PART IIIHEAVEN
Who ever yet rising with dawn felt not some disappointment when it died away and left nothing but Working Day, its one unceasing gift? For Dawn with all its freshness laughs and leaves us, caring not that it has come at the wrong side of day, knowing well that its twin-sister, Sunset, has beauties only for the weary-eyed and sad. We see the sun depart and turn aside and sigh, since with the sudden twilight the wraith of Silence rises and wraps us all in quietness and thought. But what would be our brightness and our joy if at the end of toiling day, jaded and world-worn, we went out to see the sun set, and behold! it rose. A little pure surprise—a little rubbing of the eyes—a little unexpected difference—some trivial exclamation—and our hands would stretch toward that sun—and night be day, and day but a passing, short-lived night henceforward. For this sun, rising above inanimate decrees, would bear us on with it and into it, leaving no scathing burns to mar the path it travelled, but only clear thrilling light. For with intensest gladness we should hail this coming change—and each strung nerve, beating like heart of love upon a heart as pure as ever dawn of heaven’s childhood gave it, would relax, and glow with the clearest pleasure that angels ever gave. The faded, failing, feeble feet, aching in every little joint and bone, would find the brightness only cooled and eased them, spurring them on, soft as those little baby feet that pressed the peeping buttercups on a flowery lawn, to a purer height where buttercups, if buttercups there were, would be sweeter and more golden. And the tired spirit drooping like a fading butterfly, crushed by some cruel, thoughtless hand, with wings all turning to dull earth again, would rise with other strength and wings eternal, following the healing light. The sick and tired drudge, scarce better than a pitiable slave, bound down to earth and hardened usage, leading a grey and lifeless life, each day more leaden than the one before, feeling the softening rays would melt to happy tears, and leaden bars would shine like silver, bearing no weight. The pain-bound sufferer, feeble and sick to death, moaning in silent agony the livelong night, fretting unnoticed through the livelong day, would for the time forget all suffering, and in the after days have sweet balm to pour upon the oft-returning pain, and drive it out with love’s own medicine.
For, could they feel it, all would strive afresh, with strength afresh and youth afresh to make it theirs. Each would hold out to the other a brother’s hand, nor mind the soil- or toil-worn palm. Each would be gentler, firmer; stern against Sin, that gaudy, tarnished, creeping worm, which leaves nothing but breeding corruption in its path and rots with wily sting e’en when it appears most harmless.
Oh! that this light, this ever-shining light, this clear warm sunshine wrought in heaven out of love, might pierce the heavy, leaden chilliness that ever prevails. But to this grimed and hardened earth it cannot always come, because alien weapons drive it off, and men think because it fades away, and out of vision, it is dead.
Rather had the earth die, the sun, humanity itself, all things of intellect and things of mind, than this sweet radiance melt. For hearts would harden, intellects grow cold, beauty pass worm-eaten, and weary sighs change into millstones round the feeble soul, and none would come to raise, or calm, or cheer, since all would die and wither like a blighted garden, that once had felt a little yet not all, and then had faded—saddest of deaths, because it once had known.
Oh, Light! Light! Light! What would the storm-lost traveller be without you? What lingering death of gloom must he endure! What harsh straining after the ghastly fire-flies, that flicker and dance and then die out before his burning eyes! What blackened leaves would be his funeral bed—that now spring up as silvery flowers about his path—what gloomy gurgles of the river—and hollow moanings through the tracks of pain! If only all might feel, and see, and know, how altered would this dreary world become! transformed to paler shade of the hereafter, no barren landscape leading but to hell.
Then should we find no idle scoffers, nor those who sneered upon another’s pain, no wandering disbelievers laughing coldly, nor those who reckoned only earthly gain. But perhaps this path is hard to find; brambles and thorns and bushes hide the road. There is no beaten track that guides us onwards; each step is taken slowly, wearily, uncertainly it may be, and still the light is hid.
There is a word, a curious word, called “Faith”; there is another curious word called “Creed.” The latter forces stern belief from childhood, the former springs by leaps and bounds above the fetters, and laughs at that which takes its God in hand, and snips and snaps and pats him into shape, and says to him, as if it were Almighty, “Thus shalt thou be, thus only—a fish, a man, a calf, or jumbling trio. Bend to our puny chains and we will worship thee.”
Oh, Creed! harsh jest of harshest Godhead, that wrapped itself about the human brain—and wrapped in mystery shook its sides with laughing—knowing full well its vagaries were not seen.
For Creed has soiled itself with blood and murder, with bitter strife and false solemnity—binding itself to cruel superstition—straining at gnats and gulping great big camels. And then when pained with indigestion, it would at times disgorge sedition sore, and growl and grumble to its inmost region because its ermine robe the vagrants tore.
There is one Creed, one only Creed, a thing so far above a Creed that Creed grows pale and falters, forgetting its hard dogma learnt by rote; that little word is “Faith,” the gift of Heaven, the only lasting thing upon this earth.
The last Apostle spoke of Love—but was he not a little premature?—since Love is born from Faith, none other, and without Faith, Love is no better than a blinded God. For Love is tender and most fragile—the sweetest sensitive plant that ever grew, that needs care such as earth cannot give it, and when stricken by rude winds blowing from barren lands, droops down unneeded and unheeded—a silent, shattered, broken heart, even like Christ’s, whose fragments gathered by the angels form in that heavenly home the purest, strongest tie. Love is the last great prize, so sacred and so beautiful that none can fathom it. Why therefore should we lay sacrilegious fingers on its outer robe, and seek to drag and form within ourselves that which we cannot truly understand?
“Love one another,” the great Teacher said, “little children, little children.” And perhaps if that saying were locked up two hundred years, and the word sealed in the heart and never on the lip, it would in silent, restful darkness germinate, and break forth at last to do some good.
We say it after him like parrots, and prate about the beauty of his words, loading ourselves with sentiment, devoid of feeling, and then we go away. Do we love? Do we forgive? Not in the ordinary course of things. We live barren lives though we may have a dozen children, and rise no higher than the soil. But let once “Faith” break forth to take the place of hardened Creed, and the first little seed has been sown for good, because in the train of Faith Morality will follow—and what is it but the strong elementary ground of Love?
For, grasping at the highest, we lose the lowest, our surest stepping-stones to higher things—as if for heaven we needed no education, but jumped to it as children born with wings. What lie more fraudulent was e’er invented, braying the word of Love into the infant mind? As lief begin to teach the classics, andmakethem learn it at the age of five.
We teach the babies in our infant standards to pry into the agony of Christ. What do they understand about it? The hardest lesson we cram in at the beginning and say, “He suffered that for you and me.”
And one is sucking sweets, and one has got a marble, and some few good ones think they understand—and little know the error they have made.
Perhaps if we left Christ out of it, and let them find by instinct what they miss, we should have nobler men and purer women, learning by many a fall to ask for something higher than themselves and earth.
Were they but taught morality from the cradle, and trained to esteem their neighbour as themselves, the road to Christ would lead more purely onward, and He Himself would be the great reward.
But no, no, we are all so wise in our own pet religion; we “hem” and “haw” at this and that, our babies must be baptized so as they’ll go to heaven and must be introduced post haste to God for fear they get left out.
Surely the prayer of the serious mother for pure wisdom for herself and her child must far outweigh the formal genuflections and harsh screamings of the afflicted infant.
May we then pray with all true humility, like those poor prisoners bound in hell, but we with hope, they almost lacking in it, “Give us light—light—more light.”