CHAPTER VI. CHRISTMAS-TIDE IN THE SPHERE OF LIGHT.

 

Thou glorious Spirit-land! Oh that I could behold thee as thou art—the region of light and life and love, and the dwelling place of those whose being has flowed onward, like a silver-clear stream into the solemn-sounding main, into the ocean of eternity!"—Longfellow.

 

AGAIN it is Christmas-tide! So soon! So long! To some the years are hours; to others, centuries long. What a prophecy of the future life when time is measured not by waning moons or oft recurring suns, but by accomplishments! Not by the years; for they may nothing mean; the action done, the thoughts woven into life, the works of nobility, these count while the breath fades into pulseless air.

 

Nineteen centuries have almost passed since shepherds pasturing their flocks on the plains of Palestine, saw the flash of angelic light, and, enraptured, listened to the sweet voices from the heavens. Nineteen centuries since the wise men followed the star which led them to the mother of the divine babe. Is this a myth? It is too beautiful to be dispelled. Let us linger as in a dream, and do not awaken us. Nay, it is a symbol which is realized in the human heart. Was the babe of Nazareth divine? Yes, and all babes are divine. Artists with colors of light, inspired with heavenly vision, have painted countless dreams of the beatitude of Mary, celestial mother. They have represented all womanly excellence and beauty, and over these have thrown the aureole of inexpressible sweetness and joy, yet never have they equalled the radiant glory of the mother's face when she folds the newborn to her bosom.

 

Dispel not the dream, for it has taught us not only the divinity of Jesus, but the divinity of every human soul. The wise men bowed before the symbol of what all mankind must reverence in the future—the Infinite Godhead concreted and expressed in man.

 

Let us adorn our homes, and weave the wreaths of evergreen. Let us spread the generous board, in family groups assemble, and for one day at least have perfect rest and peace. For these occasions will won pass, and the family circle be broken. Nothing is certainty in mortal life but uncertainty; the most pleasing picture has a background of clouds, and to wait for happiness is to lose it. How fresh in memory these Christmas hours remain, and how closely they weave the web of friendship around our hearts.

 

We remember these unions in the by-gone days, and the dear ones who set with us, who now are robed in light. Memory! blessed preserver of the past, fans the ashes of the years, and love and friendship blaze again, illuminating all the void. Not dead ashes is that past, but a treasure-house garnering even the fleeting shadows.

 

They who sat with us! And may they not sit again? Mortal eyes may not see, mortal ears may not hear, but mortal hearts can feel, and spiritual sensitiveness recognize the presence of the guests who are not announced. We open wide our doors for these invisible ones, and bid them heart-felt welcome.

 

They who went at the close of the autumn day, when the world was rips for the harvest, and the reaper came like a messenger to bear the matured fruitage to the heavens; and they who were in the budding spring torn from our bleeding hearts, early blossoms gathered amid frosts, of a world too chill and cold; transplanted where the angels might give them loving care under warmer skies, let them all come in and be with us this day, and cast over us the influence of their loving spirits.

 

We will forget the pain, the agony, the unutterable sorrow that was ours the last time we parted, in tears calling their dear names, answered only by the rattling clay; we will forget the clouds, and have only the sunshine of their spirit-presence. This day mortal guests shall not sit in these chairs consecrated to the departed who have never left us. We will talk of our dear ones who have tasted of the waters of death and life, if we cannot talk with them, that they may know that green as the holly which adorns our walls are their blessed memories.

 

A Christmas soon to come, will find the earthly circle, so rudely broken, united and complete where there are no broken ties, no pain, no partings forever and forever.

 

The gray mists which conceal that land, already are purple with the coming of morning, and we hear the voices in the dawning, of those who have put on the robes of immortality, calling us to come up through the gateway of devoted lives to the mansions where activity is rest.

