on the other side for a few miles, into Darjeeling. The mountain
resort, though upon such high ground, was surrounded by still
loftier elevations; a veritable Sanitorium protected on all sides.
It contained more buildings of a public nature than the inquisitive
Cultus explorers had expected to find; the Sanitorium and bazaar were
surrounded by many substantially built structures, generally upon
picturesque sites, schools, a convent, villas, bungalows, and here
and there native shanties in unexpected nooks and corners. There
were valleys within valleys, and hills upon hills; and domiciles
were scattered broadcast over the landscape. No time was consumed,
however, in gazing around them when they first arrived. The station
and bazaar nearby were lively with Nepaulese, Bhootans, Lepchas,
members of the hill tribes of Sikhim, inhabitants of the Darjeeling
Terai, with a much smaller contingent of English who seemed to be
there to keep the rest in order.
The tiny train had hardly come to a stand-still before a Bhootan
woman, a fine specimen physically and decidedly noisy in manner,
thrust her broad Mongolian visage, with its high cheek bones and
slanting eyes, into the little car window where sat Mrs. Cultus. If
a demon had suddenly appeared at close quarters and offered to rub
noses with Mrs. C. the effect could not have been more startling.
The Mongolian, talking and gesticulating and holding a strap in
her hand, made it plain to them that she wished to carry their
luggage--she was a woman-porter.
Mrs. Cultus, not ordinarily disconcerted by sudden apparitions,
was this time fairly taken aback. Aside from the novelty of a
woman-porter, her repulsive appearance was disconcerting; the
broad cheeks smeared with red pigment and distorted with grimaces
seemed to Mrs. Cultus at first glance as more than grotesque, even
appalling. Drawing herself up with dignity she gave a piercing look,
as if in defiance, only to discover that the Bhootanesque wild grin
was intended for a polite smile, and the smile was that of a young
girl trying to be serviceable and obliging. Mrs. Cultus burst out
laughing, which the Bhootan girl of course mistook for a cordial
acceptance of her offered assistance; and forthwith through the
window she seized all such loose articles as lay within reach, piling
them in a heap on the platform previous to depositing them in her
strap which she placed over her forehead and let fall in a loop down
her back. Several articles had already disappeared out of the window
before Mrs. Cultus grasped the misunderstanding of her own laughter;
but when she found the woman was actually doing the heavy work of a
porter, and for her personally, Mrs. Cultus’ American ideas about
woman’s sphere and woman’s work asserted themselves. As a member of
the Ethical-Social Culturist’s-Reversal Association, she must become
an impromptu missionary to enter her protest, and even set things
right.
“I can’t allow it!” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “Get me a man! a
man! why, it’s outrageous! You’re only a young girl!” and Mrs. Cultus
turned to look for the Professor who had already gone in search of a
man.
The Bhootan damsel grinned once more, as if astonished, then spoke
her mind not unlike the historic waiter who “roared it.” “No
man!--don’t want a man! I take! I take all! easy!” and proceeded
to show how easily she could take all by lifting a huge bundle of
travelling rugs, rezais, nearly as bulky as herself, putting them in
the loop of her strap as foundation piece, the smaller heavy things
on top, and gave a good grunt of satisfaction when the weight settled
on her forehead; and then--smiled again.
Mrs. Cultus, equally practical, at once changed her mind; she
concluded it was utterly useless to waste sympathy upon a damsel so
eminently qualified to take care of herself; especially since the
woman-porter had her own ideas of woman’s sphere, and did not intend
to permit any man to take away her trade. If Miss Winchester had been
near at the time no doubt she would have been much impressed by the
Bhootan grunt of satisfaction for the privilege of carrying luggage;
for verily it was a notable addition to her collection.
Such was Mrs. Cultus’ first interview with a specimen of womankind
from the immense area of Central Asia, where woman’s rights were
already granted after their fashion, and woman’s work performed with
a vengeance. Mrs. Cultus little realized that there, in the crowd
around her, were not only women-porters, but Thibetan mothers to whom
polyandry was no new thing, being in fact a custom of their district.
