The natural step to knowledge is through faith. Even human science
teaches as much as this. The faith of the scholar in the theoretic
value of his facts precedes his intelligent use of them. Invention
dreams before it does. Discovery believes before it finds. Creation
imagines before it achieves.
Spiritual intelligence, when it came at last, to me, came with
something of the jar of all abnormal processes. The wholesome
movements of trust I had omitted from my soul's economy. The function
of faith was a disused thing in me. Truth had to treat me as an
undeveloped mind.
In the depth of my consciousness, I knew that, come what might, I had
for ever lost the chance to be a symmetrical healthy human creature,
whose spiritual faculties are exercised like his brain or muscle; who
has lived upon the earth, and loved it, and gathered its wealth and
sweetness and love of living into his being, as visible food whereby to
create invisible stature; whose earthly experience has carried him on,
as Nature carries growth--unconsciously, powerfully, perfectly, into a
diviner life. For ever it must remain with me that I had missed the
natural step.
If I say that the realization of knowledge was the first thing to teach
me the value of faith, I shall be understood by those who may have read
this narrative with any sort of sympathy to the present point; and, for
the rest, some wiser, better man than I must write.
I do not address those who follow these pages as I myself should once
have done. I do not hope to make myself intelligible to you, as I
would to God I could! Personal misery is intelligible, and the shock
of belated discovery. But the experience of another in matters of this
kind has not a "scientific" character.
No one can know better than I how my story will be dismissed as
something which is not "a fact."
In the times to be, it is my belief that there shall yet arise a soul,
worthier of the sacred task than I to which shall be given the perilous
and precious commission of interpreter between the visible life and the
life invisible. On this soul high privilege will be bestowed, and
awful opportunity. Through it the deaf shall hear, the dumb shall
speak. The bereaved shall bless it, and the faint of heart shall lean
on it, and those who know not God shall listen to it, and the power of
God shall be upon it. But mine is not that soul.
Even as One who was above man did elect to experience the earthly lot
of man to save him; so one who is a man among men may yet be permitted
to use the heavenly lot in such wise as to comfort them. The first
mission called for superhuman power. The second may need only human
purity.
I now enter upon a turn in my narrative, where my vehicle of
communication begins to fail me. Human language, as employed upon the
earth, has served me to some extent to express those phases of
celestial fact upon which I still looked with earth-blind eyes. With
spiritual vision comes the immediate need of a spiritual vocabulary.
Like most men of my temperament and training, I have been accustomed to
some caution in the use of words. I know not any, which would be
intelligible to the readers of this record, that can serve to express
my experiences onward from this point.
"A man becomes _terrestrialized_ as he grows older," said an unbeliever
of our day, once, to me.
It is at least true that the terrestrial intellect celestializes by the
hardest; and it remains obvious, as it was written, that the things
which are prepared may not enter into the heart of man.
This is only another way of saying that my life from the solemn hour
which I have recorded underwent revolutions too profound for me to
desire to utter them, and that most of my experiences were of a nature
which I lack the means to report. My story draws to a stop, as a cry
of anguish comes to a hush of peace. What word is there to say?
There is, indeed, one. With lips that tremble and praise God, I add it.
At a period not immediately following the event which I have described,
yet not so far beyond it that the time, as I recall it, seemed
wearisome to me, I received a summons to go upon an errand to a distant
place. It was the first time that I had been intrusted with any
business of a wider nature than the care of my own affairs or the
immediate offices of neighbourhood, and I was gratified thereby. I
had, indeed, longed to be counted worthy to perform some special
service at the will of Him who guided all our service, and had
cherished in my secret heart some project of praying that I might be
elected to a special task which had grown, from much musing, dear to
me. I did most deeply desire to become worthy to wear the seal of a
commission to the earth; but I had ceased to urge the selfish cry of my
personal heart-break. I did not pray now for the precious right to
visit my own home, nor weary the Will in which I had learned to confide
with passionate demands for my beloved. I may rather say that I had
come almost to feel that when I was worthy to see Helen I should be
worthy of life eternal; and that I had dropped my love and my longing
and my shame into the Hands of Infinite Love, and seen them close over
these, as over a trust.
The special matter to which I refer was this: I desired to be permitted
to visit human homes, and set myself, as well as I might, to the effort
of cultivating their kindliness. I longed to cherish the sacred graces
of human speech. I wished to emphasize the opportunity of those who
love each other. I groaned within me, till I might teach the
preciousness and the poignancy of _words_. It seemed to me that if I
might but set the whole force of a man's experience and a spirit's
power to make an irritable scene in loving homes held as degrading as a
blow, that I could say what no man ever said before, and do what no
spirit would ever do again.
If this be called an exaggerated view of a specific case, I can only
say that every human life learns one lesson perfectly, and is qualified
to teach that, and that alone, as no other can. This was mine.
When, therefore, I received the summons to which I have alluded, I
inferred that the wish of my heart had been heard, and I set forth
joyfully, expecting to be sent upon some service of the nature at which
I have hinted. My soul was full of it, and I made haste to depart,
putting no question in the way of my obedience. No information,
indeed, was granted to me beyond the fact that I should follow a
certain course until I came to its apparent end, and there await what
should occur, and act as my heart prompted. The vagueness of this
command stirred my curiosity a little, I confess; but that only added
to the pleasure of the undertaking. It would be difficult to say how
much relief I found in being occupied once again to some purpose, like
a man. But it would be impossible to tell the solemn happiness I had
in being counted fit humbly to fulfil the smallest trust placed in me
by Him who was revealed, at this late, last moment, after all, to me,
unworthy.
