/\ 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 ^^ '^^ 
 
 ^0^ 
 
 ^oK 
 
 
 *• ^ ^^ J" 
 
 aH ^^ * o » o 
 
MYSTIC VOICES 
 
 AN INTERPRETATION OF NATURE 
 
 PART I 
 Terrestrial Phones 
 
 or 
 
 Voices from the Visible 
 
 PART II 
 Celestial Phones 
 
 or 
 Voices from the Invisible 
 
 BV 
 
 S. L. MERSHON 
 
 THEO. E. SCHULTE 
 
 132 East 23d Street, New Yoik 
 
75 3^:^^ 
 
 LIBRARY of congress! 
 
 TwoCoDie.c Received 
 
 MAY 16 1906 
 
 oyrichi Entry 
 
 .^'/l^ 
 
 '^M^ 
 
 \C\oL 
 
 COPVHIGHT, 1906 
 BV 
 
 S. L. MERSHON 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 THAT FAITHFUL AND GODLY 
 
 LONG ISLAND PASTOR 
 
 Formerly of Easthampton, N. Y. 
 
 REV. STEPHEN L. MERSHON 
 
 By his son 
 
 Stephen L. Mershon 
 
 With illustrations by 
 
 his grandson 
 
 Stephen L. Mershon, 3rd. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Recognition 5 
 
 Nai uRii's Call 6 
 
 Grandfather's Farm 7 
 
 The Inheritance OF Granui'aiher's Farm . . . ii 
 
 Under Grandfather's Rook ...... 15 
 
 Beauty and Life on Grandfather's Farm . . .21 
 
 Bv THE Brook on Grandfather's Farm . . . .32 
 
 Drifting Seaward ........ 37 
 
 Love on Grandfather's Farm . . . . . .41 
 
 The Storm .......... 49 
 
 The Village Church 54 
 
 The Charm of a Sacred Sabbath on Grandfather's 
 
 Farm 59 
 
 The Temple in Grandfather's Woods . . . .64 
 Resurrection Voices on Grandfather's Farm . . .70 
 Backward Ho ! . . =77 
 
RECOGNITION. 
 
 Introducing my loved Father-in-Law and my be- 
 loved Mother-in-Law, Mr. and Mrs. John Hawkins, 
 our children's "Grandfather and Grandmother, of 
 Grandfather's Farm," from whose lips I have never 
 heard an unkind word, and whose daily life is a con- 
 stant witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Wife, chil- 
 dren and I send this greeting of love to them. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 MONTCLAIR, N. J. 
 
NATURE'S CALL. 
 
 Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion 
 that turneth the shadow of death into the morning 
 and maketh the day dark with night ; that calleth for 
 the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the 
 face of the earth. — The Lord is His name (Amos 
 
 5:8). 
 
 But ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee : 
 and the fowls of the air and they shall tell thee (Job 
 12:7). 
 
 He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young 
 ravens which cry (Psa. 147:9). 
 
 The heavens declare His righteousness and all the 
 people see His glory (Psa. 97:6). 
 
 The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have 
 lifted up their voice (Psa. 93:3). 
 
 The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of 
 many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea 
 (Psa. 93:4)- 
 
 Praise ye Him, sun and moon ; praise ye Him, all 
 ye stars of light (Psa. 148:2). 
 
 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He com- 
 manded and they were created (Psa. 148:5). 
 
 Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before 
 the Lord (Psa. 96: 12-13). 
 
 Ye shall go forth with joy and shall be led forth 
 with peace, and all the hills shall break forth before 
 you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall 
 clap their hands (Isa. 55: 12). 
 
GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 "This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and 
 their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord." — Isa. 54:17. 
 
 I AM a Long Islander by birth ; consequently I have 
 a loyal interest in its welfare, as well as a long- ac- 
 quaintance with its varied natural attractions. 
 
 It has been our happy experience to spend almost 
 every stunnier for many years on Forge River, tribu- 
 tary to Moriches Bay. 
 
 A more charming spot can not be found on Long 
 Island. We have discovered here a marvelous wealth 
 of natural attractions, in the beautiful flowers, grace- 
 ful ferns and majestic forests in their wildest charms. 
 
 These timbered lands, open fields and fragrant 
 meadows are inhabited by a vast population of birds 
 with wondrous beauty and sweetest song. 
 
