of me, seems to be crushed. I could not\nfollow three pages of history with attention. Shakespeare, Wordsworth,\nWhittier, Mrs. Browning, are filled with Roy\u2019s marks,--and so down the\nshelf. Besides, poetry strikes as nothing else does, deep into the roots\nof things. One finds everywhere some strain at the fibres of one\u2019s\nheart. A mind must be healthily reconciled to actual life, before a\npoet--at least most poets--can help it. We must learn to bear and to\nwork, before we can spare strength to dream.\n\nTo hymns and hymn-like poems, exception should be made. Some of them are\nlike soft hands stealing into ours in the dark, and holding us fast\nwithout a spoken word. I do not know how many times Whittier\u2019s \u201cPsalm,\u201d\nand that old cry of Cowper\u2019s, \u201cGod moves in a mysterious way,\u201d have\nquieted me,--just the sound of the words; when I was too wild to take in\ntheir meaning, and too wicked to believe them if I had.\n\nAs to novels, (by the way, Meta Tripp sent me over four yesterday\nafternoon, among which notice \u201cAurora Floyd\u201d and \u201cUncle Silas,\u201d) the\nauthor of \u201cRutledge\u201d expresses my feeling about them precisely. I do not\nremember her exact words, but they are not unlike these. \u201cShe had far\noutlived the passion of ordinary novels; and the few which struck the\ndepths of her experience gave her more pain than pleasure.\u201d\n\nHowever, I took up poor \u201cElia\u201d this morning, and stumbled upon \u201cDream\nChildren,\u201d to which, for pathos and symmetry, I have read few things\nsuperior in the language. Years ago, I almost knew it by heart, but it\nhas slipped out of memory with many other things of late. Any book, if\nit be one of those which Lamb calls \u201cbooks which _are_ books,\u201d put\nbefore us at different periods of life, will unfold to us new\nmeanings,--wheels within wheels, delicate springs of purpose to which,\nat the last reading, we were stone-blind; gems which perhaps the author\nignorantly cut and polished.\n\nA sentence in this \u201cDream Children,\u201d which at eighteen I passed by with\na compassionate sort of wonder, only thinking that it gave me \u201cthe\nblues\u201d to read it, and that I was glad Roy was alive, I have seized upon\nand learned all over again now. I write it down to the dull music of the\nrain.\n\n\u201cAnd how, when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed\nas if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt\nlife and death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at\nfirst, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not\ncry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if\nI had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how\nmuch I had loved him. I missed his kindness and I missed his crossness,\nand wished him to be alive again to be quarrelling with him (for we\nquarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again.\u201d\n\nHow still the house is! I can hear the coach rumbling away at the\nhalf-mile corner, coming up from the evening train. A little arrow of\nlight has just cut the gray gloom of the West.\n\n\nTen o\u2019clock.\n\nThe coach to which I sat listening rumbled up to the gate and stopped.\nPuzzled for the moment, and feeling as inhospitable as I knew how, I\nwent down to the door. The driver was already on the steps, with a\nbundle in his arms that proved to be a rather minute child; and a lady,\nveiled, was just stepping from the carriage into the rain. Of course I\ncame to my senses at that, and, calling to Ph\u0153be that Mrs. Forceythe\nhad come, sent her out an umbrella.\n\nShe surprised me by running lightly up the steps. I had imagined a\nsomewhat advanced age and a sedate amount of infirmities, to be\nnecessary concomitants of aunthood. She came in all sparkling with\nrain-drops, and, gently pushing aside the hand with which I was trying\nto pay her driver, said, laughing:--\n\n\u201cHere we are, bag and baggage, you see, \u2018big trunk, little trunk,\u2019 &c.,\n&c. You did not expect me? Ah, my letter missed then. It is too bad to\ntake you by storm in this way. Come, Faith! No, don\u2019t trouble about the\ntrunks just now. Shall I go right in here?\u201d\n\nHer voice had a sparkle in it, like the drops on her veil, but it was\nlow and very sweet. I took her in by the dining-room fire, and was\nturning to take off the little girl\u2019s things, when a soft hand stayed\nme, and I saw that she had drawn off the wet veil. A face somewhat pale\nlooked down at me,--she is taller than I,--with large, compassionate\neyes.\n\n\u201cI am too wet to kiss you, but I must have a look,\u201d she said, smiling.\n\u201cThat will do. You are like your mother, very like.\u201d\n\nI don\u2019t know what possessed me, whether it was the sudden, sweet feeling\nof kinship with something alive, or whether it was her face or her\nvoice, or all together, but I said:--\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t think you are too wet to be kissed,\u201d and threw my arms about\nher neck,--I am not of the kissing kind, either, and I had on my new\nbombazine, and she _was_ very wet.\n\nI thought she looked pleased.\n\nPh\u0153be was sent to open the register in the blue room, and as soon as\nit was warm I went up with them, leading Faith by the hand. I am unused\nto children, and she kept stepping on my dress, and spinning around and\ntipping over, in the most astonishing manner. It strikingly reminded me\nof a top at the last gasp. Her mother observed that she was tired and\nsleepy. Ph\u0153be was waiting around awkwardly up stairs, with fresh\ntowels on her arm. Aunt Winifred turned and held out her hand.\n\n\u201cWell, Ph\u0153be, I am glad to see you. This is Ph\u0153be, I am sure? You\nhave altered with everything else since I was here before. You keep\nbright and well, I hope, and take good care of Miss Mary?\u201d\n\nIt was a simple enough thing, to be sure, her taking the trouble to\nnotice the old servant with whom she had scarcely ever exchanged a\nhalf-dozen words; but I liked it. I liked the way, too, in which it was\ndone. It reminded me of Roy\u2019s fine, well-bred manner towards his\ninferiors,--always cordial, yet always appropriate; I have heard that\nour mother had much the same.\n\nI tried to make things look as pleasant as I could down stairs, while\nthey were making ready for tea. The grate was raked up a little, a\nbright supper-cloth laid on the table, and the curtains drawn. Ph\u0153be\nmixed a hasty cake of some sort, and brought out the heavier pieces of\nsilver,--tea-pot, &c., which I do not use when I am alone, because it is\nso much trouble to take care of them, and because I like the little\nWedgwood set that Roy had for his chocolate.\n\n\u201cHow pleasant!\u201d said Aunt Winifred, as she sat down with Faith in a high\nchair beside her. Ph\u0153be had a great hunt up garret for that chair; it\nhas been stowed away there since it and I parted company. \u201cHow pleasant\neverything is here! I believe in bright dining-rooms. There is an\nindescribable dinginess to most that I have seen, which tends to\nanything but thankfulness. Homesick, Faith? No; that\u2019s right. I don\u2019t\nthink we shall be homesick at Cousin Mary\u2019s.\u201d\n\nIf she had not said that, the probabilities are that they would have\nbeen, for I have fallen quite out of the way of active housekeeping,\nand have almost forgotten how to entertain a friend. But I do not want\nher good opinion wasted, and mean they shall have a good time if I can\nmake it for them.\n\nIt was a little hard at first to see her opposite me at the table; it\nwas Roy\u2019s place.\n\nWhile she was sitting there in the light, with the dust and weariness of\ntravel brushed away a little, I was able to make up my mind what this\naunt of mine looks like.\n\nShe is young, then, to begin with, and I find it necessary to reiterate\nthe fact, in order to get it into my stupid brain. The cape and\nspectacles, the little old woman\u2019s shawl and invalid\u2019s walk, for which I\nhad prepared myself, persist in hovering before my bewildered eyes,\nready to drop down on her at a moment\u2019s notice. Just thirty-five she is\nby her own showing; older than I, to be sure; but as we passed in front\nof the mirror together, once to-night, I could not see half that\ndifference between us. The peace of her face and the pain of mine\ncontrast sharply, and give me an old, worn look, beside her. After all,\nthough, to one who had seen much of life, hers would be the true\nmaturity perhaps,--the maturity of repose. A look in her eyes once or\ntwice gave me the impression that she thinks me rather young, though she\nis far too wise and delicate to show it. I don\u2019t like to be treated like\na girl. I mean to find out what she does think.\n\nMy eyes have been on her face the whole evening, and I believe it is the\nsweetest face--woman\u2019s face--that I have ever seen. Yet she is far from\nbeing a beautiful woman. It is difficult to say what makes the\nimpression; scarcely any feature is accurate, yet the _tout ensemble_\nseems to have no fault. Her hair, which must have been bright bronze\nonce, has grown gray--quite gray--before its time. I really do not know\nof what color her eyes are; blue, perhaps, most frequently, but they\nchange with every word that she speaks; when quiet, they have a curious,\nfar-away look, and a steady, lambent light shines through them. Her\nmouth is well cut and delicate, yet you do not so much notice that as\nits expression. It looks as if it held a happy secret, with which,\nhowever near one may come to her, one can never intermeddle. Yet there\nare lines about it and on her forehead, which are proof plain enough\nthat she has not always floated on summer seas. She yet wears her\nwidow\u2019s black, but relieves it pleasantly by white at the throat and\nwrists. Take her altogether, I like to look at her.\n\nFaith is a round, rolling, rollicking little piece of mischief, with\nthree years and a half of experience in this very happy world. She has\nblack eyes and a pretty chin, funny little pink hands all covered with\ndimples, and a dimple in one cheek besides. She has tipped over two\ntumblers of water, scratched herself all over playing with the cat, and\nset her apron on fire already since she has been here. I stand in some\nawe of her; but, after I have become initiated, I think that we shall be\nvery good friends.\n\n\u201cOf all names in the catalogue,\u201d I said to her mother, when she came\ndown into the parlor after putting her to bed, \u201cFaith seems to be about\nthe _most_ inappropriate for this solid-bodied, twinkling little bairn\nof yours, with her pretty red cheeks, and such an appetite for supper!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d she said, laughing, \u201cthere is nothing _spirituelle_ about Faith.\nBut she means just that to me. I could not call her anything else. Her\nfather gave her the name.\u201d Her face changed, but did not sadden; a\nquietness crept into it and into her voice, but that was all.\n\n\u201cI will tell you about it sometime,--perhaps,\u201d she added, rising and\nstanding by the fire. \u201cFaith looks like him.\u201d Her eyes assumed their\ndistant look, \u201clike the eyes of those who see the dead,\u201d and gazed\naway,--so far away, into the fire, that I felt that she would not be\nlistening to anything that I might say, and therefore said nothing.\n\nWe spent the evening chatting cosily. After the fire had died down in\nthe grate (I had Ph\u0153be light a pine-knot there, because I noticed\nthat Aunt Winifred fancied the blaze in the dining-room), we drew up our\nchairs into the corner by the register, and roasted away to our hearts\u2019\ncontent. A very bad habit, to sit over the register, and Aunt Winifred\nsays she shall undertake to break me of it. We talked about everything\nunder the sun,--uncles, aunts, cousins, Kansas and Connecticut, the\nsurrenders and the assassination, books, pictures, music, and Faith,--O,\nand Ph\u0153be and the cat. Aunt Winifred talks well, and does not gossip\nnor exhaust her resources; one feels always that she has material in\nreserve on any subject that is worth talking about.\n\nFor one thing I thank her with all my heart: she never spoke of Roy.\n\nUpon reflection, I find that I have really passed a pleasant evening.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nShe knocked at my door just now, after I had written the last sentence,\nand had put away the book for the night. Thinking that it was Ph\u0153be,\nI called, \u201cCome in,\u201d and did not turn. She had come to the bureau where\nI stood unbraiding my hair, and touched my arm, before I saw who it was.\nShe had on a crimson dressing-gown of warm flannel, and her hair hung\ndown on her shoulders. Although so gray, her hair is massive yet, and\ncoils finely when she is dressed.\n\n\u201cI beg your pardon,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I thought you would not be in bed,\nand I came in to say,--let me sit somewhere else at the breakfast-table,\nif you like. I saw that I had taken \u2018the vacant place.\u2019 Good night, my\ndear.\u201d\n\nIt was such a little thing! I wonder how many people would have noticed\nit or taken the trouble to speak of it. The quick perception, the\nunusual delicacy,--these too are like Roy.\n\nI almost wish that she had stayed a little longer. I almost think that I\ncould bear to have her speak to me about him.\n\nFaith, in the next room, seems to have wakened from a frightened dream,\nand I can hear their voices through the wall. Her mother is soothing and\nsinging to her in the broken words of some old lullaby with which\nPh\u0153be used to sing Roy and me to sleep, years and years ago. The\nunfamiliar, home-like sound is pleasant in the silent house. Ph\u0153be,\non her way to bed, is stopping on the garret-stairs to listen to it.\nEven the cat comes mewing up to the door, and purring as I have not\nheard the creature purr since the old Sunday-night singing, hushed so\nlong ago.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\nMay 7.\n\nI was awakened and nearly smothered this morning by a pillow thrown\ndirectly at my head.\n\nSomewhat unaccustomed, in the respectable, old maid\u2019s life that I lead,\nto such a pleasant little method of salutation, I jerked myself upright,\nand stared. There stood Faith in her night-dress, laughing as if she\nwould suffocate, and her mother in search of her was just knocking at\nthe open door.\n\n\u201cShe insisted on going to wake Cousin Mary, and wouldn\u2019t be washed till\nI let her; but I stipulated that she should kiss you softly on both your\neyes.\u201d\n\n\u201cI did,\u201d said Faith, stoutly; \u201cI kissed her eyes, both two of \u2019em, and\nher nose, and her mouth and her neck; then I pulled her hair, and then I\nspinched her; but I thought she\u2019d have to be banged a little. _Wasn\u2019t_\nit a bang, though!\u201d\n\nIt really did me good to begin the day with a hearty laugh. The days\nusually look so long and blank at the beginning, that I can hardly make\nup my mind to step out into them. Faith\u2019s pillow was the famous pebble\nin the pond, to which authors of original imagination invariably resort;\nI felt its little circles widening out all through the day. I wonder if\nAunt Winifred thought of that. She thinks of many things.\n\nFor instance, afraid apparently that I should think I was afflicted with\none of those professional visitors who hold that a chance relationship\njustifies them in imposing on one from the beginning to the end of the\nchapter, she managed to make me understand, this morning, that she was\nexpecting to go back to Uncle Forceythe\u2019s brother on Saturday. I was\nsurprised at myself to find that this proposition struck me with dismay.\nI insisted with all my heart on keeping her for a week at the least, and\nsent forth a fiat that her trunks should be unpacked.\n\nWe have had a quiet, homelike day. Faith found her way to the orchard,\nand installed herself there for the day, overhauling the muddy grass\nwith her bare hands to find dandelions. She came in at dinner-time as\nbrown as a little nut, with her hat hanging down her neck, her apron\ntorn, and just about as dirty as I should suppose it possible for a\nclean child to succeed in making herself. Her mother, however, seemed to\nbe quite used to it, and the expedition with which she made her\npresentable I regard as a stroke of genius.\n\nWhile Faith was disposed of, and the house still, auntie and I took our\nknitting and spent a regular old woman\u2019s morning at the south window in\nthe dining-room. In the afternoon Mrs. Bland came over, babies and all,\nand sent up her card to Mrs. Forceythe.\n\nSupper-time came, and still there had not been a word of Roy. I began to\nwonder at, while I respected, this unusual silence.\n\nWhile her mother was putting Faith to bed, I went into my room alone,\nfor a few moments\u2019 quiet. An early dark had fallen, for it had clouded\nup just before sunset. The dull, gray sky and narrow horizon shut down\nand crowded in everything. A soldier from the village, who has just come\nhome, was walking down the street with his wife and sister. The crickets\nwere chirping in the meadows. The faint breath of the maple came up.\n\nI sat down by the window, and hid my face in both my hands. I must have\nsat there some time, for I had quite forgotten that I had company to\nentertain, when the door softly opened and shut, and some one came and\nsat down on the couch beside me. I did not speak, for I could not, and,\nthe first I knew, a gentle arm crept about me, and she had gathered me\ninto her lap and laid my head on her shoulder, as she might have\ngathered Faith.\n\n\u201cThere,\u201d she said, in her low, lulling voice, \u201cnow tell Auntie all about\nit.\u201d\n\nI don\u2019t know what it was, whether the voice, or touch, or words, but it\ncame so suddenly,--and nobody had held me for so long,--that everything\nseemed to break up and unlock in a minute, and I threw up my hands and\ncried. I don\u2019t know how long I cried.\n\nShe passed her hand softly to and fro across my hair, brushing it away\nfrom my temples, while they throbbed and burned; but she did not speak.\nBy and by I sobbed out:--\n\n\u201cAuntie, Auntie, Auntie!\u201d as Faith sobs out in the dark. It seemed to me\nthat I must have help or die.\n\n\u201cYes, dear. I understand. I know how hard it is. And you have been\nbearing it alone so long! I am going to help you, and you must tell me\nall you can.\u201d\n\nThe strong, decided words, \u201cI am going to help you,\u201d gave me the first\nfaint hope I have had, that I _could_ be helped, and I could tell\nher--it was not sacrilege--the pent-up story of these weeks. All the\ntime her hand went softly to and fro across my hair.\n\nPresently, when I was weak and faint with the new comfort of my tears,\n\u201cAunt Winifred,\u201d I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know what it means to be resigned; I\ndon\u2019t know what it _means_!\u201d\n\nStill her hand passed softly to and fro across my hair.\n\n\u201cTo have everything stop all at once! without giving me any time to\nlearn to bear it. Why, you do not know,--it is just as if a great black\ngate had swung to and barred out the future, and barred out him, and\nleft me all alone in any world that I can ever live in, forever and\nforever.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy child,\u201d she said, with emphasis solemn and low upon the words,--\u201cmy\nchild, I _do_ know. I think you forget--my husband.\u201d\n\nI had forgotten. How could I? We are most selfishly blinded by our own\ngriefs. No other form than ours ever seems to walk with us in the\nfurnace. Her few words made me feel, as I could not have felt if she had\nsaid more, that this woman who was going to help me had suffered too;\nhad suffered perhaps more than I,--that, if I sat as a little child at\nher feet, she could teach me through the kinship of her pain.\n\n\u201cO my dear,\u201d she said, and held me close, \u201cI have trodden every step of\nit before you,--every single step.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you never were so wicked about it! You never felt--why, I have been\n_afraid_ I should hate God! You never were so wicked as that.\u201d\n\nLow under her breath she answered \u201cYes,\u201d--this sweet, saintly woman who\nhad come to me in the dark as an angel might.\n\nThen, turning suddenly, her voice trembled and broke:--\n\n\u201cMary, Mary, do you think He _could_ have lived those thirty-three\nyears, and be cruel to you now? Think that over and over; only that. It\nmay be the only thought you dare to have,--it was all I dared to have\nonce,--but cling to it; _cling with both hands_, Mary, and keep it.\u201d\n\nI only put both hands about her neck and clung there; but I hope--it\nseems, as if I clung a little to the thought besides; it was as new and\nsweet to me as if I had never heard of it in all my life; and it has not\nleft me yet.\n\n\u201cAnd then, my dear,\u201d she said, when she had let me cry a little longer,\n\u201cwhen you have once found out that Roy\u2019s God loves you more than Roy\ndoes, the rest comes more easily. It will not be as long to wait as it\nseems now. It isn\u2019t as if you never were going to see him again.\u201d\n\nI looked up bewildered.\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter, dear?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, do you think I shall see him,--really see him?\u201d\n\n\u201cMary Cabot,\u201d she said abruptly, turning to look at me, \u201cwho has been\ntalking to you about this thing?\u201d\n\n\u201cDeacon Quirk,\u201d I answered faintly,--\u201cDeacon Quirk and Dr. Bland.\u201d\n\nShe put her other arm around me with a quick movement, as if she would\nshield me from Deacon Quirk and Dr. Bland.\n\n\u201cDo I think you will see him again? You might as well ask me if I\nthought God made you and made Roy, and gave you to each other. See him!\nWhy, of course you will see him as you saw him here.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs I saw him here! Why, here I looked into his eyes, I saw him smile, I\ntouched him. Why, Aunt Winifred, Roy is an angel!\u201d\n\nShe patted my hand with a little, soft, comforting laugh.\n\n\u201cBut he is not any the less Roy for that,--not any the less your own\nreal Roy, who will love you and wait for you and be very glad to see\nyou, as he used to love and wait and be glad when you came home from a\njourney on a cold winter night.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd he met me at the door, and led me in where it was light and warm!\u201d\nI sobbed.\n\n\u201cSo he will meet you at the door in this other home, and lead you into\nthe light and the warmth. And cannot that make the cold and dark a\nlittle shorter? Think a minute!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there is God,--I thought we went to Heaven to worship Him, and--\u201d\n\n\u201cShall you worship more heartily or less, for having Roy again? Did Mary\nlove the Master more or less, after Lazarus came back? Why, my child,\nwhere did you get your ideas of God? Don\u2019t you suppose He _knows_ how\nyou love Roy?\u201d\n\nI drank in the blessed words without doubt or argument. I was too\nthirsty to doubt or argue. Some other time I may ask her how she knows\nthis beautiful thing, but not now. All I can do now is to take it into\nmy heart and hold it there.\n\nRoy my own again,--not only to look at standing up among the\nsingers,--but close to me; somehow or other to be as near as--to be\nnearer than--he was here, _really_ mine again! I shall never let this\ngo.\n\nAfter we had talked awhile, and when it came time to say good night, I\ntold her a little about my conversation with Deacon Quirk, and what I\nsaid to him about the Lord\u2019s will. I did not know but that she would\nblame me.\n\n\u201cSome time,\u201d she said, turning her great, compassionate eyes on me,--I\ncould feel them in the dark,--and smiling, \u201cyou will find out all at\nonce, in a happy moment, that you can say those words with all your\nheart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength; it will come,\neven in this world, if you will only let it. But, until it does, you do\nright, quite right, not to scorch your altar with a false\nburnt-offering. God is not a God to be mocked. He would rather have only\nthe old cry: \u2018I believe; help mine unbelief,\u2019 and wait till you can say\nthe rest.\n\n\u201cIt has often grated on my ears,\u201d she added, \u201cto hear people speak those\nwords unworthily. They seem to me the most solemn words that the Bible\ncontains, or that Christian experience can utter. As far as my\nobservation goes, the good people--for they are good people--who use\nthem when they ought to know better are of two sorts. They are people in\nactual agony, bewildered, racked with rebellious doubts, unaccustomed to\nown even to themselves the secret seethings of sin; really persuaded\nthat because it is a Christian duty to have no will but the Lord\u2019s, they\nare under obligations to affirm that they have no will but the Lord\u2019s.\nOr else they are people who know no more about this pain of bereavement\nthan a child. An affliction has passed over them, put them into\nmourning, made them feel uncomfortable till the funeral was over, or\neven caused them a shallow sort of grief, of which each week evaporates\na little, till it is gone. These mourners air their trouble the longest,\nprate loudest about resignation, and have the most to say to you or me\nabout our \u2018rebellious state of mind.\u2019 Poor things! One can hardly be\nvexed at them for pity. Think of being made so!\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is still another class of the cheerfully resigned,\u201d I suggested,\n\u201cwho are even more ready than these to tell you of your desperate\nwickedness--\u201d\n\n\u201cPeople who have never had even the semblance of a trouble in all their\nlives,\u201d she interrupted. \u201cYes. I was going to speak of them. Of all\nmiserable comforters, they are the most arrogant.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs to real instant submission,\u201d she said presently, \u201cthere _is_ some of\nit in the world. There are sweet, rare lives capable of great loves and\ngreat pains, which yet are kept so attuned to the life of Christ, that\nthe cry in the Garden comes scarcely less honestly from their lips, than\nfrom his. Such, like the St. John, are but one among the Twelve. Such,\nit will do you and me good, dear, at least to remember.\u201d\n\n\u201cSuch,\u201d I thought when I was left alone, \u201cyou new dear friend of mine,\nwho have come with such a blessed coming into my lonely days,--such you\nmust be now, whatever you were once.\u201d\n\nIf I should tell her that, how she would open her soft eyes!\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\nMay 9.\n\nAs I was looking over the green book last night, Aunt Winifred came up\nbehind me and softly laid a bunch of violets down between the leaves.\n\nBy an odd contrast, the contented, passionless things fell against those\ntwo verses that were copied from the German, and completely covered them\nfrom sight. I lifted the flowers, and held up the page for her to see.\n\nAs she read, her face altered strangely; her eyes dilated, her lip\nquivered, a flush shot over her checks and dyed her forehead up to the\nwaves of her hair. I turned away quickly, feeling that I had committed a\nrudeness in watching her, and detecting in her, however involuntarily,\nsome far, inner sympathy, or shadow of a long-past sympathy, with the\ndesperate words.\n\n\u201cMary,\u201d she said, laying down the book, \u201cI believe Satan wrote that.\u201d\n\nShe laughed a little then, nervously, and paled back into her quiet,\npeaceful self.\n\n\u201cI mean that he inspired it. They are wicked words. You must not read\nthem over. You will outgrow them sometime with a beautiful growth of\ntrust and love. Let them alone till that time comes. See, I will blot\nthem out of sight for you with colors as blue as heaven,--the _real_\nheaven, where God _will_ be loved the most.\u201d\n\nShe shook apart the thick, sweet nosegay, and, taking a half-dozen of\nthe little blossoms, pinned them, dripping with fragrant dew, upon the\nlines. There I shall let them stay, and, since she wishes it, I shall\nnot lift them to see the reckless words till I can do it safely.\n\nThis afternoon Aunt Winifred has been telling me about herself. Somewhat\nmore, or of a different kind, I should imagine, from what she has told\nmost people. She seems to love me a little, not in a proper kind of way,\nbecause I happen to be her niece, but for my own sake. It surprises me\nto find how pleased I am that she should.\n\nThat Kansas life must have been very hard to her, in contrast as it was\nwith the smooth elegance of her girlhood; she was very young, too, when\nshe undertook it. I said something of the sort to her.\n\n\u201cThey have been the hardest and the easiest, the saddest and the\nhappiest, years of all my life,\u201d she answered.\n\nI pondered the words in my heart, while I listened to her story. She\ngave me vivid pictures of the long, bright bridal journey, overshadowed\nwith a very mundane weariness of jolting coaches and railway accidents\nbefore its close; of the little neglected hamlet which waited for them,\ntwenty miles from a post-office and thirty from a school-house; of the\nparsonage, a log-hut among log-huts, distinguished and adorned by a\nlittle lath and plastering, glass windows, and a doorstep;--they drew in\nsight of it at the close of a tired day, with a red sunset lying low on\nthe flats.\n\nUncle Forceythe wanted mission-work, and mission-work he found here\nwith--I should say with a vengeance, if the expression were exactly\nsuited to an elegantly constructed and reflective journal.\n\n\u201cMy heart sank for a moment, I confess,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it never would\ndo, you know, to let him suspect that, so I smiled away as well as I\nknew how, shook hands with one or two women in red calico who had been\n\u2018slicking up inside,\u2019 they said; went in by the fire,--it was really a\npleasant fire,--and, as soon as they had left us alone, I climbed into\nJohn\u2019s lap, and, with both arms around his neck, told him that I knew we\nshould be very happy. And I said--\u201d\n\n\u201cSaid what?\u201d\n\nShe blushed a little, like a girl.\n\n\u201cI believe I said I should be happy in Patagonia,--with him. I made him\nlaugh at last, and say that my face and words were like a beautiful\nprophecy. And, Mary, if they were, it was beautifully fulfilled. In the\nroughest times,--times of ragged clothes and empty flour-barrels, of\nweakness and sickness and quack doctors, of cold and discouragement, of\nprairie fires and guerillas,--from trouble to trouble, from year\u2019s end\nto year\u2019s end, we were happy together, we two. As long as we could have\neach other, and as long as we could be about our Master\u2019s business, we\nfelt as if we did not dare to ask for anything more, lest it should seem\nthat we were ungrateful for such wealth of mercy.\u201d\n\nIt would take too long to write out here the half that she told me,\nthough I wish I could, for it interested me more than any story that I\nhave ever read.