Imagine, then, the dismay of the citizens, when, one Monday morning, eight o'clock came, and no sound issued from the cathedral; half-past eight, silence; nine, not a note of warning! Their wonder was increased when the usual peal rung out, clear and full as ever, for the morning service, and by mid-day the whole city was in a commotion. It was plain something must be wrong with the machinery of the chimes.
Immediately the most skilful mechanics of the town, clock-makers and bell-founders, with the men of science, and the whole corporation, in a state-procession, mounted the clock-tower.
"We will soon set it right," they said to the agitated crowd as they entered the belfry-door.
The ropes of the machinery were tested,—all were sound; not a flaw in the hammers; not a clog in the wheels; not a crack in the silvery metal. Microscopes were employed, conjectures were hazarded, experiments of all kinds were tried, but not a ray of light was thrown on the perplexity. The clever hands, and the wise heads, and the will of the authorities were all baffled; and the procession reappeared to the assembled multitudes with very crestfallen looks.
That afternoon little work was done in the workshops, few lessons were learned in the schools, all the routine of household habits was interrupted. And when it grew dark, the Great Square was filled with people who were afraid to separate and go to bed without the sanction of the cathedral chimes. Many foreboded some terrible disaster to the city, and some thought the end of the world was come.
But when it was dark, a sound very weird and strange, yet with a music like the old familiar tones, came from the church-tower, as it rose dim and grand against the starry sky. It was a voice, not human, yet with a strange likeness to a human voice, silvery as a stream, thrilling as a battle-trumpet, familiar to each listener as his own, like the blended voices of a spirit and a bell.
"We have borne it too long," said the bell-voice. "We were set here on high for other purposes than men have put us to. Is not this a cathedral, a sanctuary, and a shrine, sacred with the dust of martyrs, and dedicated to the service of Heaven? Were not we christened like immortals? Were not we consecrated like priests? The touch of holy hands is on us, and shall we be debased to secular uses? Set apart like sacred ministers in a sacred dwelling, shall we be required to mingle in the common circumstances of your daily life? Raised on high to be near the heavens we serve, shall our saintly voices serve to tell you when to eat and sleep?
"We have borne it too long. We will still serve Heaven, and summon you on Sundays and Holydays. We will call you to the solemn services of the Church. We will, if necessary, sound a triumphant peal on days of national thanksgiving, in remembrance of the Victory which first awoke us into music. We will even condescend to ring at your weddings—because marriage is a sacrament—and at your baptisms. We will toll solemnly when your spirits pass from earth, and when your bodies are laid in the churchyard we have seen slowly raised with the dust of your dying generations.
"But henceforth expect us not to do work which your commonest house-clocks can do as well. Let your eight-day clocks—your gilded time-pieces—call you to work, and eat, and rest. We are sacred things, set solemnly apart from all secular uses. Our business is with Eternity, and the Church, and Heaven. Call on us no more to commune with the things of the world, and earth, and time. We are your cathedral bells, but we will be your household clock-chimes no longer."
Then the voice died away on the night air. For a few minutes there was silence, but soon it was broken by sobs and lamentations, and all the people lifted up their voice as one man, and wept.
The house-father said, "Shall we never more hear your voice calling us to morning and evening prayer? Whenever you told us it was the hour, the mother came from her work, and the children from their play, and together we knelt a united family, and committed each other to God."
And the mother said, "Your voices are blended with every happy household time. Sweet bells, will you mingle with our family joys no more? In the morning you wakened us to begin another busy day, and the sun's beams and your voices came together to call us to serve God in our lowly calling; and both, we thought, came to us from heaven; and both, we thought, were meek and lowly, and ready to minister to us in our daily lives, because both were sent from Him who came among us once, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and both, we thought, had caught something of the light of the eyes which wept at Bethany, and of the tones of the voice which spoke at Cana and at Nain.
"At mid-day you told me it was time to send the dinner to my husband and my elder sons. At six your voice was welcome to us all, because we knew the father's step would soon be on the threshold. At eight you reminded me it was time to lay the little ones to rest, and many a time have you brought happy and holy thoughts to me in those psalms you sang to me whilst I hushed my babes to sleep; and all my everyday life seemed to be more linked with sacred things, to become, as it were, a part of the service of God, because it moved to the music of your voices.
"And again at night your tones were welcome, as in the morning, when they told us the day's work was over, and, wearied, we lay down to peaceful rest. For through the night we knew your sacred voices would sound to Heaven above our sleeping city, like the voices of the angels, who rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, holy, holy. Sweet bells, will you never chime for us again?"
And the children said, in their clear, sweet, ringing voices, "Dear chimes, do not cease to play to us. You wake us to the happy day, you set us free from school, and send us home laughing and dancing for joy; you call our fathers home to us, at night you sing us to sleep, and your voices are blended with our mothers' in our happy dreams. Sweet chimes, you sang so many years to our fathers and mothers; and our grandfathers remember you when they were little children like us. Dear chimes, sing to us still."
And from the sick-chamber, which looked into the cathedral square, where the windows were darkened all day, and sand was strewn before the door, that the din of the passing wheels might jar less roughly on the aching head within, came a low and plaintive voice,—"Sweet bells, your commonest tones are sacred to me. You are my church music, the only church music I can ever hear. When I hear you chime the hour on Sundays and on the festivals, I feel myself among the multitude within your sacred walls, and your voice seems to bear their songs of praise to me, and I am no more alone, but one of the worshippers.
"But at night it is I prize you most. All through the hours of darkness, so often sleepless to me, your voice is the voice of a friend, familiar as my mother's, yet solemn as the chants of the choir. It helps me to measure off the hours of pain, and say, 'Thank God, an hour less of night, and an hour nearer morning.' And how often, when my suffering is great, you have come with the old psalm-tune, and every tone has brought its word to me, and spoken to me as if direct from God, and filled my heart with trust and peace! Your least sprinkles of sweet sound are precious to me. I fancy they are like the waters of time falling musically from stone to stone on their way to the great sea. I feel they are as the echoes of the footsteps of Him who is drawing nearer and nearer to me, and they draw my heart nearer to Him.
"Sweet bells, your commonest tones are sacred, for what is the world but that which becomes the Church when it learns how God has loved it, and turns from self to Him? And what is Earth but the floor of Heaven, which heavenly feet once trod? And what is Time but the little fragment of Eternity in which we live on earth? Sweet bells, make not my sleepless nights lonely and silent, but sing to me, sing to us all, as of old. Make all our life sacred by linking every fragment of our life to God."