Women who had several husbands because they were the proper things to
have; and felt themselves quite equal to do man’s work and a little
more, besides. Mrs. Cultus learned this and other items, when a few
days later she noticed a pair of rough sandal-boots standing at the
door of a hut occupied by a polyandrist household. She was informed
that these were equivalent to a notice left outside by one of the
husbands that he was on the premises, therefore for the present
the others had best keep away. Mrs. Cultus learned, too, that the
several husbands were often brothers, hence the household was a more
united family than if it were otherwise. Mrs. Cultus was obtaining
a realizing sense of relationships among some of the primitives yet
upon the earth, and she soon concluded that the more primitive the
people the less she personally cared to visit them socially.
XXXIV
ADELE SEES THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS
“_On the mountains is freedom! The breath of decay
Never sullies the fresh-flowing air._”
--SCHILLER.
The next day the whole party were domiciled in a little stone
structure one-story high, hung like an eyrie upon a cliff. The
site overlooked great depths, and their domicile much like a tiny
doll’s house perched upon a mantelpiece. Above and beyond were
insurmountable heights, and only a narrow pony-path separated this
little dwelling from the forest-clad valleys thousands of feet below.
Within a few steps a remarkable view-point, a promontory jutting out
in mid-air; and before them rose “The Five Points of Eternal Snow.”
Kunchingunga was no “Jungfrau,” but a matron, with her children and
grandchildren clustered around her imperial throne.
Adele wandered off alone, and stood upon the promontory, looking
forward. On a level with her eye and apparently not far off, soared
a giant bird, poised in space, he being thousands of feet above
the earth beneath him. Adele waved her handkerchief to attract his
attention; the majestic areonaut merely changed the angle of his
wings to bring his eye into better position, and refused to approach.
A chilly current of air came over the crest of the mountain;
Adele drew her wrap about her, and in so doing lost hold upon her
kerchief--it floated off on the breeze. It was no sooner free from
her hand, than the expert bird sweeping round in majestic curves upon
the wings of the wind, picked it up in mid-air, and soon disappeared
amid the foliage of the forest. This wild denizen of the woods, who
could sustain himself at a perilous height in space, apparently had
an instinctive fear of man, even of a young girl, yet no fear of
man’s inanimate production, the handkerchief; and his penetrating eye
had evidently grasped the situation from the distance of half a mile.
Such was the clearness of the atmosphere, and such the acute vision
of the bird.
Adele admired his quickness of sight, his natural cleverness, and
his wild knowledge of the world, as he sailed away with what she had
held in her hand an instant before. “I don’t mind the loss,” said
she, “but I do dislike extremely to have things snatched away, first
by the wind and then by that eagle. What the Doctor calls ‘the wild
forces’ in nature, surely do require taming.”
She looked across the valley. The lower ranges rose above a belt of
haze, the mountains above did not appear to rest upon any solid base,
and the summits of eternal snows appeared as if in another world--a
world where corruption had put on incorruption, the world of purity
and whiteness. Seen through the rarefied air above, the apparent
nearness of such stupendous masses, solid and firm yet resting upon
an ethereal base, somewhat appalled Adele; and she drew her wrap
closer about her as her eyes wandered from peak to peak extending in
endless length on either side, yet all above and beyond the reach of
man. She knew them to be the backbone of a continent, which (when
seen from certain elevations, at the end of the rainy season when
the southeast monsoon ceases to blow) was visible over an expanse of
two hundred miles. She knew this range of peaks must be miles away
as the bird flies, yet so wide was the angle between the horizon and
those celestial summits, and so great the difference between her
own level and that of the Eternal Pure Whiteness, that she felt
their presence near, and herself in the presence of the sublime in
nature. Her natural eye told her this, and gave her a new physical
sensation which was exhilarating, uplifting and inspiring. And with
this inspiration came a new incentive to spiritual perception, a
tremendous stimulant to idealize. It was, indeed, what she saw--a
Celestial Vision.
She caught her breath as she gazed afar; and a sense of wonder, aye,
of adoration, welled up from within, and a comprehending love for
the beautiful and for the sublime. These emotions, like a powerful
impulse heavenward, filled her whole being, and words came--breathed
rather than spoken--towards the One who ever dwells in nature, ever
listens, and always hears. Forgetting self, unconscious that she was
actually praying, she yet prayed. Such is the compelling force of the
sublime in nature.
“Our Father who art!--art in Heaven!--Father in Heaven! where all is
beautiful!
