The gates ajar by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
| 4. |
| 5. |
| 6. |
| 7. |
| 8. |
| 9. |
| 10. |
| 11. |
| 12. | XII. |
| 13. |
| 14. |
| 15. |
| 16. |
 | XII. The gates ajar |  |
12. XII.
July 22.
Aunt Winifred has connected herself with
our church. I think it was rather hard for
her, breaking the last tie that bound her to her
husband's people; but she had a feeling, that,
if her work is to be done and her days ended
here, she had better take up all such little
threads of influence to make herself one with
us.
25th.
To-day what should Deacon Quirk do but
make a solemn call on Mrs, Forceythe, for the
purpose of asking — and this with a hint that
he wished he had asked before she became a
member of the Homer First Congregational
Church — whether there were truth in the
rumors, now rife about town, that she was a
Swedenborgian!
Aunt Winifred broke out laughing, and
laughed merrily. The Deacon frowned.
“I used to fancy that I believed in Swedenborg,”
down a little.
The Deacon pricked up his ears, with visions
of excommunications and councils reflected
on every feature.
“Until I read his books,” she finished.
“Oh!” said the Deacon. He waited for
more, but she seemed to consider the conversation
at an end.
“So then you — if I understand — are not
a Swedenborgian, ma'am?”
“If I were, I certainly should have had no
inducement to join myself to your church,” she
replied, with gentle dignity. “I believe, with
all my heart, in the same Bible and the same
creed that you believe in, Deacon Quirk.”
“And you live your creed, which all such
genial Christians do not find it necessary to
do,” I thought, as the Deacon in some perplexity
took his departure, and she returned with a
smile to her sewing.
I suppose the call came about in this way.
We had the sewing-circle here last week, and
just before the lamps were lighted, and when
people had dropped their work to group and
talk in the corners, Meta Tripp came up with
one or two other girls to Aunt Winifred, and
people said she believed about heaven.” Auntie
is never obtrusive with her views on this or
any other matter, but, being thus urged, she
answered a few questions that they put to her,
to the extreme scandal of one or two old ladies,
and the secret delight of the rest.
“Well,” said little Mrs. Bland, squeezing
and kissing her youngest, who was at that
moment vigorously employed in sticking very
long darning-needles into his mother's water-fall,
“I hope there 'll be a great many babies
there. I should be perfectly happy if I always
could have babies to play with!”
The look that Aunt Winifred shot over at
me was worth seeing.
She merely replied, however, that she supposed
all our “highest aspirations,” — with an
indescribable accent to which Mrs. Bland was
safely deaf, — if good ones, would be realized;
and added, laughing, that Swedenborg said
that the babies in heaven — who outnumber
the grown people — will be given into the
charge of those women especially fond of
them.
“Swedenborg is suggestive, even if you can't
accept what seem to the uninitiated to be his
discussed Deacon Quirk awhile. “He says a
pretty thing, too, occasionally. Did I ever
read you about the houses?”
She had not, and I wished to hear, so she
found the book on Heaven and Hell, and
read: —
“As often as I have spoken with the angels
mouth to mouth, so often I have been with
them in their habitations: their habitations
are altogether like the habitations on earth
which are called houses, but more beautiful;
in them are parlors, rooms, and chambers in
great numbers; there are also courts, and
round about are gardens, shrubberies, and
fields. Palaces of heaven have been seen,
which were so magnificent that they could not
be described; above, they glittered as if they
were of pure gold, and below, as if they were
of precious stones; one palace was more splendid
than another; within, it was the same; the
rooms were ornamented with such decorations
as neither words nor sciences are sufficient to
describe. On the side which looked to the
south there were paradises, where all things in
like manner glittered, and in some places
the leaves were as of silver, and the fruits
by colors as it were rainbows; at the
boundaries again were palaces, in which the
view terminated.”
Aunt Winifred says that our hymns, taken
all together, contain the worst and the best
pictures of heaven that we have in any branch
of literature.
“It seems to me incredible,” she says, “that
the Christian Church should have allowed that
beautiful `Jerusalem' in its hymnology so long,
with the ghastly couplet, —
And Sabbaths have no end.'
out, and that when there are the greatest
number of restless children wondering when it
will be time to go home. It is only within
ten years that modern hymn-books have altered
it, returning in part to the original.