\n\nAfter years of Christ-like toiling to help those rough old farmers and\nwicked bushwhackers to Heaven, the call to Lawrence came, and it seemed\nto Uncle Forceythe that he had better go. It was a pleasant, influential\nparish, and there, though not less hard at work, they found fewer rubs\nand more comforts; there Faith came, and there were their pleasant days,\ntill the war.--I held my breath to hear her tell about Quantrell\u2019s raid.\nThere, too, Uncle wasted through that death-in-life, consumption; there\nhe \u201cfell on sleep,\u201d she said, and there she buried him.\n\nShe gave me no further description of his death than those words, and\nshe spoke them with her far-away, tearless eyes looking off through the\nwindow, and after she had spoken she was still for a time.\n\nThe heart knoweth its own bitterness; that grew distinct to me, as I\nsat, shut out by her silence. Yet there was nothing bitter about her\nface.\n\n\u201cFaith was six months old when he went,\u201d she said presently. \u201cWe had\nnever named her: Baby was name enough at first for such a wee thing;\nthen she was the only one, and had come so late, that it seemed to mean\nmore to us than to most to have a baby all to ourselves, and we liked\nthe sound of the word. When it became quite certain that John must go,\nwe used to talk it over, and he said that he would like to name her, but\nwhat, he did not tell me.\n\n\u201cAt last, one night, after he had lain for a while thinking with closed\neyes, he bade me bring the child to him. The sun was setting, I\nremember, and the moon was rising. He had had a hard day; the life was\nall scorched out of the air. I moved the bed up by the window, that he\nmight have the breath of the rising wind. Baby was wide awake, cooing\nsoftly to herself in the cradle, her bits of damp curls clinging to her\nhead, and her pink feet in her hands. I took her up and brought her just\nas she was, and knelt down by the bed. The street was still. We could\nhear the frogs chanting a mile away. He lifted her little hands upon his\nown, and said--no matter about the words--but he told me that as he left\nthe child, so he left the name, in my sacred charge,--that he had chosen\nit for me,--that, when he was out of sight, it might help me to have it\noften on my lips.\n\n\u201cSo there in the sunset and the moonrise, we two alone together, he\nbaptized her, and we gave our little girl to God.\u201d\n\nWhen she had said this, she rose and went over to the window, and stood\nwith her face from me. By and by, \u201cIt was the fourteenth,\u201d she said, as\nif musing to herself,--\u201cthe fourteenth of June.\u201d\n\nI remember now that Uncle Forceythe died on the fourteenth of June. It\nmay have been that the words of that baptismal blessing were the last\nthat they heard, either child or mother.\n\n\nMay 10.\n\nIt has been a pleasant day; the air shines like transparent gold; the\nwind sweeps like somebody\u2019s strong arms over the flowers, and gathers up\na crowd of perfumes that wander up and down about one. The church bells\nhave rung out like silver all day. Those bells--especially the Second\nAdvent at the further end of the village--are positively ghastly when it\nrains.\n\nAunt Winifred was dressed bright and early for church. I, in morning\ndress and slippers, sighed and demurred.\n\n\u201cAuntie, _do_ you expect to hear anything new?\u201d\n\n\u201cJudging from your diagnosis of Dr. Bland,--no.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo be edified, refreshed, strengthened, or instructed?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps not.\u201d\n\n\u201cBored, then?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot exactly.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you expect?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are the prayers and singing. Generally one can, if one tries,\nwring a little devotion from the worst of them. As to a minister, if he\nis good and commonplace, young and earnest and ignorant, and I, whom he\ncannot help one step on the way to Heaven, consequently stay at home,\nDeacon Quirk, whom he might carry a mile or two, by and by stays at home\nalso. If there is to be a \u2018building fitly joined together,\u2019 each stone\nmust do its part of the upholding. I feel better to go half a day\nalways. I never compel Faith to go, but I never have a chance, for she\nteases not to be left at home.\u201d\n\n\u201cI think it\u2019s splendid to go to church most the time,\u201d put in Faith, who\nwas squatted on the carpet, counting sugared caraway seeds,--\u201call but\nthe sermon. That isn\u2019t splendid. I don\u2019t like the gre-at big prayers \u2019n\u2019\nthings, I like caramary seeds, though; mother always gives \u2019em to me in\nmeeting \u2019cause I\u2019m a good girl. Don\u2019t you wish _you_ were a good girl,\nCousin Mary, so\u2019s you could have some? Besides, I\u2019ve got on my best hat\nand my button-boots. Besides, there used to be a real funny little boy\nup in meeting at home, and he gave me a little tin dorg once over the\ntop the pew. Only mother made me give it back. O, you ought to seen the\nman that preached down at Uncle Calvin\u2019s! I tell you he was a bully old\nminister,--_he banged the Bible like everything_!\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a devotional spirit for you!\u201d I said to her mother.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d she answered, laughing, \u201cit is better than that she should be\nleft to play dolls and eat preserves, and be punished for disobedience.\nSunday would invariably become a guilty sort of holiday at that rate.\nNow, caraways or \u2018bully old ministers\u2019 notwithstanding, she carries to\nbed with her a dim notion that this has been holy time and pleasant\ntime. Besides, the associations of a church-going childhood, if I can\nmanage them genially, will be a help to her when she is older. Come,\nFaith! go and pull off Cousin Mary\u2019s slippers, and bring down her\nboots, and then she\u2019ll have to go to church. No, I _didn\u2019t_ say that you\nmight tickle her feet!\u201d\n\nFeeling the least bit sorry that I had set the example of a stay-at-home\nChristian before the child, I went directly up stairs to make ready, and\nwe started after all in good season.\n\nDr. Bland was in the pulpit. I observed that he looked--as indeed did\nthe congregation bodily--with some curiosity into our slip, where it has\nbeen a rare occurrence of late to find me, and where the light, falling\nthrough the little stained glass oriel, touched Aunt Winifred\u2019s\nthoughtful smile. I wondered whether Dr. Bland thought it was wicked for\npeople to smile in church. No, of course he has too much sense. I wonder\nwhat it is about Dr. Bland that always suggests such questions.\n\nIt has been very warm all day,--that aggravating, unseasonable heat,\nwhich is apt to come in spasms in the early part of May, and which, in\nthick spring alpaca and heavy sack, one finds intolerable. The\nthermometer stood at 75\u00b0 on the church porch; every window was shut, and\neverybody\u2019s fan was fluttering Now, with this sight before him, what\nshould our observant minister do, but give out as his first hymn: \u201cThine\nearthly Sabbaths.\u201d \u201cThine earthly Sabbaths\u201d would be a beautiful hymn,\nif it were not for those lines about the weather:--\n\n    \u201cNo midnight shade, _no clouded sun_,\n     _But sacred, high, eternal noon_\u201d!\n\nThere was a great hot sunbeam striking directly on my black bonnet. My\nfan was broken. I gasped for air. The choir went over and over and\n_over_ the words, spinning them into one of those indescribable tunes,\nin which everybody seems to be trying to get through first. I don\u2019t know\nwhat they called them,--they always remind me of a game of \u201cTag.\u201d\n\nI looked at Aunt Winifred. She took it more coolly than I, but an amused\nlittle smile played over her face. She told me after church that she had\nrepeatedly heard that hymn given out at noon of an intense July day. Her\nhusband, she said, used to save it for the winter, or for cloudy\nafternoons. \u201cUsing means of grace,\u201d he called that.\n\nHowever, Dr. Bland did better the second time, Aunt Winifred joined in\nthe singing, and I enjoyed it, so I will not blame the poor man. I\nsuppose he was so far lifted above this earth, that he would not have\nknown whether he was preaching in Greenland\u2019s icy mountains, or on\nIndia\u2019s coral strand.\n\nWhen he announced his text, \u201cFor our conversation is in Heaven,\u201d Aunt\nWinifred and I exchanged glances of content. We had been talking about\nheaven on the way to church; at least, till Faith, not finding herself\nentertained, interrupted us by some severe speculations as to whether\nMaltese kitties were mulattoes, and \u201cwhy the bell-ringer didn\u2019t jump off\nthe steeple some night, and see if he couldn\u2019t fly right up, the way\nElijah did.\u201d\n\nI listened to Dr. Bland as I have not listened for a long time. The\nsubject was of all subjects nearest my heart. He is a scholarly man, in\nhis way. He ought to know, I thought, more about it than Aunt Winifred.\nPerhaps he could help me.\n\nHis sermon, as nearly as I can recall it, was substantially this.\n\n\u201cThe future life presented a vast theme to our speculation. Theories\n\u2018too numerous to mention,\u2019 had been held concerning it. Pagans had\nbelieved in a coming state of rewards and punishments. What natural\ntheology had dimly foreshadowed, Revelation had brought in, like a\nfull-orbed day, with healing on its wings.\u201d I am not positive about the\nmetaphors.\n\n\u201cAs it was fitting that we should at times turn our thoughts upon the\nthreatenings of Scripture, it was eminently suitable also that we should\nconsider its promises.\n\n\u201cHe proposed in this discourse to consider the promise of heaven, the\nreward offered by Christ to his good and faithful servants.\n\n\u201cIn the first place: What is heaven?\u201d\n\nI am not quite clear in my mind what it was, though I tried my best to\nfind out. As nearly as I can recollect, however,--\n\n\u201cHeaven is an eternal state.\n\n\u201cHeaven is a state of holiness.\n\n\u201cHeaven is a state of happiness.\u201d\n\nHaving heard these observations before, I will not enlarge as he did\nupon them, but leave that for the \u201cvivid imagination\u201d of the green book.\n\n\u201cIn the second place: What will be the employments of heaven?\n\n\u201cWe shall study the character of God.\n\n\u201cAn infinite mind must of necessity be eternally an object of study to\na finite mind. The finite mind must of necessity find in such study\nsupreme delight. All lesser joys and interests will pale. He felt at\nmoments, in reflecting on this theme, that that good brother who, on\nbeing asked if he expected to see the dead wife of his youth in heaven,\nreplied, \u2018I expect to be so overwhelmed by the glory of the presence of\nGod, that it may be thousands of years before I shall think of my\nwife,\u2019--he felt that perhaps this brother was near the truth.\u201d\n\nPoor Mrs. Bland looked exceedingly uncomfortable.\n\n\u201cWe shall also glorify God.\u201d\n\nHe enlarged upon this division, but I have forgotten exactly how. There\nwas something about adoration, and the harpers harping with their harps,\nand the sea of glass, and crying, Worthy the Lamb! and a great deal more\nthat bewildered and disheartened me so that I could scarcely listen to\nit. I do not doubt that we shall glorify God primarily and happily, but\ncan we not do it in some other way than by harping and praying?\n\n\u201cWe shall moreover love each other with a universal and unselfish\nlove.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat we shall recognize our friends in heaven, he was inclined to\nthink, after mature deliberation, was probable. But there would be no\nspecial selfish affections there. In this world we have enmities and\nfavoritisms. In the world of bliss our hearts would glow with holy love\nalike to all other holy hearts.\u201d\n\nI wonder if he really thought _that_ would make \u201ca world of bliss.\u201d Aunt\nWinifred slipped her hand into mine under her cloak. Ah, Dr. Bland, if\nyou had known how that little soft touch was preaching against you!\n\n\u201cIn the words of an eminent divine, who has long since entered into the\njoys of which he spoke: \u2018Thus, whenever the mind roves through the\nimmense region of heaven, it will find, among all its innumerable\nmillions, not an enemy, not a stranger, not an indifferent heart, not a\nreserved bosom. Disguise here, and even concealment, will be unknown.\nThe soul will have no interests to conceal, _no thoughts to disguise_. A\nwindow will be opened in every breast, and show to every eye the rich\nand beautiful furniture within!\u2019\n\n\u201cThirdly: How shall we fit for heaven?\u201d\n\nHe mentioned several ways, among which,--\n\n\u201cWe should subdue our earthly affections to God.\n\n\u201cWe must not love the creature as the Creator. My son, give _me_ thy\nheart. When he removes our friends from the scenes of time (with a\nglance in my direction), we should resign ourselves to his will,\nremembering that the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away in mercy;\nthat He is all in all; that He will never leave us nor forsake us; that\n_He_ can never change or die.\u201d\n\nAs if that made any difference with the fact, that his best treasures\nchange or die!\n\n\u201cIn conclusion,--\n\n\u201cWe infer from our text that our hearts should not be set upon earthly\nhappiness. (Enlarged.)\n\n\u201cThat the subject of heaven should be often in our thoughts and on our\nlips.\u201d (Enlarged.)\n\nOf course I have not done justice to the filling up of the sermon; to\nthe illustrations, metaphors, proof-texts, learning, and\neloquence,--for, though Dr. Bland cannot seem to think outside of the\nold grooves, a little eloquence really flashes through the tameness of\nhis style sometimes, and when he was talking about the harpers, etc.,\nsome of his words were well chosen. \u201cTo be drowned in light,\u201d I have\nsomewhere read, \u201cmay be very beautiful; it is still to be drowned.\u201d But\nI have given the skeleton of the discourse, and I have given the sum of\nthe impressions that it left on me, an attentive hearer. It is fortunate\nthat I did not hear it while I was alone; it would have made me\ndesperate. Going hungry, hopeless, blinded, I came back empty,\nuncomforted, groping. I wanted something actual, something pleasant,\nabout this place into which Roy has gone. He gave me glittering\ngeneralities, cold commonplace, vagueness, unreality, a God and a future\nat which I sat and shivered.\n\nDr. Bland is a good man. He had, I know, written that sermon with\nprayer. I only wish that he could be made to _see_ how it glides over\nand sails splendidly away from wants like mine.\n\nBut thanks be to God who has provided a voice to answer me out of the\ndeeps.\n\nAuntie and I walked home without any remarks (we overheard Deacon Quirk\nobserve to a neighbor: \u201cThat\u2019s what I call a good gospel sermon, now!\u201d),\nsent Faith away to Ph\u0153be, sat down in the parlor, and looked at each\nother.\n\n\u201cWell?\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cI know it,\u201d said she.\n\nUpon which we both began to laugh.\n\n\u201cBut did he say the dreadful truth?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot as I find it in my Bible.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat it is probable, only _probable_ that we shall recognize--\u201d\n\n\u201cMy child, do not be troubled about that. It is not probable, it is\nsure. If I could find no proof for it, I should none the less believe\nit, as long as I believe in God. He gave you Roy, and the capacity to\nlove him. He has taught you to sanctify that love through love to Him.\nWould it be _like_ Him to create such beautiful and unselfish\nloves,--most like the love of heaven of any type we know,--just for our\nthreescore years and ten of earth? Would it be like Him to suffer two\nsouls to grow together here, so that the separation of a day is pain,\nand then wrench them apart for all eternity? It would be what Madame de\nGasparin calls, \u2018fearful irony on the part of God.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there are lost loves. There are lost souls.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018How often would I have gathered you, and ye would not!\u2019 That is not\nhis work. He would have saved both soul and love. They had their own\nway. We were speaking of His redeemed. The object of having this world\nat all, you know, is to fit us for another. Of what use will it have\nbeen, if on passing out of it we must throw by forever its gifts, its\nlessons, its memories? God links things together better than that. Be\nsure, as you are sure of Him, that we shall be _ourselves_ in heaven.\nWould you be yourself not to recognize Roy?--consequently, not to love\nRoy, for to love and to be separated is misery, and heaven is joy.\u201d\n\n\u201cI understand. But you said you had other proof.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo I have; plenty of it. If \u2018many shall come from the East and from the\nWest, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and\nJacob,\u2019 will they not be likely to know that they are with Abraham,\nIsaac, and Jacob? or will they think it is Shadrach, Meshech, and\nAbednego?\n\n\u201cWhat is meant by such expressions as \u2018risen _together_,\u2019 \u2018sitting\n_together_ at the right hand of God,\u2019 \u2018sitting _together_ in heavenly\nplaces\u2019? If they mean anything, they mean recognitions, friendships,\nenjoyments.\n\n\u201cDid not Peter and the others know Moses when they saw him?--know Elias\nwhen they saw him? Yet these men were dead hundreds of years before the\nfavored fishermen were born.\n\n\u201cHow was it with those \u2018saints which slept and arose\u2019 when Christ hung\ndead there in the dark? Were they not seen of many?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut that was a miracle.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey were risen dead, such as you and I shall be some day. The miracle\nconsisted in their rising then and there. Moreover, did not the beggar\nrecognize Abraham? and--Well, one might go through the Bible finding it\nfull of this promise in hints or assertions, in parables or visions. We\nare \u2018heirs of God,\u2019 \u2018joint heirs with Christ\u2019; having suffered with Him,\nwe shall be \u2018glorified _together_.\u2019 Christ himself has said many sure\nthings: \u2018I will come and receive you, that where I am, there ye may be.\u2019\n\u2018I will that they be with me where I am.\u2019 Using, too, the very type of\nGodhead to signify the eternal nearness and eternal love of just such as\nyou and Roy as John and me, he prays: \u2018Holy Father, keep them whom Thou\nhast given me, that _they may be one as we are_.\u2019\n\n\u201cThere is one place, though, where I find what I like better than all\nthe rest; you remember that old cry wrung from the lips of the stricken\nking,--\u2018I shall go to him; but he will not return to me.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cI never thought before how simple and direct it is; and that, too, in\nthose old blinded days.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe more I study the Bible,\u201d she said, \u201cand I study not entirely in\nignorance of the commentators and the mysteries, the more perplexed I am\nto imagine where the current ideas of our future come from. They\ncertainly are not in this book of gracious promises. That heaven which\nwe heard about to-day was Dr. Bland\u2019s, not God\u2019s. \u2018It\u2019s aye a wonderfu\u2019\nthing to me,\u2019 as poor Lauderdale said, \u2018the way some preachers take it\nupon themselves to explain matters to the Almighty!\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the harps and choirs, the throne, the white robes, are all in\nRevelation. Deacon Quirk would put his great brown finger on the verses,\nand hold you there triumphantly.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan\u2019t people tell picture from substance, a metaphor from its meaning?\nThat book of Revelation is precisely what it professes to be,--a vision;\na symbol. A symbol of something, to be sure, and rich with pleasant\nhopes, but still a symbol. Now, I really believe that a large\nproportion of Christian church-members, who have studied their Bible,\nattended Sabbath schools, listened to sermons all their lives, if you\ncould fairly come at their most definite idea of the place where they\nexpect to spend eternity, would own it to be the golden city, with pearl\ngates, and jewels in the wall. It never occurs to them, that, if one\npicture is literal, another must be. If we are to walk golden streets,\nhow can we stand on a sea of glass? How can we \u2018sit on thrones\u2019? How can\nuntold millions of us \u2018lie in Abraham\u2019s bosom\u2019?\n\n\u201cBut why have given us empty symbols? Why not a little fact?\u201d\n\n\u201cThey are not _empty_ symbols. And why God did not give us actual\ndescriptions of actual heavenly life, I don\u2019t trouble myself to wonder.\nHe certainly had his reasons, and that is enough for me. I find from\nthese symbols, and from his voice in my own heart, many beautiful\nthings,--I will tell you some more of them at another time,--and, for\nthe rest, I am content to wait. He loves me, and he loves mine. As long\nas we love Him, He will never separate Himself from us, or us from each\nother. That, at least, is _sure_.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf that is sure, the rest is of less importance;--yes. But Dr. Bland\nsaid an awful thing!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe quotation from a dead divine?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes. That there will be no separate interests, no thoughts to conceal.\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor good man! He has found out by this time that he should not have\nlaid down nonsense like that, without qualification or demur, before a\nBible-reading hearer. It was simply _his_ opinion, not David\u2019s, or\nPaul\u2019s, or John\u2019s, or Isaiah\u2019s. He had a perfect right to put it in the\nform of a conjecture. Nobody would forbid his conjecturing that the\ninhabitants of heaven are all deaf and dumb, or wear green glasses, or\nshave their heads, if he chose, provided he stated that it was\nconjecture, not revelation.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut where does the Bible say that we shall have power to conceal our\nthoughts?--and I would rather be annihilated than to spend eternity with\nheart laid bare,--the inner temple thrown open to be trampled on by\nevery passing stranger!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Bible specifies very little about the minor arrangements of\neternity in any way. But I doubt if, under any circumstances, it would\nhave occurred to inspired men to inform us that our thoughts shall\ncontinue to be our own. The fact is patent on the face of things. The\ndead minister\u2019s supposition would destroy individuality at one fell\nswoop. We should be like a man walking down a room lined with mirrors,\nwho sees himself reflected in all sizes, colors, shades, at all angles\nand in all proportions, according to the capacity of the mirror, till he\nseems no longer to belong to himself, but to be cut up into ellipses and\noctagons and prisms. How soon would he grow frantic in such\ncompanionship, and beg for a corner where he might hide and hush himself\nin the dark?\n\n\u201cThat we shall in a higher life be able to do what we cannot in\nthis,--judge fairly of each other\u2019s _moral_ worth,--is undoubtedly true.\nWhatever the Judgment Day may mean, that is the substance of it. But\nthis promiscuous theory of refraction;--never!\n\n\u201cBesides, wherever the Bible touches the subject, it premises our\nindividuality as a matter of course. What would be the use of talking,\nif everybody knew the thoughts of everybody else?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t suppose that people talk in heaven?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t suppose anything else. Are we to spend ages of joy, a company\nof mutes together? Why not talk?\u201d\n\n\u201cI supposed we should sing,--but--\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not talk as well as sing? Does not song involve the faculty of\nspeech?--unless you would like to make canaries of us.\u201d\n\n\u201cYe-es. Why, yes.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are the visitors at the beautiful Mount of Transfiguration again.\nDid not they _talk_ with each other and with Christ? Did not John _talk_\nwith the angel who \u2018shewed him those things\u2019?\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you mean to say--\u201d\n\n\u201cI mean to say that if there is such a thing as common sense, you will\ntalk with Roy as you talked with him here,--only not as you talked with\nhim here, because there will be no troubles nor sins, no anxieties nor\ncares, to talk about; no ugly shades of cross words or little quarrels\nto be made up; no fearful looking-for of separation.\u201d\n\nI laid my head upon her shoulder, and could hardly speak for the comfort\nthat she gave me.\n\n\u201cYes, I believe we shall talk and laugh and joke and play--\u201d\n\n\u201cLaugh and joke in heaven?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it seems so--so--why, so wicked and irreverent and all that, you\nknow.\u201d\n\nJust then Faith, who, mounted out on the kitchen table, was preaching at\nPh\u0153be in comical mimicry of Dr. Bland\u2019s choicest intonations, laughed\nout like the splash of a little wave.\n\nThe sound came in at the open door, and we stopped to listen till it had\nrippled away.\n\n\u201cThere!\u201d said her mother, \u201cput that child, this very minute, with all\nher little sins forgiven, into one of our dear Lord\u2019s many mansions, and\ndo you suppose that she would be any the less holy or less reverent for\na laugh like that? Is he going to check all the sparkle and blossom of\nlife when he takes us to himself? I don\u2019t believe any such thing. There\nwere both sense and Christianity in what somebody wrote on the death of\na humorous poet:--\n\n    \u2018Does nobody laugh there, where he has gone,--\n      This man of the smile and the jest?\u2019\n\n--provided there was any hope that the poor fellow _had_ gone to heaven;\nif not, it was bad philosophy and worse religion. Did not David dance\nbefore the Lord with all his might? A Bible which is full of happy\nbattle-cries: \u2018Rejoice in the Lord! make a joyful noise unto him! Give\nthanks unto the Lord, for his mercy endureth!\u2019--a Bible which exhausts\nits splendid wealth of rhetoric to make us understand that the coming\nlife is a life of _joy_, no more threatens to make nuns than mutes of\nus. I expect that you will hear some of Roy\u2019s very old jokes, see the\nsparkle in his eye, listen to his laughing voice, lighten up the happy\ndays as gleefully as you may choose; and that--\u201d\n\nFaith appeared upon the scene just then, with the interesting\ninformation that she had bitten her tongue; so we talked no more.\n\nHow pleasant--how pleasant this is! I never supposed before that God\nwould let any one laugh in heaven.\n\nI wonder if Roy has seen the President. Aunt Winifred says she does not\ndoubt it. She thinks that all the soldiers must have crowded up to meet\nhim, and \u201cO,\u201d she says, \u201cwhat a sight to see!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n\nMay 12th.\n\nAunt Winifred has said something about going, but I cannot yet bear to\nhear of such a thing. She is to stay a while longer.\n\n\n16th.\n\nWe have been over to-night to the grave.\n\nShe proposed to go by herself, thinking, I saw, with the delicacy with\nwhich she always thinks, that I would rather not be there with another.\nNor should I, nor could I, with any other than this woman. It is\nstrange. I wished to go there with her. I had a vague, unreasoning\nfeeling that she would take away some of the bitterness of it, as she\nhas taken the bitterness of much else.\n\nIt is looking very pleasant there now. The turf has grown fine and\nsmooth. The low arbor-vit\u00e6 hedge and knots of Norway spruce, that father\nplanted long ago for mother, drop cool, green shadows that stir with the\nwind. My English ivy has crept about and about the cross. Roy used to\nsay that he should fancy a cross to mark the spot where he might lie; I\nthink he would like this pure, unveined marble. May-flowers cover the\ngrave now, and steal out among the clover-leaves with a flush like\nsunrise. By and by there will be roses, and, in August, August\u2019s own\nwhite lilies.\n\nWe went silently over, and sat silently down on the grass, the\nfield-path stretching away to the little church behind us, and beyond,\nin front, the slope, the flats, the river, the hills cut in purple\ndistance melting far into the east. The air was thick with perfume.\nGolden bees hung giddily over the blush in the grass. In the low\nbranches that swept the grave a little bird had built her nest.\n\nAunt Winifred did not speak to me for a time, nor watch my face.\nPresently she laid her hand upon my lap, and I put mine into it.\n\n\u201cIt is very pleasant here,\u201d she said then, in her very pleasant voice.\n\n\u201cI meant that it should be,\u201d I answered, trying not to let her see my\nlips quiver. \u201cAt least it must not look neglected. I don\u2019t suppose it\nmakes any difference to _him_.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not feel sure of that.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not feel sure that anything he has left makes no \u2018difference\u2019 to\nhim.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I don\u2019t understand. He is in heaven. He would be too happy to care\nfor anything that is going on in this woful world.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps that is so,\u201d she said, smiling a sweet contradiction to her\nwords, \u201cbut I don\u2019t believe it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you believe?\u201d\n\n\u201cMany things that I have to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have sometimes wondered, for I cannot help it,\u201d I said, \u201cwhether he\nis shut off from all knowledge of me for all these years till I can go\nto him. It will be a great while. It seems hard. Roy would want to know\nsomething, if it were only a little, about me.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe that he wants to know, and that he knows, Mary; though, since\nthe belief must rest on analogy and conjecture, you need not accept it\nas demonstrated mathematics,\u201d she answered, with another smile.\n\n\u201cRoy never forgot me here!\u201d I said, not meaning to sob.\n\n\u201cThat is just it. He was not constituted so that he, remaining himself,\nRoy, could forget you. If he goes out into this other life forgetting,\nhe becomes another than himself. That is a far more unnatural way of\ncreeping out of the difficulty than to assume that he loves and\nremembers. Why not assume that? In fact, why assume anything else?