“And what is this? Oh, how beautiful! just where our Father has built
His mansions. Look! those snows and glaciers reflect His Glory! I can
see it! That blue canopy overhead, and those forests below, are like
the Earth-Beautiful He made for us, and there is the roseate light of
a Holy Place. God is there! Yes! I know it--I feel it! He is here,
too! Yes! surely. He is here! How holy is this place!”
Then assured of the nearness of her Father Creator, she tried to
grasp some idea of the meaning of His Presence to her; and unto her
was granted a glimpse of the very highest possible conception of the
facts visible in nature, of things as they are, for the study of both
science and religion.
She stood in the presence of the loftiest mountains upon the globe;
and what were they? What was this earth at her feet?--the world and
all that is therein!
“The Lord is in His Holy Temple! The Lord! and His Temple! Holy! both
Holy--God and His Temple. I can see that, too! He made it, and all
that is therein. He said it was ‘good,’--it is--it must be Holy! It
is His own.”
The word “Temple,” and what it implied, impressed itself upon
her mind, as if it revealed some tremendous fact in nature which
before she had not fully realized. She gazed right and left, up the
cross-valleys, and into the forest depths; then finally towards the
Celestial Summits bathed in that roseate light which symbolized
so much to her personally since her earlier experience when her
attention had been called to it by her earthly father. What before
she had really seen but dimly, yet strong enough to be a constant
aid to enlightenment, now became a living reality. It was verily a
temple; and anew she began to idealize her surroundings.
“It is a Cathedral! this whole region! a mighty Cathedral! God’s own,
built by Him here in these mountains, the Himalaya Cathedral!--the
greatest upon Earth!” And while possessed by this vivid thought,
there came a still small voice, as if from a sub-intelligence,
whispering: “His service is here, His ritual.” She heard this but
faintly; then, rejoicing in her idealization, she went straight on to
picture the Cathedral.
“Look! there is the Nave, this great valley! and there is the crypt
beneath, that sombre forest far below! There is plenty of room in
that Nave for the congregation--free seats everywhere. I can see
it filled with all sorts of people. There! there is some one now,
in that tea-garden under those tree ferns, a party of them looking
towards the blue sky. They wish to know what the weather is going to
be like, wish to know what God intends it to be, for they are looking
upwards; perhaps that is their way of worshiping! who knows?
“And there is the Transept! there is more than one, those valleys;
they reach to the end of the earth. How curious that so many of these
valleys lead directly up to the front, not so ‘crosswise’ as in other
churches. I never saw a Cathedral so well arranged for approaching
and hearing. Ah! there’s a Chapel in that transept! it looks more
like a hut! some one within is burning incense--it comes out of the
chimney! Well, we’ll call it incense, and that home is a chapel.”
And while she mused, a little group of natives crossed an open field
and entered a clump of trees surrounded by shrubbery, a thicket.
“Some other sort of worship,” she thought. “I wonder what they are
going to do? I’ll wait and see.”
Numerous parties on ponies passed along the mountain roads, ascending
and descending from different levels. “Why, this Cathedral has most
extensive galleries, and how many real workers all on the move! Well,
I rather like a gallery at times; one can sit up there and not feel
too conspicuous, only worship.”
Then she noticed that the majority on ponies were going in one
direction--northward. “Why are they going that way, I wonder?--why
not towards the East as so many do in Cathedrals? No, I forgot;
the Moslems turn towards Mecca no matter in what direction they
may be from it; but here it is different. These people seem to be
approaching and observing their ritual in a different manner and in
a different direction. Everything here seems to draw one’s attention
northward,” and she mused about this for some time, then:
“The pole star itself is hidden behind that mountain; we are too far
south to see it, but I heard Father say it was in that direction.
Yes, I remember it was very low in the heavens when I last saw
it sparkling there. It is there now, always behind the crest of
Kunchingunga. Even if these worshipers cannot see it, they see
Kunchingunga, their Holy Mountain, pointing the same way--northward.
Now, what does this mean?” and she mused again, but this time only
for an instant.
