Part 13 (1/2)

Penloe said: ”Do you know, Mrs. Herne, there are more than a million couples whose experience is exactly like your own; and if your environments had not been so pleasant, and both of your dispositions well blended, and well balanced, you would have separated long ago, as many have done, not knowing the real cause, and thinking it was something else. You see,” continued Penloe, ”before you were married, you and your husband had both led pure, virtuous lives; and each of you was like a strong electric battery, charged with the life forces of the body, which produced this pleasant feeling of attraction, and when you were married both of you thought and acted like most other married people.”

Mrs. Herne said: ”Thank you, Penloe; the ideas you have advanced should become common property of the many.”

Penloe replied: ”Yes; but there are some who have these ideas, but don't wish to put them in practice.”

Mrs. Herne said: ”Penloe, suppose that two married persons having been living as most married persons do, and one of the two wished to live the better way which you have just described, while the other wished to live as they have been doing, what would be best to do in a case like that?”

Penloe replied: ”That is a matter that requires the best judgment possible, so as not to give offence. Great diplomacy must be used where hard feelings are liable to be produced; but there is one thing that must always be kept in view and that is that the one who wishes to live the better way must be true to himself or herself. The matter should be presented in a very kindly way, showing that it is as much for the interest of the one not wis.h.i.+ng to live the new way as it is for the one desiring it. Patience must be used, and, above all, kindness and love.

”I am going to ask you now, Penloe,” said Mrs. Herne, ”to tell me from your standpoint, what kind of unions would you consider the best ones?”

To Mrs. Herne's astonishment, Penloe replied: ”All marriages are the best ones; even where they are so unhappy as to separate the next day.

The two can only work out their unfoldment from the plane they are now on, and not from any other plane or place.”

”Yes,” said Mrs. Herne, ”but supposing I am living the old way, and after hearing you explain the new way, I wish to live that way.”

Penloe said: ”That would show that you were tired of living on your old plane, and you were now ready to leave a lower plane for the higher one.

But, supposing I had seen you a week before you were married to Charles Herne, and explained to you the new way, do you think you would have been ready to commence your married life by living the new way?”

Mrs. Herne laughed, and said: ”I see it all now; I had to go through this experience in marriage in order to be ready for the better way. But are there not some who are ready to live the better way without having any experience?”

”Yes,” said Penloe, ”because they were already on a higher plane.

Supposing I take a watch and explain its works to you and your husband; after I get through, you understand all about its movements because you were on the mechanical plane to receive the instruction, but your husband does not, because he has not reached the mechanical plane to receive it. So it is in regard to receiving ideas on any social, moral, or spiritual plane.”

”I understand it now,” said Mrs. Herne, ”for you have the faculty of making any subject very clear; but I am going to push my question and get you to describe the grades of the higher planes in marriage.”

Penloe replied: ”There are very, very few persons who are living the pure life in marriage who have not reached that plane through experience. Now, it is possible that of two who are about to be married, one previous to that union may have reached the plane of purity through experience; while the other, not having had any such experience, and intending in the main to live purely under marriage, but for several reasons desires to have some experience before living the pure life.

”Again, where the purpose of the union is to live the pure life, then the union belongs to the higher plane. But the highest plane of all is where the two, at the time of marriage, consecrate themselves to each other and to the service of the Lord in His humanity, keeping their bodies, as the temples of G.o.d, pure and sacred; where both live above all l.u.s.tful desires for each other, keeping the life forces for making the mind and body strong, and fitting themselves to be instruments of the Divine. Such a union brings the highest bliss to each of them, and the greater good to the world at large. They do not require children to make them happy, for their life is in the Divine One. They fully realize that in Him they live, move, breathe, and have their being, and they forego for themselves the pleasures of parentage in order to become a spiritual father and a spiritual mother to the many.”

Mrs. Herne gave Penloe her hand, and said: ”I sincerely thank you for the light you have this day given me.”

That evening Clara Herne told her husband Penloe's ideas on the marriage relations.h.i.+p. After listening very closely to all she said, Mr. Herne sat thinking for a while, then said: ”Clara, for a long time I have been reflecting on that subject, and it perplexed me much, but now that Penloe has made it so very clear, it seems like so many other things which are hard to find out and understand, but when explained by a master mind like Penloe, appear simple.

”Clara, can you estimate what a great gift Penloe gave you in imparting those very important truths? and the knowledge he gave you, he knew you would tell me; therefore, I feel he has given us both a precious gift, more than if we had received a present of five thousand dollars. We cannot prize such a dear friend too highly.”

They had an hour's very agreeable talk on the matter, and they were both of one mind, and decided that there and then they would live the new way; and they both sealed their sacred vow with a pure love kiss.

CHAPTER XVI.

TIESTAN.

A few days after Stella had returned home from her visit to her aunt in Roseland, she and her mother went to call on Penloe; for Mrs.

Wheelwright was as anxious to see such an original man, as Stella was to set her eyes on a face that had such a beautiful expression.

As we have said, Penloe was living all alone, his mother's work being for the present in Chicago.

When Penloe came to the door he received Stella in such an agreeable way as to make her feel perfectly at ease.