\nNeither reason, nor the Bible, nor common sense, forbids it. Instead of\nstarting with it as an hypothesis to be proved if we can, I lay it down\nas one of those probabilities for which Butler would say, \u2018the\npresumption amounts nearly to certainty\u2019; and if any one can disprove\nit, I will hear what he has to say. There!\u201d she broke off, laughing\nsoftly, \u201cthat is a sufficient dose of metaphysics for such a simple\nthing. It seems to me to lie just here: Roy loved you. Our Father, for\nsome tender, hidden reason, took him out of your sight for a while.\nThough changed much, he can have forgotten nothing. Being _only out of\nsight_, you remember, not lost, nor asleep, nor annihilated, he goes on\nloving. To love must mean to think of, to care for, to hope for, to pray\nfor, not less out of a body than in it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut that must mean--why, that must mean--\u201d\n\n\u201cThat he is near you. I do not doubt it.\u201d\n\nThe sunshine quivered in among the ivy-leaves, and I turned to watch it,\nthinking.\n\n\u201cI do not doubt,\u201d she went on, speaking low,--\u201cI cannot doubt that our\nabsent dead are very present with us. He said, \u2018I am with you alway,\u2019\nknowing the need we have of him, even to the end of the world. He must\nunderstand the need we have of them. I cannot doubt it.\u201d\n\nI watched her as she sat with her absent eyes turned eastward, and her\npeculiar look--I have never seen it on another face--as of one who holds\na happy secret; and while I watched I wondered.\n\n\u201cThere is a reason for it,\u201d she said, rousing as if from a pleasant\ndream,--\u201ca good sensible reason, too, it strikes me, independent of\nScriptural or other proof.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is that?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat God keeps us briskly at work in this world.\u201d\n\nI did not understand.\n\n\u201cAltogether too briskly, considering that it is a preparative world, to\nintend to put us from it into an idle one. What more natural than that\nwe shall spend our best energies as we spent them here,--in comforting,\nteaching, helping, saving people whose very souls we love better than\nour own? In fact, it would be very _un_natural if we did not.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I thought that God took care of us, and angels, like Gabriel and\nthe rest, if I ever thought anything about it, which I am inclined to\ndoubt.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018God works by the use of means,\u2019 as the preachers say. Why not use Roy\nas well as Gabriel? What archangel could understand and reach the\npeculiarities of your nature as he could? or, even if understanding,\ncould so love and bear with you? What is to be done? Will they send Roy\nto the planet Jupiter to take care of somebody else\u2019s sister?\u201d\n\nI laughed in spite of myself; nor did the laugh seem to jar upon the\nsacred stillness of the place. Her words were drawing away the\nbitterness, as the sun was blotting the dull, dead greens of the ivy\ninto its glow of golden color.\n\n\u201cBut the Bible, Aunt Winifred.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Bible does _not_ say a great deal on this point,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it\ndoes not contradict me. In fact, it helps me; and, moreover, it would\nuphold me in black and white if it weren\u2019t for one little obstacle.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd that?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat frowning \u2018original Greek,\u2019 which Gail Hamilton denounces with her\nrighteous indignation. No sooner do I find a pretty verse that is\nexactly what I want, than up hops a commentator, and says, this isn\u2019t\naccording to text, and means something entirely different; and Barnes\nsays this, and Stuart believes that, and Olshausen has demonstrated the\nother, and very ignorant it is in you, too, not to know it! Here the\nother day I ferreted out a sentence in Revelation that seemed to prove\nbeyond question that angels and redeemed men were the same; where the\nangel says to John, you know, \u2018Am I not of thy brethren the prophets?\u2019 I\nthought that I had discovered a delightful thing which all the Fathers\nof the church had overlooked, and went in great glee to your Uncle\nCalvin, to be told that something was the matter,--a noun left out, or\nsome other unanswerable and unreasonable horror, I don\u2019t know what; and\nthat it didn\u2019t mean that he was of thy brethren the prophets at all!\n\n\u201cYou see, if it could be proved that the Christian dead become angels,\nwe could have all that we need, direct from God, about--to use the\nbeautiful old phrase--the communion of saints. From Genesis to\nRevelation the Bible is filled with angels who are at work on earth.\nThey hold sweet converse with Abraham in his tent. They are intrusted to\nsave the soul of Lot. An angel hears the wail of Hagar. The beautiful\nfeet of an angel bring the good tidings to maiden Mary. An angel\u2019s\nnoiseless step guides Peter through the barred and bolted gate. Angels\nrolled the stone from the buried Christ, and angels sat there in the\nsolemn morning,--O Mary! if we could have seen them!\n\n\u201cThen there is that one question, direct, comprehensive,--we should not\nneed anything else,--\u2018Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth\nto minister to the heirs of salvation?\u2019\n\n\u201cBut you see it never seems to have entered those commentators\u2019 heads\nthat all these beautiful things refer to any but a superior race of\nbeings, like those from whose ranks Lucifer fell.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow stupid in them!\u201d\n\n\u201cI take comfort in thinking so; but, to be serious, even admitting that\nthese passages refer to a superior race, must there not be some\nsimilarity in the laws which govern existence in the heavenly world?\nSince these gracious deeds are performed by what we are accustomed to\ncall \u2018spiritual beings,\u2019 why may they not as well be done by people\nfrom this world as from anywhere else? Besides, there is another point,\nand a reasonable one, to be made. The word angel in the original[A]\nmeans, strictly, _a messenger_. It applies to any servant of God,\nanimate or inanimate. An east wind is as much an angel as Michael.\nAgain, the generic terms, \u2018spirits,\u2019 \u2018gods,\u2019 \u2018sons of God,\u2019 are used\ninterchangeably for saints and for angels. So, you see, I fancy that I\nfind a way for you and Roy and me and all of us, straight into the\nshining ministry. Mary, Mary, wouldn\u2019t you like to go this very\nafternoon?\u201d\n\n [A] \u1f04\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2.\n\nShe lay back in the grass, with her face up-turned to the sky, and drew\na long breath, wearily. I do not think she meant me to hear it. I did\nnot answer her, for it came over me with such a hopeless thrill, how\ngood it would be to be taken to Roy, there by his beautiful grave, with\nthe ivy and the May-flowers and the sunlight and the clover-leaves round\nabout; and that it could not be, and how long it was to wait,--it came\nover me so that I could not speak.\n\n\u201cThere!\u201d she said, suddenly rousing, \u201cwhat a thoughtless, wicked thing\nit was to say! And I meant to give you only the good cheer of a cheery\nfriend. No, I do not care to go this afternoon, nor any afternoon, till\nmy Father is ready for me. Wherever he has most for me to do, there I\nwish,--yes, I think I _wish_ to stay. He knows best.\u201d\n\nAfter a pause, I asked again, \u201cWhy did He not tell us more about this\nthing,--about their presence with us? You see if I could _know_ it!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe mystery of the Bible lies not so much in what it says, as in what\nit does not say,\u201d she replied. \u201cBut I suppose that we have been told all\nthat we can comprehend in this world. Knowledge on one point might\ninvolve knowledge on another, like the links of a chain, till it\nstretched far beyond our capacity. At any rate, it is not for me to\nbreak the silence. That is God\u2019s affair. I can only accept the fact.\nNevertheless, as Dr. Chalmers says: \u2018It were well for us all could we\ncarefully draw the line between the secret things which belong to God\nand the things which are revealed and belong to us and to our children.\u2019\nSome one else,--Whately, I think,--I remember to have noticed as\nspeaking about these very subjects to this effect,--that precisely\nbecause we know so little of them, it is the more important that we\n\u2018should endeavor so to dwell on them as to make the most of what little\nknowledge we have.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cAunt Winifred, you are such a comfort!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt needs our best faith,\u201d she said, \u201cto bear this reticence of God. I\ncannot help thinking sometimes of a thing Lauderdale said,--I am always\nquoting him,--from \u2018Son of the Soil,\u2019 you remember: \u2018It\u2019s an awfu\u2019\nmarvel, beyond my reach, when a word of communication would make a\u2019 the\ndifference, why it\u2019s no permitted, if it were but to keep a heart from\nbreaking now and then.\u2019 Think of poor Eug\u00e9nie de Gu\u00e8rin, trying to\ncontinue her little journal \u2018To Maurice in Heaven,\u2019 till the awful,\nanswerless stillness shut up the book and laid aside the pen.\n\n\u201cBut then,\u201d she continued, \u201cthere is this to remember,--I may have\nborrowed the idea, or it may be my own,--that if we could speak to them,\nor they to us, there would be no death, for there would be no\nseparation. The last, the surest, in some cases the only test of loyalty\nto God, would thus be taken away. Roman Catholic nature is human nature,\nwhen it comes upon its knees before a saint. Many lives--all such lives\nas yours and mine--would become--\u201d\n\n\u201cWould become what?\u201d\n\n\u201cOne long defiance to the First Commandment.\u201d\n\nI cannot become used to such words from such quiet lips. Yet they give\nme a curious sense of the trustworthiness of her peace. \u201cFounded upon a\nrock,\u201d it seems to be. She has done what it takes a lifetime for some of\nus to do; what some of us go into eternity, leaving undone; what I am\nafraid I shall never do,--sounded her own nature. She knows the worst of\nherself, and faces it as fairly, I believe, as anybody can do in this\nworld. As for the best of herself, she trusts that to Christ, and he\nknows it, and we. I hope she, in her sweet humbleness, will know it some\nday.\n\n\u201cI suppose, nevertheless,\u201d she said, \u201cthat Roy knows what you are doing\nand feeling as well as, perhaps better than, he knew it three months\nago. So he can help you without harming you.\u201d\n\nI asked her, turning suddenly, how that could be, and yet heaven be\nheaven,--how he could see me suffer what I had suffered, could see me\nsometimes when I supposed none but God had seen me,--and sing on and be\nhappy.\n\n\u201cYou are not the first, Mary, and you will not be the last, to ask that\nquestion. I cannot answer it, and I never heard of any who could. I feel\nsure only of this,--that he would suffer far less to see you than to\nknow nothing about you; and that God\u2019s power of inventing happiness is\nnot to be blocked by an obstacle like this. Perhaps Roy sees the end\nfrom the beginning, and can bear the sight of pain for the peace that he\nwatches coming to meet you. I do not know,--that does not perplex me\nnow; it only makes me anxious for one thing.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is that?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat you and I shall not do anything to make them sorry.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo make them sorry?\u201d\n\n\u201cRoy would care. Roy would be disappointed to see you make life a\nhopeless thing for his sake, or to see you doubt his Saviour.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you think _that_?\u201d\n\n\u201cSome sort of mourning over sin enters that happy life. God himself \u2018was\ngrieved\u2019 forty years long over his wandering people. Among the angels\nthere has been \u2018silence,\u2019 whatever that mysterious pause may mean, just\nas there is joy over one sinner that repenteth; another of my\nproof-texts that, to show that they are allowed to keep us in sight.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you think, you really think, that Roy remembers and loves and\ntakes care of me; that he has been listening, perhaps, and is--why, you\ndon\u2019t think he may be _here_?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I do. Here, close beside you all this time, trying to speak to you\nthrough the blessed sunshine and the flowers, trying to help you, and\nsure to love you,--right here, dear. I do not believe God means to send\nhim away from you, either.\u201d\n\nMy heart was too full to answer her. Seeing how it was, she slipped\naway, and, strolling out of sight with her face to the eastern hills,\nleft me alone.\n\nAnd yet I did not seem alone. The low branches swept with a little soft\nsigh across the grave; the May-flowers wrapped me in with fragrance\nthick as incense; the tiny sparrow turned her soft eyes at me over the\nedge of the nest, and chirped contentedly; the \u201cblessed sunshine\u201d talked\nwith me as it touched the edges of the ivy-leaves to fire.\n\nI cannot write it even here, how these things stole into my heart and\nhushed me. If I had seen him standing by the stainless cross, it would\nnot have frightened or surprised me. There--not dead or gone, but\n_there_--it helps me, and makes me strong!\n\n\u201cMamie! little Mamie!\u201d\n\nO Roy, I will try to bear it all, if you will only stay!\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\n\nMay 20.\n\nThe nearer the time has come for Aunt Winifred to go, the more it has\nseemed impossible to part with her. I have run away from the thought\nlike a craven, till she made me face it this morning, by saying\ndecidedly that she should go on the first of the week.\n\nI dropped my sewing; the work-basket tipped over, and all my spools\nrolled away under the chairs. I had a little time to think while I was\npicking them up.\n\n\u201cThere is the rest of my visit at Norwich to be made, you know,\u201d she\nsaid, \u201cand while I am there I shall form some definite plans for the\nsummer; I have hardly decided what, yet. I had better leave here by the\nseven o\u2019clock train, if such an early start will not incommode you.\u201d\n\nI wound up the last spool, and turned away to the window. There was a\nconfused, dreary sky of scurrying clouds, and a cold wind was bruising\nthe apple-buds. I hate a cold wind in May. It made me choke a little,\nthinking how I should sit and listen to it after she was gone,--of the\nold, blank, comfortless days that must come and go,--of what she had\nbrought, and what she would take away. I was a bit faint, I think, for a\nminute. I had not really thought the prospect through, before.\n\n\u201cMary,\u201d she said, \u201cwhat\u2019s the matter? Come here.\u201d\n\nI went over, and she drew me into her lap, and I put my arms about her\nneck.\n\n\u201cI can _not_ bear it,\u201d said I, \u201cand that is the matter.\u201d\n\nShe smiled, but her smile faded when she looked at me.\n\nAnd then I told her, sobbing, how it was; that I could not go into my\nfuture alone,--I could not do it! that she did not know how weak I\nwas,--and reckless,--and wicked; that she did not know what she had been\nto me. I begged her not to leave me. I begged her to stay and help me\nbear my life.\n\n\u201cMy dear! you are as bad as Faith when I put her to bed alone.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d I said, \u201cwhen Faith cries, you go to her, you know.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you quite in earnest, Mary?\u201d she asked, after a pause. \u201cYou don\u2019t\nknow very much about me, after all, and there is the child. It is always\nan experiment, bringing two families into lifelong relations under one\nroof. If I could think it best, you might repent your bargain.\u201d\n\n\u201c_I_ am not \u2018a family,\u2019\u201d I said, feebly trying to laugh. \u201cAunt Winifred,\nif you and Faith only _will_ make this your home, I can never thank you,\nnever. I shall be entertaining my good angels, and that is the whole of\nit.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have had some thought of not going back,\u201d she said at last, in a low,\nconstrained voice, as if she were touching something that gave her great\npain, \u201cfor Faith\u2019s sake. I should like to educate her in New England,\nif--I had intended if we stayed to rent or buy a little home of our own\nsomewhere, but I had been putting off a decision. We are most weak and\nmost selfish sometimes when we think ourselves strongest and noblest,\nMary. I love my husband\u2019s people. I think they love me. I was almost\nhappy with them. It seemed as if I were carrying on his work for him.\nThat was so pleasant!\u201d\n\nShe put me down out of her arms and walked across the room.\n\n\u201cI will think the matter over,\u201d she said, by and by, in her natural\ntones, \u201cand let you know to-night.\u201d\n\nShe went away up stairs then, and I did not see her again until\nto-night. I sent Faith up with her dinner and tea, judging that she\nwould rather see the child than me. I observed, when the dishes came\ndown, that she had touched nothing but a cup of coffee.\n\nI began to understand, as I sat alone in the parlor through the\nafternoon, how much I had asked of her. In my selfish distress at losing\nher, I had not thought of that. Faces that her husband loved, meadows\nand hills and sunsets that he has watched, the home where his last step\nsounded and his last word was spoken, the grave where she has laid\nhim,--this last more than all,--call after her, and cling to her with\nyearning closeness. To leave them, is to leave the last faint shadow of\nher beautiful past. It hurts, but she is too brave to cry out.\n\nTea was over, and Faith in bed, but still she did not come down. I was\nsitting by the window, watching a little crescent moon climb over the\nhills, and wondering whether I had better go up, when she came in and\nstood behind me, and said, attempting to laugh:--\n\n\u201cVery impolite in me to run off so, wasn\u2019t it? Cowardly, too, I think.\nWell, Mary?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, Auntie?\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you not repented your proposition yet?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou would excel as an inquisitor, Mrs. Forceythe!\u201d\n\n\u201cThen it shall be as you say; as long as you want us you shall have\nus,--Faith and me.\u201d\n\nI turned to thank her, but could not when I saw her face. It was very\npale; there was something inexpressibly sad about her mouth, and her\neyelids drooped heavily, like one weary from a great struggle.\n\nFeeling for the moment guilty and ashamed before her, as if I had done\nher wrong, \u201cIt is going to be very hard for you,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cNever mind about that,\u201d she answered, quickly. \u201cWe will not talk about\nthat. I knew, though I did not _wish_ to know, that it was best for\nFaith. Your hands about my neck have settled it. Where the work is,\nthere the laborer must be. It is quite plain now. I have been talking it\nover with them all the afternoon; it seems to be what they want.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith _them_\u201d? I started at the words; who had been in her lonely\nchamber? Ah, it is simply real to her. Who, indeed, but her Saviour and\nher husband?\n\nShe did not seem inclined to talk, and stole away from me presently, and\nout of doors; she was wrapped in her blanket shawl, and had thrown a\nshimmering white hood over her gray hair. I wondered where she could be\ngoing, and sat still at the window watching her. She opened and shut the\ngate softly; and, turning her face towards the churchyard, walked up the\nstreet and out of my sight.\n\nShe feels nearer to him in the resting-place of the dead. Her heart\ncries after the grave by which she will never sit and weep again; on\nwhich she will never plant the roses any more.\n\nAs I sat watching and thinking this, the faint light struck her slight\nfigure and little shimmering hood again, and she walked down the street\nand in with steady step.\n\nWhen she came up and stood beside me, smiling, with the light knitted\nthing thrown back on her shoulders, her face seemed to rise from it as\nfrom a snowy cloud; and for her look,--I wish Raphael could have had it\nfor one of his rapt Madonnas.\n\n\u201cNow, Mary,\u201d she said, with the sparkle back again in her voice, \u201cI am\nready to be entertaining, and promise not to play the hermit again very\nsoon. Shall I sit here on the sofa with you? Yes, my dear, I am happy,\nquite happy.\u201d\n\nSo then we took this new promise of home that has come to make my life,\nif not joyful, something less than desolate, and analyzed it in its\npractical bearings. What a pity that all pretty dreams have to be\nanalyzed! I had some notion about throwing our little incomes into a\njoint family fund, but she put a veto to that; I suppose because mine is\nthe larger. She prefers to take board for herself and Faith; but, if I\nknow myself, she shall never be suffered to have the feeling of a\nboarder, and I will make her so much at home in my house that she shall\nnot remember that it is not her own.\n\nHer visit to Norwich she has decided to put off until the autumn, so\nthat I shall have her to myself undisturbed all summer.\n\nI have been looking at Roy\u2019s picture a long time, and wondering how he\nwould like the new plan. I said something of the sort to her.\n\n\u201cWhy put any \u2018would\u2019 in that sentence?\u201d she said, smiling. \u201cIt belongs\nin the present tense.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen I am sure he likes it,\u201d I answered,--\u201che likes it,\u201d and I said the\nwords over till I was ready to cry for rest in their sweet sound.\n\n\n22d.\n\nIt is Roy\u2019s birthday. But I have not spoken of it. We used to make a\ngreat deal of these little festivals,--but it is of no use to write\nabout that.\n\nI am afraid I have been bearing it very badly all day. She noticed my\nface, but said nothing till to-night. Mrs. Bland was down stairs, and I\nhad come away alone up here in the dark. I heard her asking for me, but\nwould not go down. By and by Aunt Winifred knocked, and I let her in.\n\n\u201cMrs. Bland cannot understand why you don\u2019t see her, Mary,\u201d she said,\ngently. \u201cYou know you have not thanked her for those English violets\nthat she sent the other day. I only thought I would remind you; she\nmight feel a little pained.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t to-night,--not to-night, Aunt Winifred. You must excuse me to\nher somehow. I don\u2019t want to go down.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it that you don\u2019t \u2018want to,\u2019 or _is_ it that you can\u2019t?\u201d she said,\nin that gentle, motherly way of hers, at which I can never take offence.\n\u201cMary, I wonder if Roy would not a little rather that you would go\ndown?\u201d\n\nIt might have been Roy himself who spoke.\n\nI went down.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\n\nJune 1.\n\nAunt Winifred went to the office this morning, and met Dr. Bland, who\nwalked home with her. He always likes to talk with her.\n\nA woman who knows something about fate, free-will, and foreknowledge\nabsolute, who is not ignorant of politics, and talks intelligently of\nAgassiz\u2019s latest fossil, who can understand a German quotation, and has\nheard of Strauss and Neander, who can dash her sprightliness ably\nagainst his old dry bones of metaphysics and theology, yet never speak\nan accent above that essentially womanly voice of hers, is, I imagine, a\nphenomenon in his social experience.\n\nI was sitting at the window when they came up and stopped at the gate.\nDr. Bland lifted his hat to me in his grave way, talking the while;\nsomewhat eagerly, too, I could see. Aunt Winifred answered him with a\npeculiar smile and a few low words that I could not hear.\n\n\u201cBut, my dear madam,\u201d he said, \u201cthe glory of God, you see, the glory of\nGod is the primary consideration.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the glory of God _involves_ these lesser glories, as a sidereal\nsystem, though a splendid whole, exists by the multiplied differing of\none star from another star. Ah, Dr. Bland, you make a grand abstraction\nout of it, but it makes me cold,\u201d--she shivered, half playfully, half\ninvoluntarily,--\u201cit makes me cold. I am very much alive and human; and\nChrist was human God.\u201d\n\nShe came in smiling a little sadly, and stood by me, watching the\nminister walk over the hill.\n\n\u201cHow much does that man love his wife and children?\u201d she asked abruptly.\n\n\u201cA good deal. Why?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am afraid that he will lose one of them then, before many more years\nof his life are past.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! he hasn\u2019t been telling you that they are consumptive or anything\nof the sort?\u201d\n\n\u201cO dear me, no,\u201d with a merry laugh which died quickly away: \u201cI was only\nthinking,--there is trouble in store for him; some intense pain,--if he\nis capable of intense pain,--which shall shake his cold, smooth\ntheorizing to the foundation. He speaks a foreign tongue when he talks\nof bereavement, of death, of the future life. No argument could convince\nhim of that, though, which is the worst of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe must think you shockingly heterodox.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t doubt it. We had a little talk this morning, and he regarded me\nwith an expression of mingled consternation and perplexity that was\ncurious. He is a very good man. He is not a stupid man. I only wish that\nhe would stop preaching and teaching things that he knows nothing about.\n\n\u201cHe is only drifting with the tide, though,\u201d she added, \u201cin his views of\nthis matter. In our recoil from the materialism of the Romish Church, we\nhave, it seems to me, nearly stranded ourselves on the opposite shore.\nJust as, in a rebound from the spirit which would put our Saviour on a\nlevel with Buddha or Mahomet, we have been in danger of forgetting \u2018to\nbegin as the Bible begins,\u2019 with his humanity. It is the grandeur of\ninspiration, that it knows how to _balance_ truth.\u201d\n\nIt had been in my mind for several days to ask Aunt Winifred something,\nand, feeling in the mood, I made her take off her things and devote\nherself to me. My question concerned what we call the \u201cintermediate\nstate.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have been expecting that,\u201d she said; \u201cwhat about it?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat _is_ it?\u201d\n\n\u201cLife and activity.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe do not go to sleep, of course.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe that notion is about exploded, though clear thinkers like\nWhately have appeared to advocate it. Where it originated, I do not\nknow, unless from the frequent comparisons in the Scriptures of death\nwith sleep, which refer solely, I am convinced, to the condition of\nbody, and which are voted down by an overwhelming majority of decided\nstatements relative to the consciousness, happiness, and tangibility of\nthe life into which we immediately pass.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is intermediate, in some sense, I suppose.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt waits between two other conditions,--yes; I think the drift of what\nwe are taught about it leads to that conclusion. I expect to become at\nonce sinless, but to have a broader Christian character many years\nhence; to be happy at once, but to be happier by and by; to find in\nmyself wonderful new tastes and capacities, which are to be immeasurably\nennobled and enlarged after the Resurrection, whatever that may mean.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat does it mean?\u201d\n\n\u201cI know no more than you, but you shall hear what I think, presently. I\nwas going to say that this seems to be plain enough in the Bible. The\nangels took Lazarus at once to Abraham. Dives seems to have found no\ninterval between death and consciousness of suffering.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey always tell you that that is only a parable.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it must mean _something_. No story in the Bible has been pulled to\npieces and twisted about as that has been. We are in danger of pulling\nand twisting all sense out of it. Then Judas, having hanged his wretched\nself, went to his own place. Besides, there was Christ\u2019s promise to the\nthief.\u201d\n\nI told her that I had heard Dr. Bland say that we could not place much\ndependence on that passage, because \u201cParadise\u201d did not necessarily mean\nheaven.\n\n\u201cBut it meant living, thinking, enjoying; for \u2018To-day thou shalt _be\nwith me_.\u2019 Paul\u2019s beautiful perplexed revery, however, would be enough\nif it stood alone; for he did not know whether he would rather stay in\nthis world, or depart and be with Christ, which is far better. _With\nChrist_, you see; and His three mysterious days, which typify our\nintermediate state, were over then, and he had ascended to his Father.\nWould it be \u2018far better\u2019 either to leave this actual tangible life\nthrobbing with hopes and passions, to leave its busy, Christ-like\nworking, its quiet joys, its very sorrows which are near and human, for\na nap of several ages, or even for a vague, lazy, half-alive,\ndisembodied existence?\u201d\n\n\u201cDisembodied? I supposed, of course, that it was disembodied.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not think so. And that brings us to the Resurrection. All the\n_tendency_ of Revelation is to show that an embodied state is superior\nto a disembodied one. Yet certainly we who love God are promised that\ndeath will lead us into a condition which shall have the advantage of\nthis: for the good apostle to die \u2018was gain.\u2019 I don\u2019t believe, for\ninstance, that Adam and Eve have been wandering about in a misty\ncondition all these thousands of years. I suspect that we have some sort\nof body immediately after passing out of this, but that there is to\ncome a mysterious change, equivalent, perhaps, to a re-embodiment, when\nour capacities for action will be greatly improved, and that in some\nmanner this new form will be connected with this \u2018garment by the soul\nlaid by.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cDeacon Quirk expects to rise in his own entire, original body, after it\nhas lain in the First Church cemetery a proper number of years, under a\nblack slate headstone, adorned by a willow, and such a \u2018cherubim\u2019 as\nthat poor boy shot,--by the way, if I\u2019ve laughed at that story once, I\nhave fifty times.