"Learn what thy God would have thee to do. Look up!"
Obeying the mighty behest, I beheld, and an ovaline picture, painted in
the artistry of heaven, let down from the crystalline walls, that I
might not see, and held fast by a cord of gold, safe in an angel's
keeping, God had sent for me to look upon.
It was not such as masters of earth toil to paint. It was a living group
that I saw.
Four figures stood there.
The first one was the face that I had just asked Chloe the semblance of.
Loving past expression's power. The love emitted from those eyes brought
tears into mine, and I heard one of them go dropping down, down into the
cloudy deep below, as one day I had heard one falling elsewhere, on a
cold stone.
Two hands were wafted out towards me, and the lips were just parted, as
if waiting for coming words. I looked and listened, a little blinded by
the glory and my tears.
"Go forth, dear child, to the work thy God appoints for thee to do!"
I looked up a little higher, just over the face of my mother, and, in
holiest benediction, the Hand that had brought me up hither was laid
upon her head. One stood beside her, leaning upon her shoulder. I
recognized the face of the mysterious young girl.
"Will you do something for me on the earth, whence I have been called?"
she asked.
The mighty voice that rang amid the clouds bade me "Answer." And
tremulously, as if my poor earth-words had no place in the exceeding
brightness, I gave an "I will."
"Comfort you the one afflicted. Tell him to look no longer into my
grave. Let him not wander beside the marble foam that surges up from the
Sea of Death, for that the Lord hath prepared another way for his
footsteps. Lead him a little while on the earth, and then"----
I know not what more she would have spoken, for the Hand closed her
lips. I sought my mother's face. It was gone. Another came forward. I
felt involuntarily for the cold Hand that one night wandered under the
sod in search of the face that now I saw in this picture let down from
crystalline walls.
"I have a message for you," were the words I heard. "Tell her that I
know what she would tell me: I have been made to know it here, where all
things are clear: tell her that my forgiveness is as large as the heaven
to which I have been permitted to enter in. Give her of the love that I
did not when I might have done it."
The Hand was offered to her. Pleadingly, she looked up at it. For a
moment my eyelids were heavy. When the weight was lifted, only one
figure remained upon the celestial canvas. I could not see the
countenance thereof: hands were clasped tightly over it.
"One more message the Lord permits for earth," said a touching,
trembling, praying voice. "Say unto one sinning, that I have prayed unto
the Christ that died for him,--that his mother is always praying for her
son. Find out his sin, and solace his soul with the knowledge of my
prayers."
The angel-wing that had cleaved the sky to let this picture in lifted
her upon its pinions, and bore her through the azure, and I saw the
great Hand open, as of one casting out many seeds upon the earth. Again
an angel-wing swept its way among the clouds, and folds of opaline glow
pavilioned the entrance into cerulean heights, and a solemn voice
uttered these words out of the great All-Where around me:--
"I am the Lord thy God. I will show thee the way wherein I would have
thee to walk. Rest thy soul in my love, and it shall satisfy thee."