We long to hear thy voice,
To see thee face to face.
It was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and spoilt it, just as
the congregations used to do on earth.
The head of the procession began to pass, now, and it was a wonderful
sight. It swept along, thick and solid, five hundred thousand angels
abreast, and every angel carrying a torch and singing—the whirring
thunder of the wings made a body’s head ache. You could follow the line
of the procession back, and slanting upward into the sky, far away in a
glittering snaky rope, till it was only a faint streak in the distance.
The rush went on and on, for a long time, and at last, sure enough, along
comes the barkeeper, and then everybody rose, and a cheer went up that
made the heavens shake, I tell you! He was all smiles, and had his halo
tilted over one ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-looking
saint I ever saw. While he marched up the steps of the Grand Stand, the
choir struck up,—
“The whole wide heaven groans,
And waits to hear that voice.”
There were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the place of
honor, on a broad railed platform in the centre of the Grand Stand, with
a shining guard of honor round about them. The tents had been shut up
all this time. As the barkeeper climbed along up, bowing and smiling to
everybody, and at last got to the platform, these tents were jerked up
aloft all of a sudden, and we saw four noble thrones of gold, all caked
with jewels, and in the two middle ones sat old white-whiskered men, and
in the two others a couple of the most glorious and gaudy giants, with
platter halos and beautiful armor. All the millions went down on their
knees, and stared, and looked glad, and burst out into a joyful kind of
murmurs. They said,—
“Two archangels!—that is splendid. Who can the others be?”
The archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow; the two
old men rose; one of them said, “Moses and Esau welcome thee!” and then
all the four vanished, and the thrones were empty.
The barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was calculating to hug
those old people, I judge; but it was the gladdest and proudest multitude
you ever saw—because they had seen Moses and Esau. Everybody was saying,
“Did you see them?—I did—Esau’s side face was to me, but I saw Moses full
in the face, just as plain as I see you this minute!”
The procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him again, and the
crowd broke up and scattered. As we went along home, Sandy said it was a
great success, and the barkeeper would have a right to be proud of it
forever. And he said we were in luck, too; said we might attend
receptions for forty thousand years to come, and not have a chance to see
a brace of such grand moguls as Moses and Esau. We found afterwards that
we had come near seeing another patriarch, and likewise a genuine prophet
besides, but at the last moment they sent regrets. Sandy said there
would be a monument put up there, where Moses and Esau had stood, with
the date and circumstances, and all about the whole business, and
travellers would come for thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb
over it, and scribble their names on it.
Footnotes:
{9} The captain could not remember what this word was. He said it was
in a foreign tongue.