 

*           *          *          *          *

There are gathered on the Portico a group of choice and sympathetic friends at Christmas-tide, for the ways of earth are lovingly preserved for memory's sake in heaven. As on earth so, in the spheres. The old year closes, the new year dawns, as young, as bright, as beautiful as countless years have dawned before. Our hearts may throb and break, or overflow with joy, yet the resistless march of the years go by. We look back into the mists slowly gathering over the yesterdays, regretful of the full measure of happiness they pressed to our eager lips, or with gladness that they are past, and no more the bitter cup of affliction they forced us to quaff to the dregs is ours.

 

What is gone, is gone forever; but oh, what a delicate perfume lingers in the sunny valleys, and what golden light is reflected from the mountain summits of the past!

 

The year has gone. Many gather at Christmas-tide, and the family circle has no break. There is happiness in the golden ties which weave the hearts of all into one great heart of love.

 

There are many, who, when the day of peace and gladness comes, will miss the dearest face of all. At the hearth will be a vacant chair; at the table no merry voice of laughter sweeter than music. The wind bearing the fleecy snow will tell how cold it is out under the cypress and trailing willow, where a headstone gleaming among the dark foliage bears the name of her who went away to dwell with the angels, taking all the light out of the world.

 

Other families gather, and the broken links will be filled with memories of the absent. A few years ago, all the merry children were together, and the fate the years had in store was unthought of. Now father and mother sit on Christmas-day with only one, or perhaps none, and in low voices of restrained feeling speak of the nestlings who have sought homes beyond wide seas and continents. With them life seems doubled in itself, and, often thirty or forty years, they sit by their hearth alone, as they did in the first year of their marriage. As they did! but now it is on the shore of a flood of memories.

 

The hands pointing the years cannot be turned back nor life be restored to the ashes of the past. The future is ours to do and dare, and gain higher grounds and breathe a purer atmosphere. In the olden time the angels came with glad tidings; so do they come to-day, but instead of pointing us to a child in manger lowly born, they appeal to mankind as possessed of divine heritage and equals of the angels.

 

For those who sit alone at their tables on Christmas-day, there are heavenly guests who fill the vacant circle. Why care for gleaming headstones? The cypress may, sob in grief to the winter winds, the dead are not, there. Nothing is there but the shard, the worn garment, the broken bars which confined the freed spirit. And no suffering hearts, no bowers of paradise are as sweet as the sacred hearth of the old home!

 

One of the Fraternal Circle was noticeable for the assiduous attention given her by her companions, as they sat under an arbor formed of trailing vines laden with blossoms. The bright waters came up to their feet, and swept away to the remote sky line of purple mists. Over the waters rested a dreamy sky, flecked with soft clouds and redolent with perfume. The breeze fanned them with refreshing coolness, and mingled their sweet voices with the low whispers of the wavelets on the shore of amethyst. Above them towered the beautiful palace, fashioned as of all precious stones, polished in facets and angles, or rounded into domes, as though plastic beneath the touch of a master.

 

She sat, happy and joyous, her face radiant, yet with eyes dreamy and retrospective. A more charming group could not be imagined, for the divine radiance of perfected lives shone from every face. Had they ever been wrinkled by care, pinched by suffering, soiled by contact with sordid things, unselfish love bad washed all away and left the shiny metal of spiritual excellence. They called her Mona, a name by which she was baptized into her new life at her second birth. Mona, whose heart was full of happiness, so full that the old life on earth seemed like a dream, and unsubstantial were those who had been nearest and dearest to her.

 

"You say" she said in soft accents, "that a year has passed since I came to you. A year, and I am scarcely awake yet? I expect every moment to arouse and find that this beauty and joy has vanished."

 

Then one of the sisters replied: "Your experience is like to ours. We pass through the gateway of death, and arise weak and helpless from the ruin of the physical body. The change is so great we are dazed by the transformation, and months and years must go by before we become accustomed to our surroundings."

 

"I remember well," replied Mona, "the days before my coming here. That means death, does it not? I remember how much I suffered, the nights and days of pain, but I do not remember in the least the departing moments. I must have slept, for when I awoke you were around me; and we floated away, away, until we came to this delightful abode."

