Part 8 (2/2)
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.
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