ONCE again I have paid a rare visit to my tree to find many things
changed since my last sojourn there. The bees are silent, for the
honey-laden flowers of the sycamore are gone and in their place hang
dainty two-fold keys. The poplar has lost its metallic shimmer, the
chestnut its tall white candles; and the sound of the wind in the
fully-leaved branches is like the sighing of the sea. The martins'
nests are finished, and one is occupied by a shrill-voiced brood; but
for the most part the birds' parental cares are over, and the nestlings
in bold flight no longer flutter on inefficient wings across the lawn
with clamorous, open bill. The robins show promise of their ruddy
vests, the slim young thrush is diligently practising maturer notes,
and soon Maid June will have fled.
It is such a wonderful world that I cannot find it in my heart to sigh
for fresh beauty amid these glories of the Lord on which I look, seeing
men as trees walking, in my material impotence which awaits the final
anointing. The marigolds with their orange suns, the lilies' white
flame, the corncockle's blue crown of many flowers, the honeysuckle's
horn of fragrance--I can paraphrase them, name, class, dissect them;
and then, save for the purposes of human intercourse, I stand where I
stood before, my world bounded by my capacity, the secret of colour and
fragrance still kept. It is difficult to believe that the second lesson
will not be the sequence of the first, and death prove a "feast of
opening eyes" to all these wonders, instead of the heavy-lidded slumber
to which we so often liken it. "Earth to earth?" Yes, "dust thou art,
and unto dust thou shalt return," but what of the rest? What of the
folded grave clothes, and the Forty Days? If the next state be, as it
well might, space of four dimensions, and the first veil which will
lift for me be the material one, then the "other" world which is hidden
from our grosser material organism will lie open, and declare still
further to my widening eyes and unstopped ears the glory and purpose of
the manifold garment of God. Knowledge will give place to understanding
in that second chamber of the House of Wisdom and Love. Revelation is
always measured by capacity: "Open thy mouth wide," and it shall be
filled with a satisfaction that in itself is desire.
There is a child here, a happy quiet little creature holding gently
to its two months of life. Sometimes they lay it beside me, I the
more helpless of the two--perhaps the more ignorant--and equally
dependent for the supply of my smallest need. I feel indecently large
as I survey its minute perfections and the tiny balled fist lying in
my great palm. The little creature fixes me with the wise wide stare
of a soul in advance of its medium of expression; and I, gazing back
at the mystery in those eyes, feel the thrill of contact between my
worn and sin-stained self and the innocence of a little white child.
It is wonderful to watch a woman's rapturous familiarity with these
newcomers. A man's love has far more awe in it, and the passionate
animal instinct of defence is wanting in him. "A woman shall be saved
through the child-bearing," said St Paul; not necessarily her own, but
by participation in the great act of motherhood which is the crown and
glory of her sex. She is the "prisoner of love," caught in a net of her
own weaving; held fast by little hands which rule by impotence, pursued
by feet the swifter for their faltering.
It seems incredible that this is what a woman will barter for the right
to "live her own life"--surely the most empty of desires. Man--_vir_,
woman--_femina_, go to make up _the_ man--_homo_. There can be no
comparison, no rivalry between them; they are the complement of each
other, and a little child shall lead them. It is easy to understand
that desire to shelter under the dear mantle of motherhood which has
led to one of the abuses of modern Romanism. I met an old peasant
couple at Bornhofen who had tramped many weary miles to the famous
shrine of Our Lady to plead for their only son. They had a few pence
saved for a candle, and afterwards when they told me their tale the
old woman heaved a sigh of relief, "Es wird bald gut gehen: Die
da, Sie versteht," and I saw her later paying a farewell visit to
the great understanding Mother whom she could trust. Superstitious
misapprehension if you will, but also the recognition of a divine
principle.
It was Behmen, I believe, who cried with the breath of inspiration,
"Only when I know God shall I know myself"; and so man remains the last
of all the riddles, to be solved it may be only in Heaven's perfection
and the light of the Beatific Vision. "Know thyself" is a vain legend,
the more so when emphasised by a skull; and so I company with a
friend and a stranger, and looking across at the white gate I wonder
concerning the quiet pastures and still waters that lie beyond, even as
Brother Ambrose wondered long years ago in the monastery by the forest.
The Brother Ambrose was ever a saintly man approved
of God and beloved by the Brethren. To him one night,
as he lay abed in the dormitory, came the word of the
Lord, saying, "Come, and I will show thee the Bride,
the Lamb's wife." And Brother Ambrose arose and was
carried to a great and high mountain, even as in the
Vision of Blessed John. 'Twas a still night of many
stars, and Brother Ambrose, looking up, saw a radiant
path in the heavens; and lo! the stars gathered
themselves together on either side until they stood as
walls of light, and the four winds lapped him about as
in a mantle and bore him towards the wondrous gleaming
roadway. Then between the stars came the Holy City with
roof and pinnacle aflame, and walls aglow with such
colours as no earthly limner dreams of, and much gold.
Brother Ambrose beheld the Gates of Pearl, and by every
gate an angel with wings of snow and fire, and a face
no man dare look on because of its exceeding radiance.
Then as Brother Ambrose stretched out his arms because
of his great longing, a little grey cloud came out
of the north and hung between the walls of light, so
that he no longer beheld the Vision, but only heard a
sound as of a great multitude crying 'Alleluia'; and
suddenly the winds came about him again, and lo! he
found himself in his bed in the dormitory, and it was
midnight, for the bell was ringing to Matins; and he
rose and went down with the rest. But when the Brethren
left the choir Brother Ambrose stayed fast in his
place, hearing and seeing nothing because of the Vision
of God; and at Lauds they found him and told the Prior.
He questioned Brother Ambrose of the matter, and when
he heard the Vision bade him limn the Holy City even
as he had seen it; and the Precentor gave him uterine
vellum and much fine gold and what colours he asked for
the work. Then Brother Ambrose limned a wondrous fair
city of gold with turrets and spires; and he inlaid
blue for the sapphire, and green for the emerald, and
vermilion where the city seemed aflame with the glory
of God; but the angels he could not limn, nor could he
set the rest of the colours as he saw them, nor the
wall of stars on either hand; and Brother Ambrose
fell sick because of the exceeding great longing he
had to limn the Holy City, and was very sad; but the
Prior bade him thank God, and remember the infirmity of
the flesh, which, like the little grey cloud, veiled
Jerusalem to his sight.
As I write the monastery bell hard by rings out across the lark's song.
They still have time for visions behind those guarding walls, but for
most of us it is not so. We let slip the ideal for what we call the
real, and the golden dreams vanish while we clutch at phantoms: we
speed along life's pathway, counting to the full the sixty minutes of
every hour, yet the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the
strong. Lying here in this quiet backwater it is hard to believe that
the world without is turbulent with storm and stress and the ebb and
flow of uncertain tides. The little yellow cat rolling on its back
among the daisies, the staid tortoise making a stately meal off the
buttercups near me, these are great events in this haven of peace. And
yet, looking back to the working days, I know how much goodness and
loving kindness there is under the froth and foam. If we do not know
ourselves we most certainly do not know our brethren: that revelation
awaits us, it may be, first in Heaven. To have faith is to create; to
have hope is to call down blessing; to have love is to work miracles.
Above all let us see visions, visions of colour and light, of green
fields and broad rivers, of palaces laid with fair colours, and gardens
where a place is found for rosemary and rue.
It is our prerogative to be dreamers, but there will always be men
ready to offer us death for our dreams. And if it must be so let us
choose death; it is gain, not loss, and the gloomy portal when we reach
it is but a white gate, the white gate maybe we have known all our
lives barred by the tendrils of the woodbine.