 

"It is merciful, in the ordering of events, that pain places the cup of forgetfulness to the lips, and anaesthetizes the mind, that the great transition may take place in the calmness of unthinking rest. When the celestial body emerges from the terrestrial, when the terrestrial eyes are closed on earthly things forever, and the terrestrial ear is deaf to earthly sounds, then the celestial vision becomes clear; the celestial ear becomes acute to the sweet harmony of the spheres, and the spirit is fully awake to the new world around him."

 

"Ah, I know only too well! And as we talk of the old earth-life my thoughts go back, and I remember clearer the scenes of that stage of my existence. My heart yearns for those I have left. You know that I have a husband there and a little boy. He was such a sweet child of six summers. Say, my sisters, do you know that he thinks of me? Does he think of his mamma in the heavens?"

 

"He thinks of you," one replied; "he loves his mamma, and his voice ascends in every prayer that she may watch over him"

 

"And I have not heard!" she said, self-reproachfully. "I have not heard his prayers. Have any of you seen him? Has he grown large and strong? Does he miss and grieve for me?"

 

"It would be natural for him to grieve," responded a brother who stood outside the circle; "but you must remember that in childhood happily new impressions efface the old, and the friendships of to-day are stronger than those of yesterday."

 

"Can I not return to them? Can I not, dear sisters, go to my old home? It was a pleasant home. The river stretched away over the plain, and our cottage, shaded with magnolia, was lovlier than our palace to me!"

 

"You can return now, because you are thinking so strongly of that home. Your thoughts produce the magnetic stream which will bear you thither. That you have not been there before was simply because you did not think with sufficient intensity."

 

"Can I go? Can I go?" cried Mons, with childish enthusiasm. Then, thoughtfully: "Alone? Will not some one go with me?"

 

"I will accompany you, sweet sister," replied Albreda, placing her arm around her waist and drawing her close; "I will attend, but, before we go, I wish to prepare you, so should we not find all things as you left them, you may not be disappointed. Remember, when you enter the earth sphere you will become subject to earthly influences, and grief and regret will take the place of the joy that now fills your soul."

 

"And will the grief remain? Can I not cast it aside?"

 

"When you arise out of its sphere it will depart, but it will wring your heart sorely while you remain."

 

"Then we will go, and I thank you, sisters, all; and, Albreda, how can I ever express my gratitude to you for your kindness?"

 

With the thought they arose, their arms still entwined, and glided as a beam of light, swift moving past the head lands which overlooked the earth. No arrow from a bow ever sped with truer aim than they on the abaft of love, impelled by the attraction of its ardent desire. They reached the cottage overlooking the winding river, which, in the low October sun, reflected the rocky cliffs and woody shore of its further banks, and the fleecy clouds in the misty, sky. There was a hush over the world as though the winter's coming was felt with instinctive dread, as the sun circled lower in the autumn days. Gorgeous beyond expression was the forest in crimson and gold, and the frosts bad not yet cut the stems of the rustling leaves for the gusty winds to whirl in fantastic play. Beautiful world, asleep in a veil of purple mist, intoxicated with the rich nectar of ripened orchards, and purple vine, forgetful that death comes again, and the tremulous music of the full-throated birds of song in groves aflame with the tints of carmine, will yield to the harsh caw of the crow flitting over the chilling fields of glittering snow.

 

There were children at play on the steps, and a sweet voice floated out of the open door singing an old song—an old song which comes from the heart and goes to the heart, as no new song may do, or can. Sweet old words, which once were heard falling in simple melody from lips curved with sweetness; they can never be displaced by the new which have no one so loved to sing them into our souls.