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps Deacon Quirk would admire a work of art that I found stowed\naway on the top of your Uncle Calvin\u2019s bookcases. It was an old\nwoodcut--nobody knows how old--of an interesting skeleton rising from\nhis grave, and, in a sprightly and modest manner, drawing on his skin,\nwhile Gabriel, with apoplectic cheeks, feet uppermost in the air, was\nblowing a good-sized tin trumpet in his ear!\n\n\u201cNo; some of the popular notions of resurrection are simple\nphysiological impossibilities, from causes \u2018too tedious to specify.\u2019\nImagine, for instance, the resurrection of two Hottentots, one of whom\nhas happened to make a dinner of the other some fine day. A little\ncomplication there! Or picture the touching scene, when that devoted\nhusband, King Mausolas, whose widow had him burned and ate the ashes,\nshould feel moved to institute a search for his body! It is no wonder\nthat the infidel argument has the best of it, when we attempt to enforce\na natural impossibility. It is worth while to remember that Paul\nexpressly stated that we shall _not_ rise in our entire earthly bodies.\nThe simile which he used is the seed sown, dying in, and mingling with,\nthe ground. How many of its original particles are found in the\nfull-grown corn?\u201d\n\n\u201cYet you believe that _something_ belonging to this body is preserved\nfor the completion of another?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly. I accept God\u2019s statement about it, which is as plain as\nwords can make a statement. I do not know, and I do not care to know,\nhow it is to be effected. God will not be at a loss for a way, any more\nthan he is at a loss for a way to make his fields blossom every spring.\nFor aught we know, some invisible compound of an annihilated body may\nhover, by a divine decree, around the site of death till it is\nwanted,--sufficient to preserve identity as strictly as a body can ever\nbe said to preserve it; and stranger things have happened. You remember\nthe old Mohammedan belief in the one little bone which is imperishable.\nProf. Bush\u2019s idea of our triune existence is suggestive, for a notion.\nHe believed, you know, that it takes a material body, a spiritual body,\nand a soul, to make a man. The spiritual body is enclosed within the\nmaterial, the soul within the spiritual. Death is simply the slipping\noff of the outer body, as a husk slips off from its kernel. The\ndeathless frame stands ready then for the soul\u2019s untrammelled\noccupation. But it is a waste of time to speculate over such useless\nfancies, while so many remain that will vitally affect our happiness.\u201d\n\nIt is singular; but I never gave a serious thought--and I have done some\nthinking about other matters--to my heavenly body, till that moment,\nwhile I sat listening to her. In fact, till Roy went, the Future was a\nmiserable, mysterious blank, to be drawn on and on in eternal and\njoyless monotony, and to which, at times, annihilation seemed\npreferable. I remember, when I was a child, asking father once, if I\nwere so good that I _had_ to go to heaven, whether, after a hundred\nyears, God would not let me \u201cdie out.\u201d More or less of the disposition\nof that same desperate little sinner I suspect has always clung to me.\nSo I asked Aunt Winifred, in some perplexity, what she supposed our\nbodies would be like.\n\n\u201cIt must be nearly all \u2018suppose,\u2019\u201d she said, \u201cfor we are nowhere\ndefinitely told. But this is certain. They will be as real as these.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut these you can see, you can touch.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat would be the use of having a body that you can\u2019t see and touch? A\nbody is a _body_, not a spirit. Why should you not, having seen Roy\u2019s\nold smile and heard his own voice, clasp his hand again, and feel his\nkiss on your happy lips?\n\n\u201cIt is really amusing,\u201d she continued, \u201cto sum up the notions that good\npeople--excellent people--even thinking people--have of the heavenly\nbody. Vague visions of floating about in the clouds, of balancing--with\na white robe on, perhaps--in stiff rows about a throne, like the angels\nin the old pictures, converging to an apex, or ranged in semi-circles\nlike so many marbles. Murillo has one charming exception. I always take\na secret delight in that little cherub of his, kicking the clouds, in\nthe right-hand upper corner of the Immaculate Conception; he seems to\nbe having a good time of it, in genuine baby-fashion. The truth is, that\nthe ordinary idea, if sifted accurately, reduces our eternal personality\nto--_gas_.\n\n\u201cIsaac Taylor holds, that, as far as the abstract idea of spirit is\nconcerned, it may just as reasonably be granite as ether.\n\n\u201cMrs. Charles says a pretty thing about this. She thinks these\n\u2018super-spiritualized angels\u2019 very \u2018unsatisfactory\u2019 beings, and that \u2018the\nheart returns with loving obstinacy to the young men in long white\ngarments\u2019 who sat waiting in the sepulchre.\n\n\u201cHere again I cling to my conjecture about the word \u2018angel\u2019; for then we\nshould learn emphatically something about our future selves.\n\n\u201c\u2018As the angels in heaven,\u2019 or \u2018equal unto the angels,\u2019 we are told in\nanother place,--that may mean simply what it says. At least, if we are\nto resemble them in the particular respect of which the words were\nspoken,--and that one of the most important which could well be\nselected,--it is not unreasonable to infer that we shall resemble them\nin others. \u2018In the Resurrection,\u2019 by the way, means, in that connection\nand in many others, simply future state of existence, without any\nreference to the time at which the great bodily change is to come.\n\n\u201c\u2018But this is a digression,\u2019 as the novelists say. I was going to say,\nthat it bewilders me to conjecture where students of the Bible have\ndiscovered the usual foggy nonsense about the corporeity of heaven.\n\n\u201cIf there is anything laid down in plain statement, devoid of metaphor\nor parable, simple and unequivocal, it is the definite contradiction of\nall that. Paul, in his preface to that sublime apostrophe to death,\nrepeats and reiterates it, lest we should make a mistake in his meaning.\n\n\u201c\u2018There are celestial _bodies_.\u2019 \u2018It is raised a spiritual _body_.\u2019\n\u2018There is a spiritual _body_.\u2019 \u2018It _is_ raised in incorruption.\u2019 \u2018It\n_is_ raised in glory.\u2019 \u2018It _is_ raised in power.\u2019 Moses, too, when he\ncame to the transfigured mount in glory, had as real a _body_ as when he\nwent into the lonely mount to die.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut they will be different from these?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe glory of the terrestrial is one, the glory of the celestial\nanother. Take away sin and sickness and misery, and that of itself would\nmake difference enough.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou do not suppose that we shall look as we look now?\u201d\n\n\u201cI certainly do. At least, I think it more than possible that the \u2018human\nform divine,\u2019 or something like it, is to be retained. Not only from the\nfact that risen Elijah bore it; and Moses, who, if he had not passed\nthrough his resurrection, does not seem to have looked different from\nthe other,--I have to use those two poor prophets on all occasions, but,\nas we are told of them neither by parable nor picture, they are\nimportant,--and that angels never appeared in any other, but because, in\nsinless Eden, God chose it for Adam and Eve. What came in unmarred\nbeauty direct from His hand cannot be unworthy of His other Paradise\n\u2018beyond the stars.\u2019 It would chime in pleasantly, too, with the idea of\nRedemption, that our very bodies, free from all the distortion of guilt,\nshall return to something akin to the pure ideal in which He moulded\nthem. Then there is another reason, and stronger.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is that?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe human form has been borne and dignified forever by Christ. And,\nfurther than that, He ascended to His Father in it, and lives there in\nit as human God to-day.\u201d\n\nI had never thought of that, and said so.\n\n\u201cYes, with the very feet which trod the dusty road to Emmaus; the very\nwounded hands which Thomas touched, believing; the very lips which ate\nof the broiled fish and honeycomb; the very voice which murmured \u2018Mary!\u2019\nin the garden, and which told her that He ascended unto His Father and\nher Father, to His God and her God, He \u2018was parted from them,\u2019 and was\n\u2018received up into heaven.\u2019 His death and resurrection stand forever the\ngreat prototype of ours. Otherwise, what is the meaning of such\nstatements as these: \u2018When He shall appear, we shall be _like Him_\u2019;\n\u2018The first man (Adam) is of the earth; the second man is the Lord. As we\nhave borne the image of the earthy, _we shall also bear the image of the\nheavenly_\u2019? And what of this, when we are told that our \u2018vile bodies,\u2019\nbeing changed, shall be fashioned \u2018_like unto His glorious body_\u2019?\u201d\n\nI asked her if she inferred from that, that we should have just such\nbodies as the freedom from pain and sin would make of these.\n\n\u201cFlesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is no\nescaping that, even if I had the smallest desire to escape it, which I\nhave not. Whatever is essentially earthly and temporary in the\narrangements of this world will be out of place and unnecessary there.\nEarthly and temporary, flesh and blood certainly are.\u201d\n\n\u201cChrist said, \u2018A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cA _spirit_ hath not; and who ever said that it did? His body had\nsomething that appeared like them, certainly. That passage, by the way,\nhas led some ingenious writer on the Chemistry of Heaven to infer that\nour bodies there will be like these, minus _blood_! I don\u2019t propose to\nspend my time over such investigations. Summing up the meaning of the\nstory of those last days before the Ascension, and granting the shade of\nmystery which hangs over them, I gather this,--that the spiritual body\nis real, is tangible, is visible, is human, but that \u2018we shall be\nchanged.\u2019 Some indefinable but thorough change had come over Him. He\ncould withdraw Himself from the recognition of Mary, and from the\ndisciples, whose \u2018eyes were holden,\u2019 as it pleased Him. He came and went\nthrough barred and bolted doors. He appeared suddenly in a certain\nplace, without sound of footstep or flutter of garment to announce His\napproach. He vanished, and was not, like a cloud. New and wonderful\npowers had been given to Him, of which, probably, His little bewildered\ngroup of friends saw but a few illustrations.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd He was yet _man_?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe was Jesus of Nazareth until the sorrowful drama of human life that\nHe had taken upon Himself was thoroughly finished, from manger to\nsepulchre, and from sepulchre to the right hand of His Father.\u201d\n\n\u201cI like to wonder,\u201d she said, presently, \u201cwhat we are going to look like\nand be like. _Ourselves_, in the first place. \u2018It is I Myself,\u2019 Christ\nsaid. Then to be perfectly well, never a sense of pain or\nweakness,--imagine how much solid comfort, if one had no other, in being\nforever rid of all the ills that flesh is heir to! Beautiful, too, I\nsuppose we shall be, every one. Have you never had that come over you,\nwith a thrill of compassionate thankfulness, when you have seen a poor\ngirl shrinking, as only girls can shrink, under the life-long affliction\nof a marred face or form? The loss or presence of beauty is not as\nslight a deprivation or blessing as the moralists would make it out.\nYour grandmother, who was the most beautiful woman I ever saw, the\nbelle of the county all her young days, and the model for artists\u2019 fancy\nsketching even in her old ones, as modest as a violet and as honest as\nthe sunshine, used to have the prettiest little way when we girls were\nin our teens, and she thought that we must be lectured a bit on youthful\nvanity, of adding, in her quiet voice, smoothing down her black silk\napron as she spoke, \u2018But still it is a thing to be thankful for, my\ndear, to have a _comely countenance_.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut to return to the track and our future bodies. We shall find them\nvastly convenient, undoubtedly, with powers of which there is no\ndreaming. Perhaps they will be so one with the soul that to will will be\nto do,--hindrance out of the question. I, for instance, sitting here by\nyou, and thinking that I should like to be in Kansas, would be there.\nThere is an interesting bit of a hint in Daniel about Gabriel, who,\n\u2018being caused to fly swiftly, touched him about the time of the evening\noblation.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cBut do you not make a very material kind of heaven out of such\nsuppositions?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt depends upon what you mean by \u2018material.\u2019 The term does not, to my\nthinking, imply degradation, except so far as it is associated with\nsin. Dr. Chalmers has the right of it, when he talks about \u2018_spiritual\nmaterialism_.\u2019 He says in his sermon on the New Heavens and\nEarth,--which, by the way, you should read, and from which I wish a few\nmore of our preachers would learn something,--that we \u2018forget that on\nthe birth of materialism, when it stood out in the freshness of those\nglories which the great Architect of Nature had impressed upon it, that\nthen the \u201cmorning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted\nfor joy.\u201d\u2019 I do not believe in a _gross_ heaven, but I believe in a\n_reasonable_ one.\u201d\n\n\n4th.\n\nWe have been devoting ourselves to feminine vanities all day out in the\norchard. Aunt Winifred has been making her summer bonnet, and I some\nlinen collars. I saw, though she said nothing, that she thought the\n_cr\u00eape_ a little gloomy, and I am going to wear these in the mornings to\nplease her.\n\nShe has an accumulation of work on hand, and in the afternoon I offered\nto tuck a little dress for Faith,--the prettiest pink _bar\u00e8ge_ affair\npale as a blush rose, and about as delicate. Faith, who had been making\nmud-pies in the swamp, and was spattered with black peat from curls to\nstockings, looked on approvingly, and wanted it to wear on a flag-root\nexpedition to-morrow. It seemed to do me good to do something for\nsomebody after all this lonely and--I suspect--selfish idleness.\n\n\n6th.\n\nI read a little of Dr. Chalmers to-day, and went laughing to Aunt\nWinifred with the first sentence.\n\n\u201cThere is a limit to the revelations of the Bible about futurity, and it\nwere a mental or spiritual trespass to go beyond it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! but,\u201d she said, \u201clook a little farther down.\u201d\n\nAnd I read, \u201cBut while we attempt not to be \u2018wise above that which is\nwritten,\u2019 we should attempt, and that most studiously, to be wise _up_\nto that which is written.\u201d\n\n\n8th.\n\nIt occurred to me to-day, that it was a noticeable fact, that, among all\nthe visits of angels to this world of which we are told, no one seems to\nhave discovered in any the presence of a dead friend. If redeemed men\nare subject to the same laws as they, why did such a thing never happen?\nI asked Aunt Winifred, and she said that the question reminded her of\nSt. Augustine\u2019s lonely cry thirty years after the death of Monica: \u201cAh,\nthe dead do not come back; for, had it been possible, there has not been\na night when I should not have seen my mother!\u201d There seemed to be two\nreasons, she said, why there should be no exceptions to the law of\nsilence imposed between us and those who have left us; one of which was,\nthat we should be overpowered with familiar curiosity about them, which\nnobody seems to have dared to express in the presence of angels, and the\nsecrets of their life God has decreed that it is unlawful to utter.\n\n\u201cBut Lazarus, and Jairus\u2019s little daughter, and the dead raised at the\nCrucifixion,--what of them?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cI cannot help conjecturing that they were suffered to forget their\nglimpse of spiritual life,\u201d she said. \u201cSince their resurrection was a\nmiracle, there might be a miracle throughout. At least, their lips must\nhave been sealed, for not a word of their testimony has been saved. When\nLazarus dined with Simon, after he had come back to life,--and of that\nfeast we have a minute account in, I believe, every Gospel,--nobody\nseems to have asked, or he to have answered, any questions about it.\n\n\u201cThe other reason is a sorrowfully sufficient one. It is that _every_\nlost darling has not gone to heaven. Of all the mercies that our Father\nhas given, this blessed uncertainty, this long unbroken silence, may be\nthe dearest. Bitterly hard for you and me, but what are thousands like\nyou and me weighed against one who stands beside a hopeless grave? Think\na minute what mourners there have been, and _whom_ they have mourned!\nPonder one such solitary instance as that of Vittoria Colonna,\nwondering, through her widowed years, if she could ever be \u2018good enough\u2019\nto join wicked Pescara in another world! This poor earth holds--God only\nknows how many, God make them very few!--Vittorias. Ah, Mary, what right\nhave we to complain?\u201d\n\n\n9th.\n\nTo-night Aunt Winifred had callers,--Mrs. Quirk and (O Homer\naristocracy!) the butcher\u2019s wife,--and it fell to my lot to put Faith to\nbed.\n\nThe little maiden seriously demurred. Cousin Mary was very good,--O yes,\nshe was good enough,--but her mamma was a great deal gooder; and why\ncouldn\u2019t little peoples sit up till nine o\u2019clock as well as big peoples,\nshe should like to know!\n\nFinally, she came to the gracious conclusion that perhaps I\u2019d _do_, made\nme carry her all the way up stairs, and dropped, like a little lump of\nlead, half asleep, on my shoulder, before two buttons were unfastened.\n\nFeeling under some sort of theological obligation to hear her say her\nprayers, I pulled her curls a little till she awoke, and went through\nwith \u201cNow I lay me down to sleep, I pway ve Lord,\u201d triumphantly. I\nsupposed that was the end, but it seems that she has been also taught\nthe Lord\u2019s Prayer, which she gave me promptly to understand.\n\n\u201cO, see here! That isn\u2019t all. I can say Our Father, and you\u2019ve got to\nhelp me a lot!\u201d\n\nThis very soon became a self-evident proposition; but by our united\nefforts we managed, after tribulations manifold, to arrive successfully\nat \u201cFor ever \u2019n\u2019 ever \u2019n\u2019 ever \u2019n\u2019 _A_-men.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear me,\u201d she said, jumping up with a yawn, \u201cI think that\u2019s a\n_dreadful long-tailed prayer_,--don\u2019t you, Cousin Mary?\u201d\n\n\u201cNow I must kiss mamma good night,\u201d she announced, when she was tucked\nup at last.\n\n\u201cBut mamma kissed you good night before you came up.\u201d\n\n\u201cO, so she did. Yes, I \u2019member. Well, it\u2019s papa I\u2019ve got to kiss. I knew\nthere was somebody.\u201d\n\nI looked at her in perplexity.\n\n\u201cWhy, there!\u201d she said, \u201cin the upper drawer,--my pretty little papa in\na purple frame. Don\u2019t you know?\u201d\n\nI went to the bureau-drawer, and found in a case of velvet a small ivory\npainting of her father. This I brought, wondering, and the child took it\nreverently and kissed the pictured lips.\n\n\u201cFaith,\u201d I said, as I laid it softly back, \u201cdo you always do this?\u201d\n\n\u201cDo what? Kiss papa good night? O yes, I\u2019ve done that ever since I was a\nlittle girl, you know. I guess I\u2019ve always kissed him pretty much. When\nI\u2019m a naughty girl he feels _real_ sorry. He\u2019s gone to heaven. I like\nhim. O yes, and then, when I\u2019m through kissing, mamma kisses him too.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\n\nJune 11.\n\nI was in her room this afternoon while she was dressing. I like to watch\nher brush her beautiful gray hair; it quite alters her face to have it\ndown; it seems to shrine her in like a cloud, and the outlines of her\ncheeks round out, and she grows young.\n\n\u201cI used to be proud of my hair when I was a girl,\u201d she said with a\nslight blush, as she saw me looking at her; \u201cit was all I had to be vain\nof, and I made the most of it. Ah well! I was dark-haired three years\nago.\n\n\u201cO you regular old woman!\u201d she added, smiling at herself in the mirror,\nas she twisted the silver coils flashing through her fingers. \u201cWell,\nwhen I am in heaven, I shall have my pretty brown hair again.\u201d\n\nIt seemed odd enough to hear that; then the next minute it did not seem\nodd at all, but the most natural thing in the world.\n\n\nJune 14.\n\nShe said nothing to me about the anniversary, and, though it has been in\nmy thoughts all the time, I said nothing to her. I thought that she\nwould shut herself up for the day, and was rather surprised that she was\nabout as usual, busily at work, chatting with me, and playing with\nFaith. Just after tea, she went away alone for a time, and came back a\nlittle quiet, but that was all. I was for some reason impressed with the\nfeeling that she kept the day in memory, not so much as the day of her\nmourning, as of his release.\n\nLonging to do something for her, yet not knowing what to do, I went into\nthe garden while she was away, and, finding some carnations, that shone\nlike stars in the dying light, I gathered them all, and took them to her\nroom, and, filling my tiny porphyry vase, left them on the bracket,\nunder the photograph of Uncle Forceythe that hangs by the window.\n\nWhen she found them, she called me, and kissed me.\n\n\u201cThank you, dear,\u201d she said, \u201cand thank God too, Mary, for me. That he\nshould have been happy,--happy and out of pain, for three long beautiful\nyears! O, think of that!\u201d\n\nWhen I was in her room with the flowers, I passed the table on which her\nlittle Bible lay open. A mark of rich ribbon--a black ribbon--fell\nacross the pages; it bore in silver text these words:--\n\n    \u201c_Thou shalt have no other gods before me._\u201d\n\n\n20th.\n\n\u201cI thank thee, my God, the river of Lethe may indeed flow through the\nElysian Fields,--it does not water the Christian\u2019s Paradise.\u201d\n\nAunt Winifred was saying that over to herself in a dreamy undertone this\nmorning, and I happened to hear her.\n\n\u201cJust a quotation, dear,\u201d she said, smiling, in answer to my look of\ninquiry, \u201cI couldn\u2019t originate so pretty a thing. _Isn\u2019t_ it pretty?\u201d\n\n\u201cVery; but I am not sure that I understand it.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou thought that forgetfulness would be necessary to happiness?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy,--yes; as far as I had ever thought about it; that is, after our\nlast ties with this world are broken. It does not seem to me that I\ncould be happy to remember all that I have suffered and all that I have\nsinned here.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the last of all the sins will be as if it had never been. Christ\ntakes care of that. No shadow of a sense of guilt can dog you, or affect\nyour relations to Him or your other friends. The last pain borne, the\nlast tear, the last sigh, the last lonely hour, the last unsatisfied\ndream, forever gone by; why should not the dead past bury its dead?\u201d\n\n\u201cThen why remember it?\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018Save but to swell the sense of being blest.\u2019 Besides, forgetfulness of\nthe disagreeable things of this life implies forgetfulness of the\npleasant ones. They are all tangled together.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo be sure. I don\u2019t know that I should like that.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course you wouldn\u2019t. Imagine yourself in a state of being where you\nand Roy had lost your past; all that you had borne and enjoyed, and\nhoped and feared, together; the pretty little memories of your babyhood,\nand first \u2018half-days\u2019 at school, when he used to trudge along beside\nyou,--little fellow! how many times I have watched him!--holding you\ntight by the apron-sleeve or hat-string, or bits of fat fingers, lest\nyou should run away or fall. Then the old Academy pranks, out of which\nyou used to help each other; his little chivalry and elder-brotherly\nadvice; the mischief in his eyes; some of the \u2018Sunday-night talks\u2019; the\nfirst novel that you read and dreamed over together; the college\nstories; the chats over the corn-popper by firelight; the earliest,\nearnest looking-on into life together, its temptations conquered, its\nlessons learned, its disappointments faced together,--always you\ntwo,--would you like to, are you _likely_ to, forget all this?\n\n\u201cRoy might as well be not Roy, but a strange angel, if you should.\nHeaven will be not less heaven, but more, for this pleasant remembering.\nSo many other and greater and happier memories will fill up the time\nthen, that after years these things may--probably will--seem smaller\nthan it seems to us now they can ever be; but they will, I think, be\nalways dear; just as we look back to our baby-selves with a pitying sort\nof fondness, and, though the little creatures are of small enough use to\nus now, yet we like to keep good friends with them for old times\u2019 sake.\n\n\u201cI have no doubt that you and I shall sit down some summer afternoon in\nheaven and talk over what we have been saying to-day, and laugh perhaps\nat all the poor little dreams we have been dreaming of what has not\nentered into the heart of man. You see it is certain to be so much\n_better_ than anything that I can think of; which is the comfort of it.\nAnd Roy--\u201d\n\n\u201cYes; some more about Roy, please.\u201d\n\n\u201cSupposing he were to come right into the room now,--and I slipped\nout,--and you had him all to yourself again--Now, dear, don\u2019t cry, but\nwait a minute!\u201d Her caressing hand fell on my hair. \u201cI did not mean to\nhurt you, but to say that your first talk with him, after you stand face\nto face, may be like that.\n\n\u201cRemembering this life is going to help us amazingly, I fancy, to\nappreciate the next,\u201d she added, by way of period. \u201cChrist seems to have\nthought so, when he called to the minds of those happy people what, in\nthat unconscious ministering of lowly faith which may never reap its\nsheaf in the field where the seed was sown, they had not had the comfort\nof finding out before,--\u2018I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me.\u2019\nAnd to come again to Abraham in the parable, did he not say, \u2018Son,\n_remember_ that thou in thy lifetime hadst good things and Lazarus\nevil\u2019?\u201d\n\n\u201cI wonder what it is going to look like,\u201d I said, as soon as I could put\npoor Dives out of my mind.\n\n\u201cHeaven? Eye hath not seen, but I have my fancies. I think I want some\nmountains, and very many trees.\u201d\n\n\u201cMountains and trees!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes; mountains as we see them at sunset and sunrise, or when the maples\nare on fire and there are clouds enough to make great purple shadows\nchase each other into lakes of light, over the tops and down the\nsides,--the _ideal_ of mountains which we catch in rare glimpses, as we\ncatch the ideal of everything. Trees as they look when the wind cooes\nthrough them on a June afternoon; elms or lindens or pines as cool as\nfrost, and yellow sunshine trickling through on moss. Trees in a forest\nso thick that it shuts out the world, and you walk like one in a\nsanctuary. Trees pierced by stars, and trees in a bath of summer moons\nto which the thrill of \u2018Love\u2019s young dream\u2019 shall cling forever--But\nthere is no end to one\u2019s fancies. Some water, too, I would like.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere shall be no more sea.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps not; though, as the sea is the great type of separation and of\ndestruction, that may be only figurative. But I\u2019m not particular about\nthe sea, if I can have rivers and little brooks, and fountains of just\nthe right sort; the fountains of this world don\u2019t please me generally. I\nwant a little brook to sit and sing to Faith by. O, I forgot! she will\nbe a large girl probably, won\u2019t she?\u201d\n\n\u201cNever too large to like to hear your mother sing, will you, Faith?\u201d\n\n\u201cO no,\u201d said Faith, who bobbed in and out again like a canary, just\nthen,--\u201cnot unless I\u2019m _dreadful_ big, with long dresses and a\nwaterfall, you know. I s\u2019pose, maybe, I\u2019d have to have little girls\nmyself to sing to, then. I hope they\u2019ll behave better\u2019n Mary Ann does.\nShe\u2019s lost her other arm, and all her sawdust is just running out.\nBesides, Kitty thought she was a mouse, and ran down cellar with her,\nand she\u2019s all shooken up, somehow. She don\u2019t look very pretty.\u201d\n\n\u201cFlowers, too,\u201d her mother went on, after the interruption. \u201c_Not_ all\namaranth and asphodel, but of variety and color and beauty unimagined;\nglorified lilies of the valley, heavenly tea-rose buds, and spiritual\nharebells among them. O, how your poor mother used to say,--you know\nflowers were her poetry,--coming in weak and worn from her garden in the\nearly part of her sickness, hands and lap and basket full: \u2018Winifred,\nif I only supposed I _could_ have some flowers in heaven I shouldn\u2019t be\nhalf so afraid to go!\u2019 I had not thought as much about these things then\nas I have now, or I should have known better how to answer her. I should\nlike, if I had my choice, to have day-lilies and carnations fresh under\nmy windows all the time.\u201d\n\n\u201cUnder your windows?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes. I hope to have a home of my own.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot a house?\u201d\n\n\u201cSomething not unlike it. In the Father\u2019s house are many mansions.\nSometimes I fancy that those words have a literal meaning which the\nsimple men who heard them may have understood better than we, and that\nChrist is truly \u2018preparing\u2019 my home for me. He must be there, too, you\nsee,--I mean John.\u201d\n\nI believe that gave me some thoughts that I ought not to have, and so I\nmade no reply.\n\n\u201cIf we have trees and mountains and flowers and books,\u201d she went on,\nsmiling, \u201cI don\u2019t see why not have houses as well. Indeed, they seem to\nme as supposable as anything can be which is guess-work at the best; for\nwhat a homeless, desolate sort of sensation it gives one to think of\npeople wandering over the \u2018sweet fields beyond the flood\u2019 without a\nlocal habitation and a name. What could be done with the millions who,\nfrom the time of Adam, have been gathering there, unless they lived\nunder the conditions of organized society? Organized society involves\nhomes, not unlike the homes of this world.