But still no responsive sound came from the cathedral tower, and the people waited on in the silence and the darkness. At last a young priest, an Augustinian friar, ventured a bold suggestion:
"Are not the devils proud, and the angels lowly? Did the angel think it beneath him to say to Elijah, 'Arise, and eat?' Did Gabriel hesitate to descend from the presence of God to bear to an aged priest the tidings of the birth of a child? Did that other angel deem it secular to say to Peter the apostle, 'Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals, and cast thy garment about thee,' before he led him over the stony streets through the cold night air? And should our cathedral bells scorn to bid us 'rise and eat,' or to chime at our births, or to summon us to 'gird and clothe' ourselves for every day's work? Brethren, proud thoughts, and scorn of daily service, and voices which call our everyday life common and unclean, are not from Heaven. The bells are possessed by a proud and evil spirit. Let us exorcise them."
The suggestion at first startled the people as daring, and irreverent to the church bells, but in their despair, they at length agreed to try it. A solemn procession of priests and holy men and women mounted the cathedral tower, and, in ancient formulas, with prayer and incense, and the music of holy hymns, they exorcised the fiend.
Then at once a tide of pent-up music flowed from the liberated bells. They conscientiously rang out all at once every hour and half-hour they had omitted, and then meekly and steadily resumed their wonted chimes, and continued them ever afterwards, like voices of happy and lowly angels calling men to wake and pray, to "rise and eat," to pray and rest, cheering the workman to his daily labour, and welcoming him from it, chanting to the mother as she lulled her babe, and in the sick-chamber soothing the lonely hours with melodious sound, and waking in the lonely heart sweet echoes of the psalms of praise.
Here the Legend ended. I heard, however, afterwards that the young priest, the Augustinian friar, lived to spread Glad Tidings through the city, but that he was at last burned in the cathedral square for preaching to men what he had said about the church bells. Yet in the flames, it was said, he looked up to the cathedral tower, and sang the words of a psalm of praise the old bells were chiming, till his voice was silenced in death. And ever since, the chimes have taken up his message, and chant to those who will listen, hour by hour.
"'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'"
What Makes Things Musical?
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WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"THE SUN!" said the Forest. "In the night I am still and voiceless. A weight of silence lies upon my heart. If you pass through me, the sound of your own footstep echoes fearfully, like the footfall of a ghost. If you speak to break the spell, the silence closes in on your words, like the ocean on a pebble you throw into it. The wind sighs far-off among the branches, as if he were hushing his breath to listen. If a little bird chirps uneasily in its nest, it is silenced before you can find out whence the sound came.
"But the dawn breaks. Before a gray streak can be seen, my trees feel it, and quiver through every old trunk and tiny twig with joy; my birds feel it, and stir dreamily in their nests, as if they were just murmuring to each other, 'How comfortable we are!'
"Then the wind awakes, and tunes my trees for the concert, striking his hand across one and another, until all their varied harmonies are astir; the soft, liquid rustlings of my oaks and beeches make the rich treble to the deep, plaintive tones of my pines. Then my early birds awake one by one, and answer each other in sweet responses, until the Sun rises, and the whole joyous chorus bursts into song to the organ and flute accompaniments of my evergreens and summer leaves. And in the pauses, countless happy insects chirp, and buzz, and whirl with contented murmuring among my ferns and flower-bells. The SUN makes me musical," said the Forest.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"STORMS!" said the Sea. "In calm weather I lie still and sleep, or, now and then, say a few quiet words to the beaches I ripple on, or the boats which glide through my waters. But in the tempest you learn what my voice is, when all my slumbering powers awake, and I thunder through the caverns, and rush with all my battle-music on the rocks, whilst, between the grand artillery of my breakers, the wind peals its wild trumpet-peals, and the waters rush back to my breast from the cliffs they have scaled, in torrents and cascades, like the voices of a thousand rivers. My music is battle-music. STORMS make me musical," said the Sea.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"ACTION!" said the Stream. "I lay still in my mountain-cradle for a long while. It is very silent up there. Occasionally the shadow of an eagle swept across me with a wild cry; but generally, from morning till night, I knew no change save the shadows of my rocky cradle, which went round steadily with the sun, and the shadows of the clouds, which glided across me, without my ever knowing whence or whither. But the rocks and clouds are very silent. The singing-birds did not venture so high; and the insects had nothing to tempt them near me, because no honied flower-bells bent over me there—nothing but little mosses and gray lichens, and these, though very lovely, are quiet creatures, and make no stir.
"I used to find it monotonous sometimes, and longed to have power to wake the hills; and I should have found it more so, had I not felt I was growing, and should flow forth to bless the fields by and by. Every drop that fell into my rocky basin I welcomed. And, at last, the spring rains came, and all my rocks sent me down little rills on every side, and the snows melted into my cup; and, at last, I rose beyond the rim of my dwelling, and was free.
"Then I danced down over the hills, and sang as I went, till all the lonely places were glad with my voice; and I tinkled over the stones like bells, and crept among my cresses like fairy flutes, and dashed over the rocks and plunged into the pools with all my endless harmonies. ACTION makes me musical," said the Stream.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"SUFFERING!" said the Harp-strings. "We were dull lumps of silver and copper-ore in the mines; and no silence on the living, sunny earth is like the blank of voiceless ages in those dead and sunless depths. But, since then, we have passed through many fires. The hidden earth-fires underneath the mountains first moulded us, millenniums since, to ore; and then, in these last years, human hands have finished the training which makes us what we are.
"We have been smelted in furnaces heated seven times, till all our dross was gone; and then we have been drawn out on the rack, and hammered and fused, and, at last, stretched on these wooden frames, and drawn tighter and tighter, until we wonder at ourselves, and at the gentle hand which strikes such rich and wondrous chords and melodies from us—from us, who were once silent lumps of ore in the silent mines. Fires and blows have done it for us. SUFFERING has made us musical," said the Harp-strings.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"UNION!" said the Rocks. "What could be less musical than we, as we rose in bare crags from the hill-tops, or lay strewn about in huge isolated boulders in the valleys? The trees which sprang from our crevices had each its voice; the forests which clothed our sides had all these voices blended in richest harmonies when the wind touched them; the streams which gushed from our stony hearts sang joyous carols to us all day and all night long; the grasses and wild-flowers which clasped their tiny fingers round us had each some sweet murmur of delight as the breezes played with them; but we, who ever thought there was music in us?
"Yet now a human hand has gathered us from moor and mountain and lonely fell, and side by side we lie and give out music to the hand that strikes us. Thus we, who had lain for centuries unconscious that there was a note of music in our hearts, answer one another in melodious tones, and combine in rich chords, just because we have been brought together. UNION makes us musical," said the Rocks.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"LIFE!" said the Oak-beam in the good ship. "I know it by its loss. Once I quivered in the forest at the touch of every breeze. Every living leaf of mine had melody, and all together made a stream of many-voiced music; whilst around me were countless living trees like myself, who woke at every dawn to a chorus in the morning breeze. But since the axe was laid at our roots, all the music has gone from our branches. We are useful still, they say, in the gallant ship, and our country mentions us with honour even in death; but the music has gone from us with life for ever, and we can only groan and creak in the storms. LIFE made us musical," said the Oak-beam.