 The waters of the river, bays, brooks and coves 
 seem alive with every variety of fresh and salt water 
 fish abounding in this latitude. 
 
 The clear, crisp nights, so frequent on this part 
 of the island, reveal a vision of the Starry World 
 above our heads which, combined with Nature's be- 
 wildering splendors so lavishly displayed about us, 
 causes the true student of Nature to exclaim : ''The 
 heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament 
 showeth His handiwork." 
 
8 GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 Many go to the country, utterly oblivious to the 
 beauties of the field, to kill the birds that are the soul 
 and voice of the meadows, or, forgetting the woods, 
 crowd into fashionable hotels for social gayeties, when 
 a world of nature all about endowed with a benedic- 
 tion of Divine Glory calls to a bright, beautiful and 
 joyous companionship. 
 
 THE APPROACH TO GRANDFATHER S FARM. 
 
 In this God's workshop, where the Divine Creator 
 paints the flowers, endows the trees with strength 
 and beauty and exalts all Nature in lofty praise, we 
 find — Grandfather's Farm. 
 
 The large, old Colonial house, for over one hun- 
 dred and fifty years, has stood "with latchstring 
 
GRANDFATHER'S FARM. g 
 
 out" to all and a royal welcome of sincere Christian 
 hospitality. 
 
 About the old hearthstone, laid by Pilgrim hands, 
 we have heard strange stories of the days of long 
 ago. 
 
 Are we children of Nature? Then a walk through 
 Grandfather's woods and a look at Grandmother's 
 flowers will fill our hearts with joy and our lips with 
 songs. 
 
 We will find that we are but babes in these woods, 
 where tower aloft trees that have here stood on guard 
 in the light of three centuries. 
 
 Are we philosophers? Then the mystery of blos- 
 soms and fruits will there fill us with wonder and deep 
 contemplation. 
 
 Is there poetry in our nature ? Then the inspira- 
 tion of forest and fen will find voice within and ex- 
 pression without. 
 
 Are we sons of God? Then all Nature there dis- 
 played will tell of His glory and speak in His praise. 
 Nature is the enshrinement of Divine love ! 
 
 Near to Grandfather's gateway stands a grand old 
 pear tree, with storm-beaten trunk and mossy limbs. 
 This venerable and beloved old tree, for over a cen- 
 tury, has borne its annual burden of luscious pears, 
 as its contribution to the delights of this Colonial 
 estate. 
 
 In the midst of this joyous scene, we stop a mo- 
 ment to pay tribute at the little Colonial burying- 
 ground, forest-guarded, star-watched, moss-covered, 
 at peace — while the breath of the winds through the 
 tree tops gives forth Nature's divinely attuned 
 
lo GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 requiem and the music of the birds makes here their 
 sweet ministry of son"-. 
 
 Grandfather's Farm, what shall we call it? God's 
 Cathedral, because of its over-arching forest, clois- 
 tered shrubberies and bird choruses? God's Celes- 
 tial City, because of its river of life? Or God's 
 Bethany, for, like Bethany of old, there is a house 
 in its midst in which the Master loves to dwell. Or 
 shall we call it God's storehouse? for from its meadows 
 and fields bursts forth the golden grain, and also 
 spring to life the finest and best vegetables and table 
 fruits. In fact, it is "a land of milk and honey" plus 
 many good things ! 
 
 The river flows to it, the ocean tide rolls to it, 
 the birds fly to it, the crops come to it, the grand- 
 children run to it, for they all love it, because it is 
 Grandfather's Farm. 
 
THE INHERITANCE OF GRAND- 
 FATHER'S FARM. 
 
 "I will pour my spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon 
 thine offspring." — Isa. 44 .3. 
 
 Great-grandfather Hawkins was a man of heroic 
 frame, rugged character and sturdy worth. The pro- 
 prietor of a vast estate, he stood iu his community 
 for stcrhno- integ:ritv, indomitable energy and Puri- 
 
 GRANDFATHER S TROUT POND. 
 
 tan faith, just as Great-grandmother Hawkins re- 
 vealed in her beautiful Christian life all that was best 
 ^nd sweetest in her noble Virginia lineage. 
 
12 INHERITANCE OF GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 In the flood-tide hour of his well-earned success, 
 Great-grandfather Hawkins "was not, for God took 
 him." 
 
 A strange hush seemed all-pervasive that day. 
 