“I do not think we have chosen the best
parts of that hymn for our `service of song.'
You never read the whole of it? You don't
know how pretty it is! It is a relief from the
customary palms and choirs. One's whole heart
is glad of the outlet of its sweet refrain, —
`Would God that I were there!'
ready to believe that
But pleasure every way.'
Thy windows crystal clear,
Thy tiles are made of beaten gold;
O God, that I were there!
`We that are here in banishment
Continually do moan.
`Our sweet is mixed with bitter gall,
Our pleasure is but pain,
Our joys scarce last the looking on,
Our sorrows still remain.
`But there they live in such delight,
Such pleasure and such play,
As that to them a thousand years
Doth seem as yesterday.'
Continually are green;
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.
`There cinnamon, there sugar grows,
There nard and balm abound,
What tongue can tell, or heart conceive
The joys that there are found?
The flood of life doth flow,
Upon whose banks, on every side,
The wood of life doth grow.'
that grand old Catholic singer. He is far
nearer to the Bible than the innovators on
his MSS. Do you not notice how like his
images are to the inspired ones, and yet how
pleasant and natural is the effect of the entire
poem?
“There is nobody like Bonar, though, to sing
about heaven. There is one of his, `We shall
meet and rest,' — do you know it?”
I shook my head, and knelt down beside her
and watched her face, — it was quite unconscious
of me, the musing face, — while she
repeated dreamily: —.
Freshen nevermore to fade;
Where the shaded sky shall brighten, —
Brighten nevermore to shade;
Where the sun-blaze never scorches;
Where the star-beams cease to chill;
Where no tempest stirs the echoes
Of the wood, or wave, or hill;....
Where no shadow shall bewilder;
Where life's vain parade is o'er;
Where the sleep of sin is broken,
And the dreamer dreams no more;
Partings, claspings, sob and moan,
Midnight waking, twilight weeping,
Heavy noontide, — all are done;
Where the child has found its mother;
Where the mother finds the child;
Where dear families are gathered,
That were scattered on the wild;....
Where the hidden wound is healed;
Where the blighted life reblooms;
Where the smitten heart the freshness
Of its buoyant youth resumes;....
Where we find the joy of loving,
As we never loved before, —
Loving on, unchilled, unhindered,
Loving once, forevermore.”....
30th.
Aunt Winifred was weeding her day-lilies
this morning, when the gate creaked timidly,
and then swung noisily, and in walked Abinadab
Quirk, with a bouquet of China pinks in the
button-hole of his green-gray linen coat. He
had taken evident pains to smarten himself up
a little, for his hair was combed into two horizontal
dabs over his ears, and the green-gray
coat and blue-checked shirt-sleeves were quite
clean; but he certainly is the most uncouth
specimen of six feet five that it has ever been
my privilege to behold. I feel sorry for him,
though. I heard Meta Tripp laughing at him
Quirk,” she called him, a little too
loud, and the poor fellow heard her. He half
turned, blushing fiercely; then slunk down in
his corner with as pitiable a look as is often
seen upon a man's face.
He came up to Auntie awkwardly, — a part
of the scene I saw from the window, and the
rest she told me, — head hanging, and the tiny
bouquet held out.
“Clo sent these to you,” he stammered out,
— “my cousin Clo. I was coming 'long, and
she thought, you know, — she 'd get me, you
see, to — to — that is, to — bring them. She
sent her — that is — let me see. She sent her
respect — ful — respectful — no, her love; that
was it. She sent her love 'long with 'em.”
Mrs. Forceythe dropped her weeds, and held
out her white, shapely hands, wet with the
heavy dew, to take the flowers.
“O, thank you! Clo knows my fancy for
pinks. How kind in you to bring them!
Won't you sit down a few moments? I was
just going to rest a little. Do you like flowers?”
Abinadab eyed the white hands, as his huge
fingers just touched them, with a sort of awe;
and, sighing, sat down on the very edge of the
variety of efforts to take the most uncomfortable
position of which he was capable, he succeeded
to his satisfaction, and, growing then
somewhat more at his ease, answered her
question.
“Flowers are sech gassy things. They just
blow out and that 's the end of 'em. I like
machine-shops best.”
“Ah! well, that is a very useful liking. Do
you ever invent machinery yourself?”
