Part 12 (1/2)

'Why were the Flats called St. Clair?' I said; for there is something fascinating to me in the unknown history of the West. 'There isn't any,'

do you say? you I mean, who are strong in the Punic wars! you, too, who are so well up in Grecian mythology. But there is history, only we don't know it. The story of Lake Huron in the time of the Pharaohs, the story of the Mississippi during the reign of Belshazzar, would be worth hearing. But it is lost? All we can do is to gather together the details of our era,--the era when Columbus came to this New World, which was, nevertheless, as old as the world he left behind.

'It was in 1679,' began Waiting Samuel, 'that La Salle sailed up the Detroit River in his little vessel of sixty tons burden, called the Griffin. He was accompanied by thirty-four men, mostly fur-traders; but there were among them two holy monks, and Father Louis Hennepin, a friar of the Franciscan order. They pa.s.sed up the river and entered the little lake just south of us, crossing it and these Flats on the 12th of August, which is St. Clair's day. Struck with the gentle beauty of the scene, they named the waters after their saint, and at sunset sang a _Te Deum_ in her honor.'

'And who was Saint Clair?'

'Saint Clair, virgin and abbess, born in Italy, in 1193, made superior of a convent by the great Francis, and canonized for her distinguished virtues,' said Samuel, as though reading from an encyclopaedia.

'Are you a Roman Catholic?' asked Raymond.

'I am everything; all sincere faith is sacred to me,' replied the man.

'It is but a question of names.'

'Tell us of your religion,' said Raymond, thoughtfully; for in religions Raymond was something of a polyglot.

'You would hear of my faith? Well, so be it. Your question is the work of spirit influence. Listen, then. The great Creator has sowed immensity with innumerable systems of suns. In one of these systems a spirit forgot that he was a limited, subordinate being, and misused his freedom; how, we know not. He fell, and with him all his kind. A new race was then created for the vacant world, and, according to the fixed purpose of the Creator, each was left free to act for himself; he loves not mere machines. The fallen spirit, envying the new creature called man, tempted him to sin. What was his sin? Simply the giving up of his birthright, the divine soul-sparkle, for an earthly pleasure. The triune divine deep, the mysterious fiery triangle, which, to our finite minds, best represents the Deity, now withdrew his personal presence; the elements, their balance broken, stormed upon man; his body, which was once ethereal, moving by mere volition, now grew heavy; and it was also appointed unto him to die. The race thus darkened, crippled, and degenerate, sank almost to the level of brutes, the mind-fire alone remaining of all their spiritual gifts. They lived on blindly, and as blindly died. The sun, however, was left to them, a type of what they had lost.

'At length, in the fulness of time, the world-day of four thousand years, which was appointed by the council in heaven for the regiving of the divine and forfeited soul-sparkle, as on the fourth day of creation the great sun was given, there came to earth the earth's compa.s.sionate Saviour, who took upon himself our degenerate body, and revivified it with the divine soul-sparkle, who overcame all our temptations, and finally allowed the tinder of our sins to perish in his own painful death upon the cross. Through him our paradise body was restored, it waits for us on the other side of the grave. He showed us what it was like on Mount Tabor, with it he pa.s.sed through closed doors, walked upon the water, and ruled the elements; so will it be with us. Paradise will come again; this world will, for a thousand years, see its first estate; it will be again the Garden of Eden. America is the great escaping-place; here will the change begin. As it is written, 'Those who escape to my utmost borders.' As the time draws near, the spirits who watch above are permitted to speak to those souls who listen. Of these listening, waiting souls am I; therefore have I withdrawn myself. The sun himself speaks to me, the greatest spirit of all; each morning I watch for his coming; each morning I ask, 'Is it to-day?' Thus do I wait.'

'And how long have you been waiting?' I asked.

'I know not; time is nothing to me.'

'Is the great day near at hand?' said Raymond.

'Almost at its dawning; the last days are pa.s.sing.'

'How do you know this?'

'The spirits tell me. Abide here, and perhaps they will speak to you also,' replied Waiting Samuel.

We made no answer. Twilight had darkened into night, and the Flats had sunk into silence below us. After some moments I turned to speak to our host; but, noiselessly as one of his own spirits, he had departed.

'A strange mixture of Jacob Boehmen, chiliastic dreams, Christianity, sun-wors.h.i.+p, and modern spiritualism,' I said. 'Much learning hath made the Maine farmer mad.'

'Is he mad?' said Raymond. 'Sometimes I think we are all mad.'

'We should certainly become so if we spent our time in speculations upon subjects clearly beyond our reach. The whole race of philosophers from Plato down are all the time going round in a circle. As long as we are in the world, I for one propose to keep my feet on solid ground; especially as we have no wings. 'Abide here, and perhaps the spirits will speak to you,' did he say? I think very likely they will, and to such good purpose that you won't have any mind left.'

'After all, why should not spirits speak to us?' said Raymond, in a musing tone.

As he uttered these words the mocking laugh of a loon came across the dark waste.

'The very loons are laughing at you,' I said, rising. 'Come down; there is a chill in the air, composed in equal parts of the Flats, the night, and Waiting Samuel. Come down, man; come down to the warm kitchen and common-sense.'

We found Roxana alone by the fire, whose glow was refres.h.i.+ngly real and warm; it was like the touch of a flesh-and-blood hand, after vague dreamings of spirit-companions, cold and intangible at best, with the added suspicion that, after all, they are but creations of our own fancy, and even their spirit-nature fict.i.tious. Prime, the graceful _raconteur_ who goes a-fis.h.i.+ng, says, 'firelight is as much of a polisher in-doors as moonlight outside.' It is; but with a different result. The moonlight polishes everything into romance, the firelight into comfort. We brought up two remarkably easy old chairs in front of the hearth and sat down, Raymond still adrift with his wandering thoughts, I, as usual, making talk out of the present. Roxana sat opposite, knitting in hand, the cat purring at her feet. She was a slender woman, with faded light hair, insignificant features, small dull blue eyes, and a general aspect which, with every desire to state at its best, I can only call commonplace. Her gown was limp, her hands roughened with work, and there was no collar around her yellow throat. O magic rim of white, great is thy power! With thee, man is civilized; without thee, he becomes at once a savage.

'I am out of pork,' remarked Roxana, casually; 'I must go over to the mainland to-morrow and get some.'

If it had been anything but pork! In truth, the word did not chime with the mystic conversation of Waiting Samuel. Yes; there was no doubt about it. Roxana's mind was sadly commonplace.