 The trees whispered, the brooks murmured, while 
 bleating sheep and lowing herds seemed to give a 
 new interpretation to life under the shadows of death 
 on the old farm. 
 
 In this crisis hour Grandfather Hawkins moved out 
 into the open and became the new master of the 
 Colonial homestead. 
 
 Great-grandfather Hawkins took not one acre of 
 land with him. 
 
 The huge granaries still held their overflowing" 
 stores of corn and wheat, while not a piece of family 
 plate or a dollar from the savings of a lifetime 
 accompanied this solitary traveler on his new and 
 silent voyage. 
 
 No trunks were hurriedly packed, no little knick- 
 nacks were tucked by loving hands into a waiting 
 valise for use on this journey. 
 
 The pilgrim calmly and quietly slipped away, that 
 day, taking with him only, but all sufficiently, a Chris- 
 tian character and an abiding faith, which in sturdi- 
 ness resembled his beloved oak tree, which in fidelity 
 to truth was like the North Star, by which every 
 surveyed line on his landed estate was run. A char- 
 acter which in radiance of worth revealed a light like 
 unto the dawn of the mornings, as through the years 
 they had met him in the early hours when the open- 
 ing days had called him to duty on the old farm. 
 
 And so another life vanished out of sight; as a 
 
INHERITANCE OF GRANDFATHER' S FARM. 13 
 
 light fades away, or as music dies out, or as aromas 
 become insensate, so this Hfe was, and then was not 
 visible. 
 
 Grandfather, that day, felt a strange weight of a 
 new responsibilit}'. He saw wonderful soils, prepared 
 by Almighty God to bring forth great supplies of 
 food, and God and these soils were now waiting for 
 him. 
 
 He beheld vast crops divinely called into life and 
 bountifulness from his father's sowings, now waiting 
 for his sickle. 
 
 He saw mute and faithful cattle and noble horses, 
 zealously filling out their God-intended mission in 
 life, but looking" to him for food, shelter and proper 
 care. 
 
 He saw a place vacant in the counsels of the com- 
 munity and an empty chair in the old home. 
 
 He knew that the light had gone out in his moth- 
 er's life by this sad parting of the twain, and that 
 from him must flow the balm of filial love and tender 
 care. 
 
 So grandfather became the high priest at the fam- 
 ily altar, the custodian of a great and holy trust, the 
 heir of sacred responsibilities and the loving son on 
 whom a widowed mother leaned luitil her garments 
 of mourning were exchanged for celestial raiments 
 and her sad memories were forgotten amidst angelic 
 welcomes and loving reunions in the palaces of the 
 King. - 
 
 From that day to this God's benediction has rested 
 upon the old Colonial home, for was not its title 
 reverently received as a gift from God in the form 
 
14 INHERITANCE OF GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 of a legacy from a noble Christian father? Angels 
 from the Choirs Celestial in the City of God, when 
 moving out on their earthly n-;issions and hovering 
 for a time over the old farm, have seen its fields and 
 forests lifting up their glories to the praise of the 
 Most High ; have heard affectionate and reverent 
 words ascending from the family altar, and have 
 witnessed gifts going forth to the poor and needy. 
 
 It has been said that moving bodies pursue their 
 way along lines of least resistance, and if angels on 
 their joyous errands of mercy move along highways 
 where love and holy living make heavenly atmos- 
 pheres for them, what tides of glorified life flow sil- 
 ently in, out and about grandfather's farm. 
 
 As Scotia's highlands filtrate their robustness into 
 the rugged Scottish character, and as the sublime 
 Alpine scenery and glorious Mediterranean sunsets 
 gave birth to Italian art, and as Nature's mystic 
 harmonies burst forth in symphonies and oratorios, 
 so the soul of man, chaliced in clay, feels the 
 sublime pulsations of Divine energy in Nature. He 
 with horoscopic outlook has soul visions in realms 
 where one speck of matter would make friction and 
 where pure love in sweet and holy effusion is discov- 
 ered to be the life of God. 
 
 It is well, then, to "bide a wee" on grandfather's 
 farm, the trysting-place of two worlds, and think. 
 
UNDER GRANDFATHER'S ROOF. 
 