“Sometimes,” said Abinadab, with a bashful
smile. “There 's a little improvement of mine
for carpet-sweepers up before the patent-office
now. Don't know whether they 'll run it
through. Some of the chaps I saw in Boston
told me they thought they would do 't in time;
it takes an awful sight of time. I 'm alwers
fussing over something of the kind; alwers
did, sence I was a baby; had my little windmills
and carts and things; used to sell 'em to
the other young uns. Father don't like it.
He wants me to stick to the farm. I don't
like farming. I feel like a fish out of water.
— Mrs. Forceythe, marm!”
He turned on her with an abrupt change of
tone, so funny that she could with difficulty
retain her gravity.
“I heard you saying a sight of queer things
the other day about heaven. Clo, she 's been
telling me a sight more. Now, I never
believed in heaven!”
“Why?”
“Because I don't believe,” said the poor fellow,
with sullen decision, “that a benevolent
God ever would ha' made sech a derned awkward
chap as I am!”
Aunt Winifred replied by stepping into the
house, and bringing out a fine photography of
one of the best of the St. Georges, — a rapt, yet
very manly face, in which the saint and the
hero are wonderfully blended.
“I suppose,” she said, putting it into his
hands, “that if you should go to heaven, you
would be as much fairer than that picture as
that picture is fairer than you are now.”
“No! Why, would I, though? Jim-miny!
Why, it would be worth going for, would n't
it?”
The words were no less reverently spoken
than the vague rhapsodies of his father; for
the sullenness left his face, and his eyes —
which are pleasant, and not unmanly, when
one fairly sees them — sparkled softly, like a
child's.
“Make it all up there, maybe?” musing,
— “the girls laughing at you all your life, and
all? That would be the bigger heft of the two
then, would n't it? for they say there ain't any
end to things up there. Why, so it might be
fair in Him after all; more 'n fair, perhaps.
See here, Mrs. Forceythe, I 'm not a church-member,
you know, and father, he 's dreadful
troubled about me; prays over me like a span
of ministers, the old gentleman does, every
Sunday night. Now, I don't want to go to
the other place any more than the next man,
and I 've had my times, too, of thinking I 'd
keep steady and say my prayers reg'lar, — it
makes a chap feel on a sight better terms with
himself, — but I don't see how I 'm going to
wear white frocks and stand up in a choir, —
never could sing no more 'n a frog with a cold
in his head, — it tires me more now, honest, to
think of it, than it does to do a week's mowing.
Look at me! Do you s'pose I 'm fit for it?
Father, he 's always talking about the thrones,
and the wings, and the praises, and the palms,
and having new names in your foreheads,
(should n't object to that, though, by any
means), till he drives me into the tool-house,
or off on a spree. I tell him if God hain't got
He 's fitted 'em to do in this world, there 's no
use thinking about it anyhow.”
So Auntie took the honest fellow into her
most earnest thought for half an hour, and
argued, and suggested, and reproved, and
helped him, as only she could do; and at the
end of it seemed to have worked into his mind
some distinct and not unwelcome ideas of
what a Christ-like life must mean to him, and
of the coming heaven which is so much more
real to her than any life outside of it.
“And then,” she told him, “I imagine that
your fancy for machinery will be employed in
some way. Perhaps you will do a great deal
more successful inventing there than you ever
will here.”
“You don't say so!” said radiant Abinadab.
“God will give you something to do, certainly,
and something that you will like.”
“I might turn it to some religious purpose,
you know!” said Abinadab, looking bright.
“Perhaps I could help 'em build a church, or
hist some of their pearl gates, or something
like!”
Upon that he said that it was time to be at
away.
Clo told us this afternoon that he begged the
errand and the flowers from her. She says:
“'Bin thinks there never was anybody like you,
Mrs. Forceythe, and 'Bin is n't the only one,
either.” At which Mrs. Forceythe smiles
absently, thinking — I wonder of what.
Monday night.
I saw as funny and as pretty a bit of a
drama this afternoon as I have seen for a long
time.
