by J J Astor
"Your bodies are decaying before me. You are burying your talents in the ground. We must all stand for final sentence at the last day, mortals and spirits alike--there is not a shadow of a shade of doubt. Your every thought will be known, and for every evil deed and every idle word God will bring us into judgment. The angel of death is among you and at work in your very midst. Are you prepared to receive him? He has already killed my body, and now that I can never die I wish there was a grave for my soul. I was reassured by a vision that told me I was safe, but either it was a hallucination, or I have been betrayed by some spirit. Last night I still lived, and my body obeyed my will. Since then I have experienced death, and with the resulting increased knowledge comes the loss of all hope, with keener pangs than I supposed could exist. Oh, that I had now their opportunities, that I might write a thesis that should live forever, and save millions of souls from the anguish of mine! Inoculate your mortal bodies with the germs of faith and mutual love, in a stronger degree than they dwelt in me, lest you lose the life above." But no one heard him, and he preached in vain.
He again rushed forth, and, after a half-involuntary effort, found himself in the street before his loved one's home. Scarcely knowing why, except that it had become nature to wish to be near her, he stood for a long time opposite her dwelling.
"O house!" he cried, "inanimate object that can yet enthral me so, I stand before your cold front as a suppliant from a very distant realm; yet in my sadness I am colder than your stones, more alone than in a desolate place. She that dwells within you holds my love. I long for her shadow or the sound of her step. I am more wretchedly in love than ever--I, an impotent, invisible spirit. Must I bear this sorrow in addition to my others, in my fruitless search for rest? My life will be a waking nightmare, most bitter irony of fate." The trees swayed above his head, and the moon, in its last quarter, looked dreamily at him.
"Ah," thought Ayrault, "could I but sleep and be happy! Drowsiness and weariness, fatigue's grasp is on me; or may Sylvia's nearness soothe, as her voice has brought me calm! Quiet I may some day enjoy, but slumber again, never! I see that souls in hades must ever have their misdeeds before them. Happy man in this world, the repentant's sins are forgiven! You lose your care in sleep. Somnolence and drowsiness--balm of aching hearts, angels of mercy! Mortals, how blessed! until you die, God sends you this rest. When I recall summer evenings with Sylvia, while gentle zephyrs fanned our brows, I would change Pope's famous line to 'Man never is, but always HAS BEEN blessed.'" A clock in a church-steeple now struck three, the sound ringing through the still night air.
"It will soon be time for ghosts to go," thought Ayrault. "I must not haunt her dwelling." There was a light in Sylvia's study, and Ayrault remained meditatively gazing at it.
"Happy lamp," he thought, "to shed your light on one so fair! She can see you, and you shine, for her. You are better off than I. Would that her soul might shine for me, as your light shines for her! The light of my life has departed. O that the darkness were complete!
I am dead," his thoughts ran on, and when the privilege--bitter word!--that permits me to remain here has expired, I must doubtless return to Saturn, and there in purgatory work out my probation. But what comfort is it that a few centuries hence I may be able to revisit my native earth?--The flowers will bloom in the morning light,
And the lark salute the sun,
The earth will continue to roll through space,
And I may be nearer my final grace,
But Sylvia's life-thread will be spun.
"Even Sylvia's house will be a heap of ruins, or its place will be taken by something else. If I had Sylvia, I should care for nothing; as I have lost her, even this sight, though sweet, must always bring regret. I wish, at all events, I might see Sylvia, if only with these spirit-eyes, since, as a mortal, she may never gladden my sight again." To his surprise, he now perceived that he could see, notwithstanding the drawn shades. Sylvia was at her writing-desk, in a light-coloured wrapper. She sat there resting her head on her hand, looking thoughtful but worried. Though it was so late, she had not retired. The thrush that Ayrault had often in life admired, and that she had for some reason brought up-stairs, was silent and asleep.