 "He blesseth the habitation of the just."— Prov. 3:33. 
 Somehow Father Time let down his great lantern 
 below the bars of the western horizon, and the shad- 
 ows of night enshrouded us. The evening meal was 
 over, and, going to an old cupboard, I found an old 
 leather-bound volume lying by the side of an ancient 
 pewter candlestick. It had written within its covers 
 this strange statement: "He maketh the day dark 
 with night." And so, opening wide the window high 
 up in the peak of the ancestral home, I took my out- 
 look into the dark and starry night, and gave wings 
 to thought. What visions of the past were beneath 
 me ! Down the quaint stairway there glowed the 
 dying embers in the great old fireplace, the crude 
 masonry of which testified in its mute and eloquent 
 way that Colonial love was indeed large, and that 
 sturdy arms and rugged hearts, now long since gone, 
 had hewed the timber and drawn the heavy logs of 
 wood, that loved dames might keep the fires burning 
 on the hearthstone, and little children playing on the 
 floor might sing happy songs on bleak winter nights, 
 and read their text-books by the glow of the firelight. 
 
 The massive brick oven built in this same chimney, 
 speaks most eloquently to me of a Puritan art, now 
 lost. As I loitered by the window I heard the steady 
 tick, tick of the old wooden-wheel, leaden-weighted 
 
 15 
 
]6 UNDER GRANDFATHER- S ROOF. 
 
 clock. This heirloom, as a recording angel, has under 
 this same roof ticked the birth-hour of generation 
 after, generation, and has also in the hush of angelic 
 visitations struck the hour and ticked the minutes of 
 many a soul's departure from this house into the larger 
 life. 
 
 Dear old clock ! It is my solitary companion to- 
 night, speaking to me of the fact that our lives are be- 
 ing measured ofif with the certainty and continuity of 
 the passing days, and that I am but one of a great mul- 
 titude of pilgrims moving on and on. for a brief 
 moment visible here, and then gone. Many have 
 come and passed. The early settler, the groom, the 
 bride, the little children, the old man. the aged part- 
 ner of his joys and sorrows, trooi)ing in and then 
 trooping out. Here then — vanished now. Singly they 
 came and one by one they passed on, the group 
 of one generation gradually fading away as another 
 generation came, moving in to till the soil, to keep 
 the fires burning and to reap the fruits of others' 
 planting, and then, leaving the heritage of a good 
 name, they also moved out and up beyond our ken. 
 Always coming, always going, never staving long, 
 what joys and sorrows, what hopes and disappoint- 
 ments have swept in and have glided away from be- 
 neath this old Colonial roof. 
 
 Through all these intensely tragic changes that 
 faithful old clock has ticked on, and that grand old 
 Bible has lovingly spoken to each passing pilgrim 
 the word of counsel in the time of action, the word 
 of warning in the face of eternity, the word of sym- 
 pathy in the hour of sorrow, and the word of Divine 
 
UNDER GRANDFATHER'S ROOF 
 
 17 
 
 Assurance when some old chair was left vacant and 
 when the birds sang over some new-made mound in 
 the sacred old burial-plot. And so to-night, when 
 grandfather wound the old clock and then sat down 
 by the old fireplace, and opened that old book, and 
 read the old, old story, and then when grandfather and 
 grandmother knelt on the old floor and prayed to 
 
 THE OLD HOMESTEAD. 
 
 our God and to the God of our Fathers, methought 
 that God and the angels would miss the fires of de- 
 votion if they should go out from beneath this roof 
 after all these generations of communion with the 
 Father in heaven, and so we fervently prayed to- 
 night for His blessing upon the children and the chil- 
 dren's children to all generations until He comes. 
 
18 UNDER GRANDFATHERS ROOF. 
 
 What troops of sacred and holv thouirhts traversed 
 the mind that night in tlie solemn, quiet hour as, look- 
 mg out in the dim Hght, I caught the outhnes of the 
 old farm, the winding sohtary Indian trail, a misty 
 vision of the silent little Colonial burial-place, and 
 as holy memories flooded in upon me. Reluctantly 
 but with unwonted calm, I turned to mv^ couch and' 
 throwing back the spread, I saw woven into the' 
 fabric the initials of a great-grandmother, who wove 
 It ; and these beautiful homespun blankets were left by 
 another motherly ancestor, who made yonder demure 
 and now melancholy spinning-wheel sing, as in olden 
 times it spun for her the thread, and who also com- 
 panioned with yonder garret-exiled loom, as for her 
 it wove the fabric for the coverlets of her loved ones, 
 and their children yet to come. 
 