 

Children at play, talking of the goblins of the wood, or the wonder tales of fairy-land, as children have talked and wondered since time began, but her child was not there! Mona and Albreda passed through the doorway into the familiar parlor, which remained unchanged. The former threw herself in the arm-chair, in which she had rested during the early stages of her last illness, and the flood of memories came pouring in upon her. She was no longer a spirit, but bound to earth by its countless ties. She was seized through her affections, her emotions, feelings and intellectual desires. Her bosom was torn with poignant regrets; her heart was bursting with the love which had been so long dormant. Here was her old home, fashioned and decorated with her own hands and replete with attractions which heaven, now dim and blotted out, could not furnish. She gave full sway to her bitter grief, which her attendant did not seek to assuage, for she well knew that it were—best for tears to fall on the blazing embers of earthly emotions, and thus bring to pass more surely their final extinguishment. She came and gently laid her hand on Mona's forehead with soft magnetic touch which spoke more eloquently than words of deep sympathy, and appreciative feeling.

 

"O Albreda, I cannot bear it! You told me, you told me, but I did not, I could not believe or understand, I saw that you all shrank from entering the earth-sphere; I did not know that it brought you pain."

 

"Ah, dearest, none of us escaped the burdens imposed by earth-life, and to re-enter its sphere is to take on again its conditions and feel the influence of old environments. If we come to earth, if is in fulfilment of some duty, on some errand of mercy, and not from choice."

 

"My husband and my child! I ought to find them here, had I not? They ought to come to meet me with kisses and smiles."

 

Then the lady whose voice had been heard entered and busied herself arranging the room, singing in a low, dreamy tone the time, and unheeding the guests whom she entertained unawares.

 

"Will she not think us rude to have thus entered her room unannounced?" whispered Mona.

 

"Nay, she cannot see us; she does not know, that we are here. I read from her mind, sweet sister, your husband is not here."

 

 

"Is he dead—I mean, has he, too, been born a spirit?" she cried in joy, springing from the chair.

 

"Aye, he is now a spirit this half year past."

 

"For six months, and I have not known it! Why has he not come to us to the palace by the sea?"

 

"You knew it not because you have not been able approach this sphere, and he has not come to us because, I understand him, he was not of our sphere of thought."

"And shall I never behold him?"

 

"That depends on his attainments. If he is baptized in the light and truth, as you are, he will reach us; but if he is stained with earth-life, then he will not leave the scenes to which he is attracted, and here will remain."

"Forever?"

"Nay, forever is an endless time, and he may be led to the light in a year, a score, a century, some time, and then it will be blessed for you to meet. It would not be now, for he would fill your soul with the burdens of that life from which you have escaped and hold you on the torturing wheel of regret."

"But my child! He lives, or, if he is a spirit, will he also be kept from me by this iron wall of repulsion?"

 

"A child can have no such repulsion for its mother. Your child lives in earth-life, but not here."

 

"Then I am not to see him? All this pain for nothing, and not see Lars, my own and only child!"

 

"You shall see him; and I will say to you, poor sufferer, that you must bind tight your heart, for it will ache and be sorely premed. The sad story is not told in its saddest part."

 

They glided out into the day. The sunlight fell in long lines over the hills, from the low reclining orb, folded in crimson clouds and fleecy mists. They passed out, and the lady of sweet voice, singing the old songs, knew not that angel guests had been with her and listened to music which had brought back floods of earthly memories.

 

They passed to a city, where greed crushed the children of toil beneath the wheels of its chariot as the wheels of Juggernaut the suppliant devotee, and they heard a child's voice utter a plaintive cry above the turmoil of the jostling crowd. They saw a little boy in rags, with thin, pinched face, and great dark eyes, sad as death, crying a bundle of papers for sale. How few purchased; how many went by in silence or glanced with scorn on the begrimed face and hands. No one saw through the outer appearance the soul of the boy or thought of him other than a street gamin, to be jostled by day, and at night to sleep in the street or under the shelter of an empty box.

 

Not one? Nay, there was just one—his mother! She rushed to him, and, throwing her arms around his neck, she called his name over and over and kissed him a thousand times. He felt her embrace less than the bending corn feels the softest south wind's breath. He called his papers and received his pay, nor knew that the mother to whom he had called in the one little prayer she had taught him was so near.