I set forth alone. The child was left behind me with a neighbour, for
so I thought the way of wisdom in this matter. Following only the
general directions which I had received, I found myself soon within the
open country toward the region of the hills. As I advanced, the
scenery became familiar to me, and I was not slow to recognize the path
as the one which I myself had trodden on my first entrance to the city
wherein of recent days I had found my home. I stopped to consider this
fact, and to gather landmarks, gazing about me diligently and musing on
my unknown course; for the ways divided before me as foot-paths do in
fields, each looking like all and all like each. While I stood
uncertain, and sensitively anxious to make no mistake, I heard the hit!
hit! of light feet patting the grass behind me, and, turning, saw a
little fellow coming like the morning wind across the plain. His
bright hair blew straight before him, from his forehead. He ran
sturdily. How beautiful he was!
He did not call me nor show the slightest fear lest he should fail to
overtake me. Ha had already learned that love always overtakes the
beloved in that blessed land.
"You forgot your little boy," he said reproachfully, and put his hand
quietly within mine and walked on beside me, and forgot that he had
been forgotten immediately, and looked upward at me radiantly.
Remembering the command to await what should occur, and do as my heart
prompted, I accepted this accident as part of a purpose wiser than my
own, and kissed the little fellow, and we travelled on together.
As we came into the hill country, our way grow wilder and more
desolate. The last of the stray travellers whom we chanced to meet was
now well behind us. In the wide spaces we were quite alone. Behind
us, dim and distant, shimmering like an opal in a haze of fair
half-tints, the city shone. On either side of us, the forest trees
began to tread solemnly, like a vast procession which no man could
number, keeping step to some inaudible march. Before us, the great
crest of the mountains towered dark as death against the upper sky. As
we drew near, the loneliness of these hills was to me as something of
which I had never conceived before. Earth did not hold their likeness,
and my heart had never held their meaning. I could almost have dreaded
them, as we came nearer to them; but the deviation of the paths had
long since ceased. In the desolate country which we were now crossing
choice was removed from conduct. There was but one course for me to
take; I took it unhesitatingly and without fear, which belongs wholly
to the lower life.
As we advanced, the great mountain barrier rose high and higher before
us, till it seemed to shut out the very sky from our sight, and to
crush us apart from all the world--nay, from either world or any, I
could have thought, so desolate and so awful was the spot. But when we
had entered the shadow formed by the mighty range, and had accustomed
our eyes to it for a time, I perceived, not far ahead of me, but in
fact quite near and sudden to the view, a long, dark, sharp defile cut
far into the heart of the hills. The place had an unpleasant look, and
I stopped before it to regard it. It was so grim of aspect and so
assured of outline, like a trap for travellers which had hung there
from all eternity, that I liked it not, and would not that the child
should enter till I had first inspected it. Therefore, I bade him sit
and rest upon a bed of crimson mosses which grew at the feet of a great
rock, and to remain until he saw me turn to him again; and with many
cautions and the most minute directions for his obedience and his
comfort, I left him, and advanced alone.
My way had now grown quite or almost dark. The light of heaven and
earth alike seemed banished from the dreadful spot. As it narrowed,
the footing grew uncertain and slippery, and the air dense and damp. I
had to remind myself that I was now become a being for whom physical
danger had ceased for ever.
"What a place," I thought, "for one less fortunate!"
As these words were in my mind, I lifted my eyes and looked, and saw
that I was not alone in the dark defile. A figure was coming toward
me, slight of build and delicate; yet it had a firm tread, and moved
with well-nigh the balance of a spirit over the rough and giddy way.
As I watched it, I saw that it was a woman. Uncertain for the moment
what to do, I remembered the command.
"Await what shall occur, and do as thy heart prompteth." And
therefore--for my heart prompted me, as a man's must, to be of service
to the woman--I hastened, and advanced, and midway of the place I met
her.
It was now perfectly dark. I could not see her face.
When I would have spoken with her, and given her good cheer, I could
not find my voice. If she said aught to me, I could not hear her. But
I gathered her hands, and held her, and led her on, and shielded her,
and gave her such comfort as a man by strength and silence may give a
woman when she has need of him; and as I supported her and aided her, I
thought of my dear wife, and prayed God that there might be found some
soul of fire and snow--since to me it was denied--to do as much as this
for her in some hour of her unknown need.
But when I had led the woman out into the lighter space, and turned to
look upon her, lo, it was none other. It was she herself. It was my
wife. It was no man's beloved but my own....
So, then, crying,
"_Helen!_"
And "Forgive me, Helen!" till the dark place rang with her dear name, I
bowed myself and sunk before her, and could not put forth my hand to
touch her, for I thought of how we parted, and it seemed my heart would
break.
But she said,
"Why, my dear Love! Oh, my poor Love! Did you think I would remember
_that_?"
And I felt her sacred tears upon my face, and she crept to me--oh, not
royally, not royally, like a wife who was wronged, but like the
sweetest woman in the world, who clung to me because she could not help
it, and would not if she could....
But when we turned our footsteps toward the light, and came out
together, hand in hand, there was our little boy, at play upon the bed
of crimson moss, and smiling like the face of joy eternal.
So his mother held out her arms, and the child ran into them. And when
we came to ourselves, we blessed Almighty God.
Perceiving that inquiry will be raised touching the means by which I
have been enabled to give this record to the living earth, I have this
reply to make:
That is my secret. Let it remain such.
THE END.
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End of Project Gutenberg's The Gates Between, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps