BENDING over a steamer's side, a face looked down into the clear, green
depths of Lake Erie, where the early moonbeams were showering rainbows
through the dancing spray, and chasing the white-crusted waves with
serpents of gold. The face was clouded with thought, a shade too sombre,
yet there glowed over it something like a reflection from the iris-hues
beneath. A voice of using was borne away into the purple and vermilion
haze that twilight began to fold over the bosom of the lake.
“Rainbows! Ye follow me everywhere! Gloriously your arches arose from
the horizon of the prairies, when the storm-king and the god of day met
within them to proclaim a treaty and an alliance. You spanned the Father
of Waters with a bridge that put to the laugh man's clumsy structures of
chain, and timber, and wire. You floated in a softening veil before the
awful grandeur of Niagara; and here you gleam out from the light foam in
the steamboat's wake.
“Grateful am I for you, oh rainbows! for the clouds, the drops, and the
sunshine of which you are wrought, and for the gift of vision through
which my spirit quaffs the wine of your beauty.
“Grateful also for faith, which hangs an ethereal halo over the
fountains of earthly joy, and wraps grief in robes so resplendent that,
like Iris of the olden time, she is at once recognised as a messenger
from Heaven.
“Blessings on sorrow, whether past or to come! for in the clear
shining of heavenly love, every tear-drop becomes a pearl. The storm
of affliction crushes weak human nature to the dust; the glory of the
eternal light overpowers it; but, in the softened union of both, the
stricken spirit beholds the bow of promise, and knows that it shall
not utterly be destroyed. When we say that for us there is nothing
but darkness and tears, it is because we are weakly brooding over the
shadows within us. If we dared look up, and face our sorrow, we should
see upon it the seal of God's love, and be calm.
“Grant me, Father of Light, whenever my eyes droop heavily with the
rain of grief, at least to see the reflection of thy signet-bow upon the
waves over which I am sailing unto thee. And through the steady toiling
of the voyage, through the smiles and tears of every day's progress, let
the iris-flash appear, even as now it brightens the spray that rebounds
from the labouring wheels.”
The voice died away into darkness which returned no answer to its
murmurings. The face vanished from the boat's side, but a flood of light
was pouring into the serene depths of a trusting soul.