"O Angel invisible!" I prayed--"Forgive my weakness and unwisdom! How
can the world be saved or comforted by a Love it never finds!"
Again a silence. Again that dazzling, quivering radiance, flashing as
in an atmosphere of powdered gold.
"What does the world seek most ardently?" it demanded--"The Love of
God?--or the Love of Self? If it seeks the first, all things in heaven
and earth shall be added to its desire--if the second, all shall be
taken from it, even that which it hath!"
I had, as I thought, no answer to give, but I covered my weeping eyes
with both hands and knelt before the unseen speaker as to some great
Spirit enthroned.
"Love is not Love that loves Itself,"--went on the Voice--"Self is the
Image, not the God. Wouldst thou have Eternal Life? Then find the
secret in Eternal Love!--'Love, which can move worlds and create
universes,--the love of soul for soul, angel for angel, god for god!"
I raised my head, and, uncovering my eyes, looked up. But I could see
nothing save that all-penetrating light which imprisoned me as it were
in a circle of fire.
"Love is that Power which clasps the things of eternity and makes them
all its own,"--said the Voice in stronger tones of deeper music--"It
builds its solar system, its stars, its planets with a thought!--it
wakes all beauty, all delight with a smile!--it lives not only now, but
for ever, in a heaven of pure joy where every thousand years is but one
summer day! To Love there is no time, no space, no age, no death!--what
it gives it receives again,--what it longs for comes to it without
seeking--God withholds nothing from the faithful soul!"
I still knelt, wondering if these words were intended only for me or
for some other listener, for I could not now feel sure that I was
without a companion in this strange experience.
"There is only one Way of Life,"--went on the Voice--"Only one way--the
Way of Love! Whosoever loves greatly lives greatly; whosoever misprizes
Love is dead though living. Give all thy heart and soul to Love if thou
wouldst be immortal!--for without Love thou mayst seek God through all
Eternity and never find Him!"
I waited,--there was a brief silence. Then a sudden wave of music broke
upon my ears,--a breaking foam of rhythmic melody that rose and fell in
a measured cadence of solemn sound. Raising my eyes in fear and awe, I
saw the lambent light around me begin to separate into countless
gradations of delicate colour till presently it resembled a close and
brilliant network of rainbow tints intermingled with purest gold. It
was as if millions of lines had been drawn with exquisite fineness and
precision so as to cause intersection or 'reciprocal meeting' at given
points of calculation, and these changed into various dazzling forms
too brilliant for even my dreaming sight to follow. Yet I felt myself
compelled to study one particular section of these lines which shone
before me in a kind of pale brightness, and while I looked it varied to
more and more complex 'moods' of colour and light, if one might so
express it, till, by gradual degrees, it returned again to the simpler
combination.
"Thus are the destinies of human lives woven and interwoven,"--said the
Voice--"From infinite and endless points of light they grow and part
and mingle together, till the destined two are one. Often they are
entangled and disturbed by influences not their own--but from
interference which through weakness or fear they have themselves
permitted. But the tangle is for ever unravelled by Time,--the parted
threads are brought together again in the eternal weaving of Spirit and
Matter. No power, human or divine, can entirely separate the lives
which God has ordained shall come together. Man's ordainment is not
God's ordainment! Wrong threads in the weaving are broken--no matter
how,--no matter when! Love must be tender yet resolved!--Love must not
swerve from its given pledge!--Love must be All or Nothing!"
The light network of living golden rays still quivered before my eyes,
till all at once they seemed to change to a rippling sea of fine flame
with waves that gently swayed to and fro, tipped with foam-crests of
prismatic hue like broken rainbows. Wave after wave swept forward and
broke in bright amethystine spray close to me where I knelt, and as I
watched this moving mass of radiant colour in absorbed fascination, one
wave, brilliant as the flush of a summer's dawn, rippled towards me,
and then gently retiring, left a single rose, crimson and fragrant,
close within my reach. I stooped and caught it quickly--surely it was a
real rose from some dewy garden of the earth, and no dream!
"One rose from all the roses in Heaven!" said the mystic Voice, in
tones of enthralling sweetness--"One--fadeless and immortal!--only one,
but sufficient for all! One love from all the million loves of men and
women--one, but enough for Eternity! How long the rose has awaited its
flowering,--how long the love has awaited its fulfilment--only the
recording angels know! Such roses bloom but once in the wilderness of
space and time; such love comes but once in a Universe of worlds!"
I listened, trembling; I held the rose against my breast between my
clasped hands.
"O Sorrowful Star!" went on the Voice--"What shall become of thee if
thou forsakest the way of Love! O little Sphere of beauty and delight,
why are thy people so blind! O that their eyes were lifted unto
Heaven!--their hearts to joy!--their souls to love! Who is it that
darkens life with sorrow?--who is it that creates the delusion of
death?"