"Happy bird!" he said, "you obtain rest and forgetfulness on covering your head; but what wing can cover my soul? I used to wish I might flutter towards heaven on natural wings like you, little thrush. Now I can, indeed, outfly you. But whatever I do I'm unhappy, and wherever I go I'm in hell. What is man in his helpless, first spiritual state? He is but a flower, and withers soon. Had I, like the bishop, been less blind, and obeyed my conscience clear, I might have returned to my native earth while Sylvia still sojourns here; and coming thus by virtue of development, I should be able to commune with her.
"What is life?" he continued. "In the retrospect, nothing. It seems to me already as but an infinitesimal point. Things that engrossed me, and seemed of such moment, that overshadowed the duty of obeying my conscience--what were they, and where? Ah, where? They endured but a moment. Reality and evanescence--evanescence and reality." The light in Sylvia's room was out now, and in the east he beheld the dawn. The ubiquitous grey which he saw at night was invaded by streams of glorious crimson and blue that reached far up into the sky. He gazed at the spectacle, and then once more at that house in which his love was centred.
"Would I might be her guardian angel, to guide her in the right and keep her from all harm! Sleep on, Sylvia. Sweet one, sleep. Yon stars fade beside your eyes. Your thoughts and your soul are fairer far than the east in this day's sunrise. I know what I have lost. Ah, desolating knowledge! for I have read Sylvia's heart, and know I was loved as truly as I loved. When Bearwarden and Cortlandt break her the news--ah, God! will she live, and do they yet know I am dead?"
Again came that spasm to shed spirit tears, and had he not known it impossible he would have thought his heart must break.
The birds twittered, and the light grew, but Ayrault lay with his face upon the ground. Finally the spirit of unrest drove him on. He passed the barred door of his own house, through which he had entered so often. It was unchanged, but seemed deserted. Next, he went to the water-front, where he had left his yacht. Invisibly and sadly he stood upon her upper deck, and gazed at the levers, in response to his touch on which the craft had cleft the waves, reversed, or turned like a thing of life.
"'Twas a pretty toy," he mused, "and many hours of joy have I had as I floated through life on board of her."
As he moped along he beheld two unkempt Italians having a piano-organ and a violin. The music was not fine, but it touched a chord in Ayrault's breast, for he had waltzed with Sylvia to that air, and it made his heart ache.
"Oh, the acuteness of my distress," he cried, "the utter depth of my sorrow! Can I have no peace in death, no oblivion in the grave? I am reminded of my blighted, hopeless love in all kinds of unexpected ways, by unforeseen trifles. Oh, would I might, indeed, die! May obliteration be my deliverer!"
"Poor fellows," he continued, glancing at the Italians, for he perceived that neither of the players was happy; the pianist was avaricious, while the violinist's natural and habitual jealousy destroyed his peace of mind.
"Unhappiness seems the common lot," thought Ayrault. "Earth cannot give that joy for which we sigh. Poor fellows! though you rack my ears and distress my heart, I cannot help you now."
The Priest's Sermon
It being the first day of the week, the morning air was filled with chimes from many steeples.
"Divine service always comforted in life," thought Ayrault, "perchance it may do so now, when I have reached the state for which it tried to prepare me."
Accordingly, he moved on with the throng, and soon was ascending the heights of Morningside Park, after which, he entered the cathedral. The priest whose voice had so often thrilled him stood at his post in his surplice, and the choir had finished the processional hymn. During the responses in the litany, and between the commandments, while the congre
gation and the choir sang, he heard their natural voices as of old ascending to the vaulted roof and arrested there. He now also heard their spiritual voices resulting from the earnestness of their prayers. These were rung through the vaster vault of space, arousing a spiritual echo beyond the constellations and the nebulae. The service, which was that of the Protestant Episcopal Church, touched him as deeply as usual, after which the rector ascended the steps to the pulpit.