 Did I sleep that night, under the weird charms of 
 such unique environment? Did I dream sweet 
 dreams, love-Iadened with mental photographs of 
 joys celestial, or did I have a real soul vision, not of 
 beautiful things, but of heavenly thoughts ;' not of 
 sweet faces, but of glorified spirits; and was I for a 
 brief time carried into realms supernal? (3ne thing 
 I know; the loves of two worlds blended together 
 that night in soul visions, and whether awake or 
 asleep I know not, but being alive with wide open 
 soul vision, great crystal tides of love from the sacred 
 fonts of heavenly joys were outpoured about me. 
 Therein were mirrored vanished lives which seemed 
 to be music, beauty to look upon, radiant with celes- 
 tial glory. And so I dreamed of or saw opening 
 gates of pearl emitting waves of light, the rhythmic 
 
rO 
 
20 UNDER GRANDFATHER'S ROOF. 
 
 flow of which was Hke the soul music of Paradise, 
 every note as if from seraphic hps. Suddenly I was 
 aroused, being called by the notes of the morning 
 lark and the song of the robin greeting the rising 
 sun. 
 
BEAUTY AND LIFE ON GRAND- 
 FATHER'S FARM. 
 
 "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil 
 not, neither do they spin, and yet, I say unto you, that even 
 Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." — 
 Matt. 6:28, 29. 
 
 He who moves out from the mystery of midnight 
 and its panoramic host of marshaled stars into the 
 full-orhed Hght of day, on grandfather's farm, should 
 have multi-eyes to witness a vast population inhabit- 
 ing forest, field and meadow ; should be keen-cared 
 to hear the hum and rush of beehive, bird and ant- 
 heap cities ; and with acute perceptions should be 
 touched by the ever-moving tides of industry, love 
 and hope, rampant in the air, honeycombing the 
 ground and navigating the sea. 
 
 He should note the governments of force, the gov- 
 ernments of law and the governments of love in full 
 sway, dominating the lower orders of animate cre- 
 ation. 
 
 He should have the soul of the artist, for from 
 neutral colors and soft, retiring backgrounds great 
 sentry trees stand in the approach ; or groups of up- 
 lifted green, in gay or sombre garb, foreshadow a 
 vista of receding meadows, where herds pasture in 
 sweet content ; or else by change of outlook long 
 lanes, with gnarled and knotty trees of sturdy frame, 
 
22 
 
 BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 
 
 give support to trailing vines, which in generous 
 return hold forth great clusters of wild vintage or flow- 
 ers of strange and bewildering fragrance. 
 
 Glens, gurgling brooks and harvest fields o'erhung 
 by soft blue skies and floating clouds of gray, bid 
 us note the ravishing charms of nooks, falling waters, 
 shaded pools, the quiet restfulness of the distant 
 farmhouse and the farm-hands wending home their 
 weary way. The Divine Artist hath here His studio, 
 the walls of which portray the color scheme of heaven. 
 The floors of this studio are mosaic of inimitable 
 browns, moulded by the ceramic power of volcanic 
 action, carved and sculptured by moving glaciers and 
 the onsweeping cloudburst. We walk on verdant 
 rugs, each pattern original, with no duplicate, and 
 woven from a Divine conception, wrought out and 
 colored by the Great Artist, alone or in fellowship 
 with His human children. Each design constantly 
 grows and changes from the stroke of the Orient to 
 the knell of tb.e Occident, and through the conserv- 
 ing hours of the night-time. 
 
 Dost thou know this Divine Artist? Dost thou 
 desire to see Him? The secret of His appearance is 
 in the trees, in the meadows, in the sunlight, and in 
 the Celestial Guidebook, the latter saying: "Blessed 
 are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
 
 Enter grandfather's gateway only with a wide open, 
 a pure and reverent vision, and lo, thou wilt behold 
 and see how great trees and climbing vines have, 
 at His call, as it were, brought up from mines below 
 and decorated their leaves and flowers with wondrous 
 rays from flashing gems and gleaming jewels, while 
 
BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 
 
 23 
 
 down the wickerwork of interlacing sunbeams His 
 love hath poured from above a radiance like unto 
 the glories of the Revelation walls of St. John's 
 Celestial City, and its opening gates of pearl. Thus 
 here, in lights and in shadows, in crystal clearness and 
 in veiling mists, the splendors of the World Celestial, 
 
 A SENTRY TREE. 
 
 the glories of the World Terrestrial, in color har- 
 monies and in complementary colors, complete a vision 
 of the Mind of God in art. In it the pure in heart 
 see God ! 
 