WHAT MAKES CREATURES MUSICAL?
"JOY!" laughed the Children, and their happy laughter pealed through the sweet fresh air as they bounded over the fields, as if it had caught the most musical tones of everything musical in nature,—the ripple of waves, the tinkling of brooks, the morning songs of birds. "JOY makes creatures musical," said the Children.
WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?
"LOVE!" said the little Thrush, as he warbled to his mate on the spring morning, and the Mother, as she sang soft lullabies to her babe. And all the Creatures said—
"Amen! LOVE makes us musical. In Storms and Sunshine, Suffering and Joy, Action, Union, Life, LOVE is the music at the heart of all. LOVE makes us musical," said all the Creatures.
And from the multitude before the throne, who, through fires of Tribulation and Storms of conflict, had learned the new song, and from depths of Darkness and the silence of Isolation had been brought together in the Light of Life to sing it, floated down a soft "Amen, for GOD is LOVE."
The Acorn.
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"WHEN will my training begin?" said the acorn to itself, as it unfolded its delicately-carved cup and saucer on the branch of an old oak on the edge of a forest. "I understand I am to be an oak one day, like my father. All the acorns say that is what we are to be, but there certainly seems little chance of it at present. I have been sitting here for no one knows how many days, and I feel no change, except that I look less pretty than I did when I was young and green, and begin to feel rather dry, and shrivelled, and old. At this rate, I do not see much chance of my becoming an oak, or anything else but an old, dry acorn. When will my training begin?"
As it meditated thus, a strong breeze sighed mournfully through the autumn woods, and shook down many brown leaves from the old oak, and with them the acorn.
"This will hinder my progress again," thought the acorn, "for it is evident such a downfall as this can have nothing to do with my education. When will my training begin?"
A day or two afterwards, a drove of hogs was turned into the forest, and they began grunting and grubbing among the dead leaves for acorns. Many of its brethren did our acorn see ruthlessly hurried into those voracious snouts. It kept very quiet under the dead leaves to avoid a similar fate, but it thought—"This is a sad delay. It is too plain that being trampled on and tossed about in this way can teach no one anything. When will my training begin?"
Meanwhile, the swine rummaged among the dead leaves, and trod them under foot, and tossed the decaying mould hither and thither with their snouts and feet, until one of them by accident rolled our acorn down a little hill, where it lay buried under some stray leaves many yards from the edge of the forest, in the outskirts of a park. There it lay unobserved all the rest of the winter.
Even this was a pleasant change after having been tossed about and trodden under foot so long, but in its fall its shrivelled brown skin had cracked, and the acorn thought—"This is a sad disaster. How ever am I to grow into an oak when I am so crushed and cracked that scarcely any one would recognise me for an acorn? When will my training begin?"
All the winter the rain pattered on it, and sank it deeper and deeper under the dead leaves and under the earth-clods, until all its acorn beauty was marred and crushed out of it, and it fell asleep in the dark, under the cold, damp earth; and the snows came and folded it in under their white, eiderdown pillows. At last, the warm touch, that comes to all sleeping nature in the spring, came softly on it, and it awoke.
"What a pity," it said, "I should have lost so much time by falling asleep! I can scarcely make out what I am like, or where I am. What a sad waste of time! It is clear no one can go on with his education in sleep. When will my training begin?"
With these thoughts, it stretched out two little green things on each side of it, which felt like wings; and tried to peep out of its hole. And, to its delight, it succeeded, and, with a few more efforts, even contrived to keep its head steadily above ground, and look around it.
"There is my father, the old oak," it said. "He looks quite green again. But I am a long way off from him, and how very small and close to the ground! When shall I begin to be like him?"
But meantime it was very happy. It felt so full of life, although so small; and the sun shone so graciously on it, and all the showers and dews seemed so full of kindly desires to help and nourish it. And more and more little green leaves expanded from its sides, and more and snore little busy roots shot down into the earth, and the leaves breathed and drank in the sunshine, and the roots were great chemists and cooks, and concocted a perpetual feast for it out of the earth and stones.
But it thought sometimes, "This is all exceedingly pleasant, and I am very happy; but, of course, this is not education; it is only enjoying myself. When will my training begin?"
The next spring, the early frosts had much more power over it in its detached, exposed situation than over the saplings in the shelter of the forest. And it saw the trees in the wood growing green, and tempting the song-birds beneath their leafy tents, whilst the sap still flowed feebly upward through its tiny cells, and its twigs and leaf-buds were still brown and hard.
"This must be a great hindrance to me," it thought—"this, no doubt, will retard my education considerably. What a pity I stand here so detached and unprotected! When will my training begin?"
But in the late spring came some days of black east wind and bitter frost, and it saw the more forward leaves in the wood turn pale and shrivel before they unfolded, and then fall off; nipped and lifeless, to join the old dead leaves of the past autumn, whilst its own little buds lay safe within their hard and glossy casings, protected by one enemy against a worse. And when the east wind and the black frosts were gone, the little sapling shot up freely.
In that summer, and the next, and the next, it made great progress. But in the fourth autumn, a great disappointment awaited it. The owner of the park in which it grew came by, and stood beside it, and said to his forester—
"That sapling is worth preserving, it is so vigorous and healthy; and, standing in this detached position, it will break the line of the wood, and look well from my house. We will watch it, and set a fence around it to guard it from the cattle. But it has thrown out a false leader. Take your knife and cut this straggling shoot away, and next year, I have no doubt, it will grow well."
Then the forester applied his knife carefully to the false leader, and cut it off. But the sapling, not having understood the master's words, nor observed with what care and design the knife was applied, felt wounded to the core.
"My best and strongest shoot," it sighed to itself. "It was a cruel cut. It will take me a long time to repair that loss. T am afraid it has lost me at least a year. When will my training begin?"
But the next year the master's words were fulfilled.
Thus years passed on. And slowly, twig by twig, and shoot by shoot, the sapling grew. Sunbeams expanded its leaves; rains nourished its roots; frosts, checking its early buds, hardened its wood; winds swaying it hither and thither, as if they were determined to level it, only rooted it more firmly. And year by year the top grew a little higher, and the wood a little firmer, and the trunk a little thicker, and the roots a little deeper; but so slowly, that summer by summer it said—
"This is very pleasant; but it is only breathing, and being happy. It certainly cannot be the discipline which forms the great oaks. When will my training begin?"
And autumn by autumn, as the sap flowed downward, and the buds ceased to expand, and the branches grew leafless and dry, it thought—
"This is a sad loss of time. Now I am falling into torpor again, and shall make not an inch of progress for six long months. When will my training begin?"
And winter by winter, as the winds bent it to and fro, and made its branches creak, and threatened its very existence, and the heavy snows sometimes broke its boughs—
"These are sore trials. I may be thankful if I barely struggle through them! In days like these existence is an effort, and endurance the utmost one can attain. When will my training begin?"
