The day succeeding that on which Seraphita foresaw her death and bade
farewell to Earth, as a prisoner looks round his dungeon before leaving
it forever, she suffered pains which obliged her to remain in the
helpless immobility of those whose pangs are great. Wilfrid and Minna
went to see her, and found her lying on her couch of furs. Still veiled
in flesh, her soul shone through that veil, which grew more and more
transparent day by day. The progress of the Spirit, piercing the last
obstacle between itself and the Infinite, was called an illness, the
hour of Life went by the name of death. David wept as he watched
her sufferings; unreasonable as a child, he would not listen to his
mistress’s consolations. Monsieur Becker wished Seraphita to try
remedies; but all were useless.
One morning she sent for the two beings whom she loved, telling them
that this would be the last of her bad days. Wilfrid and Minna came in
terror, knowing well that they were about to lose her. Seraphita smiled
to them as one departing to a better world; her head drooped like a
flower heavy with dew, which opens its calyx for the last time to waft
its fragrance on the breeze. She looked at these friends with a sadness
that was for them, not for herself; she thought no longer of herself,
and they felt this with a grief mingled with gratitude which they were
unable to express. Wilfrid stood silent and motionless, lost in thoughts
excited by events whose vast bearings enabled him to conceive of some
illimitable immensity.
Emboldened by the weakness of the being lately so powerful, or perhaps
by the fear of losing him forever, Minna bent down over the couch and
said, “Seraphitus, let me follow thee!”
“Can I forbid thee?”
“Why will thou not love me enough to stay with me?”
“I can love nothing here.”
“What canst thou love?”
“Heaven.”
“Is it worthy of heaven to despise the creatures of God?”
“Minna, can we love two beings at once? Would our beloved be indeed our
beloved if he did not fill our hearts? Must he not be the first, the
last, the only one? She who is all love, must she not leave the world
for her beloved? Human ties are but a memory, she has no ties except to
him! Her soul is hers no longer; it is his. If she keeps within her
soul anything that is not his, does she love? No, she loves not. To
love feebly, is that to love at all? The voice of her beloved makes her
joyful; it flows through her veins in a crimson tide more glowing far
than blood; his glance is the light that penetrates her; her being melts
into his being. He is warm to her soul. He is the light that lightens;
near to him there is neither cold nor darkness. He is never absent, he
is always with us; we think in him, to him, by him! Minna, that is how I
love him.”
“Love whom?” said Minna, tortured with sudden jealousy.
“God,” replied Seraphitus, his voice glowing in their souls like fires
of liberty from peak to peak upon the mountains,--“God, who does not
betray us! God, who will never abandon us! who crowns our wishes; who
satisfies His creatures with joy--joy unalloyed and infinite! God,
who never wearies but ever smiles! God, who pours into the soul fresh
treasures day by day; who purifies and leaves no bitterness; who is all
harmony, all flame! God, who has placed Himself within our hearts to
blossom there; who hearkens to our prayers; who does not stand aloof
when we are His, but gives His presence absolutely! He who revives us,
magnifies us, and multiplies us in Himself; _God_! Minna, I love thee
because thou mayst be His! I love thee because if thou come to Him thou
wilt be mine.”
“Lead me to Him,” cried Minna, kneeling down; “take me by the hand; I
will not leave thee!”
“Lead us, Seraphita!” cried Wilfrid, coming to Minna’s side with an
impetuous movement. “Yes, thou hast given me a thirst for Light, a
thirst for the Word. I am parched with the Love thou hast put into my
heart; I desire to keep thy soul in mine; thy will is mine; I will do
whatsoever thou biddest me. Since I cannot obtain thee, I will keep thy
will and all the thoughts that thou hast given me. If I may not unite
myself with thee except by the power of my spirit, I will cling to thee
in soul as the flame to what it laps. Speak!”
“Angel!” exclaimed the mysterious being, enfolding them both in
one glance, as it were with an azure mantle, “Heaven shall by thine
heritage!”
Silence fell among them after these words, which sounded in the souls of
the man and of the woman like the first notes of some celestial harmony.
“If you would teach your feet to tread the Path to heaven, know that
the way is hard at first,” said the weary sufferer; “God wills that you
shall seek Him for Himself. In that sense, He is jealous; He demands
your whole self. But when you have given Him yourself, never, never will
He abandon you. I leave with you the keys of the kingdom of His Light,
where evermore you shall dwell in the bosom of the Father, in the heart
of the Bridegroom. No sentinels guard the approaches, you may enter
where you will; His palaces, His treasures, His sceptre, all are
free. ‘Take them!’ He says. But--you must _will_ to go there. Like
one preparing for a journey, a man must leave his home, renounce his
projects, bid farewell to friends, to father, mother, sister, even
to the helpless brother who cries after him,--yes, farewell to them
eternally; you will no more return than did the martyrs on their way to
the stake. You must strip yourself of every sentiment, of everything to
which man clings. Unless you do this you are but half-hearted in your
enterprise.
“Do for God what you do for your ambitious projects, what you do in
consecrating yourself to Art, what you have done when you loved a human
creature or sought some secret of human science. Is not God the whole
of science, the all of love, the source of poetry? Surely His riches
are worthy of being coveted! His treasure is inexhaustible, His poem
infinite, His love immutable, His science sure and darkened by no
mysteries. Be anxious for nothing, He will give you all. Yes, in His
heart are treasures with which the petty joys you lose on earth are not
to be compared. What I tell you is true; you shall possess His power;
you may use it as you would use the gifts of lover or mistress. Alas!
men doubt, they lack faith, and will, and persistence. If some set their
feet in the path, they look behind them and presently turn back. Few
decide between the two extremes,--to go or stay, heaven or the mire. All
hesitate. Weakness leads astray, passion allures into dangerous paths,
vice becomes habitual, man flounders in the mud and makes no progress
towards a better state.
“All human beings go through a previous life in the sphere of Instinct,
where they are brought to see the worthlessness of earthly treasures,
to amass which they gave themselves such untold pains! Who can tell how
many times the human being lives in the sphere of Instinct before he
is prepared to enter the sphere of Abstractions, where thought expends
itself on erring science, where mind wearies at last of human language?
for, when Matter is exhausted, Spirit enters. Who knows how many fleshly
forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand
the value of that silence and solitude whose starry plains are but the
vestibule of Spiritual Worlds? He feels his way amid the void, makes
trial of nothingness, and then at last his eyes revert upon the Path.
Then follow other existences,--all to be lived to reach the place
where Light effulgent shines. Death is the post-house of the journey. A
lifetime may be needed merely to gain the virtues which annul the
errors of man’s preceding life. First comes the life of suffering, whose
tortures create a thirst for love. Next the life of love and devotion
to the creature, teaching devotion to the Creator,--a life where the
virtues of love, its martyrdoms, its joys followed by sorrows, its
angelic hopes, its patience, its resignation, excite an appetite for
things divine. Then follows the life which seeks in silence the traces
of the Word; in which the soul grows humble and charitable. Next the
life of longing; and lastly, the life of prayer. In that is the noonday
sun; there are the flowers, there the harvest!
“The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are
the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the
others,--existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no
memory for spiritual things. Thought alone holds the tradition of the
bygone life. The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret
source of human genius. Some receive the gift of form, some the gift
of numbers, others the gift of harmony. All these gifts are steps of
progress in the Path of Light. Yes, he who possesses a single one of
them touches at that point the Infinite. Earth has divided the Word--of
which I here reveal some syllables--into particles, she has reduced it
to dust and has scattered it through her works, her dogmas, her poems.
If some impalpable grain shines like a diamond in a human work, men cry:
‘How grand! how true! how glorious!’ That fragment vibrates in their
souls and wakes a presentiment of heaven: to some, a melody that
weans from earth; to others, the solitude that draws to God. To all,
whatsoever sends us back upon ourselves, whatsoever strikes us down and
crushes us, lifts or abases us,--_that_ is but a syllable of the Divine
Word.
“When a human soul draws its first furrow straight, the rest will follow
surely. One thought borne inward, one prayer uplifted, one suffering
endured, one echo of the Word within us, and our souls are forever
changed. All ends in God; and many are the ways to find Him by walking
straight before us. When the happy day arrives in which you set your
feet upon the Path and begin your pilgrimage, the world will know
nothing of it; earth no longer understands you; you no longer understand
each other. Men who attain a knowledge of these things, who lisp a few
syllables of the Word, often have not where to lay their head; hunted
like beasts they perish on the scaffold, to the joy of assembled
peoples, while Angels open to them the gates of heaven. Therefore, your
destiny is a secret between yourself and God, just as love is a secret
between two hearts. You may be the buried treasure, trodden under the
feet of men thirsting for gold yet all-unknowing that you are there
beneath them.
“Henceforth your existence becomes a thing of ceaseless activity; each
act has a meaning which connects you with God, just as in love your
actions and your thoughts are filled with the loved one. But love and
its joys, love and its pleasures limited by the senses, are but the
imperfect image of the love which unites you to your celestial Spouse.
All earthly joy is mixed with anguish, with discontent. If love ought
not to pall then death should end it while its flame is high, so that
we see no ashes. But in God our wretchedness becomes delight, joy lives
upon itself and multiplies, and grows, and has no limit. In the Earthly
life our fleeting love is ended by tribulation; in the Spiritual life
the tribulations of a day end in joys unending. The soul is ceaselessly
joyful. We feel God with us, in us; He gives a sacred savor to all
things; He shines in the soul; He imparts to us His sweetness; He stills
our interest in the world viewed for ourselves; He quickens our interest
in it viewed for His sake, and grants us the exercise of His power upon
it. In His name we do the works which He inspires, we act for Him, we
have no self except in Him, we love His creatures with undying love, we
dry their tears and long to bring them unto Him, as a loving woman longs
to see the inhabitants of earth obey her well-beloved.
“The final life, the fruition of all other lives, to which the powers
of the soul have tended, and whose merits open the Sacred Portals to
perfected man, is the life of Prayer. Who can make you comprehend the
grandeur, the majesty, the might of Prayer? May my voice, these words of
mine, ring in your hearts and change them. Be now, here, what you may
be after cruel trial! There are privileged beings, Prophets, Seers,
Messengers, and Martyrs, all those who suffer for the Word and who
proclaim it; such souls spring at a bound across the human sphere and
rise at once to Prayer. So, too, with those whose souls receive the fire
of Faith. Be one of those brave souls! God welcomes boldness. He loves
to be taken by violence; He will never reject those who force their way
to Him. Know this! desire, the torrent of your will, is so all-powerful
that a single emission of it, made with force, can obtain all; a single
cry, uttered under the pressure of Faith, suffices. Be one of such
beings, full of force, of will, of love! Be conquerors on the earth! Let
the hunger and thirst of God possess you. Fly to Him as the hart panting
for the water-brooks. Desire shall lend you its wings; tears, those
blossoms of repentance, shall be the celestial baptism from which your
nature will issue purified. Cast yourself on the breast of the stream in
Prayer! Silence and meditation are the means of following the Way. God
reveals Himself, unfailingly, to the solitary, thoughtful seeker.
“It is thus that the separation takes place between Matter, which so
long has wrapped its darkness round you, and Spirit, which was in you
from the beginning, the light which lighted you and now brings noon-day
to your soul. Yes, your broken heart shall receive the light; the light
shall bathe it. Then you will no longer feel convictions, they will
have changed to certainties. The Poet utters; the Thinker meditates; the
Righteous acts; but he who stands upon the borders of the Divine World
prays; and his prayer is word, thought, action, in one! Yes, prayer
includes all, contains all; it completes nature, for it reveals to you
the mind within it and its progression. White and shining virgin of all
human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and
strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer
will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong,
like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen
rests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it;
like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light. The universe belongs
to him who wills, who knows, who prays; but he must will, he must know,
he must pray; in a word, he must possess force, wisdom, and faith.
“Therefore Prayer, issuing from so many trials, is the consummation
of all truths, all powers, all feelings. Fruit of the laborious,
progressive, continued development of natural properties and faculties
vitalized anew by the divine breath of the Word, Prayer has occult
activity; it is the final worship--not the material worship of images,
nor the spiritual worship of formulas, but the worship of the Divine
World. We say no prayers,--prayer forms within us; it is a faculty which
acts of itself; it has attained a way of action which lifts it outside
of forms; it links the soul to God, with whom we unite as the root of
the tree unites with the soil; our veins draw life from the principle of
life, and we live by the life of the universe. Prayer bestows external
conviction by making us penetrate the Material World through the
cohesion of all our faculties with the elementary substances; it bestows
internal conviction by developing our essence and mingling it with that
of the Spiritual Worlds. To be able to pray thus, you must attain to an
utter abandonment of flesh; you must acquire through the fires of the
furnace the purity of the diamond; for this complete communion with the
Divine is obtained only in absolute repose, where storms and conflicts
are at rest.
“Yes, Prayer--the aspiration of the soul freed absolutely from the
body--bears all forces within it, and applies them to the constant and
perseverant union of the Visible and the Invisible. When you possess
the faculty of praying without weariness, with love, with force, with
certainty, with intelligence, your spiritualized nature will presently
be invested with power. Like a rushing wind, like a thunderbolt, it cuts
its way through all things and shares the power of God. The quickness
of the Spirit becomes yours; in an instant you may pass from region to
region; like the Word itself, you are transported from the ends of the
world to other worlds. Harmony exists, and you are part of it! Light is
there and your eyes possess it! Melody is heard and you echo it! Under
such conditions, you feel your perceptions developing, widening; the
eyes of your mind reach to vast distances. There is, in truth, neither
time nor place to the Spirit; space and duration are proportions created
for Matter; spirit and matter have naught in common.
