[From our story of "The Two Brides," we take a scene, in which some
one sorrowing as those without hope may find words of consolation.]
IN the very springtime of young womanhood, the destroyer had come;
and though he laid his hand upon her gently at first, yet the touch
was none the less fatal. But, while her frail body wasted, her
spirit remained peaceful. As the sun of her natural life sunk low in
the sky, the bright auroral precursor of another day smiled along
the eastern verge of her spiritual horizon. There was in her heart
neither doubt, nor fear, nor shrinking.
"Dear Marion!" said Anna, dropping a tear upon her white transparent
hand, as she pressed it to her lips, a few weeks after the alarming
hemorrhage just mentioned; "how can you look at this event so
calmly?"
They had been speaking of death, and Marion had alluded to its
approach to Anna, with a strange cheerfulness, as if she felt it to
be nothing more than a journey to another and far pleasanter land
than that wherein she now dwelt.
"Why should I look upon this change with other than tranquil
feelings?" she asked.
"Why? How can you ask such a question, sister?" returned Anna. "To
me, there has been always something in the thought of death that
made the blood run cold about my heart."
"This," replied Marion, with one of her sweet smiles, "is because
your ideas of death have been, from the first, confused and
erroneous. You thought of the cold and pulseless body; the pale
winding-sheet; the narrow coffin, and the deep, dark grave. But, I
do not let my thoughts rest on these. To me, death involves the idea
of eternal life. I cannot think of the one without the other. Should
the chrysalis tremble at the coming change?--the dull worm in its
cerements shrink from the moment when, ordained by nature, it must
rise into a new life, and expand its wings in the sunny air? How
much less cause have I to tremble and shrink back as the hour
approaches when this mortal is to put on immortality?"
"Yours is a beautiful faith," said Anna. "And its effects, as seen
now that the hour from which all shrink approaches, are strongly
corroborative of its truth."
"It is beautiful because it is true," replied Marion. "There is no
real beauty that is not the form of something good and true."
"If I were as good as you, I might not shrink from death," remarked
Anna, with a transient sigh.
"I hope you are better than I am, dear; and think you are," said
Marion.
"Oh, no!" quickly returned Anna.
"Do you purpose evil in your heart?" asked Marion, seriously.
Anna seemed half surprised at the question.
"Evil! Evil! I hope not," she replied, as a shadow came over her
face.
"It is an evil purpose only that should make us fear death, Anna;
for therein lies the only cause of fear. Death, to those who love
themselves and the world above every thing else, is a sad event; but
to those who love God and their neighbour supremely, it is a happy
change."
"That is all true," said Anna. "My reason assents to it. But, in the
act of dissolution--in that mortal strife, when the soul separates
itself from the body--there is something from which my heart shrinks
and trembles down fainting in my bosom. Ah! In the crossing of that
bourne from which no traveller has returned to tell us of what is
beyond, there is something that more than half appals me."
"There is much that takes away the fear you have mentioned," replied
Marion. "It is the uncertain that causes us to tremble and shrink
back. But, when we know what is before us, we prepare ourselves to
meet it. Attendant upon every one who dies, says a certain writer,
are two angels, who keep his mind entirely above the thought of
death, and in the idea of eternal life. They remain with him through
the whole process--protecting him from evil spirits--and receive him
into the world of spirits after his soul has fully withdrawn itself
from the interior of the body. The last idea, active in the mind of
the person before death, is the first idea in his mind after death,
when his consciousness of life is restored; and it is some time
after this conscious life returns before he is aware that he is
dead. Around him he sees objects similar to those seen in the
natural world. There are houses and trees, streams of water and
gardens. Men and women dressed in variously fashioned garments. They
walk and converse together, as we do upon earth. When, at length, he
is told that he has died, and is now in a world that is spiritual
instead of natural--that the body in which he is, is a body formed
of spiritual instead of natural substances, he is in a measure
affected with surprise, and for the most part a pleasing surprise.
He wonders at the grossness of his previous ideas, which limited
form and substances to material things; and now, unless he had been
instructed during his life in the world, begins to comprehend the
truth that man is a man from the spirit, not from the body."
Anna, who had been listening intently, drew a long breath, as Marion
paused.
"Dead, and yet not know the fact!" said she, with an expression of
wonder. "It seems incredible. And all this you fully believe?"
"Yes, Anna; as entirely as I believe in the existence of the sun in
the firmament."
"If these doctrines can take away the fear of death, which so haunts
the mind of even those who are striving to live pure lives, they are
indeed a legacy of good to the world. Oh, Marion, how much I have
suffered, ever since the days of my childhood, from this dreadful
fear!"
"They do take away the fear of death," returned Marion; "because
they remove the uncertainty which has heretofore gathered like a
gloomy pall over the last hours of mortality. When the soul of lover
or friend passed from this world, it seemed to plunge into a dark
profound, and there came not back an echo to tell of his fate. 'The
bourne from which no traveller returns!' Oh! the painful eloquence
of that single line. But, now, we who receive the doctrine of which
I speak, can look beyond this bourne; and though the traveller
returns not, yet we know something of how he fared on his entrance
into the new country."
