Part 11 (1/2)
When dear mother died, you remember I told you a dream about the angels.
Last night I thought they came to me again, and I saw mother, too, so clearly!”
She stopped, and her eyes fell. She seemed almost sorry that she had said as much; for she had not forgotten that the former dream to which she alluded had caused her sisters pain, and she thought, that perhaps she should make them unhappy again, if she related her dream of the night before. But her sisters begged her to go on, and she did so.
”When I went to sleep,” said she, ”I was thinking of--of--what father had said to me”--and she burst into a flood of tears. Her sisters wept, too; for they well remembered that their father had come home intoxicated that night, and that he had spoken very harshly to them all, and especially to the youngest. They could not say much to console her. What could they say?
Silently they wept, and by their tears and embraces they told her how deeply they sympathized with her, and how much they would do for her, if they could. When the little dreamer was able to go on, she said,
”I was thinking about this when I went to sleep. I thought I was crying, and wondering why G.o.d should let dear mother die, and leave us all alone, when I heard some one say, 'Look up,' I looked up in the sky, and all the stars were windows, and I saw through them. I saw heaven--so beautiful--so beautiful! I saw mother looking out of one of these windows, and she smiled, as she did when we brought the rose to her bed-side. I heard her call my name, and she reached her arms toward me, and said, 'You may come,'
Oh, this was not like other dreams”----
”Don't think of it, dear sister; don't think of it any more,” said Eliza.
”You was not well last night, and I have often heard, that when people are ill, their dreams are more apt to be disturbed. But we will not say any more about it now, dear.”
”No,” said Maria; ”we shall all feel too sad, if we do.” And she made an effort to be cheerful; though tears stood in her eyes as she spoke.
”I don't know why it makes others feel sad to think of heaven,” said the favorite. ”I should love dearly to go there.”
”But then it is so dreadful to die!”
”I know it; but mother was so happy when she died!”
”Would you be willing to leave your sisters, dear Sue?”
”No; not unless I could see my mother and Christ. Oh, I do love Christ more than all the rest of my friends! Do you think that is wrong?”
The three sisters slowly and thoughtfully bent their steps homeward, and just as the sun was setting, and the western clouds were spread with the beauty and glory of twilight, they entered that cottage which, though the abode of sorrow, was yet dear and sacred to them, because it was once the home of their mother.
From that time, the gentle, loving, thoughtful little Sue, faded--faded as a flower in the autumn wind. She had not been well for weeks; and soon it was evident that she was rapidly declining. Was her dream a cause or an effect--a cause of her decline, or an effect of an illness already preying upon her frail system? Perhaps we cannot tell. There is something very remarkable about many dreams. It is not easy to account for them all, by what is known of the laws of the mind. But we must not stop now to inquire into this matter.
Step by step, that cherished sister went downward to the grave; and before the summer had come, while the early violet and the pure anemone were still in bloom, G.o.d called her home. Peacefully and beautifully her sun went down. ”They have come,” she said. So died the youngest--the favorite child.
THE MINE.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MINE.]
There are three kingdoms in nature--the Mineral kingdom, the Vegetable kingdom, and the Animal kingdom--the former for the sake of the latter, and all for the sake of man. Without the Vegetable kingdom animals could not exist, and without the Mineral kingdom vegetables could not exist.
It is also worthy of remark, that in all the inferior kingdoms of nature, there is an image of what is superior. The lowest of all the kingdoms is the Mineral kingdom, where every thing takes a fixed form, and where all changes are the work of centuries, instead of days and months, as in the Vegetable and Animal kingdoms. Yet, in this dull, inert kingdom, we find a certain image of the one next above, in the upright or orderly forms into which many of its substances arrange themselves. Under circ.u.mstances of more than usual freedom, particles of matter in this kingdom will a.s.sume shapes so nearly resembling those of the Vegetable kingdom, that many were at first disposed to conclude that they were mere petrifactions; as in the case of formations at the bottom of the ocean, and those that take place in caverns. But we will not wonder at this, when we remember, that the use of the Mineral kingdom is to sustain the Vegetable kingdom, in order that the latter may sustain the Animal kingdom. Use, it must be remembered, is the great law that pervades, sustains, and holds in harmonious order, the whole universe.
In the Vegetable kingdom we see a still nearer approach to man. There is motion and life--not conscious life, but a kind of insensible existence.
Nearly all the members of this kingdom elevate themselves toward heaven, and stand upright, like men.