 

To Mona the shock was terrible. She could not endure the thought that her child did not know that she was with him, and this all-absorbing thought prevented her from realizing his forlorn condition. Weary of her unavailing efforts, she threw herself into the arms of her companion, the only one who could respond, and passionately wept partially restored to self-possession, she gazed on her boy, and then perceived the marks of poverty and suffering one short year had stamped on his face.

 

"Lars! Lars!" she cried, "how came you here? Have you nothing to eat?

 

Nothing to wear? Are you without home or shelter?"

 

Then Albreda spoke soothingly, explained to the stricken mother, and gently drawing her away, by the force of her will, for she knew that no good could come from prolonging this painful experience. She moved toward the headlands beyond which the palace was situated, and they soon found, themselves in the delightful circle of their friends. Having passed out of the earth spheres, Mona no longer suffered the torture of her wounded affections, but as she sat in the midst of these loving hearts, her face reflected the emotions she had experienced. She remembered her boy in the streets, pale, hungry, and friendless; remembered as in a dream, and she turned with a sad smile to those nearest, and said:—

 

"Would it be wrong for me to pray?"

 

"Wrong? To pray is to express the heart's desires, and we all pray to each other and to the higher courts of light for guidance, for counsel, for assistance. Pray, oh, sister, if thy heart is of prayer, for it is the expressed perfume of homage the finite pays the Infinite."

 

"I may pray? It is not wrong, but if my prayer is selfish—if it be the cry of a selfish soul, for a selfish object?"

 

"Then it will receive no answer, or defeat itself."

 

"It may appear selfish to you, and not appear in that light to the angels."

 

"I know it is selfish," replied Mona. "My boy! He is suffering. The earth-life for him is dark and starless. I would pray that he might come to me."

 

"The Father only can judge. Perhaps it may be for the best, for his life might be stained with crime, and his years blackened with a record of misdeeds."

 

Thus encouraged, Mona voiced her soul in prayer. Lars! Lars! from the shadow of earth, from the life of blasting sorrows, my own boy, dear Lars, come up to me! Infinite Father, grant my request, as thou has given me life in heaven bring him to me!"

A sweet peace filled her soul with unspeakable gladness, and she knew somehow, some time her prayer would be answered.

Every fibre of her heart grew tense, and, thrilled with strange vibration, she turned, and by her side stood her boy, as a beautiful spirit. His eyes

were filled with the remembered love-light; his flaxen hair fell over his white forehead, and stretching out his hands he rushed into her arms with

the glad cry of "mamma," uttered in the tones she well remembered.

Her prayer had been answered. One who had foreseen and watched the child, received its emancipated spirit, and brought him safely to his

mother's arms.

After this reunion, the thoughts of the circle turned on the tasks at which they were engaged. "Our poet Brother," said the Sage, "has set his muse to

express the higher truths of philosophy. In this he has the advantage, for true poetry is the crystallization of thought."

Soft and low the poet recited the following lines:—

"Into the wild the savage man was born,

Against the world to fight like knight forlorn. His axe he fashioned from the flinty stone

His spear and arrow tipped with pointed bone; He spread the net, and laid the skilful snare, With craft with which no instinct can compare. He fought the bear within his cavern hold, Pursued the Mastodon across the wold, The Mammoth slew with stones or barbed sow And through the marsh-lands chased the giant deer.

 

He caught the lightning as it smote its way From heaven to earth, and held its power at bay. Piled high the fagots that this spirit fire Might warm his cavern with its flashing ire. He feared the spirit he had thus evoked, And trembled last his house-fire be provoked.

The finest fruits, the flesh of choicest game,

He throw as offering to the living flame,

And round the blaze that gave him day for night, Danced in the fragrant smoke in wild delight,

And when the clans, engaged in constant fight, Were forced in banded nations to unite,

The chief who had most scalp-locks at his belt; Who swung the heaviest club the foe bad felt; Whose brawny arm the strongest bow had bent; Who drank the blood from quivering bosoms spent, Became the priest and ruler of the horde, Who feared his power, and trembled at his word.