And in the spring, when the frosts nipped its finest buds—
"These little nips and checks are very annoying; but one must bear them patiently. They are certainly hindrances; and it is disheartening, when one does one's best, to be continually thrown back by these trifling checks. When will my training begin?"
But, one summer day, a little girl and an old man came and seated themselves under its shade. By this time it had seen some generations of men, and had learned something of human language.
The old man said—"I remember, when I was a very little boy, my grandfather telling me how, when he was young, he had marked this tree, then a mere sapling, and pruned it of a false shoot, which would have spoiled its beauty, and had it fenced and preserved. And now my little grand-daughter and I sit under its shade! The fence has long since decayed; but it is not needed. The cattle come and lie under its shadow, as we do. It is a noble oak-tree now, and gives shelter instead of needing it."
Then the oak rustled above them; and the old man and the child thought it was a summer breeze stirring the branches. But in reality it was the oak laughing to itself, as it thought—
"Then I am really a tree! And, whilst I was wondering when my training would begin, it has been finished, and I am an oak after all!"
Parables in Household Things.
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THE sick girl lay in her shaded room, in the street of a great city, and thought, "If I could only leave this prison of mine, and look at the beautiful world, I know I should grow happier and holier with every breath I drew. The thorny bud on the brown branches in spring would give me promise of resurrection; every butterfly would tell me of life through death; every flower would lift my heart to Him who cares for our little pleasures; every bubbling spring would murmur to me of the living water; every corn-field and garden would repeat the sacred parables. But here I can see nothing of God's making but the sky, and that is too high and far. I want some steps to take my feeble thoughts gently up to heaven. But around me are only manufactured things, which speak to me only of earth, and time, and man."
She leant back listlessly on her couch. Twilight came over the room, the glowing coals stirred quietly as they burnt away, and then it seemed as if an angel's hand touched her ears and opened them, for the dark and silent room became full of soft and soothing harmonics. All the mute and inanimate things about her found voices and spoke comfort to her heart.
Together they said—"It is true we are only manufactured things; but do not despise us for that! We came originally, as much as you yourself, or the flowers, and the trees, and the sunbeams, from one Divine Hand. It is only that we have been trained and moulded by human hands to be what we are. And just so are you; God creates you, but life moulds you. Your trial and your training come like ours, mostly through human hands, although you are destined for higher plans and more blessed services. Listen to us, for we have messages for you, each one of us."
Then the stones from the wall said—"We come from the mountains far away, from the sides of the craggy hills. Fire and water worked on us for ages, but only made us crags. Human hands have made us into a dwelling where the children of your immortal race are born, and suffer, and rejoice, and find rest and shelter, and learn the lessons set them by our Maker and yours. But we have passed through much to fit us for this. Gunpowder has rent our very heart; pickaxes have cleaved and broken us, it seemed to us often without design or meaning, as we lay misshapen stones in the quarry; but gradually we were cut into blocks, and some of us were chiselled with finer instruments to a sharper edge. But we are complete now, and are in our places, and are of service. You are in the quarry still, and not complete, and therefore to you, as once to us, much is inexplicable. But you are destined for a higher building, and one day you will be placed in it by hands not human; a living stone in a heavenly temple."
Then the glass water-beaker said—"I was hard flint and waste sand on the desolate sea-shore once, but human hands gathered me, and fused me in furnaces heated seven times, and took me out to let me cool, and cast me in again, and shaped and cut me till at last I carry your water from the spring, and am pressed with many a thankful glance to your parched lips. I am complete. But you, when you have passed through your fires, will be a vessel of living water in a better hand, and bear many a draught of refreshment to weary and thirsty hearts."
"I also have been in many furnaces," said the china flower-vase. "The colours you so often admire in me, have been burnt in slowly, stage by stage, every fresh colour requiring a fresh fusing in the furnace. But you, when your trial is over, shall carry flowers of Paradise and leaves from the tree of life for the healing of the nations."
"And I," said the clock, "am scarcely an individual being. I am a little world in myself—a wondrous combination of mechanism. Each of my wheels and springs, with my unwearied pendulum, has its own history of fires and blows and ruthless instruments. None of us could form the slightest idea, as we lay dismembered in our various workshops, what we were designed for. Only in combination with every other part, has any part of us any meaning. You are not a little world like me, but a fragment of a great world. When all that belong to you are gathered together, you will understand it all as we do now. And your voice will mark with joyous music the flight of blessed ages which only lead to others more and more blessed throughout eternity."
"And I," said the bronze pastille-burner, "came from ages of darkness in the depths of the earth. Human hands brought me to the light, moulded and sculptured me, and set me here to burn sweet perfumes, and diffuse fragrance around me. But you will be an incense-bearer in a Temple by and by, and from you shall stream a fragrance of love and praise acceptable to God."
"The quarries were my birthplace also," said the alabaster night-lamp; "but you shall be a light-bearer, when your training is complete, of a light which is life, and which has no need of night, like my dim flame, to make it visible."
"I," sang the guitar, with the wooden frame and metallic strings, "am a twofold being. I lived and waved in the forest once; and then the woodman's axe was laid on me, and I fell,—I fell, and the life departed from me; and from a living, life-bearing tree, I became mere inanimate timber. More blows, more tearing with saws, more sharp cutting with knife and chisel, and I became melodious again, simply from being united with these metallic strings, which never had life, but lay silent in mines, till the hand of man woke them into music. And thus together we respond to your gentle touch, and soothe for you many a lonely hour. Life from death, music through fires of trial: this is also your destiny. Hereafter every nerve of your tried and perfected being shall respond to the slightest touch of the Hand you love, filling heaven with happy music."
"As for me," said the pages of the hymn-book, "my discipline has, perhaps, been the severest of all. Once rustling in the flax-field, rejoicing in the dews and sunshine, I was torn, racked, twisted, and woven by many iron hands into linen. Then, for a time, treated carefully, decorated and treasured, and washed and perfumed, I was afterwards thrown scornfully away. Yet, even in that low estate, I found comfort. Even as a rag I bound up the wounds of suffering soldiers in a military hospital. But I was to sink lower yet. I was thrown into a mill, and pounded, crushed, and torn, till I was a mere shapeless pulp. Yet from those depths, my true life began. Process after process succeeded, till here, at last, I am to speak to you undying words of hope and love. And you also, one day, shall shine forth a living epistle, proclaiming to angels and men for ever and for ever such words as speak to you from my pages now!"
The sick girl smiled, and was comforted. "Yet," she said, "the fires are fierce, the blows are heavy, the trial is long. The end is, indeed, well worth them all; but sometimes the end seems distant!"
