Intra Muros Part 8

"My daughter," my friend explained, "who left us in early childhood, has received a fine musical training here, and is fond of gathering in her young friends and giving us quite often a musical treat. You know our old home of Springville has furnished some rare voices for the heavenly choirs. Mary Allis, Will Griggs, and many others you will often hear in this room, I trust."

We re-entered, from this room, the dainty reception hall opening upon the front veranda and outer steps. Here Mrs. Wickham drew me to a seat beside her and said:

"Now, tell me everything of the dear home and all its blessed inmates."

Holding each other's hands as we talked, she questioning, I answering, things too sacred to be repeated here were dwelt upon for hours. At last she said, rising hastily:

"I will leave you for a little while--nay, you must not go," as I would have risen, "there is much yet to be said; wait here, I will return."

I had already learned not to question the judgment of these wiser friends, and yielded to her will. As she pa.s.sed through the doorway to the inner house, I saw a stranger at the front entrance and arose to meet him. He was tall and commanding in form, with a face of ineffable sweetness and beauty. Where had I seen him before? Surely, surely I had met him since I came. "Ah, now I know!" I thought; "it is St.

John, the beloved disciple." He had been pointed out to me one morning by the river-side.

"Peace be unto this house," was his salutation as he entered.

How his voice stirred and thrilled me! No wonder the Master loved him, with that voice and that face!

"Enter. Thou art a welcome guest. Enter, and I will call the mistress," I said, as I approached to bid him welcome.

"Nay, call her not. She knows that I am here; she will return," he said. "Sit thou awhile beside me," he continued, as he saw that I still stood, after I had seen him seated. He arose and led me to a seat near him, and like a child I did as I was bidden; still watching, always watching, the wonderful face before me.

"You have but lately come?" he said.

"Yes, I am here but a short time. So short that I know not how to reckon time as you count it here," I answered.

"Ah, that matters little," he said with a gentle smile. "Many cling always to the old reckoning and the earth-language. It is a link between the two lives; we would not have it otherwise. How does the change impress you? How do you find life here?"

"Ah," I said, "if they could only know! I never fully understood till now the meaning of that sublime pa.s.sage, 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which G.o.d hath prepared for them that love him.' It is indeed past human conception." I spoke with deep feeling.

"'For them that love him'? Do you believe that all Christians truly love him?" he asked. "Do you think they love the Father for the gift of the Son and the Son because of the Father's love and mercy? Or is their wors.h.i.+p ofttimes that of duty rather than love?" He spoke reflectively and gently.

"Oh," I said, "you who so well know the beloved Master--who were so loved by him--how can you doubt the love he must inspire in all hearts who seek to know him?"

A radiant glow overspread the wonderful face, which he lifted, looking directly at me--the mist rolled away from before my eyes--and I knew him! With a low cry of joy and adoration, I threw myself at his feet, bathing them with happy tears. He gently stroked my bowed head for a moment, then rising, lifted me to his side.

"My Savior--my King!" I whispered, clinging closely to him.

"Yes, and Elder Brother and Friend," he added, wiping away tenderly the tears stealing from beneath my closed eyelids.

"Yes, yes, 'the chiefest among ten thousand, and the One altogether lovely!'" again I whispered.

"Ah, now you begin to meet the conditions of the new life! Like many another, the changing of faith to sight with you has engendered a little shrinking, a little fear. That is all wrong. Have you forgotten the promise, 'I go to prepare a place for you; that where I am, there ye may be also'? If you loved me when you could not see me except by faith, love me more now when we have really become 'co-heirs of the Father.' Come to me with all that perplexes or gladdens; come to the Elder Brother always waiting to receive you with joy."

Then he drew me to a seat, and conversed with me long and earnestly, unfolding many of the mysteries of the divine life. I hung upon his words; I drank in every tone of his voice; I watched eagerly every line of the beloved face; and I was exalted, uplifted, upborne, beyond the power of words to express. At length with a divine smile, he arose.

"We will often meet," he said; and I, bending over, pressed my lips reverently to the hand still clasping my own. Then laying his hands a moment in blessing upon my bowed head, he pa.s.sed noiselessly and swiftly from the house.

As I stood watching the Savior's fast-receding figure, pa.s.sing beneath the flower-laden trees, I saw two beautiful young girls approaching the way he went. With arms intertwining they came, happily conversing together, sweet Mary Bates and Mae Camden. When they saw the Master, with a glad cry they flew to meet him, and as he joyously extended a hand to each, they turned, and each clinging to his hand, one upon either side, accompanied him on his way, looking up trustingly into his face as he talked with them, and apparently conversing with him with happy freedom. I saw his face from time to time in profile, as he turned and looked down lovingly, first upon one, then the other lovely upturned face, and I thought, "That is the way he would have us be with him--really as children with a beloved elder brother." I watched them till the trees hid them from my sight, longing to gather the dear girls to my heart, but knowing his presence was to them then more than aught else; then I turned and pa.s.sed softly through the house to the beautiful entrance at the rear. Just before I reached the door I met my friend Mrs. Wickham. Before I could speak, she said:

"I know all about it. Do not try to speak; I know your heart is full.

