CHAPTER XVIII. THE GROWTH OF A CHILD IN HEAVEN.

 

Tell me if Love is a passionless splendor

Upon the amethyst mountains of time Or is the old love eternal and tender— Life folding life in a sweetness sublime?

You float at will over measureless spaces, I cannot climb up to God-lighted places;

Come down to me from your lily-starred meadows, I will come up by and by from the shadows.

Emma R. Tuttle.

 

A MESSAGE floated up from the earth-life, a prayer from the heart of a suffering mother, whose child had vanished from mortal sight:—

 

"Father in heaven, has my darling lost by the change? Has she forgotten me? Is she wishing for her mother, as her mother languishes for the want of her? Are the angels kind, and is she content?" The message fell on the sensitive mind of Mona, and she responded as kindred souls answer each other:—

 

"Nay she has gained. Earth-life has its advantages, but they are not to be compared to angel being. Look, weeping mother, into the vista of fifty years of your darling's life, were she to remain on earth. See the events which would crowd those years, such as befall other mortals: the partings, sickness, pains, disappointments, loss of children and of friends, cares and burdens beyond the strength to bear. She has escaped to a land where these cannot enter. They may be useful for discipline, but better the soft hand of exalting love."

 

"Are you sure, quite sure?"

 

A soft light came into the eyes of Mona, as she replied:—

 

"Listen! I will tell you what I have seen. When your child closed its mortal eyes, its spirit-vision fell on the smiling face of your aunt, the dear girl, who was called when the rose was budding on her cheeks and her heart was brimming with the wealth of love. As the little one found your arms ready to receive it when it awoke to life, so now it found in the arms of its aunt the same protection. Resting on her bosom, it sank to sleep, weary from the pain and struggle of the last sickness.

 

"I saw them often, as soon as they came to the old home, for they were drawn by the powerful magnetism of love. As you sat weeping, your aunt would bring your child and place it on your lap. Then it would look wonderingly up in your face, and put its little hand against your cheek or in your hair. It did not know what had occurred. It knew not that it had left its mortal body. When you did not notice its caress, it became grieved, and then its guardian would take it in her arms, and in a manner I cannot explain, substitute herself in your place, and the darling was again happy and content. It was exquisitely dressed in gauze, pale-blue and delicate in pattern, like that its guardian wore.

 

"From time to time I observed her growth and advancement in knowledge. Both were more rapid than if she bad remained. On her first birthday her guardian came with her late in the evening, and both were exceedingly happy. She was crowned with lovely flowers, and bore a bouquet in her hand. Her guardian explained that she had taken her to a group of children whom she bad under her care, and they had made her their queen and crowned her because of the event. They had all enjoyed that day, and many more were in store. Harsh words, the stinging reproach, the jeer of selfishness, the biting winds of envy and jealousy to her would forever be unknown.

 

"When three years had passed, I saw her as a child of five. She knew the relations of life and death, and that her guardian and mother were distinct It was a singularly beautiful sight to see her float into the room where you sat and throw her arms around your neck. She was not grieved because she met no response, for she expected none. Her heart was overflowing with tenderness. She has become exquisitely beautiful, with an indescribable softness, transparency and purity, which no artist's pencil can represent; the embodiment of spiritual qualities. It is a joy to gaze on her perfection. Trained in the angel school with such companionship, when a score of years have passed, you cannot in fancy idealize her position or attainments."

 

"Love you still?"

 

"With all the immeasurable depths of an angel's love." "Will you know her when you meet on that shore?"

 

"Aye, she will be the first to welcome you, as you were the first to welcome her."

 

"Treasure the little shoes, for her feet now tread on the zones which span the spheres. She is a companion of the tall and shining ones who dwell in light."

 

"You weep! Oh, that I might open your spiritual eyes, that you might see all this. Then would your sorrow be changed to joy. The dreadful wound, the memory of which makes you shudder and cry in anguish, would be healed."

 

"Our poet has been too long silent," said Leon. "In our symposium each must contribute, under penalty of falling in the rear with the laggards."