"The text, this morning," he began, "is from the eighth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, at the eighteenth verse: 'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.' Let us suppose that you or I, brethren, should become a free and disembodied spirit. A minute vein in the brain bursts, or a clot forms in the heart. It may be a mere trifle, some unexpected thing, yet the career in the flesh is ended, the eternal life of the liberated spirit begun. The soul slips from earth's grasp, as air from our fingers, and finds itself in the frigid, boundless void of space. Yet, through some longing this soul might rejoin us, and, though invisible, might hear the church-bells ring, and long to recall some one of the many bright Sunday mornings spent here on earth. Has a direful misfortune befallen this brother, or has a slave been set free? Let us suppose for a moment that the first has occurred. 'Vanity of vanities,' said the old preacher. 'Calamity of calamities,' says the new. That soul's probationary period is ended; his record, on which he must go, is forever made. He has been in the flesh, let us say, one, two, three or four score years; before him are the countless aeons of eternity. He may have had a reasonably satisfactory life, from his point of view, and been fairly successful in stilling conscience. That still, small voice doubtless spoke pretty sharply at first, but after a while it rarely troubled him, and in the end it spoke not at all. He may, in a way, have enjoyed life and the beauties of nature. He has seen the fresh leaves come and go, but he forgot the moral, that be himself was but a leaf, and that, as they all dropped to earth to make more soil, his ashes must also return to the ground. But his soul, friends and brethren, what becomes of that? Ah! it is the study of this question that moistens our eyes with tears. No evil man is really happy here, and what must be his suffering in the cold, cold land of spirits? No slumber or forgetfulness can ease his lot in hades, and after his condemnation at the last judgment he must forever face the unsoftened realities of eternity. No evil thing or thought can find lodgment in heaven. If it could, heaven would not be a happy place; neither can any man improve in the abyss of hell. As the horizon gradually darkens, and this soul recedes from God, the time spent in the flesh must come to seem the most infinitesimal moment, more evanescent than the tick of a clock. It seems dreadful that for such short misdoings a soul should suffer so long, but no man can be saved in spite of himself. He had the opportunities--and the knowledge of this must give a soul the most acute pang.
"In Revelation, xx, 6, we find these words, 'Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power.' I have often asked myself, May not this mean that those with a bad record in the general resurrection after a time cease to exist, since all suffer one death at the close of their period here?
"This is somewhat suggested by Proverbs, xii, 28,. 'In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.' This might limit the everlasting damnation, so often repeated elsewhere, to the lives of the condemned, since to them, in a sense, it would be everlasting.
"Let us now turn to the bright picture--the soul that has weathered the storms of life and has reached the haven of rest. The struggles, temptations, and trials overcome, have done their work of refining with a rapidity that could not have been equalled in any other way, and though, perhaps, very imperfect still, the journey is ever on. The reward is tenfold, yet in proportion to what this soul has done, for we know that the servant who best used his ten talents was made ruler over ten cities, while he that increased his five talents by five received five; and the Saviour in whom he trusted, by whose aid he made his fight, stands ready to receive him, saying, 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'
"As the dark, earthly background recedes, the clouds break and the glorious light appears, the contrast heightening the ever-unfolding and increasing delights, which are as great as the recipients have power to enjoy, since these righteous souls receive their rewards in proportion to the weight of the crosses that they have borne in the right spirit. These souls are a joy to their Creator, and are the heirs of Him in heaven. The ceaseless, sleepless activity that must obtain in both paradise and hades, and that must make the hearts of the godless grow faint at the contemplation, is also a boundless promise to those who have Him who is all in all.
"Where is now thy Saviour? where is now thy God? the unjust man has asked in his heart when he saw his just neighbour struggling and unsuccessful. Both the righteous and the unrighteous man are dead. The one has found his Saviour, the other is yearly losing God. What is the suffering of the present momentary time, eased as it is by God's mercy and presence, compared with the glories that await us? What would it be if our lives here were filled with nothing else, as ye know that your labour is not vain in the Lord? Time and eternity--the finite and the infinite. Death was, indeed, a deliverer, and the sunset of the body is the sunrise of the soul."
The priest held himself erect as a soldier while delivering this sermon, making the great cathedral ring with his earnest and solemn voice, while Ayrault, as a spirit, saw how absolutely he meant and believed every word that he said.