\n\n\u201cWhat other arrangement could be as pleasant, or could be pleasant at\nall? Robertson\u2019s definition of a church exactly fits. \u2018More united in\neach other, because more united in God.\u2019 A happy home is the happiest\nthing in the world. I do not see why it should not be in any world. I do\nnot believe that all the little tendernesses of family ties are thrown\nby and lost with this life. In fact, Mary, I cannot think that anything\nwhich has in it the elements of permanency is to be lost, but sin.\nEternity cannot be--it cannot be the great blank ocean which most of us\nhave somehow or other been brought up to feel that it is, which shall\nswallow up, in a pitiless, glorified way, all the little brooks of our\ndelight. So I expect to have my beautiful home, and my husband, and\nFaith, as I had them here; with many differences and great ones, but\n_mine_ just the same. Unless Faith goes into a home of her own,--the\nlittle creature! I suppose she can\u2019t always be a baby.\n\n\u201cDo you remember what a pretty little wistful way Charles Lamb has of\nwondering about all this?\n\n\u201c\u2018Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which\npoint me to them here,--the \u201csweet assurance of a look\u201d? Sun, and sky,\nand breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness\nof fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fish, and society, ...\nand candle-light and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and\njests, and _irony itself_,--do these things go out with life?\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, Aunt Winifred!\u201d I said, sitting up straight, \u201cwhat am I to do with\nthese beautiful heresies? If Deacon Quirk _should_ hear!\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not see where the heresy lies. As I hold fast by the Bible, I\ncannot be in much danger.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you don\u2019t glean your conjectures from the Bible.\u201d\n\n\u201cI conjecture nothing that the Bible contradicts. I do not believe as\ntruth indisputable anything that the Bible does not give me. But I\nreason from analogy about this, as we all do about other matters. Why\nshould we not have pretty things in heaven? If this \u2018bright and\nbeautiful economy\u2019 of skies and rivers, of grass and sunshine, of hills\nand valleys, is not too good for such a place as this world, will there\nbe any less variety of the bright and beautiful in the next? There is no\nreason for supposing that the voice of God will speak to us in\nthunder-claps, or that it will not take to itself the thousand gentle,\nsuggestive tongues of a nature built on the ruins of this, an unmarred\nsystem of beneficence.\n\n\u201cThere is a pretty argument in the fact that just such sunrises, such\nopening of buds, such fragrant dropping of fruit, such bells in the\nbrooks, such dreams at twilight, and such hush of stars, were fit for\nAdam and Eve, made holy man and woman. How do we know that the abstract\nidea of a heaven needs imply anything very much unlike Eden? There is\nsome reason as well as poetry in the conception of a \u2018Paradise\nRegained.\u2019 A \u2018new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how far is it safe to trust to this kind of argument?\u201d\n\n\u201cBishop Butler will answer you better than I. Let me see,--Isaac Taylor\nsays something about that.\u201d\n\nShe went to the bookcase for his \u201cPhysical Theory of Another Life,\u201d and,\nfinding her place, showed me this passage:--\n\n\u201cIf this often repeated argument from analogy is to be termed, as to the\nconclusions it involves, a conjecture merely, we ought then to abandon\naltogether every kind of abstract reasoning; nor will it be easy\nafterwards to make good any principle of natural theology. In truth, the\nvery basis of reasoning is shaken by a scepticism so sweeping as this.\u201d\n\nAnd in another place:--\n\n\u201cNone need fear the consequences of such endeavors who have well learned\nthe prime principle of sound philosophy, namely, not to allow the most\nplausible and pleasing conjectures to unsettle our convictions of truth\n... resting upon positive evidence. If there be any who frown upon all\nsuch attempts, ... they would do well to consider, that although\nindividually, and from the constitution of their minds, they may find it\nvery easy to abstain from every path of excursive meditation, it is not\nso with others who almost irresistibly are borne forward to the vast\nfield of universal contemplation,--a field from which the human mind is\nnot to be barred, and which is better taken possession of by those who\nreverently bow to the authority of Christianity, than left open to\nimpiety.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery good,\u201d I said, laying down the book. \u201cBut about those trees and\nhouses, and the rest of your \u2018pretty things\u2019? Are they to be like\nthese?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t suppose that the houses will be made of oak and pine and nailed\ntogether, for instance. But I hope for heavenly types of nature and of\nart. _Something that will be to us then what these are now._ That is the\namount of it. They may be as \u2018spiritual\u2019 as you please; they will answer\nall the purpose to us. As we are not spiritual beings yet, however, I am\nunder the necessity of calling them by their earthly names. You remember\nPlato\u2019s old theory, that the ideal of everything exists eternally in the\nmind of God. If that is so,--and I do not see how it can be\notherwise,--then whatever of God is expressed to us in this world by\nflower, or blade of grass, or human face, why should not that be\nexpressed forever in heaven by something corresponding to flower, or\ngrass, or human face? I do not mean that the heavenly creation will be\nless real than these, but more so. Their \u2018spirituality is of such a\nsort that our gardens and forests and homes are but shadows of them.\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t know how I amuse myself at night thinking this all over\nbefore I go to sleep; wondering what one thing will be like, and another\nthing; planning what I should like; thinking that John has seen it all,\nand wondering if he is laughing at me because I know so little about it!\nI tell you, Mary, there\u2019s a \u2018deal o\u2019 comfort in \u2019t\u2019 as Ph\u0153be says\nabout her cup of tea.\u201d\n\n\nJuly 5.\n\nAunt Winifred has been hunting up a Sunday school class for herself and\none for me; which is a venture that I never was persuaded into\nundertaking before. She herself is fast becoming acquainted with the\npoorer people of the town.\n\nI find that she is a thoroughly busy Christian, with a certain \u201cweek-day\nholiness\u201d that is strong and refreshing, like a west wind. Church-going,\nand conversations on heaven, by no means exhaust her vitality.\n\nShe told me a pretty thing about her class; it happened the first\nSabbath that she took it. Her scholars are young girls of from fourteen\nto eighteen years of age, children of church-members, most of them. She\nseemed to have taken their hearts by storm. _She_ says, \u201cThey treated me\nvery prettily, and made me love them at once.\u201d\n\nClo Bentley is in the class; Clo is a pretty, soft-eyed little creature,\nwith a shrinking mouth, and an absorbing passion for music, which she\nhas always been too poor to gratify. I suspect that her teacher will\nmake a pet of her. She says that in the course of her lesson, or, in her\nwords,--\n\n\u201cWhile we were all talking together, somebody pulled my sleeve, and\nthere was Clo in the corner, with her great brown eyes fixed on me. \u2018See\nhere!\u2019 she said in a whisper, \u2018I can\u2019t be good! I would be good if I\ncould _only_ just have a piano!\u2019 \u2018Well, Clo,\u2019 I said, \u2018if you will be a\ngood girl, and go to heaven, I think you will have a piano there, and\nplay just as much as you care to.\u2019\n\n\u201cYou ought to have seen the look the child gave me! Delight and fear and\nincredulous bewilderment tumbled over each other, as if I had proposed\ntaking her into a forbidden fairy-land.\n\n\u201c\u2018Why, Mrs. Forceythe! Why, they won\u2019t let anybody have a piano up\nthere! not in _heaven_?\u2019\n\n\u201cI laid down the question-book, and asked what kind of place she\nsupposed that heaven was going to be.\n\n\u201c\u2018O,\u2019 she said, with a dreary sigh, \u2018I never think about it when I can\nhelp it. I suppose we _shall all just stand there_!\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd you?\u201d I asked of the next, a bright girl with snapping eyes.\n\n\u201c\u2018Do you want me to talk good, or tell the truth?\u2019 she answered me.\nHaving been given to understand that she was not expected to \u2018talk good\u2019\nin my class, she said, with an approving, decided nod: \u2018Well, then! I\ndon\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be _anything nice_ anyway. No, I don\u2019t! I told\nmy last teacher so, and she looked just as shocked, and said I never\nshould go there as long as I felt so. That made me mad, and I told her I\ndidn\u2019t see but I should be as well off in one place as another, except\nfor the fire.\u2019\n\n\u201cA silent girl in the corner began at this point to look interested. \u2018I\nalways supposed,\u2019 said she, \u2018that you just floated round in heaven--you\nknow--all together--something like ju-jube paste!\u2019\n\n\u201cWhereupon I shut the question-book entirely, and took the talking to\nmyself for a while.\n\n\u201c\u2018But I _never_ thought it was anything like that,\u2019 interrupted little\nClo, presently, her cheeks flushed with excitement. \u2018Why, I should like\nto go, if it is like that! I never supposed people talked, unless it was\nabout converting people, and saying your prayers, and all that.\u2019\n\n\u201cNow, weren\u2019t those ideas[B] alluring and comforting for young girls in\nthe blossom of warm human life? They were trying with all their little\nhearts to \u2018be good,\u2019 too, some of them, and had all of them been to\nchurch and Sunday school all their lives. Never, never, if Jesus Christ\nhad been Teacher and Preacher to them, would He have pictured their\nblessed endless years with Him in such bleak colors. They are not the\nhues of His Bible.\u201d\n\n [B] Facts.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\n\nJuly 16.\n\nWe took a trip to-day to East Homer for butter. Neither angels nor\nprincipalities could convince Ph\u0153be that any butter but \u201cStephen\nDavid\u2019s\u201d might, could, would, or should be used in this family. So to\nMr. Stephen David\u2019s, a journey of four miles, I meekly betake myself at\nstated periods in the domestic year, burdened with directions about\nfirkins and half-firkins, pounds and half-pounds, salt and no salt,\nchurning and \u201cworking-over\u201d; some of which I remember and some of which\nI forget, and to all of which Ph\u0153be considers me sublimely incapable\nof attending.\n\nThe afternoon was perfect, and we took things leisurely, letting the\nreins swing from the hook,--an arrangement to which Mr. Tripp\u2019s old gray\nwas entirely agreeable,--and, leaning back against the buggy-cushions,\nwound along among the strong, sweet pine-smells, lazily talking or\nlazily silent, as the spirit moved, and as only two people who\nthoroughly understand and like each other can talk or be silent.\n\nWe rode home by Deacon Quirk\u2019s, and, as we jogged by, there broke upon\nour view a blooming vision of the Deacon himself, at work in his\npotato-field with his son and heir, who, by the way, has the reputation\nof being the most awkward fellow in the township.\n\nThe amiable church-officer, having caught sight of us, left his work,\nand coming up to the fence \u201cin rustic modesty unscared,\u201d guiltless of\ncoat or vest, his calico shirt-sleeves rolled up to his huge brown\nelbows, and his dusty straw hat flapping in the wind, rapped on the\nrails with his hoe-handle as a sign for us to stop.\n\n\u201cAre we in a hurry?\u201d I asked, under my breath.\n\n\u201cO no,\u201d said Aunt Winifred. \u201cHe has somewhat to say unto me, I see by\nhis eyes. I have been expecting it. Let us hear him out. Good afternoon,\nDeacon Quirk.\u201d\n\n\u201cGood afternoon, ma\u2019am. Pleasant day?\u201d\n\nShe assented to the statement, novel as it was.\n\n\u201cA very pleasant day,\u201d repeated the Deacon, looking for the first time\nin his life, to my knowledge, a little undecided as to what he should\nsay next. \u201cRemarkable fine day for riding. In a hurry?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, not especially. Did you want anything of me?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re a church-member, aren\u2019t you, ma\u2019am?\u201d asked the Deacon, abruptly.\n\n\u201cI am.\u201d\n\n\u201cOrthodox?\u201d\n\n\u201cO yes,\u201d with a smile. \u201cYou had a reason for asking?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am; I had, as you might say, a reason for asking.\u201d\n\nThe Deacon laid his hoe on the top of the fence, and his arms across it,\nand pushed his hat on the back of his head in a becoming and\nargumentative manner.\n\n\u201cI hope you don\u2019t consider that I\u2019m taking liberties if I have a little\nreligious conversation with you, Mrs. Forceythe.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is no offence to me if you are,\u201d replied Mrs. Forceythe, with a\ntwinkle in her eye; but both twinkle and words glanced off from the\nDeacon.\n\n\u201cMy wife was telling me last night,\u201d he began, with an ominous cough,\n\u201cthat her niece, Clotildy Bentley--Moses Bentley\u2019s daughter, you know,\nand one of your sentimental girls that reads poetry, and is easy enough\nled away by vain delusions and false doctrine--was under your charge at\nSunday-school. Now Clotildy is intimate with my wife,--who is her aunt\non her mother\u2019s side, and always tries to do her duty by her,--and she\ntold Mrs. Quirk what you\u2019d been a saying to those young minds on the\nSabbath.\u201d\n\nHe stopped, and observed her impressively, as if he expected to see the\nguilty blushes of arraigned heresy covering her amused, attentive face.\n\n\u201cI hope you will pardon me, ma\u2019am, for repeating it, but Clotildy said\nthat you told her she should have a pianna in heaven. A _pianna_,\nma\u2019am!\u201d\n\n\u201cI certainly did,\u201d she said quietly.\n\n\u201cYou did? Well, now, I didn\u2019t believe it, nor I wouldn\u2019t believe it,\ntill I\u2019d asked you! I thought it warn\u2019t more than fair that I should ask\nyou, before repeating it, you know. It\u2019s none of my business, Mrs.\nForceythe, any more than that I take a general interest in the\nspiritooal welfare of the youth of our Sabbath school; but I am very\nmuch surprised! I am _very_ much surprised!\u201d\n\n\u201cI am surprised that you should be, Deacon Quirk. Do you believe that\nGod would take a poor little disappointed girl like Clo, who has been\nall her life here forbidden the enjoyment of a perfectly innocent taste,\nand keep her in His happy heaven eternal years, without finding means to\ngratify it? I don\u2019t.\u201d\n\n\u201cI tell Clotildy I don\u2019t see what she wants of a pianna-forte,\u201d observed\n\u201cClotildy\u2019s\u201d uncle, sententiously. \u201cShe can go to singin\u2019 school, and\nshe\u2019s been in the choir ever since I have, which is six years come\nChristmas. Besides, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s our place to speckylate on the\nmysteries of the heavenly spere. My wife told her that she mustn\u2019t\nbelieve any such things as that, which were very irreverent, and\ncontrary to the Scriptures, and Clo went home crying. She said: \u2018It was\nso pretty to think about.\u2019 It is very easy to impress these delusions of\nfancy on the young.\u201d\n\n\u201cPray, Deacon Quirk,\u201d said Aunt Winifred, leaning earnestly forward in\nthe carriage, \u201cwill you tell me what there is \u2018irreverent\u2019 or\n\u2018unscriptural\u2019 in the idea that there will be instrumental music in\nheaven?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d replied the Deacon after some consideration, \u201ccome to think of\nit, there will be harps, I suppose. Harpers harping with their harps on\nthe sea of glass. But I don\u2019t believe there will be any piannas. It\u2019s a\ndreadfully material way to talk about that glorious world, to my\nthinking.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you could show me wherein a harp is less \u2018material\u2019 than a piano,\nperhaps I should agree with you.\u201d\n\nDeacon Quirk looked rather nonplussed for a minute.\n\n\u201cWhat _do_ you suppose people will do in heaven?\u201d she asked again.\n\n\u201cGlorify God,\u201d said the Deacon, promptly recovering himself,--\u201cglorify\nGod, and sing Worthy the Lamb! We shall be clothed in white robes with\npalms in our hands, and bow before the Great White Throne. We shall be\nengaged in such employments as befit sinless creatures in a spiritooal\nstate of existence.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, Deacon Quirk,\u201d replied Aunt Winifred, looking him over from head\nto foot,--old straw hat, calico shirt, blue overalls, and cow-hide\nboots, coarse, work-worn hands, and \u201cnarrow forehead braided\ntight,\u201d--\u201cjust imagine yourself, will you? taken out of this life this\nminute, as you stand here in your potato-field (the Deacon changed his\nposition with evident uneasiness), and put into another life,--not\nanybody else, but yourself, just as you left this spot,--and do you\nhonestly think that you should be happy to go and put on a white dress\nand stand still in a choir with a green branch in one hand and a\nsinging-book in the other, and sing and pray and never do anything but\nsing and pray, this year, next year, and every year forever?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe-ell,\u201d he replied, surprised into a momentary flash of carnal candor,\n\u201cI can\u2019t say that I shouldn\u2019t wonder for a minute, maybe, _how Abinadab\nwould ever get those potatoes hoed without me_.--Abinadab! go back to\nyour work!\u201d\n\nThe graceful Abinadab had sauntered up during the conversation, and was\nlistening, hoe in hand and mouth open. He slunk away when his father\nspoke, but came up again presently on tiptoe when Aunt Winifred was\ntalking. There was an interested, intelligent look about his square and\npitifully embarrassed face, which attracted my notice.\n\n\u201cBut then,\u201d proceeded the Deacon, re-enforced by the sudden recollection\nof his duties as a father and a church-member, \u201cthat couldn\u2019t be a\npermanent state of feeling, you know. I expect to be transformed by the\nrenewing of my mind to appreciate the glories of the New Jerusalem,\ndescending out of heaven from God. That\u2019s what I expect, marm. Now I\nheerd that you told Mrs. Bland, or that Mary told her, or that she heerd\nit someway, that you said you supposed there were trees and flowers and\nhouses and such in heaven. I told my wife I thought your deceased\nhusband was a Congregational minister, and I didn\u2019t believe you ever\nsaid it; but that\u2019s the rumor.\u201d\n\nWithout deeming it necessary to refer to her \u201cdeceased husband,\u201d Aunt\nWinifred replied that \u201crumor\u201d was quite right.\n\n\u201cWell!\u201d said the Deacon, with severe significance, \u201c_I_ believe in a\nspiritooal heaven.\u201d\n\nI looked him over again,--hat, hoe, shirt, and all; scanned his\nobstinate old face with its stupid, good eyes and animal mouth. Then I\nglanced at Aunt Winifred as she leaned forward in the afternoon light;\nthe white, finely cut woman, with her serene smile and rapt, saintly\neyes,--every inch of her, body and soul, refined not only by birth and\ntraining, but by the long nearness of her heart to Christ.\n\n\u201cOf the earth, earthy. Of the heavens, heavenly.\u201d The two faces\nsharpened themselves into two types. Which, indeed, was the better able\nto comprehend a \u201cspiritooal heaven\u201d?\n\n\u201cIt is distinctly stated in the Bible, by which I suppose we shall both\nagree,\u201d said Aunt Winifred, gently, \u201cthat there shall be a _new earth_,\nas well as new heavens. It is noticeable, also, that the descriptions of\nheaven, although a series of metaphors, are yet singularly earthlike and\ntangible ones. Are flowers and skies and trees less \u2018spiritual\u2019 than\nwhite dresses and little palm-branches? In fact, where are you going to\nget your little branches without trees? What could well be more\nsuggestive of material modes of living, and material industry, than a\ncity marked into streets and alleys, paved solidly with gold, walled in\nand barred with gates whose jewels are named and counted, and whose very\nlength and breadth are measured with a celestial surveyor\u2019s chain?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I think we\u2019d ought to stick to what the Bible says,\u201d answered the\nDeacon, stolidly. \u201cIf it says golden cities and doesn\u2019t say flowers, it\nmeans cities and doesn\u2019t mean flowers. I dare say you\u2019re a good woman,\nMrs. Forceythe, if you do hold such oncommon doctrine, and I don\u2019t doubt\nyou mean well enough, but I don\u2019t think that we ought to trouble\nourselves about these mysteries of a future state. _I_\u2019m willing to\ntrust them to God!\u201d\n\nThe evasion of a fair argument by this self-sufficient spasm of piety\nwas more than I could calmly stand, and I indulged in a subdued\nexplosion.--Auntie says it sounded like Fourth of July crackers touched\noff under a wet barrel.\n\n\u201cDeacon Quirk! do you mean to imply that Mrs. Forceythe does not trust\nit to God? The truth is, that the existence of such a world as heaven is\na fact from which you shrink. You know you do! She has twenty thoughts\nabout it where you have one; yet you set up a claim to superior\nspirituality!\u201d\n\n\u201cMary, Mary, you are a little excited; I fear. God is a spirit, and they\nthat worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth!\u201d\n\nThe relevancy of this last, I confess myself incapable of perceiving,\nbut the good man seemed to be convinced that he had made a point, and we\nrode off leaving him under that blissful delusion.\n\n\u201cIf he _weren\u2019t_ a good man!\u201d I sighed. \u201cBut he is, and I must respect\nhim for it.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course you must; nor is he to blame that he is narrow and rough. I\nshould scarcely have argued as seriously as I did with him, but that, as\nI fancy him to be a representative of a class, I wanted to try an\nexperiment. Isn\u2019t he amusing, though? He is precisely one of Mr.\nStopford Brooke\u2019s men \u2018who can understand nothing which is original.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cAre there, or are there not, more of such men in our church than in\nothers?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot more proportionately to numbers. But I would not have them thinned\nout. The better we do Christ\u2019s work, the more of uneducated, neglected,\nor debased mind will be drawn to try and serve Him with us. He sought\nout the lame, the halt, the blind, the stupid, the crotchety, the rough,\nas well as the equable, the intelligent, the refined. Untrained\nChristians in any sect will always have their eccentricities and their\nlittlenesses, at which the silken judgment of high places, where the\nCarpenter\u2019s Son would be a strange guest, will sneer. That never\ntroubles me. It only raises the question in my mind whether cultivated\nChristians generally are sufficiently _cultivators_, scattering their\ngolden gifts on wayside ground.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow take Deacon Quirk,\u201d I suggested, when we had ridden along a little\nway under the low, green arches of the elms, \u201cand put him into heaven as\nyou proposed, just as he is, and what _is_ he going to do with himself?\nHe can dig potatoes and sell them without cheating, and give generously\nof their proceeds to foreign missions; but take away his potatoes, and\nwhat would become of him? I don\u2019t know a human being more incapacitated\nto live in such a heaven as he believes in.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery true, and a good, common-sense argument against such a heaven. I\ndon\u2019t profess to surmise what will be found for him to do, beyond\nthis,--that it will be some very palpable work that he can understand.\nHow do we know that he would not be appointed guardian of his poor son\nhere, to whom I suspect he has not been all that father might be in this\nlife, and that he would not have his body as well as his soul to look\nafter, his farm as well as his prayers? to him might be committed the\ncharge of the dews and the rains and the hundred unseen influences that\nare at work on this very potato-field.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut when his son has gone in his turn, and we have all gone, and there\nare no more potato-fields? An Eternity remains.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t know that there wouldn\u2019t be any potato-fields; there may be\nsome kind of agricultural employments even then. To whomsoever a talent\nis given, it will be given him wherewith to use it. Besides, by that\ntime the good Deacon will be immensely changed. I suppose that the\nsimple transition of death, which rids him of sin and of grossness, will\nnot only wonderfully refine him, but will have its effect upon his\nintellect.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf a talent is given, use will be found for it? Tell me some more about\nthat.\u201d\n\n\u201cI fancy many things about it; but of course can feel sure of only the\nfoundation principle. This life is a great school-house. The wise\nTeacher trains in us such gifts as, if we graduate honorably, will be of\nmost service in the perfect manhood and womanhood that come after. He\nsees, as we do not, that a power is sometimes best trained by\nrepression. \u2018We do not always lose an advantage when we dispense with\nit,\u2019 Goethe says. But the suffocated lives, like little Clo\u2019s there,\nmake my heart ache sometimes. I take comfort in thinking how they will\nbud and blossom up in the air, by and by. There are a great many of\nthem. We tread them underfoot in our careless stepping now and then, and\ndo not see that they have not the elasticity to rise from our touch.\n\u2018Heaven may be a place for those who failed on earth,\u2019 the Country\nParson says.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen there will be air enough for all?\u201d\n\n\u201cFor all; for those who have had a little bloom in this world, as well.\nI suppose the artist will paint his pictures, the poet sing his happy\nsongs, the orator and author will not find their talents hidden in the\neternal darkness of a grave; the sculptor will use his beautiful gift in\nthe moulding of some heavenly Carrara; \u2018as well the singer as the player\non instruments shall be there.\u2019 Christ said a thing that has grown on me\nwith new meanings lately:--\u2018He that _loseth his life for my sake shall\nfind it_.\u2019 _It_, you see,--not another man\u2019s life, not a strange\ncompound of powers and pleasures, but his own familiar aspirations. So\nwe shall best \u2018glorify God,\u2019 not less there than here, by doing it in\nthe peculiar way that He himself marked out for us. But--ah, Mary, you\nsee it is only the life \u2018lost\u2019 for His sake that shall be so\nbeautifully found. A great man never goes to heaven because he is great.\nHe must go, as the meanest of his fellow-sinners go, with face towards\nCalvary, and every golden treasure used for love of Him who showed him\nhow.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat would the old Pagans--and modern ones, too, for that matter--say\nto that? Wasn\u2019t it Tacitus who announced it as his belief, that\nimmortality was granted as a special gift to a few superior minds? For\nthe people who persisted in making up the rest of the world, poor\nthings! as it could be of little consequence what became of them, they\nmight die as the brute dieth.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt seems an unbearable thing to me sometimes,\u201d she went on, \u201cthe wreck\nof a gifted soul. A man who can be, if he chooses, as much better and\nhappier than the rest of us as the ocean reflects more sky than a\nmill-pond, must also be, if he chooses, more wicked and more miserable.\nIt takes longer to reach sea-shells than river-pebbles. I am compelled\nto think, also, that intellectual rank must in heaven bear some\nproportion to goodness. There are last and there are first that shall\nhave changed places. As the tree falleth, there shall it lie, and with\nthat amount of holiness of which a man leaves this life the possessor,\nhe must start in another. I have seen great thinkers, \u2018foremost men\u2019 in\nscience, in theology, in the arts, who, I solemnly believe, will turn\naside in heaven,--and will turn humbly and heartily,--to let certain\nday-laborers and paupers whom I have known go up before them as kings\nand priests unto God.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe that. But I was going to ask,--for poor creatures like your\nrespected niece, who hasn\u2019t a talent, nor even a single absorbing taste,\nfor one thing above another thing,--what shall she do?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhatever she liketh best; something very useful, my dear, don\u2019t be\nafraid, and very pleasant. Something, too, for which this life has\nfitted you; though you may not understand how that can be, better than\ndid poor Heine on his \u2018matrazzen-gruft,\u2019 reading all the books that\ntreated of his disease. \u2018But what good this reading is to do me I don\u2019t\nknow,\u2019 he said, \u2018except that it will qualify me to give lectures in\nheaven on the ignorance of doctors on earth about diseases of the spinal\nmarrow.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know how many times I have thought of--I believe it was the\npoet Gray, who said that his idea of heaven was to lie on the sofa and\nread novels. That touches the lazy part of us, though.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, they will be the active, outgoing, generous elements of our nature\nthat will be brought into use then, rather than the self-centred and\ndreamy ones. Though I suppose that we shall read in heaven,--being\ninfluenced to be better and nobler by good and noble teachers of the\npen, not less there than here.\u201d\n\n\u201cO think of it! To have books, and music,--and pictures?