CHAPTER XXVII. COURTSHIP.

 

ANNIE and Sigismund now joined us. They invited Solon to go home with them. He accepted the invitation with smiling thanks, and as the boat in which we had come was not large enough to seat four comfortably, Solon invited me to go with him in his boat. I gladly consented, for I longed to hear more of his wise discourse.

 

Solon's boat was a wonderful piece of mechanism. I took my seat in the midst of soft, fleecy—O dear! what can I compare it to? clouds? no; that would not give the right idea, but I will say tulle, the very finest that earth can manufacture, refined ten degrees more, lying lightly four feet deep, and my own form was but slightly heavier. This tulle was in color like a blush rose, with all its delicate perfume, and as I sank into the seat I was half­buried in all this fragrant beauty.

 

Solon sat opposite, holding a sculling oar in one hand: the oar represented the feathered quill of a very large bird, enlarged to the size of a common sculling oar: again, imagine this refined ten degrees more than the quill of a bird, and it will give one some idea of spiritual things. Solon's form was not more than two or three shades heavier than my own, and in form and feature he was more noble than one can imagine a God to be; his glance was sufficient to thrill me through to that degree that it stirred me, as effervescing, sparkling wine is stirred on coming to the light and air, throughout all my being.

 

The boat was formed something like a gondola, or, rather, the body of a swan, except that the neck and face were carved into the likeness of an angel. At the first glance it seemed as though there was but one face, but soon two faces were distinctly visible, and then again but one appeared. Certainly, it was a consummate piece of art. We were seated within the hollow body of this swanboat, and its wings were just trailing the water loosely with exceeding grace; our feet rested on what appeared to be the most refined swan's-down. The boat was white as a swan, excepting where the neck and faces appeared; these were life-like in color, with long, golden hair, flowing to the water.

 

As Solon pushed the beautiful boat from the shore, I looked into the water. Now, dear reader, you must exert your imagination once more, that you may get a faint idea of all which I saw. If you were ever at Niagara Falls, you must have seen the beautifully colored spray that is continually rising from the foaming waters below the falls; imagine a vast lake, extending nearly as far as the eyes could reach, colored, throughout all its vastness, ten times more beautiful than, the spraying falls, and you will comprehend a little of that which I saw, together with all the lovely islands, and the shining,! sparkling, glowing, glorious city, just over on the other shore.

 

As I glanced up I saw that Sigismund and Annie were a long way ahead, and Solon was sculling very indolently. He smiled at me, as one might say, "Two are company, more would be superfluous just now." I understood him without words, and smiled back a contented assent.

 

"Mary," he said, "it is time for you to comprehend the meaning of the word Angel, in contradistinction to that of Spirit. All human beings must become spirits. All spirits must become angels. All angels must become arch-angels. All arch-angels must become God-angels. All God-angels must become God, or the component parts constituting the Godhead; and not until a God­angel is all-wise, all-perfect, without fault or flaw, knowing and understanding all things from the least to the greatest, can it become one with the Godhead. The Godhead angels are the highest that I, at present, know anything about; A'hat there may be to know beyond this I cannot tell you."

 

All this was startling to me, and I looked at him with wide open eyes.

 

"O! it must take ages upon ages to become a God­angel!"

 

"You are right," he replied. "It takes ages upon ages, and aeons of ages, and yet I have seen a God-angel afar off: it would be impossible for one to approach very near to such as myself, without consuming such an one by its glorious brightness, yet, afar off I have seen and heard the voice of a God-angel."

 

"O! tell me: What did it say?"

 

"It said, 'Solon, be diligent, gather up thy jewels of wisdom as rapidly as thou canst, and follow on!' then waved its hand, smiled, and disappeared. Mary, all human beings, who exist or ever will exist, must, at length, become angels: all relationships, such as brother and sister, father and mother, son and daughter, must at length be swallowed up within angelhood. I will try to make this plain to you, if I can. Suppose you had already been here a thousand years, which is but a drop in eternity; where, think you, would be Your father, mother, brother, sister, son, or daughter?"

 

I looked at him gaspingly.

 

"This is a plain, scientific, sensible question," he continued. "Do you think, Mary; that any of these relationships would be nearer to you or to each other than they would to any other angel? Each one of them would be merged into its own angelhood, that is, each child will have become developed and joined to its own other self, which state constitutes the first angelhood; each brother and each sister will also have reached the same state, and all fathers and mothers will also have become angels; where and how, then, can families be united in the heavenly spheres? Not one reaches the same altitude at the same time. How could the family you or I have left on earth, ever again be reunited as one family here? Mary, such a thing is absolutely, as well as scientifically, impossible: by the time our families on earth reach here, all things with them and with us will be radically changed: your sons there will perhaps become old men with growing families of their own; your children here will have become angels themselves; those relatives of yours on earth will come here one by one, perhaps at long intervals of time, at different ages and stages of advancement, and at the end, we will say, of a thousand years, all relationships, whatever, will be merged into angelhood, each angel differing from another angel, as flowers and all things else differ, and no two exactly at the same point of their progress in wisdom and love. It is folly to think that all families will be reunited in heaven: the fact is, that the family institution is entirely one of earth, wherein are started on their road, rudimentary angels. Tell me, sweet Mary, if you can, how it would be possible for you to again gather up your former family as a united one in heaven? for yours is a fair type of most others. Your former husband has had two wives, and a family of children by both: your rapidly growing sons on earth will soon have wives and families of their own: your son and three daughters here will shortly become angels: your sister has long been an angel, and even she has not the power of taking you into the angelic city wherein her real home is: in order to work for you she has been obliged to leave her real home on visits of love and charity, and she is doing for others, whom she never knew on earth, the same things which she has been doing for you, and will thus continue to do. All spirits and mortals are yet to be taught by angels before they can become angels themselves; she but performs her appointed work in the great vineyard. Mary, have I not abundantly proved to you that a family can never be reunited, as one family in heaven?"

 

What answer could I give? Tell me, my reader, if you can. I answered nothing, but drank in his words as thirsty soil drinks in water.

 

"One more illustration, and I am done on this point. A mother in earth-life loses a sweet little babe; she mourns, and comforts herself with the thought that she will be reunited to it in heaven; the mother lives yet on earth forty, fifty, or even sixty years afterward; the little babe that was has long before that time advanced onward into youth,—and from thence into angelhood, perhaps into archangelhood, even beyond possible recognition by the mother; when, at last, she arrives on the confines of the spiritual life, to be united to her angel child, on the same basis as before, would be utterly impossible: she might, through unprogressed ignorance, be destined to remain within the spiritual sphere for a long time after that, while her former babe might be many spheres removed from her. Still, I do not mean you to understand that the child, already a fully developed and exceedingly wise angel, might not be able to visit that mother, and aid her on in her own progress toward angelhood, and this rule applies to all who go and all who stay."

 

It was all clear and plain to me now, that my relations with my former family could never be the same again. While I had been looking downward, all things had been silently moving onward and upward.

 

"O Solon!" I at length cried, with all your wisdom how can it be possible that you are not able to enter the city of the angels?"

 

"For the very simple reason, that I am not yet an angel but merely a spirit. Wisdom alone does not constitute angelhood; man is but half an angel or a spiritual entity. Love alone does not constitute angelhood; a woman is but half an angel or a spiritual entity; when properly united the angel is formed, but not until they are properly united; and, here again, are the deepest and most profound love and wisdom required, to understand what constitutes the proper union, for unless the union is the right one, the gates of that glorious city can never be opened for them to pass through."

 

Again I stared at this Solon with bated breath. "And, pray," I asked, "how is one to know what the proper union is, or to whom one is to be united in order to become an angel?"

 

"Yet, there surely is a way to understand all things," he replied. "There is always a way to distinguish real gold from the counterfeit coin."

 

"But, if you have the required knowledge," I said, "one would think that it could enable you to unite yourself to the true one, and that long ago, and thus to have become an angel."

 

"My wisdom alone would not be able to accomplish such a result," he replied; "the other half of myself must understand it as well. True marriage must be mutual, or it is no marriage. Bondage is not marriage. There must be no bondage on either side. If a man holds a woman through bonds, she is not his, or vice versa. Slavery of any kind can not enter yon golden city."

 

"But how is one to find the right half? Have you ever seen the one whom you think is your true half?"

 

"I have," he said, with great solemnity.

 

A pang shot through my heart, and I shook like a leaf in the wind.

 

"Then, as you are not united to her, there must be barriers to your union. Perhaps she is still on earth?"

"Happily for me she is not, and but a few frail barriers are yet between us. If

"You are so wise, you certainly must know how to remove the frail impediments you speak of."

They are rapidly fading away," he, replied.

"Do you often visit this lady?" I asked, with a sinking heart.

"Her soul has been with me forever and forever," he said, still more solemnly than before; "but our mortal bodies were separated. I never saw her in the body. Our spiritual bodies have been separated. Once only have I looked upon her spiritual form, yet our souls have never been separated for an instant."

"O!" I exclaimed, "you talk in riddles! How can such things be?"

"Because the soul reflects all things that ever were, all things that are, and all things that are to be."

"Annie said to me those very words, a long time ago," I said, "and still I do not fully comprehend them."

"The soul is a mirror," he replied, sententiously "but sometimes a thin or a thick vail is placed over a mirror, and until it is lifted the mirror fails to reflect clearly. Scientific knowledge has already lifted the vail from my soul, and it has reflected clearly for some time past; my hand shall shortly lift the vail from the soul of my beloved, and then we shall stand face to face, clearly reflected to each other; but she must see herself clearly within my soul, and I must see myself clearly within hers."