“Oh! I can see why! I understand it!” she exclaimed. “In other
directions, stars, as well as lesser things on earth, seem ever
moving, revolving, changing; Kunchingunga and the North Star seem
never to change. The North Star is towards the centre, all revolve
around that fixed point; it is marvellous what a magnificent Clock
there is to this Cathedral--the Great Clock in the Heavens, the Clock
of Ages, ever revolving around the permanent fixed centre. But then
again God is the only Permanent, Unchangeable; and to Him a thousand
years are as one day--the Clock says so. Why, of course, in His
Cathedral one must look northward; it is like looking towards Him,
towards something fixed, that does not change. Oh, I shall always
think of this Cathedral with Kunchingunga, its Great Clock, and the
hidden star,” and she quoted from Bryant’s “Hymn to the North Star”:
“And thou dost see them rise,
Star of the pole! and thou dost see them set.
Alone in thy cold skies
Thou keepest thy old unmoving station yet.”
“Yes, I understand it; in this Cathedral the worshiper should look
towards the north, towards the visible centre as Nature and Science
have made it appear to us. To consult that Clock one must look
straight ahead, towards the Only One who is from the ever-existent
past to the everlasting future--the Ancient of Days.”
This thought naturally led to her next and final impression on this
memorable day in her spiritual life, alone with the sublime in nature.
“Where is it?” she thought. “Where should I look to find it? the Holy
of Holies in this Cathedral,” and again she turned northward.
“That Celestial region!--it is very near it, yet not exactly of it.
There! I can see the Choir, and almost hear the angels singing, but
I cannot approach nearer--not yet. Oh! those Celestial summits!--the
Delectable Mountains! Look! Oh, look!”
Now as a matter of fact in Adele’s history, a kind Providence did
see fit to respond to her yearnings to appreciate this marvelous
scenery. As to all who seek the beautiful, sublime and holy in nature
she saw what she did see, and through it she perceived the invisible;
through things seen she was in the presence of the unseen.
The sun’s rays falling upon the snow-fields and glaciers on the
higher elevations were reflected upwards and on either side with
intense brilliancy--prismatic colors of exquisite delicacy were
diffused over the whole landscape; these and the various hues and
shades bathed the whole of nature visible with a glory that could be
seen. The human eye was satisfied, the artistic sense enraptured, and
the holy spirit in man at rest in peace.
No “dim religious light” had this Cathedral, but a Glory, sublime,
sacred; the Creator’s own handiwork, which man’s artistic efforts may
often suggest but can never equal.
To Adele in her frame of mind, it was a veritable Shekinah.
“The Holy of Holies! white and glistening! It is too bright! too
bright for me! I cannot see--the altar,--too bright!” and she covered
her eyes. “Weak humanity cannot look upon His Face, and live.”
Not long after a voice was heard--a melodious voice, a young and
cultivated voice, singing; one who strove to make her art holy--a
means to spiritual ends; for it is in the spirit that is the real
growth. It was Adele--Adele worshiping after her own fashion. She
had prayed in her Cathedral, and now she lifted her voice in praise;
the melody rose heavenward to mingle with the music she had heard
spiritually--the Celestial Choir. She sang with her whole soul:
“Angels ever bright and fair,
Take, oh, take me----”
None on earth heard her, so far as she knew.
None, indeed, but a poor unfortunate human being clothed in rags who
sat at the door of her hut under the brow of the hill. Being out of
sight, and dull of hearing, and a Taoist priestess withal, this poor
soul, sincere and true in _her_ faith, told her followers she had
heard the Good Spirits talking in the air above her.
“In a strange language,” she said, “but clear and sweet. I knew it
was the Good Spirits--and I called: ‘Buddha! Buddha! O Sakya! take me
from existence! O Sakya Muni!’”
He who ever listens, heard them both.
XXXV
HIMALAYA CATHEDRAL BY THE SUPREME ARCHITECT
Adele’s idealization was correct. The inquisitive explorers found
themselves face to face with nature in one of the Creator’s own
Temples, where the good and true and the beautiful were embodied in a
place made for worship by the Creator. A Cathedral whose architecture
was appropriate and soul-stirring (æsthetic) even unto sublimity; and
beyond man’s capacity to appreciate fully. A Cathedral whose vaulting
was the heavens above, its floor the earth beneath, and its religious
life as profound as the depths under the earth. And as the sequel
proved, our travelers were also to find all types of worship there,
existing even unto this day in this Temple of the Lord; from the
early sacrifice to the latest enlightenment--the Divine Light of the
World.
“Why so? Why all this? Upon what ground scientific, philosophical,
moral and religious? Freedom obtained--Life in the open--the open
life--physically, intellectually, spiritually. The Truth as each man
saw it was able to make him free.”