\u201d\n\n\u201cAll that Art, \u2018the handmaid of the Lord,\u2019 can do for us, I have no\ndoubt will be done. Eternity will never become monotonous. Variety\nwithout end, charms unnumbered within charms, will be devised by\nInfinite ingenuity to minister to our delight. Perhaps,--this is just my\nfancying,--perhaps there will be whole planets turned into galleries of\nart, over which we may wander at will; or into orchestral halls where\nthe highest possibilities of music will be realized to singer and to\nhearer. Do you know, I have sometimes had a flitting notion that music\nwould be the language of heaven? It certainly differs in some\nindescribable manner from the other arts. We have most of us felt it in\nour different ways. It always seems to me like the cry of a great, sad\nlife dragged to use in this world against its will. Pictures and statues\nand poems fit themselves to their work more contentedly. Symphony and\nsong struggle in fetters. That sense of conflict is not good for me. It\nis quite as likely to harm as to help. Then perhaps the mysteries of\nsidereal systems will be spread out like a child\u2019s map before us.\nPerhaps we shall take journeys to Jupiter and to Saturn and to the\nglittering haze of nebul\u00e6, and to the site of ruined worlds whose\n\u2018extinct light is yet travelling through space.\u2019 Occupation for\nexplorers there, you see!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou make me say with little Clo, \u2018O, why, I want to go!\u2019 every time I\nhear you talk. But there is one thing,--you spoke of families living\ntogether.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you spoke of--your husband. But the Bible--\u201d\n\n\u201cSays there shall be no marrying nor giving in marriage. I know that.\nNor will there be such marrying or giving in marriage as there is in a\nworld like this. Christ expressly goes on to state, that we shall be\n_as_ the angels in heaven. How do we know what heavenly unions of heart\nwith heart exist among the angels? It leaves me margin enough to live\nand be happy with John forever, and it holds many possibilities for the\nsettlement of all perplexing questions brought about by the relations of\nthis world. It is of no use to talk much about them. But it is on that\nvery verse that I found my unshaken belief that they will be smoothed\nout in some natural and happy way, with which each one shall be\ncontent.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut O, there is a great gulf fixed; and on one side one, and on the\nother another, and they loved each other.\u201d\n\nHer face paled,--it always pales, I notice, at the mention of this\nmystery,--but her eyes never lost by a shade their steadfast trust.\n\n\u201cMary, don\u2019t question me about _that_. That belongs to the unutterable\nthings. God will take care of it. I _think_ I could leave it to him even\nif he brought it for me myself to face. I feel sure that he will make it\nall come out right. Perhaps He will be so dear to us, that we could not\nlove any one who hated him. In some way the void _must_ be filled, for\nhe shall wipe away tears. But it seems to me that the only thought in\nwhich there can be any _rest_, and in that there _can_, is this: that\nChrist, who loves us even as his Father loves him, can be happy in spite\nof the existence of a hell. If it is possible to him, surely he can make\nit possible to us.\u201d\n\n\u201cTwo things that He has taught us,\u201d she said after a silence, \u201cgive me\nbeautiful assurance that none of these dreams with which I help myself\ncan be beyond his intention to fulfil. One is, that eye hath not seen\nit, nor ear heard it, nor the heart conceived it,--this lavishness of\nreward which he is keeping for us. Another is, that \u2018I shall be\n_satisfied_ when I awake.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWith his likeness.\u201d\n\n\u201cWith his likeness. And about that I have other things to say.\u201d\n\nBut Old Gray stopped at the gate and Ph\u0153be was watching for her\nbutter, and it was no time to say them then.\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\n\nJuly 22.\n\nAunt Winifred has connected herself with our church. I think it was\nrather hard for her, breaking the last tie that bound her to her\nhusband\u2019s people; but she had a feeling, that, if her work is to be done\nand her days ended here, she had better take up all such little threads\nof influence to make herself one with us.\n\n\n25th.\n\nTo-day what should Deacon Quirk do but make a solemn call on Mrs.\nForceythe, for the purpose of asking--and this with a hint that he\nwished he had asked before she became a member of the Homer First\nCongregational Church--whether there were truth in the rumors, now rife\nabout town, that she was a Swedenborgian!\n\nAunt Winifred broke out laughing, and laughed merrily. The Deacon\nfrowned.\n\n\u201cI used to fancy that I believed in Swedenborg,\u201d she said, as soon as\nshe could sober down a little.\n\nThe Deacon pricked up his ears, with visions of excommunications and\ncouncils reflected on every feature.\n\n\u201cUntil I read his books,\u201d she finished.\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d said the Deacon. He waited for more, but she seemed to consider\nthe conversation at an end.\n\n\u201cSo then you--if I understand--are _not_ a Swedenborgian, ma\u2019am?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I were, I certainly should have had no inducement to join myself to\nyour church,\u201d she replied, with gentle dignity. \u201cI believe, with all my\nheart, in the same Bible and the same creed that you believe in, Deacon\nQuirk.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you _live_ your creed, which all such genial Christians do not find\nit necessary to do,\u201d I thought, as the Deacon in some perplexity took\nhis departure, and she returned with a smile to her sewing.\n\nI suppose the call came about in this way. We had the sewing-circle here\nlast week, and just before the lamps were lighted, and when people had\ndropped their work to group and talk in the corners, Meta Tripp came up\nwith one or two other girls to Aunt Winifred, and begged \u201cto hear some\nof those queer things people said she believed about heaven.\u201d Auntie is\nnever obtrusive with her views on this or any other matter, but, being\nthus urged, she answered a few questions that they put to her, to the\nextreme scandal of one or two old ladies, and the secret delight of the\nrest.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said little Mrs. Bland, squeezing and kissing her youngest, who\nwas at that moment vigorously employed in sticking very long\ndarning-needles into his mother\u2019s waterfall, \u201cI hope there\u2019ll be a great\nmany babies there. I should be perfectly happy if I always could have\nbabies to play with!\u201d\n\nThe look that Aunt Winifred shot over at me was worth seeing.\n\nShe merely replied, however, that she supposed all our \u201chighest\naspirations,\u201d--with an indescribable accent to which Mrs. Bland was\nsafely deaf,--if good ones, would be realized; and added, laughing, that\nSwedenborg said that the babies in heaven--who outnumber the grown\npeople--will be given into the charge of those women especially fond of\nthem.\n\n\u201cSwedenborg is suggestive, even if you can\u2019t accept what seem to the\nuninitiated to be his natural impossibilities,\u201d she said, after we had\ndiscussed Deacon Quirk awhile. \u201cHe says a pretty thing, too,\noccasionally. Did I ever read you about the houses?\u201d\n\nShe had not, and I wished to hear, so she found the book on Heaven and\nHell, and read:--\n\n\u201cAs often as I have spoken with the angels mouth to mouth, so often I\nhave been with them in their habitations: their habitations are\naltogether like the habitations on earth which are called houses, but\nmore beautiful; in them are parlors, rooms, and chambers in great\nnumbers; there are also courts, and round about are gardens,\nshrubberies, and fields. Palaces of heaven have been seen, which were so\nmagnificent that they could not be described; above, they glittered as\nif they were of pure gold, and below, as if they were of precious\nstones; one palace was more splendid than another; within, it was the\nsame the rooms were ornamented with such decorations as neither words\nnor sciences are sufficient to describe. On the side which looked to the\nsouth there were paradises, where all things in like manner glittered,\nand in some places the leaves were as of silver, and the fruits as of\ngold; and the flowers on their beds presented by colors as it were\nrainbows; at the boundaries again were palaces, in which the view\nterminated.\u201d\n\nAunt Winifred says that our hymns, taken all together, contain the worst\nand the best pictures of heaven that we have in any branch of\nliterature.\n\n\u201cIt seems to me incredible,\u201d she says, \u201cthat the Christian Church should\nhave allowed that beautiful \u2018Jerusalem\u2019 in its hymnology so long, with\nthe ghastly couplet,--\n\n    \u2018Where congregations ne\u2019er break up,\n       And Sabbaths have no end.\u2019\n\nThe dullest preachers are sure to give it out, and that when there are\nthe greatest number of restless children wondering when it will be time\nto go home. It is only within ten years that modern hymn books have\naltered it, returning in part to the original.\n\n\u201cI do not think we have chosen the best parts of that hymn for our\n\u2018service of song.\u2019 You never read the whole of it? You don\u2019t know how\npretty it is! It is a relief from the customary palms and choirs. One\u2019s\nwhole heart is glad of the outlet of its sweet refrain,--\n\n    \u2018Would God that I were there!\u2019\n\nbefore one has half read it. You are quite ready to believe that\n\n    \u2018There is no hunger, heat, nor cold,\n      But _pleasure every way_.\u2019\n\nListen to this:--\n\n    \u2018Thy houses are of ivory,\n      Thy windows crystal clear,\n    Thy tiles are made of beaten gold;\n      O God, that I were there!\n\n    \u2018We that are here in banishment\n      Continually do moan.\n\n    *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \u2018Our sweet is mixed with bitter gall,\n      Our pleasure is but pain,\n    Our joys scarce last the looking on,\n      Our sorrows still remain.\n\n    \u2018But there they live in such delight,\n      _Such pleasure and such play_,\n    As that to them a thousand years\n      Doth seem as yesterday.\u2019\n\nAnd this:--\n\n    \u2018Thy gardens and thy gallant walks\n       Continually are green;\n     There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers\n       As nowhere else are seen.\n\n    \u2018There cinnamon, there sugar grows,\n       There nard and balm abound,\n     What tongue can tell, or heart conceive\n       The joys that there are found?\n\n    \u2018Quite through the streets, with silver sound,\n       The flood of life doth flow,\n     Upon whose banks, on every side,\n       The wood of life doth grow.\u2019\n\nI tell you we may learn something from that grand old Catholic singer.\nHe is far nearer to the Bible than the innovators on his MSS. Do you not\nnotice how like his images are to the inspired ones, and yet how\npleasant and natural is the effect of the entire poem?\n\n\u201cThere is nobody like Bonar, though, to sing about heaven. There is one\nof his, \u2018We shall meet and rest,\u2019--do you know it?\u201d\n\nI shook my head, and knelt down beside her and watched her face,--it was\nquite unconscious of me, the musing face,--while she repeated\ndreamily:--\n\n    \u201cWhere the faded flower shall freshen,--\n       Freshen nevermore to fade;\n     Where the shaded sky shall brighten,--\n       Brighten nevermore to shade;\n     Where the sun-blaze never scorches;\n       Where the star-beams cease to chill;\n     Where no tempest stirs the echoes\n       Of the wood, or wave, or hill;....\n     Where no shadow shall bewilder;\n       Where life\u2019s vain parade is o\u2019er;\n     Where the sleep of sin is broken,\n       And the dreamer dreams no more;\n     Where the bond is never severed,--\n       Partings, claspings, sob and moan,\n     Midnight waking, twilight weeping,\n       Heavy noontide,--all are done;\n     Where the child has found its mother;\n       Where the mother finds the child;\n     Where dear families are gathered,\n       That were scattered on the wild;....\n     Where the hidden wound is healed;\n       Where the blighted life reblooms;\n     Where the smitten heart the freshness\n       Of its buoyant youth resumes;....\n     Where we find the joy of loving,\n       As we never loved before,--\n     Loving on, unchilled, unhindered,\n       Loving once, forevermore.\u201d ...\n\n\n30th.\n\nAunt Winifred was weeding her day-lilies this morning, when the gate\ncreaked timidly, and then swung noisily, and in walked Abinadab Quirk,\nwith a bouquet of China pinks in the button-hole of his green-gray linen\ncoat. He had taken evident pains to smarten himself up a little, for his\nhair was combed into two horizontal _dabs_ over his ears, and the\ngreen-gray coat and blue-checked shirt-sleeves were quite clean; but he\ncertainly is the most uncouth specimen of six feet five that it has ever\nbeen my privilege to behold. I feel sorry for him, though. I heard Meta\nTripp laughing at him in Sunday school the other day,--\u201cQuadrangular\nQuirk,\u201d she called him, a little too loud, and the poor fellow heard\nher. He half turned, blushing fiercely; then slunk down in his corner\nwith as pitiable a look as is often seen upon a man\u2019s face.\n\nHe came up to Auntie awkwardly,--a part of the scene I saw from the\nwindow, and the rest she told me,--head hanging, and the tiny bouquet\nheld out.\n\n\u201cClo sent these to you,\u201d he stammered out,--\u201cmy cousin Clo. I was coming\n\u2019long, and she thought, you know,--she\u2019d get me, you see, to--to--that\nis, to--bring them. She sent her--that is--let me see. She sent her\nrespect--ful--respectful--no, her love; that was it. She sent her love\n\u2019long with \u2019em.\u201d\n\nMrs. Forceythe dropped her weeds, and held out her white, shapely hands,\nwet with the heavy dew, to take the flowers.\n\n\u201cO, thank you! Clo knows my fancy for pinks. How kind in you to bring\nthem! Won\u2019t you sit down a few moments? I was just going to rest a\nlittle. Do you like flowers?\u201d\n\nAbinadab eyed the white hands, as his huge fingers just touched them,\nwith a sort of awe; and, sighing, sat down on the very edge of the\ngarden bench beside her. After a singular variety of efforts to take the\nmost uncomfortable position of which he was capable, he succeeded to his\nsatisfaction, and, growing then somewhat more at his ease, answered her\nquestion.\n\n\u201cFlowers are sech _gassy_ things. They just blow out and that\u2019s the end\nof \u2019em. _I_ like machine-shops best.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! well, that is a very useful liking. Do you ever invent machinery\nyourself?\u201d\n\n\u201cSometimes,\u201d said Abinadab, with a bashful smile. \u201cThere\u2019s a little\nimprovement of mine for carpet-sweepers up before the patent-office now.\nDon\u2019t know whether they\u2019ll run it through. Some of the chaps I saw in\nBoston told me they thought they would do\u2019t in time; it takes an awful\nsight of time. I\u2019m alwers fussing over something of the kind; alwers\ndid, sence I was a baby; had my little windmills and carts and things;\nused to sell \u2019em to the other young uns. Father don\u2019t like it. He wants\nme to stick to the farm. I don\u2019t like farming. I feel like a fish out of\nwater.--Mrs. Forceythe, marm!\u201d\n\nHe turned on her with an abrupt change of tone, so funny that she could\nwith difficulty retain her gravity.\n\n\u201cI heard you saying a sight of queer things the other day about heaven.\nClo, she\u2019s been telling me a sight more. Now, _I_ never believed in\nheaven!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I don\u2019t believe,\u201d said the poor fellow, with sullen decision,\n\u201cthat a benevolent God ever would ha\u2019 made sech a derned awkward chap as\nI am!\u201d\n\nAunt Winifred replied by stepping into the house, and bringing out a\nfine photograph of one of the best of the St. Georges,--a rapt, yet very\nmanly face, in which the saint and the hero are wonderfully blended.\n\n\u201cI suppose,\u201d she said, putting it into his hands, \u201cthat if you should go\nto heaven, you would be as much fairer than that picture as that picture\nis fairer than you are now.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo! Why, would I, though? Jim-miny! Why, it would be worth going for,\nwouldn\u2019t it?\u201d\n\nThe words were no less reverently spoken than the vague rhapsodies of\nhis father; for the sullenness left his face, and his eyes--which are\npleasant, and not unmanly, when one fairly sees them--sparkled softly,\nlike a child\u2019s.\n\n\u201cMake it all up there, maybe?\u201d musing,--\u201cthe girls laughing at you all\nyour life, and all? That would be the bigger heft of the two then,\nwouldn\u2019t it? for they say there ain\u2019t any end to things up there. Why,\nso it might be fair in Him after all; more\u2019n fair, perhaps. See here,\nMrs. Forceythe, I\u2019m not a church-member, you know, and father, he\u2019s\ndreadful troubled about me; prays over me like a span of ministers, the\nold gentleman does, every Sunday night. Now, I don\u2019t want to go to the\nother place any more than the next man, and I\u2019ve had my times, too, of\nthinking I\u2019d keep steady and say my prayers reg\u2019lar,--it makes a chap\nfeel on a sight better terms with himself,--but I don\u2019t see how _I_\u2019m\ngoing to wear white frocks and stand up in a choir,--never could sing no\nmore\u2019n a frog with a cold in his head,--it tires me more now, honest, to\nthink of it, than it does to do a week\u2019s mowing. Look at me! Do you\ns\u2019pose I\u2019m fit for it? Father, he\u2019s always talking about the thrones,\nand the wings, and the praises, and the palms, and having new names in\nyour foreheads, (shouldn\u2019t object to that, though, by any means), till\nhe drives me into the tool-house, or off on a spree. I tell him if God\nhain\u2019t got a place where chaps like me can do something He\u2019s fitted \u2019em\nto do in this world, there\u2019s no use thinking about it anyhow.\u201d\n\nSo Auntie took the honest fellow into her most earnest thought for half\nan hour, and argued, and suggested, and reproved, and helped him, as\nonly she could do; and at the end of it seemed to have worked into his\nmind some distinct and not unwelcome ideas of what a Christ-like life\nmust mean to him, and of the coming heaven which is so much more real to\nher than any life outside of it.\n\n\u201cAnd then,\u201d she told him, \u201cI imagine that your fancy for machinery will\nbe employed in some way. Perhaps you will do a great deal more\nsuccessful inventing there than you ever will here.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou don\u2019t say so!\u201d said radiant Abinadab.\n\n\u201cGod will give you something to do, certainly, and something that you\nwill like.\u201d\n\n\u201cI might turn it to some religious purpose, you know!\u201d said Abinadab,\nlooking bright. \u201cPerhaps I could help \u2019em build a church, or hist some\nof their pearl gates, or something like!\u201d\n\nUpon that he said that it was time to be at home and see to the oxen,\nand shambled awkwardly away.\n\nClo told us this afternoon that he begged the errand and the flowers\nfrom her. She says: \u201c\u2018Bin thinks there never was anybody like you, Mrs.\nForceythe, and \u2019Bin isn\u2019t the only one, either.\u201d At which Mrs. Forceythe\nsmiles absently, thinking--I wonder of what.\n\n\nMonday night.\n\nI saw as funny and as pretty a bit of a drama this afternoon as I have\nseen for a long time.\n\nFaith had been rolling out in the hot hay ever since three o\u2019clock, with\none of the little Blands, and when the shadows grew long they came in\nwith flushed cheeks and tumbled hair, to rest and cool upon the\ndoor-steps. I was sitting in the parlor, sewing energetically on some\nsun-bonnets for some of Aunt Winifred\u2019s people down town,--I found the\nheat to be more bearable if I kept busy,--and could see, unseen, all the\nlittle _tableaux_ into which the two children grouped themselves; a new\none every instant; in the shadow now,--now in a quiver of golden glow;\nthe wind tossing their hair about, and their chatter chiming down the\nhall like bells.\n\n\u201cO what a funny little sunset there\u2019s going to be behind the\nmaple-tree,\u201d said the blond-haired Bland, in a pause.\n\n\u201cFunny enough,\u201d observed Faith, with her superior smile, \u201cbut it\u2019s going\nto be a great deal funnier up in heaven, I tell you, Molly Bland.\u201d\n\n\u201cFunny in heaven? Why, Faith!\u201d Molly drew herself up with a religious\nair, and looked the image of her father.\n\n\u201cYes, to be sure. I\u2019m going to have some little pink blocks made out of\nit when I go; pink and yellow and green and purple and--O, so many\nblocks! I\u2019m going to have a little red cloud to sail round in, like that\none up over the house, too, I shouldn\u2019t wonder.\u201d\n\nMolly opened her eyes.\n\n\u201cO, I don\u2019t believe it!\u201d\n\n\u201c_You_ don\u2019t know much!\u201d said Miss Faith, superbly. \u201cI shouldn\u2019t s\u2019pose\nyou would believe it. P\u2019r\u2019aps I\u2019ll have some strawberries too, and some\nginger-snaps,--I\u2019m not going to have any old bread and butter up\nthere,--O, and some little gold apples, and a lot of playthings; nicer\nplaythings--why, nicer than they have in the shops in Boston, Molly\nBland! God\u2019s keeping \u2019em up there a purpose.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear me!\u201d said incredulous Molly, \u201cI should just like to know who told\nyou that much. My mother never told it at me. Did your mother tell it at\nyou?\u201d\n\n\u201cO, she told me some of it, and the rest I thinked out myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s go and play One Old Cat,\u201d said Molly, with an uncomfortable jump;\n\u201cI wish I hadn\u2019t got to go to heaven!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, Molly Bland! why, I think heaven\u2019s splendid! I\u2019ve got my papa up\nthere, you know. \u2018Here\u2019s my little girl!\u2019 That\u2019s what he\u2019s going to say.\nMamma, she\u2019ll be there, too, and we\u2019re all going to live in the\nprettiest house. I have dreadful hurries to go this afternoon sometimes\nwhen Ph\u0153be\u2019s cross and won\u2019t give me sugar. They don\u2019t let you in,\nthough, \u2019nless you\u2019re a good girl.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho gets it all up?\u201d asked puzzled Molly.\n\n\u201cJesus Christ will give me all these beautiful fings,\u201d said Faith,\nevidently repeating her mother\u2019s words,--the only catechism that she has\nbeen taught.\n\n\u201cAnd what will he do when he sees you?\u201d asked her mother, coming down\nthe stairs and stepping up behind her.\n\n\u201cTake me up in His arms and kiss me.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what will Faith say?\u201d\n\n\u201c_Fank--you!_\u201d said the child, softly.\n\nIn another minute she was absorbed, body and soul, in the mysteries of\nOne Old Cat.\n\n\u201cBut I don\u2019t think she will feel much like being naughty for half an\nhour to come,\u201d her mother said; \u201chear how pleasantly her words drop!\nSuch a talk quiets her, like a hand laid on her head. Mary, sometimes I\nthink it is His very hand, as much as when He touched those other little\nchildren. I wish Faith to feel at home with Him and His home. Little\nthing! I really do not think that she is conscious of any fear of dying;\nI do not think it means anything to her but Christ, and her father, and\npink blocks, and a nice time, and never disobeying me, or being cross.\nMany a time she wakes me up in the morning talking away to herself, and\nwhen I turn and look at her, she says: \u2018O mamma, won\u2019t we go to heaven\nto-day, you fink? _When_ will we go, mamma?\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cIf there had been any pink blocks and ginger-snaps for me when I was at\nher age, I should not have prayed every night to \u2018die out.\u2019 I think the\nhorrors of death that children live through, unguessed and unrelieved,\nare awful. Faith may thank you all her life that she has escaped them.\u201d\n\n\u201cI should feel answerable to God for the child\u2019s soul, if I had not\nprevented that. I always wanted to know what sort of mother that poor\nlittle thing had, who asked, if she were _very_ good up in heaven,\nwhether they wouldn\u2019t let her go down to hell Saturday afternoons, and\nplay a little while!\u201d\n\n\u201cI know. But think of it,--blocks and ginger-snaps!\u201d\n\n\u201cI treat Faith just as the Bible treats us, by dealing in _pictures_ of\ntruth that she can understand. I can make Clo and Abinadab Quirk\ncomprehend that their pianos and machinery may not be made of literal\nrosewood and steel, but will be some synonyme of the thing, which will\nanswer just such wants of their changed natures as rosewood and steel\nmust answer now. There will be machinery and pianos in the same sense in\nwhich there will be pearl gates and harps. Whatever enjoyment any or all\nof them represent now, something will represent then.\n\n\u201cBut Faith, if I told her that her heavenly ginger-snaps would not be\nmade of molasses and flour, would have a cry, for fear that she was not\ngoing to have any ginger-snaps at all; so, until she is older, I give\nher unqualified ginger-snaps. The principal joy of a child\u2019s life\nconsists in eating. Faith begins, as soon as the light wanes, to dream\nof that gum-drop which she is to have at bedtime. I don\u2019t suppose she\ncan outgrow that at once by passing out of her little round body. She\nmust begin where she left off,--nothing but a baby, though it will be as\nholy and happy a baby as Christ can make it. When she says: \u201cMamma, I\nshall be hungery and want my dinner, up there,\u201d I never hesitate to tell\nher that she shall have her dinner. She would never, in her secret\nheart, though she might not have the honesty to say so, expect to be\notherwise than miserable in a dinnerless eternity.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are not afraid of misleading the child\u2019s fancy?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot so long as I can keep the two ideas--that Christ is her best\nfriend, and that heaven is not meant for naughty girls--pre-eminent in\nher mind. And I sincerely believe that He would give her the very pink\nblocks which she anticipates, no less than He would give back a poet his\nlost dreams, or you your brother. He has been a child; perhaps,\nincidentally to the unsolved mysteries of atonement, for this very\nreason,--that He may know how to \u2018prepare their places\u2019 for them, whose\nangels do always behold His Father. Ah, you may be sure that, if of such\nis the happy Kingdom, He will not scorn to stoop and fit it to their\nlittle needs.\n\n\u201cThere was that poor little fellow whose guinea-pig died,--do you\nremember?\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly half; what was it?\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018O mamma,\u2019 he sobbed out, behind his handkerchief, \u2018don\u2019t great big\nelephants have souls?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018No, my son.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Nor camels, mamma?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018No.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Nor bears, nor alligators, nor chickens?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018O no, dear.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018O mamma, mamma! Don\u2019t little CLEAN--_white_--_guinea-pigs_ have\nsouls?\u2019\n\n\u201cI never should have had the heart to say no to that; especially as we\nhave no positive proof to the contrary.\n\n\u201cThen that scrap of a boy who lost his little red balloon the morning he\nbought it, and, broken-hearted, wanted to know whether it had gone to\nheaven. Don\u2019t I suppose if he had been taken there himself that very\nminute, that he would have found a little balloon in waiting for him?\nHow can I help it?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt has a pretty sound. If people would not think it so material and\nshocking--\u201d\n\n\u201cLet people read Martin Luther\u2019s letter to his little boy. There is the\ntestimony of a pillar in good and regular standing! I don\u2019t think you\nneed be afraid of my balloon, after that.\u201d\n\nI remembered that there was a letter of his on heaven, but, not\nrecalling it distinctly, I hunted for it to-night, and read it over. I\nshall copy it, the better to retain it in mind.\n\n\u201cGrace and peace in Christ, my dear little son. I see with pleasure that\nthou learnest well, and prayed diligently. Do so, my son, and continue.\nWhen I come home I will bring thee a pretty fairing.\n\n\u201cI know a pretty, merry garden wherein are many children. They have\nlittle golden coats, and they gather beautiful apples under the trees,\nand pears, cherries, plums, and wheat-plums;--they sing, and jump, and\nare merry. They have beautiful little horses, too, with gold bits and\nsilver saddles. And I asked the man to whom the garden belongs, whose\nchildren they were. And he said: \u2018They are the children that love to\npray and to learn, and are good.\u2019 Then said I: \u2018Dear man, I have a son,\ntoo; his name is Johnny Luther. May he not also come into this garden\nand eat these beautiful apples and pears, and ride these fine horses?\u2019\nThen the man said: \u2018If he loves to pray and to learn, and is good, he\nshall come into this garden, and Lippus and Jost too; and when they all\ncome together, they shall have fifes and trumpets, lutes and all sorts\nof music, and they shall dance, and shoot with little cross-bows.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd he showed me a fine meadow there in the garden, made for dancing.\nThere hung nothing but golden fifes, trumpets, and fine silver\ncross-bows. But it was early, and the children had not yet eaten;\ntherefore I could not wait the dance, and I said to the man: \u2018Ah, dear\nsir! I will immediately go and write all this to my little son Johnny,\nand tell him to pray diligently, and to learn well, and to be good, so\nthat he also may come to this garden. But he has an Aunt Lehne, he must\nbring her with him.\u2019 Then the man said: \u2018It shall be so; go, and write\nhim so.\u2019\n\n\u201cTherefore, my dear little son Johnny, learn and pray away! and tell\nLippus and Jost, too that they must learn and pray. And then you shall\ncome to the garden together. Herewith I commend thee to Almighty God.\nAnd greet Aunt Lehne, and give her a kiss for my sake.\n\n                           \u201cThy dear Father,\n\n                                   \u201cMARTINUS LUTHER.\n\n\u201cANNO 1530.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\n\nAugust 3.\n\nThe summer is sliding quietly away,--my desolate summer which I dreaded;\nwith the dreams gone from its wild flowers, the crown from its sunsets,\nthe thrill from its winds and its singing.\n\nBut I have found out a thing. One can live without dreams and crowns and\nthrills.\n\nI have not lost them. They lie under the ivied cross with Roy for a\nlittle while. They will come back to me with him. \u201cNothing is lost,\u201d she\nteaches me. And until they come back, I see--for she shows me--fields\ngroaning under their white harvest, with laborers very few. Ruth\nfollowed the sturdy reapers, gleaning a little. I, perhaps, can do as\nmuch. The ways in which I must work seem so small and insignificant, so\npitifully trivial sometimes, that I do not even like to write them down\nhere. In fact, they are so small that, six months ago, I did not see\nthem at all. Only to be pleasant to old Ph\u0153be, and charitable to\nMeta Tripp, and faithful to my _not_ very interesting little scholars,\nand a bit watchful of worn-out Mrs. Bland, and--But dear me, I won\u2019t!\nThey _are_ so little!\n\nBut one\u2019s self becomes of less importance, which seems to be the point.\n\nIt seems very strange to me sometimes, looking back to those desperate\nwinter days, what a change has come over my thoughts of Roy. Not that he\nis any less--O, never any less to me. But it is almost as if she had\nraised him from the grave. Why seek ye the living among the dead? Her\nsoft, compassionate eyes shine with the question every hour. And every\nhour he is helping me,--ah, Roy, we understand one another now.\n\nHow he must love Aunt Winifred! How pleasant the days will be when we\ncan talk her over, and thank her together!\n\n\u201cTo be happy because Roy is happy.\u201d I remember how those first words of\nhers struck me. It does not seem to me impossible, now.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAunt Winifred and I laugh at each other for talking so much about\nheaven. I see that the green book is filled with my questions and her\nanswers. The fact is, not that we do not talk as much about mundane\naffairs as other people, but that this one thing interests us more.\n\nIf, instead, it had been flounces, or babies, or German philosophy, the\ngreen book would have filled itself just as unconsciously with flounces,\nor babies, or German philosophy. This interest in heaven is of course no\nsign of especial piety in me, nor could people with young, warm,\nuncrushed hopes throbbing through their days be expected to feel the\nsame. It is only the old principle of, where the treasure is--the heart.\n\n\u201cHow spiritual-minded Mary has grown!\u201d Mrs. Bland observes, regarding me\nrespectfully. I try in vain to laugh her out of the conviction. If Roy\nhad not gone before, I should think no more, probably, about the coming\nlife, than does the minister\u2019s wife herself.\n\nBut now--I cannot help it--that is the reality, this the dream; that the\nsubstance, this the shadow.\n\nThe other day Aunt Winifred and I had a talk which has been of more\nvalue to me than all the rest.\n\nFaith was in bed; it was a cold, rainy evening; we were secure from\ncallers; we lighted a few kindlers in the parlor grate; she rolled up\nthe easy-chair, and I took my cricket at her feet.\n\n\u201cPaul at the feet of Gamaliel! This is what I call comfort. Now, Auntie,\nlet us go to heaven awhile.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well. What do you want there now?\u201d\n\nI paused a moment, sobered by a thought that has been growing steadily\nupon me of late.\n\n\u201cSomething more, Aunt Winifred. All these other things are beautiful and\ndear; but I believe I want--God.\n\n\u201cYou have not said much about Him. The Bible says a great deal about\nHim. You have given me the filling-up of heaven in all its pleasant\npromise, but--I don\u2019t know--there seems to be an outline wanting.\u201d\n\nShe drew my hand up into hers, smiling.\n\n\u201cI have not done my painting by artistic methods, I know; but it was not\nexactly accidental.\n\n\u201cTell me, honestly,--is God more to you or less, a more distinct Being\nor a more vague one, than He was six months ago? Is He, or is He not,\ndearer to you now than then?\u201d\n\nI thought about it a minute, and then turned my face up to her.\n\n\u201cMary, what a light in your eyes! How is it?\u201d\n\nIt came over me slowly, but it came with such a passion of gratitude and\nunworthiness, that I scarcely knew how to tell her--that He never has\nbeen to me, in all my life, what he is now at the end of these six\nmonths. He was once an abstract Grandeur which I struggled more in fear\nthan love to please. He has become a living Presence, dear and real.\n\n    \u201cNo dead fact stranded on the shore\n       Of the oblivious years;\n     But warm, sweet, tender, even yet\n       A present help.\u201d ...\n\nHe was an inexorable Mystery who took Roy from me to lose him in the\nglare of a more inexorable heaven. He is a Father who knew better than\nwe that we should be parted for a while; but He only means it to be a\nlittle while. He is keeping him for me to find in the flush of some\nsummer morning, on which I shall open my eyes no less naturally than I\nopen them on June sunrises now. I always have that fancy of going in the\nmorning.\n\nShe understood what I could not tell her, and said, \u201cI thought it would\nbe so.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou, His interpreter, have done it,\u201d I answered her. \u201cHis heaven shows\nwhat He is,--don\u2019t you see?--like a friend\u2019s letter. I could no more go\nback to my old groping relations to Him, than I could make of you the\ndim and somewhat apocryphal Western Auntie that you were before I saw\nyou.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhich was precisely why I have dealt with this subject as I have,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cYou had all your life been directed to an indefinite heaven,\nwhere the glory of God was to crowd out all individuality and all human\njoy from His most individual and human creatures, till the \u201cGlory of\nGod\u201d had become nothing but a name and a dread to you. So I let those\nthree words slide by, and tried to bring you to them, as Christ brought\nthe Twelve to believe in him, \u2018for the works\u2019 sake.\u2019\n\n\u201cYes, my child; clinging human loves, stifled longings, cries for rest,\nforgotten hopes, shall have their answer. Whatever the bewilderment of\nbeauties folded away for us in heavenly nature and art, they shall\nstrive with each other to make us glad. These things have their pleasant\nplace. But, through eternity, there will be always something beyond and\ndearer than the dearest of them. God himself will be first,--naturally\nand of necessity, without strain or struggle, _first_.\u201d\n\nWhen I sat here last winter with my dead in my house, those words would\nhave roused in me an agony of wild questionings. I should have beaten\nabout them and beaten against them, and cried in my honest heart that\nthey were false. I _knew_ that I loved Roy more than I loved such a\nBeing as God seemed to me then to be. Now, they strike me as simply and\npleasantly true. The more I love Roy, the more I love Him. He loves us\nboth.\n\n\u201cYou see it could not be otherwise,\u201d she went on, speaking low. \u201cWhere\nwould you be, or I, or they who seem to us so much dearer and better\nthan ourselves, if it were not for Jesus Christ? What can heaven be to\nus, but a song of the love that is the same to us yesterday, to-day, and\nforever,--that, in the mystery of an intensity which we shall perhaps\nnever understand, could choose death and be glad in the choosing, and,\nwhat is more than that, could live _life_ for us for three-and-thirty\nyears?\n\n\u201cI cannot strain my faith--or rather my common sense--to the rhapsodies\nwith which many people fill heaven. But it seems to me like this: A\nfriend goes away from us, and it may be seas or worlds that lie between\nus, and we love him. He leaves behind him his little keepsakes; a lock\nof hair to curl about our fingers; a picture that has caught the trick\nof his eyes or smile; a book, a flower, a letter. What we do with the\ncurling hair, what we say to the picture, what we dream over the flower\nand the letter, nobody knows but ourselves. People have risked life for\nsuch mementoes. Yet who loves the senseless gift more than the\ngiver,--the curl more than the young forehead on which it fell,--the\nletter more than the hand which traced it?\n\n\u201cSo it seems to me that we shall learn to see in God the centre of all\npossibilities of joy. The greatest of these lesser delights is but the\ngreater measure of His friendship. They will not mean less of pleasure,\nbut more of Him. They will not \u201cpale,\u201d as Dr. Bland would say. Human\ndearness will wax, not wane, in heaven; but human friends will be loved\nfor love of Him.\u201d\n\n\u201cI see; that helps me; like a torch in a dark room. But there will be\nshadows in the corners. Do you suppose that we shall ever _fully_ feel\nit in the body?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the body, probably not. We see through a glass so darkly that the\ntemptation to idolatry is always our greatest. Golden images did not die\nwith Paganism. At times I fancy that, somewhere between this world and\nanother, a revelation will come upon us like a flash, of what _sin_\nreally is,--such a revelation, lighting up the lurid background of our\npast in such colors, that the consciousness of what Christ has done for\nus will be for a time as much as heart can bear. After that, the mystery\nwill be, not how to love Him most, but that we ever _could_ have loved\nany creature or thing as much.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe serve God quite as much by active work as by special prayer, here,\u201d\nI said after some thought; \u201chow will it be there?\u201d\n\n\u201cWe must be busily at work certainly; but I think there must naturally\nbe more communion with Him then. Now, this phrase \u201ccommunion with God\u201d\nhas been worn, and not always well worn.\n\n\u201cPrayer means to us, in this life, more often penitent confession than\nhappy interchange of thought with Him. It is associated, too, with\naching limbs and sleepy eyes, and nights when the lamp goes out.\nObstacles, moral and physical, stand in the way of our knowing exactly\nwhat it may mean in the ideal of it.\n\n\u201cMy best conception of it lies in the _friendship_ of the man Christ\nJesus. I suppose he will bear with him, eternally, the humanity which he\ntook up with him from the Judean hills. I imagine that we shall see him\nin visible form like ourselves, among us, yet not of us; that he,\nhimself, is \u201cGott mit ihnen\u201d; that we shall talk with him as a man\ntalketh with his friend. Perhaps, bowed and hushed at his dear feet, we\nshall hear from his own lips the story of Nazareth, of Bethany, of\nGolgotha, of the chilly mountains where he used to pray all night long\nfor us; of the desert places where he hungered; of his cry for\nhelp--think, Mary--_His!_--when there was not one in all the world to\nhear it, and there was silence in heaven, while angels strengthened him\nand man forsook him. Perhaps his voice--the very voice which has sounded\nwhispering through our troubled life--\u201cCould ye not watch one\nhour?\u201d--shall unfold its perplexed meanings; shall make its rough places\nplain; shall show us step by step the merciful way by which he led us\nto the hour; shall point out to us, joy by joy, the surprises that he\nhas been planning for us, just as the old father in the story planned to\nsurprise his wayward boy come home.\n\n\u201cAnd such a \u2018communion,\u2019--which is not too much, nor yet enough, to dare\nto expect of a God who was the \u2018friend\u2019 of Abraham, who \u2018walked\u2019 with\nEnoch, who did not call fishermen his servants,--_such_ will be that\n\u2018presence of God,\u2019 that \u2018adoration,\u2019 on which we have looked from afar\noff with despairing eyes that wept, they were so dazzled, and turned\nthemselves away as from the thing they greatly feared.\u201d\n\nI think we neither of us cared to talk for a while after this. Something\nmade me forget even that I was going to see Roy in heaven.\n\u201cThree-and-thirty years. Three-and-thirty years.\u201d The words rang\nthemselves over.\n\n\u201cIt is on the humanity of Christ,\u201d she said after some musing, \u201cthat all\nmy other reasons for hoping for such a heaven as I hope for, rest for\nfoundation. He knows exactly what we are, for he has been one of us;\nexactly what we hope and fear and crave, for he has hoped and feared and\ncraved, not the less humanly, but only more intensely.\n\n\u201c\u2018_If it were not so_,\u2019--do you take in the thoughtful tenderness of\nthat? A mother, stilling her frightened child in the dark, might speak\njust so,--\u2018_if it were not so, I would have told you_.\u2019 That brooding\nlove makes room for all that we can want. He has sounded every deep of a\ntroubled and tempted life. Who so sure as he to understand how to\nprepare a place where troubled and tempted lives may grow serene?\nFurther than this; since he stands as our great Type, no less in death\nand after than before it, he answers for us many of these lesser\nquestions on the event of which so much of our happiness depends.\n\n\u201cShall we lose our personality in a vague ocean of ether,--you one puff\nof gas, I another?--\n\n\u201cHe, with his own wounded body, rose and ate and walked and talked.\n\n\u201cIs all memory of this life to be swept away?--\n\n\u201cHe, arisen, has forgotten nothing. He waits to meet his disciples at\nthe old, familiar places; as naturally as if he had never been parted\nfrom them, he falls in with the current of their thoughts.\n\n\u201cHas any one troubled us with fears that in the glorified crowds of\nheaven we may miss a face dearer than all the world to us?--\n\n\u201cHe made himself known to his friends; Mary, and the two at Emmaus, and\nthe bewildered group praying and perplexed in their bolted room.\n\n\u201cDo we weary ourselves with speculations whether human loves can outlive\nthe shock of death?--\n\n\u201cMary knew how He loved her, when, turning, she heard him call her by\nher name. They knew, whose hearts \u2018burned within them while he talked\nwith them by the way, and when he tarried with them, the day being far\nspent.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd for the rest?\u201d\n\n\u201cFor the rest, about which He was silent, we can trust him, and if,\ntrusting, we please ourselves with fancies, he would be the last to\nthink it blame to us. There is one promise which grows upon me the more\nI study it, \u2018He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not also _with\nhim freely give us all things_?\u2019 Sometimes I wonder if that does not\ninfold a beautiful _double entendre_, a hint of much that you and I have\nconjectured,--as one throws down a hint of a surprise to a child.\n\n\u201cThen there is that pledge to those who seek first His kingdom: \u2018_All\nthese things shall be added unto you_.\u2019 \u2018These things,\u2019 were food and\nclothing, were varieties of material delight, and the words were spoken\nto men who lived hungry, beggared, and died the death of outcasts. If\nthis passage could be taken literally, it would be very significant in\nits bearing on the future life; for Christ must keep his promise to the\nletter, in one world or another. It may be wrenching the verse, not as a\nverse, but from the grain of the argument, to insist on the literal\ninterpretation,--though I am not sure.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\n\nAugust 15.\n\nI asked the other day, wondering whether all ministers were like Dr.\nBland, what Uncle Forceythe used to believe about heaven.\n\n\u201cVery much what I do,\u201d she said. \u201cThese questions were brought home to\nhim, early in life, by the death of a very dear sister; he had thought\nmuch about them. I think one of the things that so much attached his\npeople to him was the way he had of weaving their future life in with\nthis, till it grew naturally and pleasantly into their frequent thought.\nO yes, your uncle supplied me with half of my proof-texts.\u201d\n\nAunt Winifred has not looked quite well of late, I fancy; though it may\nbe only fancy. She has not spoken of it, except one day when I told her\nthat she looked pale. It was the heat, she said.\n\n\n20th.\n\nLittle Clo came over to-night. I believe she thinks Aunt Winifred the\nbest friend she has in the world. Auntie has become much attached to\nall her scholars, and has a rare power of winning her way into\ntheir confidence. They come to her with all their little\ninterests,--everything, from saving their souls to trimming a bonnet.\nClo, however, is the favorite, as I predicted.\n\nShe looked a bit blue to-night, as girls will look; in fact, her face\nalways has a tinge of sadness about it. Aunt Winifred, understanding at\na glance that the child was not in a mood to talk before a third, led\nher away into the garden, and they were gone a long time. When it grew\ndark, I saw them coming up the path, Clo\u2019s hand locked in her teacher\u2019s,\nand her face, which was wet, upturned like a child\u2019s. They strolled to\nthe gate, lingered a little to talk, and then Clo said good night\nwithout coming in.\n\nAuntie sat for a while after she had gone, thinking her over, I could\nsee.\n\n\u201cPoor thing!\u201d she said at last, half to herself, half to me,--\u201cpoor\nlittle foolish thing! This is where the dreadful individuality of a\nhuman soul irks me. There comes a point, beyond which you _can\u2019t_ help\npeople.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat has happened to Clo?\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing, lately. It has been happening for two years. Two miserable\nyears are an eternity, at Clo\u2019s age. It is the old story,--a summer\nboarder; a little flirting; a little dreaming; a little pain; then\nautumn, and the nuts dropping on the leaves, and he was gone,--and knew\nnot what he did,--and the child waked up. There was the future; to bake\nand sweep, to go to sewing-circles, and sing in the choir, and bear the\nmoonlight nights,--and she loved him. She has lived through two years of\nit, and she loves him now. Reason will not reach such a passion in a\ngirl like Clo. I did not tell her that she would put it away with other\ngirlish things, and laugh at it herself some happy day, as women have\nlaughed at their young fancies before her; partly because that would be\na certain way of repelling her confidence,--she does not believe it, and\nmy believing could not make her; partly because I am not quite sure\nabout it myself. Clo has a good deal of the woman about her; her\nintrospective life is intense. She may cherish this sweet misery as she\ndoes her musical tastes, till it has struck deep root. There is nothing\nin the excellent Mrs. Bentley\u2019s household, nor in Homer anywhere, to\ndraw the girl out from herself in time to prevent the dream from\nbecoming a reality.\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor little thing! What did you say to her?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou ought to have heard what she said to me! I wish I were at liberty\nto tell you the whole story. What troubles her most is that it is not\ngoing to help the matter any to die. \u2018O Mrs. Forceythe,\u2019 she says, in a\ntone that is enough to give the heart-ache, even to such an old woman as\nMrs. Forceythe, \u2018O Mrs. Forceythe, what is going to become of me up\nthere? He never loved me, you see, and he never, never will, and he will\nhave some beautiful, good wife of his own, and I won\u2019t have _any_body!\nFor I can\u2019t love anybody else,--I\u2019ve tried; I tried just as hard as I\ncould to love my cousin \u2019Bin; he\u2019s real good, and--I\u2019m--afraid \u2019Bin\nlikes me, though I guess he likes his carpet-sweepers better. O,\nsometimes I think, and think, till it seems as if I could not bear it! I\ndon\u2019t see how God can _make_ me happy. I wish I could be buried up and\ngo to sleep, and never have any heaven!\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you told her--?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat she should have him there. That is, if not himself,\nsomething,--somebody who would so much more than fill his place, that\nshe would never have a lonely or unloved minute. Her eyes brightened,\nand shaded, and pondered, doubting. She \u2018didn\u2019t see how it could ever\nbe.\u2019 I told her not to try and see how, but to leave it to Christ. He\nknew all about this little trouble of hers, and he would make it right.\n\n\u201c\u2018Will he?\u2019 she questioned, sighing; \u2018but there are so many of us!\nThere\u2019s \u2019Bin, and a plenty more, and I don\u2019t see how it\u2019s going to be\nsmoothed out. Everything is in a jumble, Mrs. Forceythe, don\u2019t you see?\nfor some people _can\u2019t_ like and keep liking so many times.\u2019 Something\ncame into my mind about the rough places that shall be made plain, and\nthe crooked things straight. I tried to explain to her, and at last I\nkissed away her tears, and sent her home, if not exactly comforted, a\nlittle less miserable, I think, than when she came. Ah, well,--I wonder\nmyself sometimes about these \u2018crooked things\u2019; but, though I wonder, I\nnever doubt.\u201d\n\nShe finished her sentence somewhat hurriedly, and half started from her\nchair, raising both hands with a quick, involuntary motion that\nattracted my notice. The lights came in just then, and, unless I am\nmuch mistaken, her face showed paler than usual; but when I asked her if\nshe felt faint, she said, \u201cO no, I believe I am a little tired, and will\ngo to bed.\u201d\n\n\nSeptember 1.\n\nI am glad that the summer is over. This heat has certainly worn on Aunt\nWinifred, with that kind of wear which slides people into confirmed\ninvalidism. I suppose she would bear it in her saintly way, as she bears\neverything, but it would be a bitter cup for her. I know she was always\npale, but this is a paleness which--\n\n\nNight.\n\nA dreadful thing has happened!\n\nI was in the middle of my sentence, when I heard a commotion in the\nstreet, and a child\u2019s voice shouting incoherently something about the\ndoctor, and \u201c_mother\u2019s killed! O, mother\u2019s killed! mother\u2019s burnt to\ndeath!_\u201d I was at the window in time to see a blond-haired girl running\nwildly past the house, and to see that it was Molly Bland.\n\nAt the same moment I saw Aunt Winifred snatching her hat from its nail\nin the entry. She beckoned to me to follow, and we were half-way over\nto the parsonage before I had a distinct thought of what I was about.\n\nWe came upon a horrible scene. Dr. Bland was trying to do everything\nalone; there was not a woman in the house to help him, for they have\nnever been able to keep a servant, and none of the neighbors had had\ntime to be there before us. The poor husband was growing faint, I think.\nAunt Winifred saw by a look that he could not bear much more, sent him\nafter Molly for the doctor, and took everything meantime into her own\ncharge.\n\nI shall not write down a word of it. It was a sight that, once seen,\nwill never leave me as long as I live. My nerves are thoroughly shaken\nby it, and it must be put out of thought as far as possible.\n\nIt seems that the little boy--the baby--crept into the kitchen by\nhimself, and began to throw the contents of the match-box on the stove,\n\u201cto make a bonfire,\u201d the poor little fellow said. In five minutes his\napron was ablaze. His mother was on the spot at his first cry, and\nsmothered the little apron, and saved the child, but her dress was\nmuslin, and everybody was too far off to hear her at first,--and by the\ntime her husband came in from the garden it was too late.\n\nShe is living yet. Her husband, pacing the room back and forth, and\ncrouching on his knees by the hour, is praying God to let her die before\nthe morning.\n\n\nMorning.\n\nThere is no chance of life, the doctor says. But he has been able to\nfind something that has lessened her sufferings. She lies partially\nunconscious.\n\n\nWednesday night.\n\nAunt Winifred and I were over at the parsonage to-night, when she roused\na little from her stupor and recognized us. She spoke to her husband,\nand kissed me good by, and asked for the children. They were playing\nsoftly in the next room; we sent for them, and they came in,--the four\nunconscious, motherless little things,--with the sunlight in their hair.\n\nThe bitterness of death came into her marred face at sight of them, and\nshe raised her hands to Auntie--to the only other mother there--with a\nsudden helpless cry: \u201cI could bear it, I could bear it, if it weren\u2019t\nfor _them_. Without any mother all their lives,--such little\nthings,--and to go away where I can\u2019t do a single _thing_ for them!\u201d\n\nAunt Winifred stooped down and spoke low, but decidedly.\n\n\u201cYou _will_ do for them. God knows all about it. He will not send you\naway from them. You shall be just as much their mother, every day of\ntheir lives, as you have been here. Perhaps there is something to do for\nthem which you never could have done here. He sees. He loves them. He\nloves you.\u201d\n\nIf I could paint, I might paint the look that struck through and through\nthat woman\u2019s dying face; but words cannot touch it. If I were Aunt\nWinifred, I should bless God on my knees to-night for having shown me\nhow to give such ease to a soul in death.\n\n\nThursday morning.\n\nGod is merciful. Mrs. Bland died at five o\u2019clock.\n\n\n10th.\n\nHow such a voice from the heavens shocks one out of the repose of calm\nsorrows and of calm joys. This has come and gone so suddenly that I\ncannot adjust it to any quiet and trustful thinking yet.\n\nThe whole parish mourns excitedly; for, though they worked their\nminister\u2019s wife hard, they loved her well. I cannot talk it over with\nthe rest. It jars. Horror should never be dissected. Besides, my heart\nis too full of those four little children with the sunlight in their\nhair and the unconsciousness in their eyes.\n\n\n15th.\n\nMrs. Quirk came over to-day in great perplexity. She had just come from\nthe minister\u2019s.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what we\u2019re a goin\u2019 to do with him!\u201d she exclaimed in a\ngush of impatient, uncomprehending sympathy; \u201cyou can\u2019t let a man take\non that way much longer. He\u2019ll worry himself sick, and then we shall\neither lose him or have to pay his bills to Europe! Why, he jest stops\nin the house, and walks his study up and down, day and night; or else he\njest sets and sets and don\u2019t notice nobody but the children. Now I\u2019ve\njest ben over makin\u2019 him some chicken-pie,--he used to set a sight by my\nchicken-pie,--and he made believe to eat it, \u2019cause I\u2019d ben at the\ntrouble, I suppose, but how much do you suppose he swallowed? Jest three\nmouthfuls! Thinks says I, I won\u2019t spend my time over chicken-pie for the\nafflicted agin, and on ironing-day, too! When I knocked at the study\ndoor, he said, \u2018Come in, and stopped his walkin\u2019 and turned as quick.\n\n\u201c\u2018O,\u2019 says he, \u2018good morning. I thought it was Mrs. Forceythe.\u2019\n\n\u201cI told him no, I wasn\u2019t Mrs. Forceythe, but I\u2019d come to comfort him in\nhis sorrer all the same. But that\u2019s the only thing I have agin our\nminister. He won\u2019t _be_ comforted. Mary Ann Jacobs, who\u2019s ben there kind\nof looking after the children and things for him, you know, sence the\nfuneral--she says he\u2019s asked three or four times for you, Mrs.\nForceythe. There\u2019s ben plenty of his people in to see him, but you\nhaven\u2019t ben nigh him, Mary Ann says.\u201d\n\n\u201cI stayed away because I thought the presence of friends at this time\nwould be an intrusion,\u201d Auntie said; \u201cbut if he would like to see me,\nthat alters the case. I will go, certainly.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d suggested Mrs. Quirk, looking over the tops of her\nspectacles,--\u201cI s\u2019pose it\u2019s proper enough, but you bein\u2019 a widow, you\nknow, and his wife--\u201d\n\nAunt Winifred\u2019s eyes shot fire. She stood up and turned upon Mrs. Quirk\nwith a look the like of which I presume that worthy lady had never seen\nbefore, and is not likely to see soon again (it gave the beautiful\nscorn of a Zenobia to her fair, slight face), moved her lips slightly,\nbut said nothing, put on her bonnet, and went straight to Dr. Bland\u2019s.\n\nThe minister, they told her, was in his study. She knocked lightly at\nthe door, and was bidden in a lifeless voice to enter.\n\nShades and blinds were drawn, and the glare of the sun quite shut out.\nDr. Bland sat by his study-table, with his face upon his hands. A Bible\nlay open before him. It had been lately used; the leaves were wet.\n\nHe raised his head dejectedly, but smiled when he saw who it was. He had\nbeen thinking about her, he said, and was glad that she had come.\n\nI do not know all that passed between them, but I gather, from such\nhints as Auntie in her unconsciousness throws out, that she had things\nto say which touched some comfortless places in the man\u2019s heart. No\nGreek and Hebrew \u201coriginal,\u201d no polished dogma, no link in his\nstereotyped logic, not one of his eloquent sermons on the future state,\ncame to his relief.\n\nThese were meant for happy days. They rang cold as steel upon the warm\nneeds of an afflicted man. Brought face to face, and sharply, with the\nblank heaven of his belief, he stood up from before his dead, and groped\nabout it, and cried out against it in the bitterness of his soul.\n\n\u201cI had no chance to prepare myself to bow to the will of God,\u201d he said,\nhis reserved ministerial manner in curious contrast with the caged way\nin which he was pacing the room,--\u201cI had no chance. I am taken by\nsurprise, as by a thief in the night. I had a great deal to say to her,\nand there was no time. She could tell me what to do with my poor little\nchildren. I wanted to tell her other things. I wanted to tell\nher--Perhaps we all of us have our regrets when the Lord removes our\nfriends; we may have done or left undone many things; we might have made\nthem happier. My mind does not rest with assurance in its conceptions of\nthe heavenly state. If I never can tell her--\u201d\n\nHe stopped abruptly, and paced into the darkest shadows of the shadowed\nroom, his face turned away.\n\n\u201cYou said once some pleasant things about heaven?\u201d he said at last, half\nappealingly, stopping in front of her, hesitating; like a man and like a\nminister, hardly ready to come with all the learning of his schools and\ncommentators and sit at the feet of a woman.\n\nShe talked with him for a time in her unobtrusive way, deferring, when\nshe honestly could, to his clerical judgment, and careful not to wound\nhim by any word; but frankly and clearly, as she always talks.\n\nWhen she rose to go he thanked her quietly.\n\n\u201cThis is a somewhat novel train of thought to me,\u201d he said; \u201cI hope it\nmay not prove an unscriptural one. I have been reading the book of\nRevelation to-day with these questions especially in mind. We are never\ntoo old to learn. Some passages may be capable of other interpretations\nthan I have formerly given them. No matter what I _wish_, you see, I\nmust be guided by the Word of my God.\u201d\n\nAuntie says that she never respected the man so much as she did when,\nhearing those words, she looked up into his haggard face, convulsed with\nits human pain and longing.\n\n\u201cI hope you do not think that _I_ am not guided by the Word of God,\u201d she\nanswered. \u201cI mean to be.