"Then we need not fear for you," said Anna, tenderly, "when you are
called to pass this bourne?"
"No, sister," replied Marion, "I know in whom I have believed, and I
feel sure that it will be well with me, so far as I have shunned
what is evil and sought to do good. Do not think of me as sinking
into some gloomy profound; or awakening from my sleep of death,
startled, amazed, or shocked by the sudden transition. Loving angels
will be my companions as I descend into the valley and the shadow of
death; and I will fear no evil. Upon the other side I will be
received among those who have gone before, and I will scarcely feel
that there has been a change. A little while I will remain there,
and then pass upward to my place in heaven."
The mother of Marion entered her room at this moment, and the
conversation was suspended. But it was renewed again soon after, and
the gentle-hearted, spiritual-minded girl continued to talk of the
other world as one preparing for a journey talks about the new
country into which he is about going, and of whose geography, and
the manners and customs of whose people, he has made himself
conversant from books.
Not long did she remain on this side of the dark valley, through
which she was to pass. A few months wound up the story of her
earthly life, and she went peacefully and confidently on her way to
her eternal dwelling-place. It was a sweet, sad time, when the
parting hour came, and the mother, brother, and dearly loved adopted
sister, gathered around Marion's bed to see her die. That angels
were present, each one felt; for the sphere of tranquillity that
pervaded the hearts of all was the sphere of heaven.
"God is love," said Marion, a short time before she passed away. She
was holding the hand of her mother, and looking tenderly in her
face. "How exquisite is my perception of this truth? It comes upon
me with a power that subdues my spirit, yet fills it with ineffable
peace. With what a wondrous love has he regarded us! I never had had
so intense a perception of this as now."
Marion closed her eyes, and for some time lay silent, while a
heavenly smile irradiated her features. Then looking up, she said,
and as she spoke she took the hand of Anna and placed it within that
of her mother--
"When I am gone, let the earthly love you bore me, mother, be added
to that already felt for our dear Anna. Think of me as an angel, and
of her as your child."
In spite of her effort to restrain them, tears gushed from the eyes
of Mrs. Lee, and fell like rain over her cheeks. For a short time
she bent to her dying one, and clasped her wildly to her bosom. But
the calmness of a deeply laid trust in Providence was soon restored
to her spirit, and she said, speaking of Anna--
"Without her, how could we part with you? I do not think I could
bear it."
"I shall go before you only a little while," returned Marion, "only
a very little while. A few years--how quickly they will hurry by! A
few more days of labour, and your earthly tasks will be done. Then
we shall meet again. And even in the days of our separation we shall
not be far removed from each other. Thought will bring us
spiritually near, and affection conjoin us, even though no sense of
the body give token of proximity. And who knows but to me will be
assigned the guardianship of the dear babe given to us by Anna? Oh!
if love will secure that holy duty, then it will be mine!"
A light, as if reflected from the sun of heaven, beamed from the
countenance of Marion, who closed her eyes, and, in a little while,
fell off into a gentle sleep. Silently did those who loved her with
more than human tenderness--for there was in their affection a love
of goodness for its own sake--bend over and watch the face of the
sweet sleeper, even until there came stealing upon them the fear
that she would not waken again in this world. And the fear was not
groundless; for thus she passed away. To her death came as a gentle
messenger, to bid her go up higher. And she obeyed the summons
without a mortal fear.
No passionate grief at their loss raged wildly in the bosoms of
those who suffered this great bereavement. For years, the mother and
son had daily striven against selfish feelings as evil; and now,
comprehending with the utmost clearness that Marion's removal was,
for her, a blessed change, their hearts were thankful, even while
tears wet their cheeks. They mourned for her departure, because they
were human; they suffered pain, for ties of love the most tender had
been snapped asunder; they wept, because in weeping nature found
relief. Yet, in all, peace brooded over their spirits.
When the fading, wasting form of earth which Marion's pure spirit
had worn, as a garment, but now laid aside forever, was borne out,
and consigned to its kindred clay, those who remained behind
experienced no new emotions of grief. To them Marion still lived.
This was the old mortal body, that vailed, rather than made visible,
her real beauty. Now she was clothed in a spiritual body, that was
transcendently beautiful, because it was the very form of good
affections. To lay the useless garment aside was not, therefore, a
painful task. This done, each member of the bereaved family returned
to his and her life-tasks, and, in the faithful discharge of daily
duties, found a sustaining power. But Marion was not lost to them.
Ever present was she in their thought and affection, and often, in
dreams, she was with them,--yet, never as the suffering mortal; but
as the happy, glorified immortal. Beautiful was the faith upon which
they leaned. To them the spiritual was not a something vague and
undeterminate; but a real entity. They looked beyond the grave, into
the spiritual world, as into a better country, where life was
continued in higher perfection, and where were spiritual ultimates,
as perfectly adapted to spiritual sense as are the ultimates of
creation to the senses of the natural body.