"Yes," responded the hymn-book; "my history resembles yours in one happy feature more than that of any of us besides. For even in your days of training you are of service. You may clothe cold limbs, and bind up many wounds even now, as I did when I was a poor linen-rag. And, more than that, even now, in your time of trial, the ministries you are destined for at last may be begun. Even now you may be a living epistle, a book wherein many may read lessons of hope and patience, and sing praises, as they look on you, as you do when you look on me."
"Yes," responded the stones; "even now you are a living stone. The temple you are to form is building even now."
And the pastille-burner:—"Even now your prayers and praises may rise like sweet incense."
And the water-glass:—"Many a draught of living water may you carry, even now, in the dry and thirsty land, to hearts that need it."
And the night-lamp:—"Even now in the night, thou, child of the day, sheddest light around thee—a little light, it may be, in a narrow circle, yet which, though thou mayest not know it, cheers and guides not a few, even now."
And the guitar:—"Many a strain of thankful song has come from the depths of your heart, even now, in these your days of trial, to blend with my harmonies, and to soar to regions which my poor metallic music can never reach!"
And all the mute things sang together—"We are complete and rejoice to serve you, vessels meet for your using. One day you also shall be perfected, a vessel meet for the Master's use. And then He will take you into His house, unto the temple which is a home and your home for ever. Like us, when you are perfected, you shall serve; but, unlike us, even whilst you are being perfected, you may serve!"
Then the sufferer turned over the leaves of another Book, and saw how the Master had written His parables, not in streams, and corn-fields, and birds, and flowers, and fruitful earth, and starry sky alone, but in common household things, and common human ties. And henceforth, not nature only, but everyday cares, and duties, and relationships, and all things around her, became for her illuminated with the lessons of His love.
Passages from the Life of a Fern.
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MY life has been one of such extraordinary vicissitudes as might have made many almost doubt their own identity. But it is only to-day that I have learned its real purpose. To-day, for the first time, I am content. A light has dawned on me which makes all the dark passages of my former life clear and luminous, and unites the whole into one harmonious picture. I will narrate a few of my adventures to you while I am full of this happy discovery.
The first thing I can remember is being in a world overflowing with life in every form. It was a tropical forest. Gigantic palms rose above me so high that I could not see their feathery crowns. From one erect stem to another hung tangled festoons of parasites and climbing plants, broad, rich, green leaves which fell into stately crowns with their own weight, enormous gorgeous flowers, delicate wreaths of intertwined many-coloured blossoms and many-shaped foliage; so that when I looked up, I could scarcely see one point of the deep blue sky, except when a strong wind made rifts in my fretted roof. Scarcely one ray of light fell on me pure, but broken and green and tremulous, softly shaded, or tinted like a rainbow through the flowers.
The animals which lived in our forest depths I cannot distinctly recall. I have not seen any like them for so many thousand years. But all was gigantic, and many would seem misshapen monsters to us now. Yet then it was quite natural, and an everyday thing, to hear the great tree-eaters tramping each like an army through the forest shades, cropping the tops of the highest trees, and devouring branches as our animals crop the herbage. Trees crackled under them like brambles.
We dreaded much, we smaller creatures, to see these approach, for they trampled down a generation of us under the tread of their ponderous feet. There were lizards whose scales glittered like the waves of the sea in the sunshine, each scale a massive prismatic metallic plate. And from the lower reaches of the forest, where the hot mist steamed up from the marshy hollows, monstrous creatures, half-fish, half-forest-climbers, occasionally strayed among us.
I cannot recall if there was music in the forest; yet I think I hear across these countless years the dim echoes of strange voices, which have been silenced for ages on the earth, a confusion of wild calls and cries in the mornings and evenings, weird bell-notes tolling through the sultry noon-day silences, and a confused whirr, and buzzing, and croaking, and whizzing, and rustling of countless smaller animals which have perished and left no trace of their existence behind.
But the creatures which impressed the restless character on my being, which only to-day the sun has smiled away, were some near relations of my own. For, although I was but a little fern, many of my race were among the lords of the forest. Their roots spread into magnificent curved pedestals; their stems rose, decorated, and erect as the palms, to the height of the tallest trees; and their fronds expanded into ribbed and fretted roofs, beneath which hundreds like me could find shade and shelter, yet every frond as delicately fringed and edged as any of ours.
I thought—"These are my elder sisters. One day I shall grow like them."
Thus my own daily life seemed empty and shadowy to me, because of the strong yearning that possessed me to be great like them. It did not make me discontented or desponding, but filled me with a wild and feverish expectation which made the present appear nothing to me. I stretched out my little fronds, and caught every sunbeam and rain-drop I could; and when a shower came, and the life-giving waters circulated through my veins, I throbbed with vague desire, and thought, "Now I am to be something."
But with all my efforts, I never could grow to be any thing but a little fern! So the summer passed, and then I felt myself growing shrivelled and old. My limbs contracted, my fronds curled up and turned dry and brown, and in a few weeks I was scarcely visible. But the spring revived me and my yearnings, and I grew certainly very handsome and tall for one of my branch of our family; but still only a little fern!
The forest decayed, I know not how. The marsh extended, and, instead of the world of varied exuberant life, we lay a long time a mass of steaming, mouldering decay. And then, through millenniums more, we stiffened and hardened and grew black and shapeless, and were buried in the dark, no one can say how long, for to us, throughout those changeless ages, there were no days and no seasons to measure time.
At last a light came to us, not the sun, but a little trembling light, in the hands of a living creature, such as we had never seen. I know now it was a man. Then followed a time of stir and noise and knocking about, such as I shall never forget. We were hewn with pickaxes, and tossed into buckets, and, at last, lifted into the real old sunlight we had not seen for countless ages. The sun was the same as ever, as young and bright, it seemed, as he had been thousands of years before; but we did not bask long in his beams.
A period followed of darkness and cold and silence, in which all the world seemed to have forgotten my existence, although I had been dragged out of my native bed, and stored in this den with so much pains. But they remembered us at last.
One evening, after passing through a great deal of commotion, I found myself in an open place, with many of my brethren. A light like that we had first seen, after our ages of darkness in the heart of the earth, was applied to us, and then the strangest transformation passed over me.
Just as the water had streamed through my green veins in the forest of old, a new element began to course through all my black and stony heart. That light ran through and through me, until I became, not a receiver, but actually a giver of light. Instead of my green fronds, delicate pencils of red and golden flame streamed from me, until I became one glowing substance; and, in my own light, I actually saw living faces looking thankfully at me, and human hands stretched out to feel my warmth, just as of old I had spread my fronds in the rays of the sun.
But I was too full of my old vague longings to enjoy or observe any of those things much, for I thought, with glowing confidence, "Now, I am to be something great at last!"
It was the last glimmer of that vague ambition in me. My light faded, I grew cold, and, which was worse, I fell to pieces, became mere dust, and was wafted about by the slightest breath, so that I had the greatest difficulty in preserving my own identity. I was even ignominiously swept away by the very hands which had spread so gratefully in my light only a few hours before, and tossed contemptuously out into a rubbish heap behind the house.