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know you mean to be,\u201d he said cordially. \u201cI do not say that you are\nnot. I may come to see that you are, and that you are right. It will be\na peaceful day for me if I can ever quite agree with your methods of\nreasoning. But I must think these things over. I thank you once more for\ncoming. Your sympathy is grateful to me.\u201d\n\nJust as she closed the door he called her back.\n\n\u201cSee,\u201d he said, with a saddened smile. \u201cAt least I shall never preach\n_this_ again. It seems to me that life is always undoing for us\nsomething that we have just laboriously done.\u201d\n\nHe held up before her a mass of old blue manuscript, and threw it, as he\nspoke, upon the embers left in his grate. It smoked and blazed up and\nburned out.\n\nIt was that sermon on heaven of which there is an abstract in this\njournal.\n\n\n20th.\n\nAunt Winifred hired Mr. Tripp\u2019s gray this afternoon, and drove to East\nHomer on some unexplained errand. She did not invite me to go with her,\nand Faith, though she teased impressively, was left at home. Her mother\nwas gone till late,--so late that I had begun to be anxious about her,\nand heard through the dark the first sound of the buggy wheels, with\ngreat relief. She looked very tired when I met her at the gate. She had\nnot been able, she said, to accomplish her errand at East Homer, and\nfrom there had gone to Worcester by railroad, leaving Old Gray at the\nEast Homer Eagle till her return. She told me nothing more, and I asked\nno questions.\n\n\n\n\nXV.\n\n\nSunday.\n\nFaith has behaved like a witch all day. She knocked down three crickets\nand six hymn-books in church this morning, and this afternoon horrified\nthe assembled and devout congregation by turning round in the middle of\nthe long prayer, and, in a loud and distinct voice, asking Mrs. Quirk\nfor \u201c\u2018nother those pepp\u2019mints such as you gave me one Sunday a good many\nyears ago, you \u2019member.\u201d After church, her mother tried a few Bible\nquestions to keep her still.\n\n\u201cFaith, who was Christ\u2019s father?\u201d\n\n\u201cJerusalem!\u201d said Faith, promptly.\n\n\u201cWhere did his parents take Jesus when they fled from Herod?\u201d\n\n\u201cO, to Europe. Of course I knew that! Everybody goes to Europe.\u201d\n\nTo-night, when her mother had put her to bed, she came down laughing.\n\n\u201cFaith does seem to have a hard time with the Lord\u2019s Prayer. To-night,\nbeing very sleepy and in a hurry to finish, she proceeded with great\nsolemnity:--\u2018Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; six\ndays shalt thou labor and do all thy work, and--Oh!\u2019\n\n\u201cI was just thinking how amused her father must be.\u201d\n\nAuntie says many such things. I cannot explain how pleasantly they\nstrike me, nor how they help me.\n\n\n29th.\n\nDr. Bland gave us a good sermon yesterday. There is an indescribable\nchange in all his sermons. There is a change, too, in the man, and that\nsomething more than the haggardness of grief. I not only respect him and\nam sorry for him, but I feel more ready to be taught by him than ever\nbefore. A certain indefinable _humanness_ softens his eyes and tones,\nand seems to be creeping into everything that he says. Yet, on the other\nhand, his people say that they have never heard him speak such pleasant,\nhelpful things concerning his and their relations to God. I met him the\nother night, coming away from his wife\u2019s grave, and was struck by the\nexpression of his face. I wondered if he were not slowly finding the\n\u201cpeaceful day,\u201d of which he told Aunt Winifred.\n\nShe, by the way, has taken another of her mysterious trips to Worcester.\n\n\n30th.\n\nWe were wondering to-day where it will be,--I mean heaven.\n\n\u201cIt is impossible to do more than wonder,\u201d Auntie said, \u201cthough we are\nexplicitly told that there will be new heavens _and_ a new earth, which\nseems, if anything can be taken literally in the Bible, to point to this\nworld as the future home of at least some of us.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot for all of us, of course?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t feel sure. I know that somebody spent his valuable time in\nestimating that all the people who have lived and died upon the earth\nwould cover it, alive or buried, twice over; but I know that somebody\nelse claims with equal solemnity to have discovered that they could all\nbe buried in the State of Pennsylvania! But it would be of little\nconsequence if we could not all find room here, since there must be\nother provision for us.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly there is \u2018a place\u2019 in which we are promised that we shall be\n\u2018with Christ,\u2019 this world being yet the great theatre of human life and\nbattle-ground of Satan; no place, certainly, in which to confine a happy\nsoul without prospect of release. The Spiritualistic notion of \u2018circles\u2019\nof dead friends revolving over us is to me intolerable. I want my\nhusband with me when I need him, but I hope he has a place to be happy\nin, which is out of this woful world.\n\n\u201cThe old astronomical idea, stars around a sun, and systems around a\ncentre, and that centre the Throne of God, is not an unreasonable one.\nIsaac Taylor, among his various conjectures, inclines, I fancy, to\nsuppose that the sun of each system is the heaven of that system. Though\nthe glory of God may be more directly and impressively exhibited in one\nplace than in another, we may live in different planets, and some of us,\nafter its destruction and renovation, on this same dear old, happy and\nmiserable, loved and maltreated earth. I hope I shall be one of them. I\nshould like to come back and build me a beautiful home in Kansas,--I\nmean in what was Kansas,--among the happy people and the familiar,\ntransfigured spots where John and I worked for God so long together.\nThat--with my dear Lord to see and speak with every day--would be\n\u2018Heaven our Home.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThere will be no _days_, then?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere will be succession of time. There may not be alternations of\ntwenty-four hours dark or light, but \u2018I use with thee an earthly\nlanguage,\u2019 as the wife said in that beautiful little \u2018Awakening,\u2019 of\nTherrmin\u2019s. Do you remember it? Do read it over, if you haven\u2019t read it\nlately.\n\n\u201cAs to our coming back here, there is an echo to Peter\u2019s assertion, in\nthe idea of a world under a curse, destroyed and regenerated,--the\natonement of Christ reaching, with something more than poetic force, the\nvery sands of the earth which he trod with bleeding feet to make himself\nits Saviour. That makes me feel--don\u2019t you see?--what a taint there is\nin sin. If dumb dust is to have such awful cleansing, what must be\nneeded for you and me?\n\n\u201cHow many pleasant talks we have had about these things, Mary! Well, it\ncannot be long, at the longest, before we know, even as we are known.\u201d\n\nI looked at her smiling white face,--it is always very white now,--and\nsomething struck slowly through me, like a chill.\n\n\nOctober 16, midnight.\n\nThere is no such thing as sleep at present. Writing is better than\nthinking.\n\nAunt Winifred went again to Worcester to-day. She said that she had to\nbuy trimming for Faith\u2019s sack.\n\nShe went alone, as usual, and Faith and I kept each other company\nthrough the afternoon,--she on the floor with Mary Ann, I in the\neasy-chair with Macaulay. As the light began to fall level on the floor,\nI threw the book aside,--being at the end of a volume,--and, Mary Ann\nhaving exhausted her attractions, I surrendered unconditionally to the\nlittle maiden.\n\nShe took me up garret, and down cellar, on lop of the wood-pile, and\ninto the apple-trees; I fathomed the mysteries of Old Man\u2019s Castle and\nStill Palm; I was her grandmother, I was her baby, I was a rabbit, I was\na chestnut horse, I was a watch-dog, I was a mild-tempered giant, I was\na bear \u201cwarranted not to eat little girls,\u201d I was a roaring hippopotamus\nand a canary bird, I was Jeff Davis and I was Moses in the bulrushes,\nand of what I was, the time faileth me to tell.\n\nIt comes over me with a curious, mingled sense of the ludicrous and the\nhorrible, that I should have spent the afternoon like a baby and almost\nas happily, laughing out with the child, past and future forgotten, the\ntremendous risks of \u201cI spy\u201d absorbing all my present; while what was\nhappening was happening, and what was to come was coming. Not an echo in\nthe air, not a prophecy in the sunshine, not a note of warning in the\nsong of the robins that watched me from the apple-boughs!\n\nAs the long, golden afternoon slid away, we came out by the front gate\nto watch for the child\u2019s mother. I was tired, and, lying back on the\ngrass, gave Faith some pink and purple larkspurs, that she might amuse\nherself in making a chain of them. The picture that she made sitting\nthere on the short, dying grass--the light which broke all about her and\nover her at the first, creeping slowly down and away to the west, her\nlittle fingers linking the rich, bright flowers tube into tube, the\ndimple on her cheek and the love in her eyes--has photographed itself\ninto my thinking.\n\nHow her voice rang out, when the wheels sounded at last, and the\ncarriage, somewhat slowly driven, stopped!\n\n\u201cMamma, mamma! see what I\u2019ve got for you, mamma!\u201d\n\nAuntie tried to step from the carriage, and called me: \u201cMary, can you\nhelp me a little? I am--tired.\u201d\n\nI went to her, and she leaned heavily on my arm, and we came up the\npath.\n\n\u201cSuch a pretty little chain, all for you, mamma,\u201d began Faith, and\nstopped, struck by her mother\u2019s look.\n\n\u201cIt has been a long ride, and I am in pain. I believe I will lie right\ndown on the parlor sofa. Mary, would you be kind enough to give Faith\nher supper and put her to bed?\u201d\n\nFaith\u2019s lip grieved.\n\n\u201cCousin Mary isn\u2019t _you_, mamma. I want to be kissed. You haven\u2019t kissed\nme.\u201d\n\nHer mother hesitated for a moment; then kissed her once, twice; put both\narms about her neck; and turned her face to the wall without a word.\n\n\u201cMamma is tired, dear,\u201d I said; \u201ccome away.\u201d\n\nShe was lying quite still when I had done what was to be done for the\nchild, and had come back. The room was nearly dark. I sat down on my\ncricket by her sofa.\n\n\u201cShall Ph\u0153be light the lamp?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot just yet.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan\u2019t you drink a cup of tea if I bring it?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot just yet.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you find the sack-trimming?\u201d I ventured, after a pause.\n\n\u201cI believe so,--yes.\u201d\n\nShe drew a little package from her pocket, held it a moment, then let it\nroll to the floor forgotten. When I picked it up, the soft, tissue-paper\nwrapper was wet and hot with tears.\n\n\u201cMary?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cI never thought of the little trimming till the last minute. I had\nanother errand.\u201d\n\nI waited.\n\n\u201cI thought at first I would not tell you just yet. But I suppose the\ntime has come; it will be no more easy to put it off. I have been to\nWorcester all these times to see a doctor.\u201d\n\nI bent my head in the dark, and listened for the rest.\n\n\u201cHe has his reputation; they said he could help me if anybody could. He\nthought at first he could. But to-day--Mary, see here.\u201d\n\nShe walked feebly towards the window, where a faint, gray light\nstruggled in, and opened the bosom of her dress....\n\nThere was silence between us for a long while after that; she went back\nto the sofa, and I took her hand and bowed my face over it, and so we\nsat.\n\nThe leaves rustled out of doors. Faith, up stairs, was singing herself\nto sleep with a droning sound.\n\n\u201cHe talked of risking an operation,\u201d she said, at length, \u201cbut decided\nto-day that it was quite useless. I suppose I must give up and be sick\nnow; I am feeling the reaction from having kept up so long. He thinks I\nshall not suffer a very great deal. He thinks he can relieve me, and\nthat it may be soon over.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is no chance?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo chance.\u201d\n\nI took both of her hands, and cried out, I believe, as I did that first\nnight when she spoke to me of Roy,--\u201cAuntie, Auntie, Auntie!\u201d and tried\nto think what I was doing, but only cried out the more.\n\n\u201cWhy, Mary!\u201d she said,--\u201cwhy, Mary!\u201d and again, as before, she passed\nher soft hand to and fro across my hair, till by and by I began to\nthink, as I had thought before, that I could bear anything which God\nwho loved us all--who _surely_ loved us all--should send.\n\nSo then, after I had grown still, she began to tell me about it in her\nquiet voice, and the leaves rustled, and Faith had sung herself to\nsleep, and I listened wondering. For there was no pain in the quiet\nvoice,--no pain, nor tone of fear. Indeed, it seemed to me that I\ndetected, through its subdued sadness, a secret, suppressed buoyancy of\nsatisfaction, with which something struggled.\n\n\u201cAnd you?\u201d I asked, turning quickly upon her.\n\n\u201cI should thank God with all my heart, Mary, if it were not for Faith\nand you. But it _is_ for Faith and you. That\u2019s all.\u201d\n\nWhen I had locked the front door, and was creeping up here to my room,\nmy foot crushed something, and a faint, wounded perfume came up. It was\nthe little pink and purple chain.\n\n\n\n\nXVI.\n\n\nOctober 17.\n\n\u201cThe Lord God a\u2019mighty help us! but His ways are past finding out. What\nwith one thing and another thing, that child without a mother, and you\nwith the crape not yet rusty for Mr. Roy\u2019l, it doos seem to me as if His\nmanner of treating folks beats all! But I tell you this, Miss Mary, my\ndear; you jest say your prayers reg\u2019lar and _stick to Him_, and He\u2019ll\npull you through, sure!\u201d\n\nThis was what Ph\u0153be said when I told her.\n\n\nNovember 8.\n\nTo-night, for the first time, Auntie fairly gave up trying to put Faith\nto bed. She had insisted on it until now, crawling up by the banisters\nlike a wounded thing. This time she tottered and sank upon the second\nstep. She cried out, feebly; \u201cI am afraid I must give it up to Cousin\nMary. Faith!\u201d--the child clung with both hands to her,--\u201cFaith, Faith!\nMother\u2019s little girl!\u201d\n\nIt was the last dear care of motherhood yielded; the last link snapped.\nIt seemed to be the very bitterness of parting.\n\nI turned away, that they might bear it together, they two alone.\n\n\n19th.\n\nYet I think that took away the sting.\n\nThe days are slipping away now very quietly, and--to her I am sure, and\nto me for her sake--very happily.\n\nShe suffers less than I had feared, and she lies upon the bed and\nsmiles, and Faith comes in and plays about, and the cheery morning\nsunshine falls on everything, and when her strong hours come, we have\nlong talks together, hand clasped in hand.\n\nSuch pleasant talks! We are quite brave to speak of anything, since we\nknow that what is to be is best just so, and since we fear no parting. I\ntell her that Faith and I will soon learn to shut our eyes and think we\nsee her, and try to make it _almost_ the same, for she will never be\nvery far away, will she? And then she shakes her head smiling, for it\npleases her, and she kisses me softly. Then we dream of how it will all\nbe, and how we shall love and try to please each other quite as much as\nnow.\n\n\u201cIt will be like going around a corner, don\u2019t you see?\u201d she says. \u201cYou\nwill know that I am there all the while, though hidden, and that if you\ncall me I shall hear.\u201d Then we talk of Faith, and of how I shall comfort\nher; that I shall teach her this, and guard her from that, and how I\nshall talk with her about heaven and her mother. Sometimes Faith comes\nup and wants to know what we are saying, and lays poor Mary Ann, sawdust\nand all, upon the pillow, and wants \u201cher toof-ache kissed away.\u201d So\nAuntie kisses away the dolly\u2019s \u201ctoof-ache\u201d; and kisses the dolly\u2019s\nlittle mother, sometimes with a quiver on her lips, but more often with\na smile in her eyes, and Faith runs back to play, and her laugh ripples\nout, and her mother listens--listens--\n\nSometimes, too, we talk of some of the people for whom she cares; of her\nhusband\u2019s friends; of her scholars, or Dr. Bland, or Clo, or poor \u2019Bin\nQuirk, or of somebody down town whom she was planning to help this\nwinter. Little Clo comes in as often as she is strong enough to see her,\nand sends over untold jellies and blanc-manges, which Faith and I have\nto eat. \u201cBut don\u2019t let the child know that,\u201d Auntie says.\n\nBut more often we talk of the life which she is so soon to begin; of her\nhusband and Roy; of what she will try to say to Christ; how much dearer\nHe has grown to her since she has lain here in pain at His bidding, and\nhow He helps her, at morning and at eventide and in the night-watches.\n\nWe talk of the trees and the mountains and the lilies in the garden, on\nwhich the glory of the light that is not the light of the sun may shine;\nof the \u201clittle brooks\u201d by which she longs to sit and sing to Faith; of\nthe treasures of art which she may fancy to have about her; of the home\nin which her husband may be making ready for her coming, and wonder what\nhe has there, and if he knows how near the time is now.\n\nBut I notice lately that she more often and more quickly wearies of\nthese things; that she comes back, and comes back again to some loving\nthought--as loving as a child\u2019s--of Jesus Christ. He seems to be--as she\nonce said she tried that He should be to Faith--her \u201c_best_ friend.\u201d\n\nSometimes, too, we wonder what it means to pass out of the body, and\nwhat one will be first conscious of.\n\n\u201cI used to have a very human, and by no means slight, dread of the\nphysical pain of death,\u201d she said to-day; \u201cbut, for some reason or\nother, that is slowly leaving me. I imagine that the suffering of any\nfatal sickness is worse than the immediate process of dissolution. Then\nthere is so much beyond it to occupy one\u2019s thoughts. One thing I have\nthought much about; it is that, whatever may be our first experience\nafter leaving the body, it is not likely to be a _revolutionary_ one. It\nis more in analogy with God\u2019s dealings that a quiet process, a gentle\naccustoming, should open our eyes on the light that would blind if it\ncame in a flash. Perhaps we shall not see Him,--perhaps we could not\nbear it to see Him at once. It may be that the faces of familiar human\nfriends will be the first to greet us; it may be that the touch of the\nhuman hand dearer than any but His own shall lead us, as we are able,\nbehind the veil, till we are a little used to the glory and the wonder,\nand lead us so to Him.\n\n\u201cBe that as it may, and be heaven where it may, I am not afraid. With\nall my guessing and my studying and my dreaming over these things, I am\nonly a child in the dark. \u2018Nevertheless, I am not afraid of the dark.\u2019\nGod bless Mr. Robertson for saying that! I\u2019m going to bless him when I\nsee him. How pleasant it will be to see him, and some other friends\nwhose faces I never saw in this world. David, for instance, or Paul, or\nCowper, or President Lincoln, or Mrs. Browning. The only trouble is that\n_I_ am nobody to them! However, I fancy that they will let me shake\nhands with them.\n\n\u201cNo, I am quite willing to trust all these things to God.\n\n    \u2018And what if much be still unknown?\n       Thy Lord shall teach thee that,\n     When thou shalt stand before His throne,\n       Or sit as Mary sat.\u2019\n\nI may find them very different from what I have supposed. I know that I\nshall find them infinitely _more_ satisfying than I have supposed. As\nSchiller said of his philosophy, \u2018Perhaps I may be ashamed of my raw\ndesign, at sight of the true original. This may happen; I expect it; but\nthen, if reality bears no resemblance to my dreams, it will be a more\nmajestic, a more delightful surprise.\u2019\n\n\u201cI believe nothing that God denies. I cannot overrate the beauty of his\npromise. So it surely can have done no harm for me to take the comfort\nof my fancying till I am there; and what a comfort it has been to me,\nGod only knows. I could scarcely have borne some things without it.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are never afraid that anything proving a little different from what\nyou expect might--\u201d\n\n\u201cMight disappoint me? No; I have settled that in my heart with God. I do\nnot _think_ I shall be disappointed. The truth is, he has obviously not\n_opened_ the gates which bar heaven from our sight, but he has as\nobviously not _shut_ them; they stand ajar, with the Bible and reason in\nthe way, to keep them from closing; surely we should look in as far as\nwe can, and surely, if we look with reverence, our eyes will be holden,\nthat we may not cheat ourselves with mirages. And, as the little Swedish\ngirl said, the first time she saw the stars: \u2018O father, if the _wrong\nside_ of heaven is so beautiful, what must the _right side_ be?\u2019\u201d\n\n\nJanuary.\n\nI write little now, for I am living too much. The days are stealing away\nand lessening one by one, and still Faith plays about the room, though\nvery softly now, and still the cheery sunshine shimmers in, and still we\ntalk with clasping hands, less often and more pleasantly. Morning and\nnoon and evening come and go; the snow drifts down and the rain falls\nsoftly; clouds form and break and hurry past the windows; shadows melt\nand lights are shattered, and little rainbows are prisoned by the\nicicles that hang from the eaves.\n\nI sit and watch them, and watch the sick-lamp flicker in the night, and\nwatch the blue morning crawl over the hills; and the old words are\nstealing down my thought: _That is the substance, this the shadow; that\nthe reality, this the dream_.\n\nI watch her face upon the pillow; the happy secret on its lips; the\nsmile within its eyes. It is nearly a year now since God sent the face\nto me. What it has done for me He knows; what the next year and all the\nyears are to be without it, He knows, too.\n\nIt is slipping away,--slipping. And I--must--lose it.\n\nPerhaps I should not have said what I said to-night; but being weak from\nwatching, and seeing how glad she was to go, seeing how all the peace\nwas for her, all the pain for us, I cried, \u201cO Auntie, Auntie, why can\u2019t\nwe go too? Why _can\u2019t_ Faith and I go with you?\u201d\n\nBut she answered me only, \u201cMary, He knows.\u201d\n\nWe will be brave again to-morrow. A little more sunshine in the room! A\nlittle more of Faith and the dolly!\n\n\nThe Sabbath.\n\nShe asked for the child at bedtime to-night, and I laid her down in her\nnight-dress on her mother\u2019s arm. She kissed her, and said her prayers,\nand talked a bit about Mary Ann, and to-morrow, and her snow man. I sat\nover by the window in the dusk, and watched a little creamy cloud that\nwas folding in the moon. Presently their voices grew low, and at last\nFaith\u2019s stopped altogether. Then I heard in fragments this:--\n\n\u201cSleepy, dear? But you won\u2019t have many more talks with mamma. Keep awake\njust a minute, Faith, and hear--can you hear? Mamma will never, _never_\nforget her little girl; she won\u2019t go away very far; she will always love\nyou. Will you remember as long as you live? She will always see you,\nthough you can\u2019t see her, perhaps. Hush, my darling, _don\u2019t_ cry! Isn\u2019t\nGod naughty? No, God is good; God is always good. He won\u2019t take mamma a\ngreat way off. One more kiss? There! now you may go to sleep. One more!\nCome, Cousin Mary.\u201d\n\n\nJune 6.\n\nIt is a long time since I have written here. I did not want to open the\nbook till I was sure that I could open it quietly, and could speak as\nshe would like to have me speak, of what remains to be written.\n\nBut a very few words will tell it all.\n\nIt happened so naturally and so happily, she was so glad when the time\ncame, and she made me so glad for her sake, that I cannot grieve. I say\nit from my honest heart, I cannot grieve. In the place out of which she\nhas gone, she has left me peace. I think of something that Miss Procter\nsaid about the opening of that golden gate,\n\n            \u201cround which the kneeling spirits wait.\n    The halo seems to linger round those kneeling closest to the door:\n    The joy that lightened from that place shines still upon\n       the watcher\u2019s face.\u201d\n\nI think more often of some things that she herself said in the very last\nof those pleasant talks, when, turning a leaf in her little Bible, she\npointed out to me the words:--\n\n\u201cIt is expedient for you that I go away; for, if I go not away, the\nComforter will not come.\u201d\n\nIt was one spring-like night,--the twenty-ninth of March.\n\nShe had been in less pain, and had chatted and laughed more with us than\nfor many a day. She begged that Faith might stay till dark, and might\nbring her Noah\u2019s ark and play down upon the foot of the bed where she\ncould see her. I sat in the rocking-chair with my face to the window. We\ndid not light the lamps.\n\nThe night came on slowly. Showery clouds flitted by, but there was a\nblaze of golden color behind them. It broke through and scattered them;\nit burned them, and melted them; it shot great pink and purple jets up\nto the zenith; it fell and lay in amber mist upon the hills. A soft wind\nswept by, and darted now and then into the glow, and shifted it about,\ncolor away from color, and back again.\n\n\u201cSee, Faith!\u201d she said softly; \u201cput down the little camel a minute, and\nlook!\u201d and added after, but neither to the child nor to me, it seemed:\n\u201cAt eventide there shall be light.\u201d Ph\u0153be knocked presently, and I\nwent out to see what was wanted, and planned a little for Auntie\u2019s\nbreakfast, and came back.\n\nFaith, with her little ark, was still playing quietly upon the bed. I\nsat down again in my rocking-chair with my face to the window. Now and\nthen the child\u2019s voice broke the silence, asking Where should she put\nthe elephant, and was there room there for the yellow bird? and now and\nthen her mother answered her, and so presently the skies had faded, and\nso the night came on.\n\nI was thinking that it was Faith\u2019s bedtime, and that I had better light\nthe lamp, when a few distinct, hurried words from the bed attracted my\nattention.\n\n\u201cFaith, I think you had better kiss mamma now, and get down.\u201d\n\nThere was a change in the voice. I was there in a moment, and lifted the\nchild from the pillow, where she had crept. But she said, \u201cWait a\nminute, Mary; wait a minute,\u201d--for Faith clung to her, with one hand\nupon her cheek, softly patting it.\n\nI went over and stood by the window.\n\nIt was her mother herself who gently put the little fingers away at\nlast.\n\n\u201cMother\u2019s own little girl! Good night, my darling, my darling.\u201d\n\nSo I took the child away to Ph\u0153be, and came back, and shut the door.\n\n\u201cI thought you might have some message for Roy,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cNow?\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, I think.\u201d\n\nWe had often talked of this, and she had promised to remember it,\nwhatever it might be. So I told her--But I will not write what I told\nher.\n\nI saw that she was playing weakly with her wedding-ring, which hung very\nloosely below its little worn guard.\n\n\u201cTake the little guard,\u201d she said, \u201cand keep it for Faith; but bury the\nother with me: he put it on; nobody else must take it--\u201d\n\nThe sentence dropped, unfinished.\n\nI crept up on the bed beside her, for she seemed to wish it. I asked if\nI should light the lamp, but she shook her head. The room seemed light,\nshe said, quite light. She wondered then if Faith were asleep, and if\nshe would waken early in the morning.\n\nAfter that I kissed her, and then we said nothing more, only presently\nshe asked me to hold her hand.\n\nIt was quite dark when she turned her face at last towards the window.\n\n\u201cJohn!\u201d she said,--\u201cwhy, John!\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThey came in, with heads uncovered and voices hushed, to see her, in the\ndays while she was lying down stairs among the flowers.\n\nOnce when I thought that she was alone, I went in,--it was at\ntwilight,--and turned, startled by a figure that was crouched sobbing on\nthe floor.\n\n\u201cO, I want to go too, _I want_ to go too!\u201d it cried.\n\n\u201cShe\u2019s ben there all day long,\u201d said Ph\u0153be, wiping her eyes, \u201cand she\nwon\u2019t go home for a mouthful of victuals, poor creetur! but she jest\nsets there and cries and cries, an\u2019 there\u2019s no stoppin\u2019 of her!\u201d\n\nIt was little Clo.\n\nAt another time, I was there with fresh flowers, when the door opened,\ncreaking a little, and \u2019Bin Quirk came in on tiptoe, trying in vain to\nstill the noise of his new boots. His eyes were red and wet, and he held\nout to me timidly a single white carnation.\n\n\u201cCould you put it somewhere, where it wouldn\u2019t do any harm? I walked way\nover to Worcester and back to get it. If you could jest hide it under\nthe others out of sight, seems to me it would do me a sight of good to\nfeel it was there, you know.\u201d\n\nI motioned to him to lay it himself between her fingers.\n\n\u201cO, I darsn\u2019t. I\u2019m not fit, _I_\u2019m not. She\u2019d rether have you.\u201d\n\nBut I told him that I knew she would be as pleased that he should give\nit to her himself as she was when he gave her the China pinks on that\ndistant summer day. So the great awkward fellow bent down, as simply as\na child, as tenderly as a woman, and left the flower in its place.\n\n\u201c_She_ liked \u2019em,\u201d he faltered; \u201cmaybe, if what she used to say is all\nso, she\u2019ll like \u2019em now. She liked \u2019em better than she did machines.\nI\u2019ve just got my carpet-sweeper through; I was thinking how pleased\nshe\u2019d be; I wanted to tell her. If I should go to the good place,--if\never I do go, it will be just her doin\u2019s,--I\u2019ll tell her then, maybe,\nI--\u201d\n\nHe forgot that anybody was there, and, sobbing, hid his face in his\ngreat hands.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo we are waiting for the morning when the gates shall open,--Faith and\nI. I, from my stiller watches, am not saddened by the music of her life.\nI feel sure that her mother wishes it to be a cheery life. I feel sure\nthat she is showing me, who will have no motherhood by which to show\nmyself, how to help her little girl.\n\nAnd Roy,--ah, well, and Roy,--he knows. Our hour is not yet come. If the\nMaster will that we should be about His Father\u2019s business, what is that\nto us?\n\n                               THE END.","title":"The Gates Ajar","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":48877}