XLVRITUAL OF THE HUMAN RACE
THUS it came to pass that Adele and Paul were to be married in the most majestic and impressive Cathedral upon earth. Under the canopy of heaven, in a domicile as well as edifice, constructed by the forces of nature from designs by the Supreme Architect, their own Father-Creator; married in a sacred place, purposed expressly for the Creator’s own service, and their own use; where all the rituals testified in ways practical yet mysterious to the Way of Truth in Life.
If they had chosen the ritual of the nature-worshipers they would have found themselves in harmony with the most ancient of all, from the beginning; and the most widespread upon the surface of the earth as historically known.
If they had chosen that of the Taoists considered as a peculiar phase of Buddhism, they would have found themselves in harmony with the most numerous, including both gnostic and agnostic, and the most devoted to expediency as the goal of existence, where the knowledge of human nature took the most practical forms of application to be found upon the globe to-day. They would have had the majority with them.
They chose neither; for truth progressive had taught them to ignore naught in their own past experience, nor in the experience of others; and to seek “the greater things than these” which enlightenment is ever revealing through religion, philosophy and science.
The Christian ritual of the marriage ceremony as it wasthen performed in the open air, differed greatly from that of the Lepchas, in that it was not held in a thicket partly screened, as if it were a quasi-secret to be seen darkly by both natural eye and spiritual sense: nor like the Taoist, in which are prayers in endless repetition, perfunctory effort as if by machinery, prayer wheels and decorations of the curio order. The Christian ritual as given in this Cathedral under the auspices of the Creator himself, ignored none of these; but showed that the truth had made men free, freedom in the individual, freedom by co-operation—for in union there is strength and propagation, proselyting truth.
Strange to say, it was only those who officiated in strait-laced garments of the local form of ecclesiasticism who appeared awkward, stiff and unnatural in manner, and uneasy in mind when they found themselves administering in the open before a public which had thus become free in spirit.
The wedding took place upon a grassy hill-side, a beautiful location where natural flowers bloomed, and crimson rhododendrons hung in bouquets and garlands overhead, framing in the Peaks of Eternal Whiteness (purity); a marvelous symbolic landscape, symbolizing that humanity must pass through and under the crimson of suffering in order to attain the pure whiteness beyond.
The wedding took place where the Celestial scenery was ever before them; fleecy clouds hanging like wedding draperies in the azure blue around the Cathedral spires—the spires rising heavenwards, ever pointing upward.
But at this particular time it was not so much these everyday manifestations of natural facts in this Cathedral which impressed those who officiated, as the astonishing cosmopolitan aspect of the crowd which came to see and be seen. Representatives of all sorts and conditions, racial and religious, which the region contained, engaged in various occupations, yet all now actuated by the same spirit, to share and rejoice in the happiness of others. Many among the crowd of witnesseshad gone through the marriage ceremony themselves; others looked forward with rejoicing to the time when they would. Some, a limited number chiefly from the Latin races, spoke of it as of very serious “sacramental” character; but the enormous majority did not; and very many did not know what such a word meant; yet every individual present knew it was a “holy” condition to live in, for mortals. To all, the tenor of it was to induce mankind to be happier, to gain strength by co-operation in personal experience; an experience never to be forgotten in this case, for natural methods in religious ceremonial were about to take their course, and make it the most interesting wedding any of the guests had ever attended.
The first impulse of those asked to officiate was to robe themselves, each to put on his own official cassock, stole, or academical gown. Lo! there was no robing room—positively no place suitable, not even an enclosure to screen a change of garments; all must be done in the open before God and man. If the officiating prelate had not brought his vestments in a grip-sack he would have had difficulty in assuming, as custom required, his usual official aspect. One unfortunate who laid great stress upon his official garb, his robes of office, found himself exposing a very soiled undergarment, much less decent, really, than the occasion required. Never was mortal man more ashamed of his personal underwear than this unfortunate who had previously been covered in public by outer sacerdotal garments.
Another, profiting by his experience, sought a little briar bush he had discovered at the last minute, behind which to robe himself; and ere he had assumed his wedding garments, the bridegroom came.
Paul approached, and stood waiting for his bride. He was dressed as often before when freedom of life and thought had characterized his actions; in fact, very nearly as when he won his bride and told her of his love. He and Adele had chosento commence their future life by identifying it with the very freest and happiest of past experiences; hence Paul wore a spotless suit of white flannels, with an inner white waistcoat for the occasion; his necktie of light blue, which suited his complexion admirably. Verily new garments in one sense, but such as preserved his own sense of freedom just when he wanted it most. Some cigars had peeped out of one of his pockets just before he came forward, but the Doctor concealed them at the last moment. The lapels of his coat were thrown back upon his breast; his athletic frame was vigorous and active, and his countenance was sincere and truthful; his dark hair natural in its folds, and his eyes more forcible, energetic, intense than ever before.
