Beulah - Page 107/348

"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!'"