Faith had been rolling out in the hot hay
ever since three o'clock, with one of the little
Blands, and when the shadows grew long they
came in with flushed cheeks and tumbled hair,
to rest and cool upon the door-steps. I was
sitting in the parlor, sewing energetically on
some sun-bonnets for some of Aunt Winifred's
people down town, — I found the heat to be
more bearable if I kept busy, — and could see,
unseen, all the little tableaux into which the
two children grouped themselves; a new one
every instant; in the shadow now, — now in a
quiver of golden glow; the wind tossing their
hair about, and their chatter chiming down the
hall like bells.
“O what a funny little sunset there 's going
to be behind the maple-tree,” said the blond-haired
Bland, in a pause.
“Funny enough,” observed Faith, with her
superior smile, “but it 's going to be a great
deal funnier up in heaven, I tell you, Molly
Bland.”
“Funny in heaven? Why, Faith!” Molly
drew herself up with a religious air, and looked
the image of her father.
“Yes, to be sure. I 'm going to have some
little pink blocks made out of it when I go;
pink and yellow and green and purple and —
O, so many blocks! I 'm going to have a little
red cloud to sail round in, like that one up
over the house, too, I should n't wonder.”
Molly opened her eyes.
“O, I don't believe it!”
“You don't know much!” said Miss Faith,
superbly. “I should n't s'pose you would believe
it. P'r'aps I 'll have some strawberries
too, and some ginger-snaps, — I 'm not going
to have any old bread and butter up there, —
O, and some little gold apples, and a lot of
playthings; nicer playthings — why, nicer
than they have in the shops in Boston, Molly
Bland! God 's keeping 'em up there a purpose.”
“Dear me!” said incredulous Molly, “I
should just like to know who told you that
much. My mother never told it at me. Did
your mother tell it at you?”
“O, she told me some of it, and the rest I
thinked out myself.”
“Let 's go and play One Old Cat,” said
Molly, with an uncomfortable jump; “I wish
I had n't got to go to heaven!”
“Why, Molly Bland! why, I think heaven 's
splendid! I 've got my papa up there, you
know. `Here 's my little girl!' That 's what
he 's going to say. Mamma, she 'll be there,
too, and we 're all going to live in the prettiest
house. I have dreadful hurries to go this
afternoon sometimes when Phœbe 's cross and
won't give me sugar. They don't let you in,
though, 'nless you 're a good girl.”
“Who gets it all up?” asked puzzled Molly.
“Jesus Christ will give me all these beautiful
fings,” said Faith, evidently repeating her
mother's words, — the only catechism that she
has been taught.
“And what will he do when he sees you?”
asked her mother, coming down the stairs and
stepping up behind her.
“Take me up in His arms and kiss me.”
“And what will Faith say?”
“Fank — you!” said the child, softly.
In another minute she was absorbed, body
and soul, in the mysteries of One Old Cat.
“But I don't think she will feel much like
being naughty for half an hour to come,”
her mother said; “hear how pleasantly her
words drop! Such a talk quiets her, like a
hand laid on her head. Mary, sometimes I
think it is His very hand, as much as when He
touched those other little children. I wish
Faith to feel at home with Him and His home.
Little thing! I really do not think that she is
conscious of any fear of dying; I do not think
it means anything to her but Christ, and her
father, and pink blocks, and a nice time, and
never disobeying me, or being cross. Many a
time she wakes me up in the morning talking
away to herself, and when I turn and look at
her, she says: `O mamma, won't we go to
heaven to-day, you fink? When will we go,
mamma?'”
“If there had been any pink blocks and
ginger-snaps for me when I was at her age, I
should not have prayed every night to `die
out.' I think the horrors of death that children
live through, unguessed and unrelieved,
that she has escaped them.”
“I should feel answerable to God for the
child's soul, if I had not prevented that. I
always wanted to know what sort of mother
that poor little thing had, who asked, if she
were very good up in heaven, whether they
would n't let her go down to hell Saturday
afternoons, and play a little while!”
“I know. But think of it, — blocks and
ginger-snaps!”
“I treat Faith just as the Bible treats us, by
dealing in pictures of truth that she can understand.
I can make Clo and Abinadab
Quirk comprehend that their pianos and machinery
may not be made of literal rosewood
and steel, but will be some synonyme of the
thing, which will answer just such wants of
their changed natures as rosewood and steel
must answer now. There will be machinery
and pianos in the same sense in which there
will be pearl gates and harps. Whatever enjoyment
any or all of them represent now,
something will represent then.