 

"I will," replied the poet, "but I have recently returned from earth, and I am saturated by its sensuous views. I have woven its terrible philosophy of creation into rhyme; a creation which only creates, and has no purpose:—

Some time will love rule by its gentle power Above the realm where lustful passions tower, And conscience hold its court with law supreme, As prophesied by sage in heavenly dream. But in the past from dark silurian sea, That rolled its seething billows on the lea, There is no break in this historic page, When man, as man, appeared upon the stage, More brute than man, he struggled in the coil Of adverse fate and gained by ceaseless toil. To live! That was the problem over all— To live! on fish or flesh, or fruit to fall: Starving or feasting like the beast of prey, As chanced the chase or findings of the day. For food is life's insatiate demand: Food, food forever, is its fierce demand: The mills of God fine grinding for the maw— The flinty teeth set in the working jaw— Hunger the plaint and never-ceasing cry, From am and earth and over-arching sky. There's not an atom of the world's thick crust, Of earth or rock, or metal's hardest crust, But has a myriad times been charged with life, And mingled in the vortex of its strife; And every grain has been a battle-field,

 

Where murder boldly rushed with sword and shield. Turn back the rocky pages of earth's lore, And ev'ry leaf is written o'er and o'er With wanton waste. The weak are for the strong, And Might is victor, whether right or wrong. Enamelled armour and tesselated wale, With conic tooth that broke the flinty mail; The shell protecting, and the jaw which ground The shell to dust, there side by side are found; The fin that sped the weak from danger's path, The stronger fin that sped the captor's wrath; A charnel house, where, locked in endless strife, Cycle the balanced forces, Death and Life.'"

 

"That is a subject unworthy of your muse. For poetry, when it descends to voice the views of those who see not beyond appearances, cease to be

the light-bearer of the spirit."

 

"I regret that I have fallen in disgrace where I expected delight, as I should were I on earth, to endorse in voice the potency of matter, and the

negation of spirit"

 

"I appreciate your sarcasm," replied Hero, smiling, "but on your visit did you not do aught but murk yourself with the dust of earth? Found you

no heart in need of balm?"

 

"Aye," replied the Poet, "and, fair sister, thus did I profit by my journey, and redeem myself in your estimation. I was drawn to one in grief, poet like myself, and I struck the harp of her mind, and she sang a song gladsome to herself, and to many another. Here it is, and you will favor us, if you will sing it, while I accompany you with the lyre. Its sentiment is for those on the earth, and to voice it in music well we must transport ourselves to the land of shadows."

Just as the flowers of early spring

Broke through the leafy mould,

And passage birds began to sing Their songs creation old;

When throbbed the earth with warmth and light,

 

And pulsed the fragrant air,
There fell on us the darkest night

Of pitiless despair.

 

Hellene had come the year before, A waif from angel skies, And just began to lisp the love Long spoken by her eyes.

 

She twined around our heart-strings dear, And by a holy power She made us feel that heaven was near, E'en from her natal hour. She fell asleep within our arms, That strove to hold her fast, And while our hearts beat with alarm, We hoped the crisis past; We hoped and prayed, and yet the while Out of our hands she sped, And on her face an angel's smile Revealed that she was dead.

 

As though the spring with bud and flower And prophecy of store, Blighted by frosts in morning's hour Had passed to winter hoar; Hellene had wrought our hopes full-tide And left us to deplore; Naught but the promise did abide— The hope and nothing more.

Out of our hearts the heavenly light Faded in utter gloom; It seemed a sin to feel delight When she was in her tomb; It seemed a sin for birds to sing Out in the ambient air, For odorous flowers to dock the spring With garlands all too fair.

 

Oh, love and life, how sweet thou art! How sweet to hold you fast, And nurse delusions in our heart That you will ever last,

When this we know, most surely know, Nothing abides but change, And all we hold will swiftly go Through dust to  something strange.

 

Oh, twenty years have passed and still Her place more sacred grows, For her the vase with flowers we fill, The little chair draw close; We naught can see with mortal gaze, And not a sound can hear, But through the cold and darkling maze We feel that she is near.

 

We sit and dream; an angel stands Beside that little chair, With garments of light-woven strands And face most wondrous fair. It is our child, our babe Hellene, Who has an angel grown In loveliness of mind and mien, While these score years have flown.

 

And yet a child of her we thought, Who changed not, nor grow old, A lily bud the summer wrought No blossom to unfold.

But she had bloomed in perfectness And every grace had won, With not a stain of earth's impress Of duties idly done.