XLIION HOLY GROUND
AS the impressive scene unfolded, the Cathedral becoming more sublimely beautiful each moment, Adele watched the wonderful play of light—the refulgence. She was also profoundly impressed by the magnificent proportions of the picture then being illuminated before her very eyes by the Creator; and felt the breath of life come and go with emotion.
“It is the Glorious Beauty of Holiness,” she murmured, and then, kept silence before Him.
Now, next to Adele stood the native woman; and before them both was unrolled the same scene. To this Himalaya worshiper, Lepcha, Bhootanese, Nepaulese, Thibetan, or whatever tribe she might have been born, the effect was not the same as upon Adele. Familiarity with such sunrises in the mountains had dulled what little appreciation she might ever have had; but her religion had told her something which Adele did not know. From untold generations her people had been taught to regard that place as sacred. She had been brought there as a child, and now she was leading her own children there; and told the little ones: “The place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” She had also her own ideas as to why it was sacred; and that very morning had come to the holy ground to show the children why it was holy; but Adele knew nothing of all this.
Worldly wisdom might have judged this woman and Adele to be in no way alike, yet, here in this presence, where the holiness of beauty and the beauty of holiness were both in evidence, there was really a fundamental similarity.
Adele drew near the Doctor; he, too, had been keeping silent in the Holy Place.
“The Veil has been taken away,” said she.
“H’m, yes.”
“It is the most impressive sight I ever beheld.”
“Why so?”
“It is as a chancel should be.”
“Of course, the most beautiful portion of a cathedral.”
“Beauty is not all, I feel more than I see; the beauty is sacred here; the sacred feeling comes first, and then—oh, it is so beautiful!”
“It must be a Holy Place if it affects you that way.”
“Yes, a place for prayer, it seems natural to pray here; here one thinks upwards, and looks upwards.”
“Then the effect is spiritual as well as artistic.”
“Oh, don’t analyze! I don’t wish to reason at all,” said Adele. “For me it’s perfect. I’m satisfied. Just let me rest here, let me go and sit down,and be a part of it.”
She seated herself at the foot of a tree.
It would have been sacrilege to disturb her at that moment—a violation of sacred things in her experience. So, on the instant, thought the Doctor.
After a little reflection, the Doctor said to himself that this was not the time for Adele to “loaf and invite her soul.” He feared lest she was carrying her idealization entirely too far. Even the best in the world, if carried to excess, leads one into danger; and spiritual excesses are especially dangerous, either to youth or old age.
To sit at the feet of Nature, to admire and enjoy the Creator’s work, was one thing; to be so absorbed in Nature’s moods, and to become such a slave to emotion that all else isforgotten, would be quite another thing. Adele seemed to have forgotten the Lepchas, and himself, and even her own self; and to be totally absorbed in adoration of the scenery.
The Doctor had many times seen pious worshipers in certain phases of Hindooism, Buddhism, and Christianity, indulge in that sort of thing; but never in Shintoism or any really old form of faith which brought one close to nature, through nature’s activities and manifestations unidealized; where nature spoke for herself and mankind was silent before her. He suspected this excess of idealization, this becoming “a part of it,” as Adele had wished for, might become really a weakness in her character, and might lead her into danger. Such a frame of mind would certainly be fascinating to Adele, she was so made, she was constitutionally an idealist; but certainly it was not mentally healthful in relation to her duty to others; not a thing to be rooted out, but to be controlled lest the result should prove injurious.
The Doctor determined to break in upon her mood in some way. He recalled her last remark, that she was perfectly satisfied with her Cathedral, and only wished to rest and be a part of it.
“Adele, you said this Cathedral was complete.”
“It is to me.”
“Not if it is a cathedral as usually understood.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have idealized what we now see as the chancel?”
“Certainly, the place where the service is conducted.”
“May I ask what is the central feature in the service to which you and I are accustomed?”
“To administer; no doubt.”
“To administer; certainly—but what?”
She thought very seriously, trying to find suitable words. She was not accustomed to this sort of stand-up-and-deliver catechism; but finally she spoke:
“Some might say to administer the sacrifice; but I do notsee how this can be possible. It is not a fact in nature; I cannot consider it true.”
“May I ask, why not?”
“You can never kill the truth; and Christ is not dead, but living; they are the same no matter how you think about it—Christ and the Truth.”
“But Truth was sacrificed in Him.”
“Never!” she cried. “That is an impossibility in nature. It only seems sacrificed; it never really is.”
“But He was sacrificed.”
“His great sacrifice of Himself for Truth’s sake was really His whole life work, and it was Perfection,” said Adele.
“His life, as well as His death,” acquiesced the Doctor, solemnly.
“Yes, a perfect work.”
“Well then, Adele, no otheridealized sacrificein administering could make the service more complete, nor the atonement more adequate than it is.”
The atonement!
Yes. The at-one-ment—the Saving of the World—the Salvation of Mankind by the Truth.
And as they conversed thus, upon the Lepcha Holy Ground, the Doctor concluded that Adele’s meditations had not led her astray; but he felt constrained to say something further which had been on his mind from the first.
“Adele, with us the ministration is usually at the chancel rail.”
“Yes, or what corresponds to it.”
“Where from?”
“The altar; why do you ask?”
“Have you seen any altar in this Cathedral?”
Adele looked around in different directions, continually reverting to the chancel region she had idealized, as if it ought to be there. Surely there must be an altar in nature, or somethingshe could idealize as such; for so many religions professed to have altars, from the earliest times down to the present day. She began to fear lest her imagery as to the Cathedral had failed her in a vital point. Once before she had thought she could discover some form or shape in the higher altitudes which might suggest an altar; in every case the light had been so dazzling, or what she tried to see was so vague, that her ideal had never been satisfied in its most vital need; and now with the chancel itself open, the veil rent, she saw nothing to suggest an altar. Where was it? Had it been there? If so, then what had become of it—the altar?