“But Faith, if I told her that her heavenly
ginger-snaps would not be made of molasses
and flour, would have a cry, for fear that she
so, until she is older, I give her unqualified
ginger-snaps. The principal joy of a child's
life consists in eating. Faith begins, as soon
as the light wanes, to dream of that gum-drop
which she is to have at bedtime. I don't suppose
she can outgrow that at once by passing
out of her little round body. She must begin
where she left off, — nothing but a baby, though
it will be as holy and happy a baby as Christ
can make it. When she says: “Mamma, I
shall be hungery and want my dinner, up
there,” I never hesitate to tell her that she
shall have her dinner. She would never, in
her secret heart, though she might not have
the honesty to say so, expect to be otherwise
than miserable in a dinnerless eternity.”
“You are not afraid of misleading the
child's fancy?”
“Not so long as I can keep the two ideas —
that Christ is her best friend, and that heaven
is not meant for naughty girls — pre-eminent
in her mind. And I sincerely believe that He
would give her the very pink blocks which she
anticipates, no less than He would give back a
poet his lost dreams, or you your brother.
He has been a child; perhaps, incidentally
this very reason, — that He may know how to
`prepare their places' for them, whose angels
do always behold His Father. Ah, you may
be sure that, if of such is the happy Kingdom,
He will not scorn to stoop and fit it to their
little needs.
“There was that poor little fellow whose
guinea-pig died, — do you remember?”
“Only half; what was it?”
“`O mamma,'” he sobbed out, behind his
handkerchief, `don't great big elephants have
souls?'
“`No, my son.'
“`Nor camels, mamma?'
“`No.'
“`Nor bears, nor alligators, nor chickens?'
“`O no, dear.'
“`O mamma, mamma! Don't little CLEAN —
white — guinea-pigs have souls?'
“I never should have had the heart to say
no to that; especially as we have no positive
proof to the contrary.
“Then that scrap of a boy who lost his little
red balloon the morning he bought it, and,
broken-hearted, wanted to know whether it
had gone to heaven. Don't I suppose if he
that he would have found a little balloon in
waiting for him? How can I help it?”
“It has a pretty sound. If people would
not think it so material and shocking —”
“Let people read Martin Luther's letter to
his little boy. There is the testimony of a
pillar in good and regular standing! I don't
think you need be afraid of my balloon, after
that.”
I remembered that there was a letter of his
on heaven, but, not recalling it distinctly, I
hunted for it to-night, and read it over. I
shall copy it, the better to retain it in mind.
“Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little
son. I see with pleasure that thou learnest
well, and prayed diligently. Do so, my son,
and continue. When I come home I will
bring thee a pretty fairing.
“I know a pretty, merry garden wherein are
many children. They have little golden coats,
and they gather beautiful apples under the
trees, and pears, cherries, plums, and wheat-plums;
— they sing, and jump, and are merry.
They have beautiful little horses, too, with gold
bits and silver saddles. And I asked the man
to whom the garden belongs, whose children
that love to pray and to learn, and are
good.' Then said I: `Dear man, I have a son,
too; his name is Johnny Luther. May he not
also come into this garden and eat these beautiful
apples and pears, and ride these fine
horses?' Then the man said: `If he loves to
pray and to learn, and is good, he shall come
into this garden, and Lippus and Jost too; and
when they all come together, they shall have
fifes and trumpets, lutes and all sorts of music,
and they shall dance, and shoot with little
cross-bows.'
“And he showed me a fine meadow there in
the garden, made for dancing. There hung
nothing but golden fifes, trumpets, and fine
silver cross-bows. But it was early, and the
children had not yet eaten; therefore I could
not wait the dance, and I said to the man:
`Ah, dear sir! I will immediately go and write
all this to my little son Johnny, and tell him
to pray diligently, and to learn well, and to
be good, so that he also may come to this
garden. But he has an Aunt Lehne, he must
bring her with him.' Then the man said: `It
shall be so; go, and write him so.'
“Therefore, my dear little son Johnny, learn
that they must learn and pray. And then you
shall come to the garden together. Herewith
I commend thee to Almighty God. And
greet Aunt Lehne, and give her a kiss for my
sake.
“Thy dear Father,
“Martinus Luther.
“Anno 1530.”
| XII. The gates ajar | |