I will see you very soon--there, go!" and she pushed me gently to the door.

How my heart blessed her--for it indeed seemed sacrilege to try to talk on ordinary topics after this blessed experience. I did not follow the walk, but kept across the flowery turf, beneath the trees, till I reached home. I found my brother sitting upon the veranda, and as I ascended the steps he rose to meet me. When he looked into my face, he took both hands into his for an instant, and simply said, very gently:

"Ah, I see. You have been with the Master!" and stepped aside almost reverently for me to enter the house.

I hastened to my room, and, dropping the draperies behind me at the door, I threw myself upon the couch, and with closed eyes lived over every instant I had spent in that hallowed Presence. I recalled every word and tone of the Savior's voice, and fastened the instructions he had given me indelibly upon my memory. I seemed to have been lifted to a higher plane of existence, to have drunk deeper draughts from the fountain of all good, since I had met "Him whom my soul loved." It was a long, blessed communion that I held thus with my own soul on that hallowed day. When I looked upon the pictured face above me, I wondered that I had not at once recognized the Christ, the likeness was so perfect. But I concluded that for some wise purpose my "eyes were holden" until it was his pleasure that I should see him as he is.

When at last I arose, the soft golden twilight was about me, and I knelt by my couch, to offer my first prayer in heaven. Up to this time my life there had been a constant thanksgiving--there had seemed no room for pet.i.tion. Now as I knelt all I could utter over and over, was:

"I thank Thee, blessed Father; I thank Thee, I thank Thee!"

When I at last descended the stairs, I found my brother standing in the great "flower-room," and, going to him, I said softly:

"Frank, what do you do in heaven when you want to pray?"

"We praise!" he answered.

"Then let us praise now," I said.

And standing there, with clasped hands, we lifted up our hearts and voices in a hymn of praise to G.o.d; my brother with his clear, strong voice leading, I following. As the first notes sounded, I thought the roof echoed them; but I soon found that other voices blended with ours, until the whole house seemed filled with unseen singers. Such a grand hymn of praise earth never heard. And as the hymn went on, I recognized many dear voices from the past--Will Griggs' pathetic tenor, Mary Allis' exquisite soprano, and many another voice that wakened memories of the long ago. Then as I heard sweet child-voices, and looked up, I saw above us such a cloud of radiant baby faces as flooded my heart with joy. The room seemed filled with them.

"Oh, what a life--what a divine life!" I whispered, as, after standing until the last lingering notes had died away, my brother and I returned to the veranda and sat in the golden twilight.

"You are only in the first pages of its record," he said. "Its blessedness must be gradually unfolded to us, or we could not, even here, bear its dazzling glory."

Then followed an hour of hallowed intercourse, when he led my soul still deeper into the mysteries of the glorious life upon which I had now entered. He taught me; I listened. Sometimes I questioned, but rarely. I was content to take of the heavenly manna as it was given me, with a heart full of grat.i.tude and love.

CHAPTER IX.

Not as a child shall we again behold her; For when with rapture wild In our embraces we again enfold her, She will not be a child, But a fair maiden, in her Father's Mansion, Clothed with celestial grace, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion Shall we behold her face.

--[Henry W. Longfellow

The next day, my brother being away upon an important mission, I started out alone to see if I might not find the dear young friends of whom I had caught a fleeting glimpse the day before. I knew that all things were ordered aright in that happy world, and that sooner or later I should find them again; yet I could but hope it might be very soon. I recalled the happy light upon their fresh young faces as they had met the beloved Master, and I longed to talk with them of their life from day to day. From thinking of them, I began again to think of my blessed interview with Him, and became so absorbed in these thoughts that I was even oblivious to the beautiful world around me. Suddenly I heard some one say:

"Surely that is Mrs. Sprague!" and looking up, I saw sweet Mary Bates a few steps away, regarding me intently. I cried joyfully:

"My precious Mamie!"

She flew to me, and folding me in her arms, drew my head to her shoulder in the old caressing way, almost sobbing in her great joy.

"Dear, dear little muzzer!"--a pet name often used by her in the happy past--"how glad, how glad I am to have you here! I could scarcely wait to find you."

"How did you know I was here, Mamie?"

"The Master told me," she said softly. "Mae had already told me, and we were on the way to find you when we met him, and he told us he had just left you. Then we knew we must wait a little," she said reverently.