Added Upon Part 22

The woman showed her gladness at Rachel's recognition. "The Lord has shown me abundantly and graciously," she replied; "but come with me away from the crowd. I shall be pleased to tell you all about it." Rachel accompanied the woman, who led her out into some quieter streets, thence to a beautiful home under tall trees. Flowers bloomed and birds sang in the garden. The two women seated themselves by a playing fountain.

"I am glad you have not forgotten me. My name you may not remember--it is Sister Rose."

"Your face, dear sister, your beautiful face marked with that deep sorrow, no one could forget;" said Rachel, "but now the sorrow is gone, I see, and the beauty remains."

Sister Rose took the other's hand caressingly. "That day in the temple,"

she said, "I came there as a place of last resort. I was suffering, and had tried everything that I could think of to ease my troubled soul. I had prayed to G.o.d to give me some manifestation regarding my boy. I came to the temple to get a great favor, and I obtained a blessing. Instead of receiving some miraculous manifestation, you came to me and led me gently to a seat by ourselves. And there you talked to me. It was not so much what you said, but the spirit by which you said it that soothed and quieted and rested me. You repeated to me some verses, do you remember?

I had you write them out, and I committed them to memory."

"Do you remember them yet?"

"Listen:

"Thou knowest, O my Father! Why should I Weary high heaven with restless prayers and tears!

Thou knowest all! My heart's unuttered cry Hath soared beyond the stars and reached Thine ears.

Thou knowest--ah, Thou knowest! Then what need, Oh, loving G.o.d, to tell Thee o'er and o'er.

And with persistent iteration plead As one who crieth at some closed door."

"That day I went away comforted and strengthened. Do you recollect?"

"Yes; but what was your trouble? I do not remember that."

"My son, my only child, was taken so cruelly from me. He was the hope of my life, and when he answered the call to go on a mission to the islands of the sea, I let him go gladly, because it was on the Lord's business.

Then some months later the news came that he had died. I was crazed with grief. I could not understand why the Lord would permit such a thing to take place. Was my boy not in His service? Why did not the Lord take care of His own?"

"And so you suffered, both because of your loss and because of your thoughts," said Rachel. "Poor sister,--but now?"

"He is with me now, and it has all been explained. We live in this house. Do you care to hear the story?"

"If you desire to tell it, yes."

"You seem so near and dear to me that I may tell it to you. My boy, while on his mission, was tempted. He has told me all about it--he was tempted sorely. He was in great danger, and so the Lord, to prevent him from falling into the mire of sin, permitted him to be taken away. They brought his lifeless body home to me, but his spirit went back to its Maker pure and unspotted from the sins of the world,--and thus I found him here, a big, fine-looking man as he was. You ought to see him."

"Mother," someone called from the direction of the house.

"That is he now," said the mother, rising.

"Mother, where are you? Oh!" the son exclaimed as he caught sight of the two women. He came up to them and rested his arm tenderly on his mother's shoulder. He was big and handsome, and Rachel's eyes dropped before his curious gaze.

"David, this is Sister Rachel, whom I first met in earth-life in the temple. I think I have told you about her and what a comfort she was to me."

"I am very glad to know you," said he, as he clasped Rachel's hand. Then there was a pause which promised to become awkward, at which David said:

"Mother, I want to show you something in the back garden. You know I have been experimenting with my roses. I believe I have obtained some wonderful color effects. You'll come also?" he asked Rachel.

The three walked on together into the garden where David exhibited and explained his work. When, at length, Rachel said it was time she was going, the mother urged her to come again.

"I'm going along with Sister Rachel to her home, and to find out where she lives," explained David, as he stepped along, unbidden, by Rachel's side.

And so these two walked side by side for the first time. They talked freely on many topics, she listening contentedly. They smiled into each other's eyes, and at the end of that short journey, something had happened. True love had awakened in two hearts. Through all the s.h.i.+fting scenes of earth-life, nothing like this had ever come to this man and this woman. Love had waited all this time. The power that draws kindred souls together is not limited to the few years of earth-life. While time lasts, G.o.d will provide sometime, somewhere, in which to give opportunity for every deserving soul. Here were two whose hearts beat as one; but one must needs have left mortality early in his course, while the other went on to the end alone. The reason for this was difficult to see by mortal eyes, but now--

"I'm coming again to see you," said David, as he prepared to depart. "I have so much to tell you; and you,--you have said very little. I must hear your story too."

"I have no story," said she. "My earth-life was very uneventful. I just seemed to be waiting--"

"Yes?"

But Rachel was confused. Her simple heart had spoken, and true to earthly habit, she now tried to cover up her tell-tale words; but he saw and understood, and as they stood there, his heart burned with a great joy.

"Good-bye," he said, as he took her hand, "may I come again soon?"

"Yes;" she answered. "I shall be pleased to see more of your beautiful flower garden."

This was the beginning of a courts.h.i.+p, not the less sweet because it had been postponed for so long; not the less real, from the fact that the man and the woman were spiritual beings. "Sin," said the apostle, "is without the body;" so love and affection are attributes of the spirit, whether that spirit is within or without a tabernacle of flesh. And this courts.h.i.+p did not differ to any great extent from all others which had taken place from the beginning of time. There were the same timid approaches and responses; the getting acquainted with each other, wherein each lover's eyes glorified every act in the other; the tremulous pressure of hands; the love-laden looks and words; the thrill of inexpressible joy when the two were together. Neither was this courts.h.i.+p exceptional. Among the vast mult.i.tude in the spirit world there are many who did not mate in the brief time allotted to them in the earth-life; therefore, congenial spirits are continually meeting and reading "life's meaning in each other's eyes."

Rachel, though she claimed to have no "story" to tell, interested David greatly in her account of how the Lord had chosen her as one of a family to become a savior on Mt. Zion. The work for the dead had not interested him. He, in connection with the youth of his time, had neglected that part of the gospel plan; and now, of course, he saw his mistake.

"Yes," David acknowledged to Rachel, "I see my error now, as usual, when it is too late to remedy it. You who were faithful rank above me here."

"Don't say that," she pleaded.

"But it is true. Your good deeds came before you here and gave you a standing. Some of the treasures you destined for heaven were detained here, and you are now reaping benefits from them. Do I not see it all the time? When we meet new people, you are received with delight--I am unknown."

"David, what comes to me, you partake of also, because--"

"Because you shall belong to me. Yes, dear one; that is the blessed truth. The Lord has brought us together, and all else should be forgotten in our grat.i.tude to Him.... Rachel, we would have known each other in earth-life had I behaved myself. Our lives were surely trending toward each other, and our paths would have met. We would have loved and have wedded there, had it not been for my--"

"Say no more. Let us forget the past in thinking of and planning for the future. I am happy now, and so is your mother."

"And so am I."

IV.

"Whatsoever G.o.d doeth it shall be forever."--_Eccl. 3:14._

David and Rachel were out walking when they saw another couple whose lovelike actions were noticeable. As they met, the couple stopped and the man said, "Pardon me, but we are somewhat strange in this new world.

May we ask you some questions?"

"Let us sit down here together," suggested David, and he led the way to a place where they could sit quietly. "Are you in trouble?"

"Well, I hardly know," replied the man. "Anna and I are together, and perhaps we ought to be satisfied; but somehow we are not. There is something lacking."

"Yes?"