Nearly all the members of the congregation were moved--some more, some less than they appeared. After the benediction they rapidly dispersed, carrying in their hearts the germs he had sown; but whether these would bear fruit or wither, time alone could show. Ayrault had noticed Sylvia's father and mother in church, but Sylvia herself was not there, and he was distressed to think she might be ill.
"Why," pondered Ayrault, "am I so unhappy? I was baptized, confirmed, and have taken the sacrament. I have always had an unshaken faith, and, though often unsuccessful, have striven to obey my conscience. The spirits also on Saturn kept saying I should be happy. Now, did this mean it was incumbent upon me to rejoice, because of some blessing I already had, and did not appreciate, or did their prescience show them some prospective happiness I was to enjoy? The visions also of Violet, the angel, and the lily, which I believed, and still believe, were no mere empty fancies, should have given me the most unspeakable joy. It may be a mistake to apply earthly logic to heavenly things, but the fundamental laws of science cannot change.
"Why am I so unhappy?" he continued, returning to his original question. "The visions gave promise of special grace, perhaps some special favour. True, my prayer to see Sylvia was heard, but, considering the sacrifice, this has been no blessing. The request cannot have been wrong in itself, and as for the manner, there was no arrogance in my heart. I asked as a mortal, as a man of but finite understanding, for what concerned me most. Why, oh why, so wretched?"
Hic Ille Jacet
At daybreak the thunder-shower passed off, but was followed by a cold, drenching rain. Supposing Ayrault had remained in the Callisto, Bearwarden and Cortlandt did not feel anxious, and, not wishing to be wet through, remained in the cave, keeping up a good fire with the wood they had collected. Towards evening a cold wind came up, and, thinking this might clear the air, they ventured out, but, finding the ground saturated, and that the rain was again beginning to fall, they returned to shelter, prepared a dinner of canned meat, and made themselves as comfortable as possible for the night.
"I am surprised," said Cortlandt, "that Dick did not try to return to us, since he had the mackintoshes."
"I dare say he did try," replied Bearwarden, "but finding the course inundated, and knowing we should not need the mackintoshes if we remained under cover, decided to put back. The Callisto is, of course, as safe as a church."
"I hope," said Cortlandt, "no harm has com
e to him on the way. It will be a weight off my mind to see him safely with us."
"Should he not turn up in the morning," replied Bearwarden, "we must begin a search for him bright and early."
Making up the fire as near the entrance of the cave as they could find a dry place, so that Ayrault should see it if he attempted to return during the night, they piled on wood, and talked of their recent experiences.
"However unwilling I was," said Cortlandt, "to believe my senses, which I felt were misleading me, I can no longer doubt the reality of that spirit bishop, or the truth of what be says. When you look at the question dispassionately, it is what you might logically expect. In my desire to disprove what is to us supernatural, I tried to create mentally a system that would be a substitute for the one he described, but could evolve nothing that so perfectly filled the requirements, or that was so simple. Nothing seems more natural than that man, having been evolved from stone, should continue his ascent till he discards material altogether. The metamorphism is more striking in the first change than in the second. Granted that the soul is immaterial, and that it leaves the body after death, what is there to keep it on earth? Gravitation cannot affect it. What is more likely than that it is left behind by the earth in its orbit, or that it continues its forward motion, but in a straight line, till, reaching the paths of the greater planets, it is drawn to them by some affinity or attraction that the earth does not possess, and that the souls held in that manner remain here on probation, developing like young animals or children, till, by gradually acquired power, resulting from their wills, they are able to rise again into space, to revisit the earth, and in time to explore the universe? It might easily come about that, by some explainable sympathy, the infant good souls are drawn to this planet, while the condemned pass on to Cassandra, which holds them by some property peculiar to itself, until perhaps they, too, by virtue of their wills, acquire new power, unless involution sets in and they lose what they have. The simplicity of the thing is what surprises me now, and that for ages philosophers have been racking their brains with every conceivable fancy, when, by simply extending and following natural laws, they could discern the whole."