“Though these things take place in stillness, in silence, without
agitation, without external movement, yet Prayer is all action; but it
is spiritual action, stripped of substantiality, and reduced, like
the motion of the worlds, to an invisible pure force. It penetrates
everywhere like light; it gives vitality to souls that come beneath its
rays, as Nature beneath the sun. It resuscitates virtue, purifies and
sanctifies all actions, peoples solitude, and gives a foretaste of
eternal joys. When you have once felt the delights of the divine
intoxication which comes of this internal travail, then all is yours!
once take the lute on which we sing to God within your hands, and you
will never part with it. Hence the solitude in which Angelic Spirits
live; hence their disdain of human joys. They are withdrawn from those
who must die to live; they hear the language of such beings, but they no
longer understand their ideas; they wonder at their movements, at
what the world terms policies, material laws, societies. For them all
mysteries are over; truth, and truth alone, is theirs. They who have
reached the point where their eyes discern the Sacred Portals, who, not
looking back, not uttering one regret, contemplate worlds and comprehend
their destinies, such as they keep silence, wait, and bear their final
struggles. The worst of all those struggles is the last; at the zenith
of all virtue is Resignation,--to be an exile and not lament, no longer
to delight in earthly things and yet to smile, to belong to God and yet
to stay with men! You hear the voice that cries to you, ‘Advance!’ Often
celestial visions of descending Angels compass you about with songs
of praise; then, tearless, uncomplaining, must you watch them as they
reascent the skies! To murmur is to forfeit all. Resignation is a fruit
that ripens at the gates of heaven. How powerful, how glorious the calm
smile, the pure brow of the resigned human creature. Radiant is the
light of that brow. They who live in its atmosphere grow purer. That
calm glance penetrates and softens. More eloquent by silence than the
prophet by speech, such beings triumph by their simple presence. Their
ears are quick to hear as a faithful dog listening for his master.
Brighter than hope, stronger than love, higher than faith, that creature
of resignation is the virgin standing on the earth, who holds for a
moment the conquered palm, then, rising heavenward, leaves behind her
the imprint of her white, pure feet. When she has passed away men flock
around and cry, ‘See! See!’ Sometimes God holds her still in sight,--a
figure to whose feet creep Forms and Species of Animality to be shown
their way. She wafts the light exhaling from her hair, and they see; she
speaks, and they hear. ‘A miracle!’ they cry. Often she triumphs in the
name of God; frightened men deny her and put her to death; smiling, she
lays down her sword and goes to the stake, having saved the Peoples.
How many a pardoned Angel has passed from martyrdom to heaven! Sinai,
Golgotha are not in this place nor in that; Angels are crucified
in every place, in every sphere. Sighs pierce to God from the whole
universe. This earth on which we live is but a single sheaf of the great
harvest; humanity is but a species in the vast garden where the flowers
of heaven are cultivated. Everywhere God is like unto Himself, and
everywhere, by prayer, it is easy to reach Him.”
With these words, which fell from the lips of another Hagar in the
wilderness, burning the souls of the hearers as the live coal of the
word inflamed Isaiah, this mysterious being paused as though to gather
some remaining strength. Wilfrid and Minna dared not speak. Suddenly HE
lifted himself up to die:--
“Soul of all things, oh my God, thou whom I love for Thyself! Thou,
Judge and Father, receive a love which has no limit. Give me of thine
essence and thy faculties that I be wholly thine! Take me, that I no
longer be myself! Am I not purified? then cast me back into the furnace!
If I be not yet proved in the fire, make me some nurturing ploughshare,
or the Sword of victory! Grant me a glorious martyrdom in which to
proclaim thy Word! Rejected, I will bless thy justice. But if excess
of love may win in a moment that which hard and patient labor cannot
attain, then bear me upward in thy chariot of fire! Grant me triumph, or
further trial, still will I bless thee! To suffer for thee, is not that
to triumph? Take me, seize me, bear me away! nay, if thou wilt, reject
me! Thou art He who can do no evil. Ah!” he cried, after a pause, “the
bonds are breaking.
“Spirits of the pure, ye sacred flock, come forth from the hidden
places, come on the surface of the luminous waves! The hour now is;
come, assemble! Let us sing at the gates of the Sanctuary; our songs
shall drive away the final clouds. With one accord let us hail the Dawn
of the Eternal Day. Behold the rising of the one True Light! Ah, why may
I not take with me these my friends! Farewell, poor earth, Farewell!”