The sense of the beautiful, the artistic sense, first asserted itself
in this particular group of Nineteenth Century inquisitives. They
were accustomed to temples made with hands in which art had striven
to express the truth; here in this scene they found it rising through
all gradations of beauty, and realized that in nature we have the
mother source of truth and beauty in architecture. Of course, they
first noticed and criticised as seeing with the eyes of their own
civilization. What did they see? Lines as studied, yet free, as
in any masterpiece of Greece or basilica of early Christianity,
as full of aspiration, arching heavenward, as any Gothic work of
later day. And not only this; they soon recognized other forms,
outlines marked in character as a Hindoo Temple or Burmese Pagoda,
peculiar as a Chinese Tower or Japanese Torii--pure and chaste as the
Moslem Taj Mahal. They were astounded at the many forms, originally
obtained direct from nature or suggested by natural forms, which had
been subsequently conventionalized by art. Evidently all sorts and
conditions of men had at one time or another sat at the feet of the
Supreme Architect.
Then they observed more critically.
The growth stood upon basal lines, founded upon the earth itself,
plain areas; then massive foundation rocks; terraces to suit the
location; knolls to accentuate the demands of perspective; spurs
to act as buttresses and bind together the rising masses; hills to
invite one to ascend higher; mountains towering towards the realm
of the unseen. The work suggesting solidity, firmness, and all the
essentials for majesty dominating heavenward. The elementary design
simple in form, simple in combination, simple even as a Chaldean or
Egyptian monumental pyramid, Tomb, Library or Portal; as straight and
as true as a Persepolis House of Prayer; as flat and as positive, and
yet as significant and as symbolic as any Parsee devotee of old, or
a Mason from the days of Solomon, would have chosen to signify Basic
Truth in Religion or Simple Life in Morality--the simplicity of the
Gospel of Architecture.
A palpable fact began to manifest itself, namely: that man never
did learn anything worth knowing unless he came to nature to see
and perceive, to observe how the lilies of the field were arrayed,
and how the mountains towered heavenward to Our Father who Art, to
Him who is Art--the Way, the Truth, the Beautiful; and this was not
only visible to the eye, but the Cathedral was resonant--it spoke.
There was heard the very Voice of the Creator Architect, the Mind of
Nature; and the sound thereof echoed to the ends of the Earth. The
great instruction had been given, learned practically, and practiced.
The motifs and details, conceived for application in working out the
design, had come direct from the original source, the Artist-Mind of
the Almighty, whose prolific unlimited power of artistic expression
manifested knowledge of all form and substance; and this was
impressed upon the beholder and heard by him, an unobtrusive still
small voice whispering from that Spirit which had conceived it. Such
manifestations in nature were exquisite to both eye and ear; one
did not feel disposed to be loquacious about it, but only note and
apply what had been done by the Trinity of Usefulness, Beauty and
Adaptability. The Voice had said, “Follow me,” and men had tried to
do so.
The style chosen was that which in time became the Parent of all
styles subsequently born--born through man’s observance of natural
forms, his environment, his mental endowments, and his intellectual
appreciation; his virility to produce artistic work. The Supreme
Architect had been unceasingly painstaking and exact; in human
parlance, He had been sensitive, conscientious, profuse yet never
wasteful of His virile powers; in fact, to the last degree jealous
for what He knew to be the truth in art. Being the One who knows, He
knew how, and would not otherwise. He would have naught unless it
were equally good, true and beautiful, the three combined in one--a
Trinity of Truth, like Himself, Himself in His Work.
The doctrine of the Trinity pervaded this Cathedral, as ever with
truth physical, intellectual, spiritual.
To Professor Cultus and the Doctor after noting these things, it
seemed really to imply much more; namely, as if the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, could only be expressed in terms of
Three in One.
“I love to think of it,” said Adele, “it’s so helpful.”
Thus appeared the Himalaya Cathedral to these Nineteenth Century
inquisitives. A place of worship--not the Lord’s barn, but his
Temple, His Holy Dwelling Place, adequate, artistic and pure; worthy
of humanity endowed by Heaven with the power to worship in Spirit and
in Truth; worthy of its Master Architect.
XXXVI
PROGRESS OF THE BUILDING