One night lying on my lounge, when very tired, my children all around
about me in full romp, and hilarity and laughter--on the lounge, half
awake and half asleep, I dreamed this dream: I was in a far country.
It was not Persia, although more than Oriental luxuriance crowned the
cities. It was not the tropics, although more than tropical
fruitfulness filled the gardens. It was not Italy, although more than
Italian softness filled the air. And I wandered around looking for
thorns and nettles, but I found that none of them grew there, and I
saw the sun rise, and I watched to see it set, but it sank not. And I
saw the people in holiday attire, and I said: "When will they put off
this and put on workmen's garb, and again delve in the mine or swelter
at the forge?" but they never put off the holiday attire.
And I wandered in the suburbs of the city to find the place where the
dead sleep, and I looked all along the line of the beautiful hills,
the place where the dead might most blissfully sleep, and I saw towers
and castles, but not a mausoleum or a monument or a white slab could I
see. And I went into the chapel of the great town, and I said: "Where
do the poor worship, and where are the hard benches on which they
sit?" And the answer was made me:
"WE HAVE NO POOR
in this country." And then I wandered out to find the hovels of the
destitute, and I found mansions of amber and ivory and gold; but not a
tear could I see, not a sigh could I hear, and I was bewildered, and I
sat down under the branches of a great tree, and I said: "Where am I?
And whence comes all this scene?"
And then out from among the leaves, and up the flowery paths, and
across the bright streams there came a beautiful group, thronging all
about me, and as I saw them come I thought I knew their step, and as
they shouted I thought I knew their voices; but then they were so
gloriously arrayed in apparel such as I had never before witnessed
that I bowed as stranger to stranger. But when again they clapped
their hands and shouted "Welcome, welcome!" the mystery all vanished,
and I found that time had gone and eternity had come, and we were all
together again in our new home in heaven. And I looked around, and I
said; "Are we all here?" and the voices of many generations responded
"All here!" And while tears of gladness were raining down our cheeks,
and the branches of the Lebanon cedars were clapping their hands, and
the towers of the great city were chiming their welcome, we all
together began to leap and shout and sing: "Home, home, home, home!"
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| Typographical errors corrected in text: |
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| Page 65: 'it' replaced with 'if' in the sentence |
| "and if you should strike him..." |
| Page 103: seciety replaced with society |
| Page 193: Christion replaced with Christian |
| Page 209: beqeath replaced with bequeath |
| Page 209: wordliness replaced for worldliness |
| Page 276: couse replaced with course |
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