But there, happily for me, I was once more in the sunshine; and the sun, and all heavenly creatures, think scorn of no one. They smiled on me, a poor heap of ashes, as if I had been a tree-fern; and the gentle dews descended on me, as if had been a flower; and the birds and winds scattered seeds amongst us, until I began to feel once more something like the stirrings of life within me. I had blended my being with a little seed, and in the spring, green tufts of life burst out from my shrivelled heart. I grew, and spread, and drank in rain and sunshine, until at length I waved and expanded in the summer breeze—a little fern!
Then a bright, transforming thought flashed through me. In the tropical forest, in the black coal-beds, on the glowing hearth, I had not been an imperfect likeness and a vague promise of something else, but myself, in my little degree, pleasant and serviceable; exactly the best thing it was possible for me to be, filling up my tiny measure of service in the world, so that the world would have been the poorer for that tiny measure of pleasure and good without me. How happy I might have been always, if I had known this before! How happy I am to know it now!
I begin life again, but I have learned my lesson. I am something; not something great, but something I was meant to be—a little green happy fern. At this moment I tremble with joy in the soft breezes, I thrill with life, I drink the rain-drops, and the next moment and to-morrow will bring each its store of work and joy for me, and I shall be the highest thing I could wish to be, the thing I was made to be. And now I am here near the tall trees, and among the many-coloured flowers, a little, happy, lowly fern.
Parables.
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"WE have lived a long time here together," said the ponderous Alarm-bell to the little brisk bell in the clock-tower of the Orphan-house, "and a useful life yours has been! I have watched carefully, and never once during these hundred years that we have stood side by side have you failed to tell the hours and half-hours by day and night. I have plenty of leisure for thought; but it would be beyond my powers to calculate how often your voice has been heard in the service of man.
"I observe, too, how much attention is paid you by all, and with how much well-deserved respect you are regarded. Nothing is done in house or field without your sanction. At your early call, this little busy hive begins to stir in the morning. At your mid-day invitation, the boys gather from the fields where they have been working; and the girls from the laundries and workrooms to the noon-day meal. At your evening summons, the doors are closed at night, and not a sound is heard afterwards in house or field until your steady voice wakens our little world again.
"Yours is, indeed, a useful, honoured life; but as for me, who can tell what I am made for? Since I was placed here first, a hundred years ago, lifted up with enormous trouble and labour, and safely roofed in my belfry, not a creature has heard my voice, or been the better for my existence. I might as well have been lying still a lump of unsmelted ore in the depths of the mines. I feel so stiff and rusty, that I sometimes question if they could move me if they tried.
"For you, daily, hourly usefulness! For me, a hundred years of silence! And who can say how many more? I do not complain; but our destinies are very different. It must be wonderfully happy to be so useful, and to be looked on by every one with such attention and regard. Of course, I could not expect to be as serviceable as you—I, with my cumbrous, ponderous mass of heavy metal, and you, hung so lightly, so graceful in your shape, so brisk in all your movements, so cheery and pleasant in your voice. But I should like to be of some use once in my life, even if it were only to know for what purpose I was made, and set on high."
"Wait!" said the Clock-bell. "There must be some work for you. It would have taken a hundred such as I am to make one like you. Think of the trouble there must have been in getting a mould large enough for you—of the labour it was to raise you so high. You must be set there for some end, although we do not yet know what. Wait!" said the Clock-bell, cheerily, and struck nine.
Then there was a sound from within the house, as of many childish voices singing an evening hymn. A few minutes after, all was still, and ten o'clock echoed over the silent fields to the sleeping city near at hand.
But that night there was an unusual stir in the Orphan-house. Feet were heard rushing hither and thither; and from every window poured forth the cry: "Fire! Fire! The Orphan-house is on fire!"
And, through the darkness, lurid smoke began to rise from an outhouse attached to the main building.
Then came another cry: "The Alarm-bell! Ring the Alarm-bell!"
And feet were heard on the steps of the belfry-tower; and hands began pulling vigorously at the ropes, and in a moment, for the first time, the deep tones of the long silent bell pealed heavily on the midnight air. They awoke the city. In a short time, fire-engines were on the way. Streams of water played on the flames, and quenched them; and the children and the Orphan-house were saved.
The next morning all was silent again, as if nothing had happened; the outhouse lay in ashes, but the Orphan-house was uninjured. At eight the Clock-bell called the children to their morning prayer; whilst the Alarm-bell had relapsed into silence, perhaps for another century.
But the Clock-bell said—"You have done in an hour the service of a century. Had it not been for you, I should never have struck another hour."
And the grateful children often looked up as they passed beneath, and said—"Had it not been for our good Alarm-bell, we might all have perished!"
So the Alarm-bell learned what it was made for; and was content to wait another hundred years, or more, before its voice was heard again.
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IN a garden there once grew a beautiful, blossoming thorn. When the spring came, for a fortnight it was always clothed with a robe of white blossoms. They seemed at once relics of winter, and promises of summer. It was as if Winter, in departing from the earth, had left behind a fragment of his snowy vestments; and Spring, touching them with her magic wand, had transformed them from snow-wreaths into wreaths of snowy blossoms. They were beautiful even in fading; and for many days after the whiteness had gone, they glowed into a delicate pink, and strewed the earth with silky petals when they fell.
* Thorns are abortive leaf-buds. Spines are the lower leaves of plants metamorphosed into bristles, to guard the young tree from the attacks of cattle. This little parable was suggested by a passage in "Modern Painters."
On this thorn, one spring, a little brown leaf-bud formed, at the foot of a green twig, the cradle of the green twigs of the next spring. But it happened that, as this brown leaf-bud watched the beauty of the flowers, it grew discontented with its destiny:—
"Why am not I a flower-bud?" it murmured, inside its little brown casing. "That would be worth living for!—To fill the air with delicate fragrance, to be sung to by the birds, to be gathered by human hands as a treasure; or even to live unnoticed by any one, but only to be a flower!—A beautiful, fragrant creature, with a coat of many colours, and a crown of golden stamens, and with promise in its heart;—that would be worth living for! But to be a leaf-bud, a brown, dark, hard leaf-bud!—It would be better to die at once."
And a discontented shiver ran through its veins; and all that summer it never cared to drink in sun or rain, but sat and shivered, and shrivelled on its stem, while all around it, meek and happy buds were growing strong and full of life, nourished by the same rain and sunshine. And in the spring, when the white shower of snowy flowers came again on the thorn-tree, and the other leaf-buds had expanded into green twigs, waving and whispering in the breeze, with each a new bud at its feet, the envious and discontented bud had shrivelled and narrowed itself into a thorn, which pierced the hand of the child, as it reached up to gather the spray of fair white blossom.