“I want you just as you are,” Adele had said to him, “without one plea, not dressed up for an occasion;” and the healthy groom came so, fresh, and clean, and free—a true man.
Other lovers of nature present said he was “a splendid fellow—he looks it! Any girl ought to be proud of him”—the truth. He was indeed much more a veritable nobleman in appearance than when clothed in black.
He waited for Adele.
The bride, “arrayed in fine linen pure and white,” wore orange blossoms because symbolic among her people, the emblems festooning the bridal veil upon her shoulders. Her forehead was uncovered; and naught in her hair but a spray of blossoms held by a diamond cross—Paul’s gift. The cross glowed and sparkled in the sunlight, not unlike a flame. Some of the natives called it a “tongue of fire.” It was so, a flame of affection from Paul to herself. Her blonde hair like her mother’s, and intellectual dark eyes from her father, gave an alluring and mysterious beauty; a combination which appealed to the Orientals as angelic, and to many others as fascinating; human, yet spiritual.
Adele at first looked upwards, but not in assumption—it was her natural attitude when moving freely without fear;then bowed her head as in the presence of God whom she loved, and because she was with her beloved in human experience.
Upon her father’s arm she came forward, leaning in submission to him from whom she had received her life (bios); and embraced her mother, kissing her with arms around her neck, before the Creator and men, in token of that mother’s love she had received, namely her creation and preservation in this life; which she considered were divine attributes, divine gifts to be bequeathed to her own hereafter.
To Paul she seemed as one looking towards the Celestial regions from which she must have come, and to which he felt sure she was destined some day. And the Orientals present looked on rapturously, and some drew in their breath between their teeth with admiration and respect; their manner of doing this seemed to say that they wished to imbibe some of the happiness which her presence near them suggested. Another voiced the sentiment of all mankind: “She is too lovely to live, she will be taken;” but on the instant a twig in the grass caught the skirt of her gown, and as she felt inclined to pause and loosen it, the Doctor stooped to detach it, and the bride passed on.
Her father’s dignified presence, markedly paternal, was also suggestive—of what research after higher knowledge in systems may accomplish when Christianity is recognized as the great incentive to knowledge and ultimate unity. Truth was the one goal in Professor Cultus’ scientific investigations; but he was not one to accept mere knowledge as adequate.He must have the truth also.His intellectual head stood upon his finely proportioned shoulders, witness to the honesty and thoroughness of truth as he saw it; an honest man—God’s noblest work.
Mrs. Cultus, Carlotta Gains Cultus, the bride’s mother, was by heredity a positive character, practical, active and worldly-wise. She was the embodiment of that womanly knowledge ofthe science of social intercourse, the ethics of society; one, who after encountering men and things, learns to appreciate them at their real value—a value not set by fashion, but by the true commonsense standards. Mrs. Cultus was one not always properly appreciated by others, but ever active on principle whether appreciated or not; not solely in intellectual lines of various heterogeneous clubs, but also in the humanities when the appeal to her seemed reasonable, and therefore natural. Mrs. Cultus had learned through severe illness certain truths in life which appealed to her personally with practical force and significance; an avenue to conviction very different from that of her husband. Her presence now manifested that other dignity of truth and worldly wisdom which did not repel, but attracted all who really knew her, for confidence, aid and affection; her husband and daughter most of all, for they knew her best. Being a mother who had suffered, she had learned to feel a mother-tenderness for all—that divine affection for humanity ever characteristic of Him who took even little babes in His arms and blessed them. So did Mrs. Cultus, in this way, now strive to follow Him. Devoid of either hypocrisy or guile, she was ever “true to the life”—her natural life as God had made her.
And the bride’s friend, the friend of her own age; Adele and “Frank” Winchester, intimates; the one with whom her youthful thoughts and pranks had been unrestrained and free. It was this friend who had arrayed her in fine linen, pure and white, for her bridal, and by working faithfully, almost without ceasing, had embellished her wedding garment with an exquisite vine embroidered in white floss silk, encircling her bosom, trailing down to the hem. Affection and artistic skill guiding the willing fingers had produced this simple vine and branches. The art of loving simply, yet constantly, entwining truly, was in that vine, for there had been neither time nor place for elaboration; yet the vine was finished in season, and decked the bride at her wedding. It was a secret betweenthese chums, how the worker had added clandestinely a small bunch of thorns embroidered in among the folds near the hem of her garment, where Adele could tread upon them if she chose. “Merely to remind you, my dear,” said Frank, laughing, “what a thorn in the flesh I’ve often been; these are the last—all future thorns are for Paul.” Adele cherished those precious thorns as if they were jewels; she would not have trod on them—no! no more than she would have wished her friend a pathway of thorns.