Most terrible event to man is death.

The cry of mortal pain, the gasping breath, When sullenly the gates of silence close, The body falls into that deep repose, So soon to feel the touch of swift decay, Which bears dissolving elements away. Gone like the deer his arrow overthrew, Gone as the sun from out the heavenly blue. And yet man solved this problem of all time, Against his senses awfully sublime. Because immortal thus he came to know, That at the dusk he with the gods would go. Immortal life, not by belief bestowed, Not by a form of faith or creedal mode, But as the birthright of the human soul, With endless progress for its shining goal.

Immortal life!—the balm which heals the sting Of death itself; that gives the flowers of Spring For Winter's chilling frosts, on which are based Religion's sunlit towers; and trusting placed Sustaining faith that in a home above The wrongs of time will be effaced by love Was made a curse, an engine to destroy And rob mankind of hope, of peace and joy.

For quick the priesthood seized the mystic dower, Which gave the future to their selfish power; Who ruled the spirit-realm beyond the grave, Might hold the mortal as a cringing slave.

Religion thus of craven fear was born;

Cradled by ignorance from its natal morn, And nursed by priests most wise in subtle art To hold the gods and common men apart,

That they might stand vicegerents by the throne Divine, and make the trembling world their own. Worship the gods! they cry on bended knee; Bow in the dust in prone servility!

 

The gods may be appeased and half relent, And take the sacrifice by mortal sent.

What give? The best, and that thou lovest most The choicest, dearest, sweetest of thy boast.

 

Give of your game, the firstlings of your flocks,

A finger, or a tooth, or flowing locks;

Or, if by these, gods wrath be not beguiled, Place on the alter wife, or first-born child,

Or bring your captives from the battle spared,

And let them know with none our gods are shared!

 

Thus spake the priest, and spoken it was done; Bound on the altar was the first-born son; With knife of stone the high and holy priest Plucked out the quivering heart, the soul released, And called the gods to witness as he spoke The sacrifice beneath the curling smoke.

 

The gods grew jealous, and their plotting priests Saw gain in plunder, and from sin released Those who of pillage laid the greatest store Of wealth and captives on their temple's floor.

 

Go forth, the god unto his chosen said,

Seize on the lands with plenty overspread Slaughter the men, the women take as thine, But spare no child to desecrate my shrine. Fear not, for I will go with you to the fight, And if need be will stay the solar light;

 

Will hold the moon and guide the flying darts Swift in their course to my foemen's hearts. I am the god of battles, and alone

 

Have trod the grapes from which the blood has flown; I smite the people in my wanton wrath, And guide the earthquake in its muttering path; And pestilence that rots the melting flesh, I on my foes can slip the holding leash. Go then, I say, but if your hearts relent, And ere 'tis done your taste of blood be spent, Woe be to you when from the field returned My wroth has kindled and my hatred burned.

 

The earth became a hunting field, where man Pursued each other to the death, and then,

Instead of scalp-locks, brought the captives bound In triumph to the sacrificial mound. And waiting gods were with the crimson tide From smoking altars poured, well satisfied.

 

O poor humanity! fearful has been thy lose, O poor humanity! nailed to the cross!

Pressed to the rack by priests who in God's name Gave to thy lips the gall, thy flesh to flame! The day of thy revenge has come at last! The age of priestly rule with ignorance, past.

 

The gods are dead! From mighty Bel, whose tower Mocked at the flood, and time a destroying power Ormuzd, who sat upon the dazzling throne Of highest heaven and called mankind his own; Osiris, Isis, Horns, Troth, and Ra, Rulers of earth and heaven, of night and day! With her who wrote above her temple's door, 'I'm all that is, will be, or was before;' And him who trod the reeking path alone, And smiled to hear the nation's stifled moan. All dead! All dead! And on the blasted plain A vestige of their shrines alone remain."