There & Back Part 77

"I want to tell you something that came to me one night when we were in London," she said. "It was a miserable time that--before I found you up in the orchestra there! and then h.e.l.l became purgatory, for there was hope in it. I saw so many miserable things! I seemed always to come upon the miserable things. It was as if my eyes were made only to see miserable things--bad things and suffering everywhere. The terrible city was full of them. I longed to help, but had to wait for you to set me free. You had gone from my knowledge, and I was very sad, seeing nothing around me but a waste of dreariness. I kept asking G.o.d to give me patience, and not let me fancy myself alone. But the days were dismal, and the b.a.l.l.s and dinners frightful. I seemed in a world without air.

The girls were so silly, the men so inane, and the things they said so mawkish and colourless! Their compliments sickened me so, that I was just hungry to hide myself. But at last came what I want to tell you.

"One morning, after what seemed a long night's dreamless sleep, I awoke; but it was much too early to rise; so I lay thinking--or more truly, I hope, being thought into, as Mr. Wingfold says. Many of the most beautiful things I had read, scenes of our Lord's life on earth, and thoughts of the Father, came and went. I had no desire to sleep again, or any feeling of drowsiness; but in the midst of fully conscious thought, found myself in some other place, of which I only knew that there was firm ground under my feet, and a soft white radiance of light about me. The remembrance came to me afterwards, of branches of trees spreading high overhead, through which I saw the sky: but at the time I seemed not to take notice of what was around me. I was leaning against a form tall and grand, clothed from the shoulders to the ground in a black robe, full, and soft, and fine. It lay in thickly gathered folds, touched to whiteness in the radiant light, all along the arms encircling, without at first touching me.

"With sweet content my eyes went in and out of those manifold radiant lines, feeling, though they were but parts of his dress, yet they were of himself; for I knew the form to be that of the heavenly Father, but felt no trembling fear, no sense of painful awe--only a deep, deep wors.h.i.+pping, an unutterable love and confidence. 'Oh Father!' I said, not aloud, but low into the folds of his garment. Scarcely had I breathed the words, when 'My child!' came whispered, and I knew his head was bent toward me, and I felt his arms close round my shoulders, and the folds of his garment enwrap me, and with a soft sweep, fall behind me to the ground. Delight held me still for a while, and then I looked up to seek his face; but I could not see past his breast. His shoulders rose far above my upreaching hands. I clasped them together, and face and hands rested near his heart, for my head came not much above his waist.

"And now came the most wonderful part of my dream. As I thus rested against his heart, _I seemed to see into it_; and mine was filled with loving wonder, and an utterly blessed feeling of home, to the very core.

I was _at home_--with my Father! I looked, as it seemed, into a s.p.a.ce illimitable and fathomless, and yet a warm light as from a hearth-fire shone and played in ruddy glow, as upon confining walls. And I saw, there gathered, all human hearts. I saw them--yet I saw no forms; they _were_ there--and yet they _would be_ there. To my waking reason, the words sound like nonsense, and perplex me; but the thing did not perplex me at all. With light beyond that of faith, for it was of absolute certainty, clear as bodily vision, but of a different nature, I saw them. But this part of my dream, the most lovely of all, I can find no words to describe; nor can I even recall to my own mind the half of what I felt. I only know that something was given me then, some spiritual apprehension, to be again withdrawn, but to be given to us all, I believe, some day, out of his infinite love, and withdrawn no more.

Every heart that had ever ached, or longed, or wandered, I knew was there, folded warm and soft, safe and glad. And it seemed in my dream that to know this was the crown of all my bliss--yes, even more than to be myself in my Father's arms. Awake, the thought of mult.i.tude had always oppressed my mind; it did not then. From the comfort and joy it gave me to see them there, I seemed then first to know how my own heart had ached for them.

"Then tears began to run from my eyes--but easily, with no pain of the world in them. They flowed like a gentle stream--_into the heart of G.o.d_, whose depths were open to my gaze. The blessedness of those tears was beyond words. It was all true then! That heart was our home!

"Then I felt that I was being gently, oh, so gently, put away. The folds of his robe which I held in my hands, were being slowly drawn from them; and the gladness of my weeping changed to longing entreaty. 'Oh Father!

Father!' I cried; but I saw only his grand gracious form, all blurred and indistinct through the veil of my blinding tears, slowly receding, slowly fading--and I awoke.

"My tears were flowing now with the old earth-pain in them, with keenest disappointment and longing. _To have been there and to have come back_, was the misery. But it did not last long. The glad thought awoke that I _had_ the dream--a precious thing never to be lost while memory lasted; a thing which nothing but its realization could ever equal in preciousness. I rose glad and strong, to serve with newer love, with quicker hand and readier foot, the hearts around me."