And the Doctor, the inquisitive, sincere Doctor Wise—he asked no further questions when he stood aside as the groom’s best man; no questions about things in the heavens above and the earth beneath, nor even about the spirits of just men made perfect, here or anywhere else. The Doctor would have much enjoyed wearing knickerbockers as when he went outing with Paul, particularly so since Paul appeared in white flannels, and if need be he could be ready for tennis or cricket as soon as the ceremony was over; but propriety forbade. Proprieties were apt to be a wee bit inconvenient from the Doctor’s point of view; and just at present he was more nervous than the groom, nervous to get the thing over and have done with it. Such was the Doctor as he appeared on the surface; fundamentally he was the very personification of congratulation and joy. He knew that nature had taken the true course with these two, both so endeared to him. He rejoiced in being able to witness and appreciate so much that was good in nature and in co-operation. He was supremely happy too, but from yet another cause in nature; that the Creator in kindness had thus made him, a very ordinary man, able to see so much clearly, and yet not himself be lost in the mysterious maelstrom of life.
The ladies gave the Doctor precious little opportunity to do anything whatever on an occasion when bachelors-on-the-shelf do not count; but he did search the country from Calcutta to Nepaul to obtain some flowers which he knew were desiredby Adele, the bridal bouquet. A very simple one after all, white rose-buds amid cultivated heliotrope. It seemed at one time as if every sort of flower and shrub flourished in the Himalaya region except what he wanted. He had parties hunting heliotrope as if it might grow on berry bushes; and when from a lofty tree mistletoe was brought him by mistake, he nearly sent the bearer to the foot of a precipice. But he got it. It was finally obtained, near by in a private conservatory, much to his relief and Adele’s delight. The bouquet held attached an exquisite lace handkerchief passed through a ring; the ring was set with a sapphire of purest quality, that peculiar shade in depth and delicacy which in the Orient is supposed to characterize the plumage of the Bird of Immortality. This gem, ever constant day or night, responsive to every ray of light, symbolized the true blue of precious worth—truth in purity and love. This was the Doctor’s gift. Adele had heard him speak of such a stone and its significance among sapphires of so many colors. She read his very thoughts as she pressed his hand when accepting this significant and beautiful gift. The fragrance of the flowers direct from nature; the handkerchief a work of art; and the gem a true blue symbol—all brought memories of their search after something worth knowing in many fields. Never did Adele appear more idyllic, poetic, aye, pastoral in the higher sense, than at this moment; and the Doctor blessed her—in spirit.
Thus, when Paul advanced to meet his bride, they stood among their own; the bridal party among their own race and nationality, together with cousins from their Mother Country, England—their faces radiant with hope and pleasure. A choral of mixed voices, volunteers from the Christian Colony, sang the processional; and the anthem was heard upon earth as it ascended heavenward. This near a chancel rail of natural growths, the line suggested by a carpet of wild flowers with cultivated beauties placed at intervals. And there were tree-ferns and palms, fountains of foliage at either end; the freshnessof the fountains springing from the centre of the plant, its life within, not from near the exterior bark. Adele had expressed a desire for these plants with their heart-life in the centre; also because their significance was simple in nature, their natural beauty artistic, and their natural meaning too exalted and widespread to be affected seriously by passing fashions or fads. And the crimson rhododendrons decorated the background, while before them the Delectable Mountains and the azure blue.
The ceremony was first directed towards the world at large, for each individual to learn, mark, and spiritually digest that which this couple manifested of truth in humanity. It was a solemn period, while the people gave heed, each reading his or her personal experience into that of the new couple; to each (such was the condition in nature), from his individual point of view. As a matter of fact Adele felt as if the minister was speaking of some other than herself, and Paul felt as if all eyes must be turned on Adele.
Then the Servant of God turned towards this man and woman who would be one; a sacred moment when he pronounced them husband and wife. They knelt together, her hand in his—their first united prayer to “Our Father who art,” for this, from Him, unto themselves—as also One.
