"Sir, can you read it now without feeling your soul kindle?"
"Yes, child; it has lost its interest for me. I read it as
indifferently as I do one of my medical books. So will you one day."
"Never! It shall be a guide-book to my soul, telling of the pathway,
arched with galaxies and paved with suns, through which that soul
shall pass in triumph to its final rest!"
"And who shall remain in that 'illimitable dungeon of pure, pure
darkness, which imprisons creation? That dead sea of nothing, in
whose unfathomable zone of blackness the jewel of the glittering
universe is set and buried forever?' Child, is not that, too a
dwelling-place?" He passed his fingers through his hair, sweeping it
all back from his ample forehead. Beulah opened the book, and read
aloud: "Immediately my eyes were opened, and I saw, as it were, an
interminable sea of light; all spaces between all heavens were
filled with happiest light, for the deserts and wastes of the
creation were now filled with the sea of light, and in this sea the
suns floated like ash-gray blossoms, and the planets like black
grains of seed. Then my heart comprehended that immortality dwelled
in the spaces between the worlds, and Death only among the worlds;
and the murky planets I perceived were but cradles for the infant
spirits of the universe of light! In the Zaarahs of the creation I
saw, I heard, I felt--the glittering, the echoing, the breathing of
life and creative power!"
She closed the volume, and, while her lips trembled with deep
feeling, added earnestly: "Oh, sir, it makes me long, like Jean Paul, 'for some narrow cell or
quiet oratory in this metropolitan cathedral of the universe.' It is
an infinite conception and painting of infinity, which my soul
endeavors to grasp, but wearies in thinking of!"
Dr. Hartwell smiled, and, pointing to a row of books, said with some
eagerness: "I will test your love of Jean Paul. Give me that large volume in
crimson binding on the second shelf. No--further on; that is it."
He turned over the leaves for a few minutes, and, with a finger
still on the page, put it into her hand, saying: "Begin here at 'I went through the worlds,' and read down to 'when I
awoke.'"
She sat down and read. He put his hand carelessly over his eyes, and
watched her curiously through his fingers. It was evident that she
soon became intensely interested. He could see the fierce throbbing
of a vein in her throat and the tight clutching of her fingers. Her
eyebrows met in the wrinkling forehead, and the lips were compressed
severely. Gradually the flush faded from her cheek, an expression of
pain and horror swept over her stormy face, and, rising hastily, she
exclaimed: "False! false! 'That everlasting storm which no one guides' tells me
in thunder tones that there is a home of rest in the presence of the
infinite Father! Oh, chance does not roam, like a destroying angel,
through that 'snow-powder of stars!' The love of our God is over all
his works as a mantle! Though you should 'take the wings of the
morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,' lo! he is
there! The sorrowing children of the universe are not orphans!
Neither did Richter believe it; well might he declare that with this
sketch he would 'terrify himself' and vanquish the specter of
Atheism! Oh, sir! the dear God stretches his arm about each and all
of us! 'When the sorrow-laden lays himself, with a galled back, into
the earth, to sleep till a fairer morning,' it is not true that 'he
awakens in a stormy chaos, in an everlasting midnight!' It is not
true! He goes home to his loved dead, and spends a blissful eternity
in the kingdom of Jehovah, where death is no more, 'where the wicked
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!'"