* * * *
In a field near this garden, there grew a green shrub, which at the top expanded into luxuriant branches, giving shade at mid-day to man and beast. But from the lower branches, instead of broad green leaves, grew long sharp spines. One summer day, these spines said to each other, in their short and broken speech, for they could not wave and rustle in the wind like the leaves:—
"We are not worthy to live on the same tree with the beautiful forest leaves which wave in the fresh air above us. We can make no refreshing sound as they do; we give no shade as they do to any creature; and we only prick any one that tries to touch us. But it is very pleasant to us to be allowed to grow from the same trunk as they; and it is very kind of the sweet leaves to sing to us as if we belonged to them, and not to be ashamed of us. We are certainly most happily situated; so far beyond what we have any right to expect!"
But all the leaves rustled in a joyous chorus, and said:—"You are our elder sisters, meek and useful spines! If it had not been for you, we should never have come into life at all, and man and beast would have had no shade from us. The hungry cattle would have eaten us before we unfolded, and our parent-tree would never have grown to what it is, had it not been for you, our faithful and patient guardians. If you had rebelled against the gracious hand that moulds us all, and prevented our expanding into leaves, we should all have perished together long ago. We owe our life to you!" murmured the leaves.
And the rough spines quivered through all their faithful hearts at the words of the leaves.
Then the master passed by, and he said:—"Well done, my faithful spines! You have done your work, and guarded my treasures well. But for you, my trees would have had no leaves, and my fields no shade."
And the spines wondered, and rejoiced greatly; for they had never thought that, in meekly and contentedly bearing their rough lot, and being what they were meant to be, they were serving the master, and doing such good work for others.
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SUNSHINE and Daylight had one day a serious difference of opinion about a rocky waste, over which their course led them.
* Reprinted from "Excelsior."
"I am not severe," said Daylight, fixing her clear, generalising gray eyes on the Rock. "If I cannot, like some people, see nothing but what I wish to see, no one ever accused me of blackening any one's character. I have known that old rock more years than I care to mention; not a jagged edge, nor a whimsical cranny, but I am intimately acquainted with, and I do not hesitate to say, that a more barren, unmitigated rock I seldom meet with. I do not slander it. I only say, it is nothing more or less than a rock."
Sunshine said nothing, but peeped round the shoulder of her cousin's gray cloak, until the smile of her soft eye met the eye of a little blue violet, which, by dint of hard living, had contrived to obtain a secure footing in a crevice of the old rock; and a flutter of joy passed through the blossoms and leaves of the violet, and communicated itself to a tuft of dry short grass, which had ensconced itself behind. The red and gray cups of some tiny moss and lichens, which had crept into corners here and there, next drank in her kind glances, and fancied themselves wine-cups at a feast. Here and there specks of colour and points of life revealed themselves, and, as they looked, expanded.
By this time, Sunshine had folded Daylight to sleep on her warm breast. Many weeks had passed, when, one quiet afternoon, Daylight again came that way, and glancing critically around, she murmured to Sunshine, "Where is the old gray rock you were so sanguine about?"
Sunshine was silent: her motto being, "Not 'in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.'"
And at length, Daylight's quiet eyes awoke to the fact, that the grassy knoll where flowers—tiny rock-plants indeed, but still flowers—and mosses lay dozing unawakened by her sober tread, was none other than the rock she had known of old. And she said, meekly, "Truly I find that one way to create beauty is to perceive it."
Then an angel, who was hovering near, on his way back from some message of mercy (for the angels never linger till their messages are given), sang softly, "Love veileth a multitude of sins."
And the old Rock answered in a chorus, through its moss-threads, and lichen-cups, and leaves, and blossoms, "And under the warm veil spring a multitude of flowers."
—————
A LARGE tract of country lay spread before me; upland and lowland, hill and plain. The whole land seemed stirring with perpetual movement, all in one direction;—from the bright hills at its commencement, to the dark mountains at the end. Earth and sky seemed moving, as when an enormous flight of migratory birds is passing by, but earth and sky were really stationary. This movement was one constant tide of human life, ceaselessly streaming across the land.
It began on a range of wooded hills, with their sunny southern slopes, forests and flowery banks, and grassy and golden fields. Down these slopes, joyous bands ran fast. As I looked closer, I saw the movement was not incessant in the case of each individual; only the ceaseless passing of the great tide of life made it seem so. Merry groups paused on the hill-sides, and made fairy gardens, and twined leafy tents where they would sit a little while and sing and dance. But only a little while! No hand seemed driving them on; it appeared only an inward irresistible instinct. Yet soon the bright groups were scattered, and moved down again over the hills, often never joining more.
"Why do you hasten away from these sunny slopes?" I said. "There seems nothing so pleasant in all the land besides."
"Perhaps not," the travellers replied, with a slight sigh; but it ended in a snatch of song as they danced gaily on. "Perhaps not, but we are a race of Wanderers! We cannot stay; and perhaps better things await us in the plain."
"Whither are you going?" I asked.
"We know not," was the answer; "only onward, onward!"
In the plain were buildings of more solid construction, houses and cities. And here I observed many of the travellers would have gladly lingered, but it could not be. Homesteads, and corn-fields, and vineyards, all had to be left; and still the tide of life streamed on and on.
"Why?" I asked.
"It is the doom of our race," they said, sorrowfully; "we are a people of Wanderers."
"Whither?" I inquired.
"We do not know," was the reply; "only onwards and onwards to the dark mountains!"
Slower and slower grew the footsteps of the Wanderers, more and more regretful the glances they cast behind. Slower, yet with fewer pauses. The strange restless impulse drove them steadily on, until, wearied and tottering, they began the ascent of the dark mountains.
"What is on the other side?" I asked.
"The sea," they said, "the Great Sea."
"How will you cross it, and what is beyond?"
"We know not," they said, with bitter tears. "But we are a doomed race of Wanderers—onwards, onwards; we may not stay!"
Then first I perceived that, among these multitudes of aimless Wanderers, there was one band who kept close together, and moved with a freedom and a purpose, as if they journeyed on not from a blind, irresistible impulse, but from choice. Their looks were seldom turned regretfully behind them, or only on the dark mountains. They looked to something higher.
I asked them—"Why are you thus hasting on?"
"We are Pilgrims," they replied; "we would not linger here."
"Whither are you going?" I inquired.
"Home!" they answered, joyfully. "To a Holy City which is our Home."
"But how do you know the way?" I asked, for no barriers seemed to limit their path, so that any of the Wanderers might join it at any point.
"We know it by two marks," they answered—"by the footsteps of One who trod it once, and left indelible footprints wherever He stepped. And we know it also by the goal to which it tends!"
Then looking up, I saw resting on the mountains where this path ended, a bridge like a rainbow, and beyond it, in the sky, a range of towers and walls, pearl and opal, ruby and golden, such as in a summer evening is sometimes faintly pictured on the clouds, when the setting sun shines through them.