And when they arose, and together turned to face the world, behold a cloud of witnesses, out in the nave of the Cathedral, a multitude upon the hill-slopes and skirting the forests, every vantage ground occupied by natives drawn hither by the world-wide desire to see “a bride adorned for her husband;” actuated by countless motives which primitive and natural curiosity suggested; curious to see what the dominant people, English or Americans, would do when worshiping in the outer air like themselves; curious to see what a Christian marriage was like. Would it be gay and festive like their own? what sort of a dress would be worn by the bride? and would all her belongings and presents be carried along the road sothat all could see that she was rich? and would there be a real feast? Thus many had been attracted by very practical reasons which they considered suitable to the occasion.
And who were these in bright array after their fashion? a little group not far from the bride herself. As if they had been especially invited, they stood before some bamboo wands, decorated for a gala-day; not before a thicket as once before, but with their bright signals in the open, the prayer-signals floating in the wind to attract the Good Spirits of the air.
And who were these in yellow robes? with trumpets and bowls in their hands, and outlandish masks pendant from their girdles; yet cheerful faces withal, and wearing fillets and earrings of turquoise and coral taken from the “curio-case” in their Temple. And one poor decrepit native priestess with her good old prayer-wheel and bean rosary, twirling the wheel and rattling the beans regardless of all else; one who knew her wheel and rosary were good, because they were very old, like herself—she had used them from childhood. Who were they?
Because they were not arrayed in modern dress, some thought them intruders, sheep of another fold gotten astray. Many thought so, all except Paul and the Doctor who knew what Adele herself had done; how she had gone out into the highways and hedges to compel them to come in and take their place near her. They were surely entitled as members of the congregation of the original Primate of the Cathedral, these poor Lepchas now Adele’s friends, to a place very far front. And the gay Taoists, also her Himalaya friends, whom she had met, and with whom she had worshiped in their own chapel, learning to be with them and of them, in spirit. Although crude and tawdry now, these Taoists, they were the professed followers of Laotze, a highly spiritual man who had given to the world one of the most abstruse, recondite, metaphysical forms of religion ever known to humanity. “Oh, what a fall was there!” thought Adele as she saw the Taoistsof to-day; but she invited them just the same, she wished them to be with her now on an occasion she considered sacred.
And more surprising still, in this region:
Who were those two men, splendid examples of physical manhood, men of darker complexions? They had been engaged in distributing corsage bouquets and boutonnières among the bridal party, and they now stood side by side as the bride passed by. They saluted her, in a polite manner and with a style quite their own, and the bride recognized with sincere satisfaction their presence. Who were they? Verily of the race she knew best, next her own. Originally from Nubia in Africa, where their near ancestors had worshiped in the forests, they were now, already, by the will of the Creator, full citizens of her own beloved land. Adele had found them in the bazaar, where they had drifted in from God-knows-where in “God’s Own Country;” but to Adele they represented the colored people of her own United States. They were men who had shed their life-blood for the cause of Truth in Freedom, and the Truth had made them free. They were true men as God had made them such, in His own way, but young in the experience of civilization. They were now educating themselves by knowledge of the world for greater things to come; educating themselves with an energy and rapidity never before excelled by any race. Adele had determined to help them along; for woe betide anyone who dares ignore or impede the way of the Almighty in nature, where the progress of the race is in unity with the progress of religion itself. She said afterwards, that there was no feature more home-like among the incidents connected with her wedding, than to have these Freedmen from “God’s Own Country,” from home, to distribute the cultivated flowers of civilization which they themselves, that very morning, had helped to collect, to arrange, and to give to others.
Thus to some few of the native witnesses to this wedding, to some few whom Adele had met personally, she becameknown as “The Lady of Loving-Kindness;” and no doubt they would in time, some of them, have erected a shrine to her memory, for they well remembered her beauty and the Flaming Cross Light which sparkled upon her forehead. And still later their descendants would have bowed down to an image of her, saying they did not worship the image, but the Loving-Kindness which she represented.
As a matter of fact, to the majority of the Orientals actually present, but to whom she was not known personally, strangers to her, the effect was very different. To them the bride was now as one separated from them more than before: this because she had become subject to the will of her husband, and must hereafter walk behind him, not beside him, when she went abroad; and in time must present him with a son, or else perhaps it was better she herself had never been born. Such were the actual facts with regard to some of the witnesses. Yet, how natural, yet unnatural, are such conceptions; natural to man in the primitive or childhood period of his spiritual life, yet truly unnatural when taught otherwise by more matured civilizations, when mankind has become enlightened further by the brighter spiritual Light of the World.
To Paul and Adele, now as one, it was just the reverse. They stood side by side, with their religious consciousness turned to One whose bride was the Church Spiritual, of whom all nations of the earth are blessed.
As the bridal party returned homewards through this throng of sympathetic spectators, it was as if all had been invited to this Marriage Feast.
The Spirit and the Bride had said, “Come.”