And the little band chanted as they went, "The doom of our race is reversed for us. We are not Wanderers; we are Pilgrims. We would not linger here; this is not our rest. Onwards, upwards, to the City!—To the Home!"
—————
ONE day, I had been thinking about the terrors of the Great Flood, when it seemed to me that I saw back through the long ages to that distant day, as you look with a night-glass through the night to an illuminated planet.
I saw an old man, venerable with the centuries by which we count the lives of nations, not of men, yet vigorous with the vitality of one who had still centuries to live. He stood on an inland plain, far from any sea; yet above him rose the sides of a large ship. It had been finished that day.
Once more the old man warned the laughing crowds around of the waters which would surely come and float the vessel high above the submerged world. He had told them the same truth for a hundred and twenty years. There had been no indefiniteness about his prophecy. As, since then, men have been warned by the uncertainty of a doom which may come at any moment; then, they were warned by the certainty of a period definitely fixed. Every fall of the leaf had brought it precisely a year nearer. And now the last evening of the last year had come, and once more the patient preacher of righteousness stood and warned them to forsake the sin which must bring the doom.
But in vain. There was no persecution; perhaps some mockery, as they pointed to the cloudless sky, and the fields and forests growing daily greener in the spring-tide sunshine; but for the most part simply unbelief and indifference. "They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage." And so the last warning was finished, and the last evening closed.
But one little group seemed to me to detach itself from the rest with a bolder confidence. They pointed to a fortress on the highest summit of the mountain range above them, and said:—
"If what you say is true, surely we shall be safer there than in a floating ark like yours. In the rushing of the great water-floods you speak of, and the beating of the storms, our mountain fortress will serve us better, at least, than your wooden walls. We shall look down from our height on your waters, and, perchance, see the wreck of your vessel drifted to our feet!"
The patriarch and his family were shut in the ark. Before the next morning, the day of doom had set in. Not a break in the pitiless roof of clouds. Steadily the torrents poured from the opened flood-gates of heaven, whilst the waters from beneath broke their barriers, and the reservoirs under the hills burst forth in sudden rivers.
The flood had begun. The valleys became lakes, the plains seas; but the builders of the mountain fortress had fled to it, and looked triumphantly down on the waves.
Higher and higher they rose. The lower hills were covered. The mountain range was isolated. But the dwellers in the fortress thought, "We are well provisioned. This cannot last for ever!"
The waters rose. Peak after peak became an island. And at last, the highest peak, on which the fortress stood, looked out alone upon the waste of waters, and the floating ark buoyed up securely on them.
They looked still down on the waters, but with trembling hearts. The wild waves dashed furiously against this one remaining obstacle. The firmest human masonry cannot stand like the everlasting rocks. The strong foundations gave way, and with a crash, and a wail of anguish, the fortress fell, and nothing rose above the waters but the floating ark. For nothing that is founded on earth can escape the doom of earth. But—
"Planted Paradise was not so firmAs was, and is, Thy floating ark."
—————
I HAD once three dreams in close succession, which I will relate to you.
In the first, I saw a magnificent palace, a little world of gardens and buildings, a city in itself. All was enclosed within a high wall, so that from outside you could see nothing of it except the fairy white minarets, pencilled delicately against the blue sky, some lofty battlemented watch-towers, and several graceful campaniles, with the tops of a few of the highest trees. But a delicious blending of the fragrance of a thousand flowers came thence in summer evenings; and every night, bell-tower, watch-tower, spire, and dome, and minaret were illuminated with innumerable starry lamps, as if every day within the palace were a festival.
Around the palace were the lanes and alleys of the city—scenes of poverty and squalor—which contrasted strangely with it; and wretched, half-starved-looking creatures, with tattered garments and faces worn with deep marks of want and woe, lingered round the gates. Outside the gates!—and this was one strange incongruity of my dream, for on the gates were emblazoned in golden letters, which were illuminated into transparencies at night, the words—
"KNOCK, AND IT SHALL BE OPENED UNTO YOU."
The gates were solid, and enormously massive, like blocks of black marble. No violence could have forced them. There was no crevice at which any one could get a glimpse of what was within. But the golden knocker, underneath those golden words, was so low as to be within reach of the youngest children. Indeed, I noticed that none tried it so often as little children; and whenever any one knocked with the very feeblest sound, in time, and often immediately, the stately portals opened from within, turning on their massive hinges with a sound like the music of many choirs, and the applicant was quietly drawn inside.
Then I saw that the inside of the gates was of translucent pearl. A stream of light and fragrance for a moment came through, and induced others afterwards to knock. But immediately the gates were closed, and stood a wall of impenetrable marble as before.
I awoke, and whilst meditating on my dream fell asleep again.
In my second dream, I saw the same palace as in my first, but the massive doors were gone, and in their place stood the form of One whom, although I had never seen Him, I had heard so often described, and so faithfully, by those who had seen Him, that I knew Him at once. The same wretched beings were cowering round; but the massive barriers were gone, and in their place He stood, and said, in tones that every one could hear—
"'I am the Door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.'"
One wretched and woe-worn woman gave a trembling glance at His face, and then listening again to those tones, not welcoming merely, but pleading and persuasively tender, she ventured close to Him, and fell on her knees to kiss the hem of His garment.
But He stooped, and stretched out His hand, and took her hand, and led her in.
Then I understood what His words had meant;—that by saying, "I am the door," He must have meant that there was no barrier, no impenetrable gate, but that in the doorway, where the door had been, He stood, and, instead of the lifeless knocker, stretched out His living hands to aid and welcome all who came.
And I awoke from my second dream.
* * * *
Before long I fell asleep again, and then again I saw the same palace, with the massive portals flung open wide, but that gracious princely form stood in them no more. Among the most wretched of that crowd He went—among the maimed, the halt, and the blind.
They thronged around Him, yet many of them scarcely seemed to heed, they were so intent on their own sordid pursuits. Some were crowding with sharp, eager faces round a rag merchant, bargaining with the most absorbing passion for his wretched wares, and then separating to quarrel and fight over their purchases, or bartering their rags again as eagerly for a draught of the intoxicating drinks which had made so many of them the lost creatures they were. Not a rag or a burning drop was to be had except for money, and often for a price which to them was life itself.
And He came to them from the palace, and offered them the palace freely, yet few listened. But with that strange absence of the sense of incongruity and the emotion of surprise characteristic of dreams, I did not wonder! Patiently He went in and out among them, pleading with one and another, often encountering rough words and blows; yet still His words were—
"I come to seek and to save that which was lost."
And some even of the most wretched listened, and returned with Him, and were welcomed inside.
As if "Knock, and it shall be opened!" were not free enough, the gates were thrown open wide, and He stood there, the outstretched hand, instead of the door, the living friend, instead of the written words of welcome.
And as if that were not enough, instead of saying, "Come to me!" He came Himself—He "came to seek and to save that which was lost."