 Putting my spade into the ground, I found the low- 
 ly, wriggling angleworm, burrowing and crawling 
 through dark, earthy tunnels that soils might be 
 
24 BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 
 
 loosened up to air and water ; also making paths for 
 the slender and delicate rootlets, all done" that great 
 harvests might be lifted up to the glory of God, and 
 for the happiness of the children of men.' 
 
 Thus I found that in the economy of Nature God 
 hath use for the angleworm and it'workcth in har- 
 mony with Him. 
 
 I dare not stop the flight of yonder bee, for it would 
 sting if I did, for, lo ! it is hurrying on its God-sent 
 mission, not only to gather honey sweets for His 
 children, but in carrying the pollen from blossom to 
 blossom that luscious fruits may hang pendant from 
 boughs ladened rich with the blessing of God. 
 
 Thus I found that in the economy of Nature God 
 hath use for the bee and it worketh in harmony with 
 Him. 
 
 I beheld birds, while devouring destructive insects, 
 were also ravishing grandfather's blackberry and 
 strawberry patches, unmolested by that dear old man. 
 Winging their way to treetop and hedgerow, they 
 dropped a part of their fruit feast that warbling 
 throats might sing back their happy songs of thanks 
 to God and grandfather for such bounty ; and, behold, 
 the falling fruits took root from their seedlets, and 
 the wildwood gave birth to multitudes of delicious 
 berries. 
 
 Thus I found that in the economy of Nature God 
 hath use for the birds, and they work in harmony with 
 Him. 
 
 Can it be that God. who rejoiceth to labor with 
 angleworm, bee and bird, has no desire and plan to 
 work with even the most lowly and humble of men, 
 
BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 
 
 25 
 
 exalted far above animal life, yea created in the 
 image of God ? Here I read in the Book of Nature 
 that God hath use for every man who will work in 
 harmony with Him. 
 
 Oh ! obscure child of man, be not thou disheart- 
 ened, but get thou in line with Ciod. 
 
 Methinks that the lowlv bobolink of the meadows 
 
 A BATHING PLACE. 
 
 and the thrush in the dark shade of the pine tree 
 glean sweeter and more tender joys than does the 
 boisterous eagle on rugged crag and lofty mountain 
 peak. And so Nature teaches me that the tiny flower, 
 the little bird and the childlike heart of man, share 
 in the bountiful love from the great, overflowing 
 heart of the Father — God. 
 
 Art thou a chemist? Hast thou the legend of 
 life's mystery on grandfather's farm? Tell thou us 
 
26 BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 
 
 by what formulge or processes the dust of the 
 road, the Hme of the seashell, the iron of the hillside 
 and the gurgling waters of tlie springlet, combining 
 together, become the bodies containing that mystic 
 something called life ! A body pulsating with the 
 love of fatherhood, motherhood, faith in God and 
 hope of immortality. 
 
 Tell us, thou student of alcheni}-, by what method 
 the silicon, the carbon and other elements of the min- 
 eral kingdom, at the call of a germ of life in the seed- 
 let, pass into and become the trunk, the branch, the 
 blossom and the fruit of the vegetable kingdom? 
 Again, thou wizard of science, tell us how, at the call 
 of human life, these same transformed elements re- 
 combine and become a part and portion of flesh and 
 blood ? 
 
 What mysteries run riot in life on grandfather's 
 farm ! 
 
 Behold yonder oak. The acorn fell to the ground. 
 'Tis said 'twas charged with life. Science found 
 in it only earthy matter, and yet earthy matter took 
 root. Life needed light, and from the acorn a little 
 hand went up through earth and mosses to reach the 
 sunbeams, and, throwing out its fingers of leaves, it 
 caught the rays of sunlight. Why up? Why al- 
 ways up after sunbeams? Oh, thou professor of 
 mathematics, in the realm of chance how many 
 chances are there for the sprout to grow up. And yet 
 acorns always sprout upward to reach the sunlight. 
 Life needed food, and then the rootlets went down- 
 ward from this same acorn. Why down? And so 
 life's appeal to heaven and earth wrought out a forest 
 
BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 
 
 ■7 
 
 giant. How? I put my ear to the tree. I heard 
 no sound. I spoke to it and there came back no 
 answer. So tell me, thou scientist, somewhat of the 
 mystery of the tree. How does it hunt and go after 
 its own food? Lo ! yonder tree sends forth its roots, 
 which, in catlike silence, hunt its provisions. Thus 
 
 ON THE BAY. 
 
 they find their way in the earth to rich deposits of 
 nourishment, that they ma}^, in squirrel fashion, carry 
 stores of strength to the forest king. Who gave 
 them the power of selection, and the tendency to ex- 
 tend toward rich deposits of food? Who gave this 
 same tree the power and discernment to accumulate 
 between its fibres rich stores of surplus nutriment, 
 
28 BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 
 
 in the time of its most luxuriant growth, so that it 
 might draw therefrom its nourishment when age and 
 privation beset it? 
 
 By what mysterious process can the rootlets of the 
 oak tree, when entangled in the earth with the roots 
 of the pine tree and feeding together upon the same 
 elements, always build oak, while the pine roots in 
 like manner, when fed at the same table, create and 
 rear the pine, while laughing flowers at their feet 
 catch up the same soil and win therefrom their bloom 
 and fragrance? 
 
 Who set the bounds of their natures, and who en- 
 dows these trees with the power to hunt their forage, 
 select and adapt the same, and then enables them to 
 carry up with such marvelous accuracy the exact 
 proportions for the proper development of trunk, 
 limbs and leaflets? 
 
 Hast thou discerned the beauty of the inner life 
 on grandfather's farm? 
 
 The grape vine, how dark, dull and homely, but 
 from its secret inner life, born of God, what luscious 
 vinta-ge and rivers of life burst forth ! 
 
 As if to teach a stronger lesson, out from the 
 thorn bush, homely and at first repellant, great rasp- 
 berries and blackberries come, while from grandma's 
 thorn -crowned cacti the heaven-emblazoned blossoms 
 unfold. 
 
 It would also seem as if all trees and plants seek 
 immortality, for, unlike animals and humans, they, 
 uninfluenced by passions or pleasures, seek progeny. 
 With what care the oaks fashion the developing 
 acorns, and, charging them with the precious germs 
 
BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 29 
 
 of life, they encase them for protection and then cast 
 them forth, that oak-Hfe may glorify the forests of 
 God in ages after the parent tree has crumhled in the 
 mold of the nnderbrush. 
 
 On grandfather's beach land we find the rough, 
 coarse and homely beach grass, a division of the 
 Salvation Army of the vegetable world. 
 
 These often despised grasses seek the dry, hot 
 sands of the summer and the wind-swept dunes of 
 the winter. Poorly nourished, their worldly prospects 
 for luxuriant growth are blighted. They are in a 
 class by themselves. Away from the sanctuary of 
 the woods, they join not the beauty and show of rich 
 soils and love-protected gardens, but by choice they 
 battle out their desert lives, that they may hold the 
 great sea back and keep the wind-drifting sands in 
 place that other grasses and flowers may grow to 
 surpassing beauty and that other fields and gardens 
 may be saved to a wealth of flowers and fruits from 
 which they themselves are forever shut out — steadfast 
 martyrs to the vagrant sands. 
 
 Pilgrim, as thou dost walk the ocean sand-banks, 
 uncover thy head and thank thy God for the beach 
 grass of the sand dunes. 
 
 Oh, the mysteries of life on grandfather's farm! 
 We leave the interpretation with any thoughtful 
 builder, who knows that back of each structure there 
 must be an architect and builder, and that back of 
 all plans there must be a luind. Oh. thou chemist, 
 thou architect, thou builder ! enter thou upon grand- 
 father's farm with uncovered heads and reverent 
 hearts, for the world's builder is now building there ! 
 
3° 
 
 BEAUTY AND LIFE ON THE FARM. 
 
 The Divine Chemist is always in the laboratory of 
 Natnre. The Supreme Arehitect there draws His 
 plans in the fashion of the leaf and in the germ of the 
 seed, while each day witnesses the perpetual build- 
 ing" up of the temple of Nature. God is manifested 
 in all His works. 
 
 I 
 
THE BROOK. 
 
 31 
 
BY THE BROOK ON GRAND- 
 FATHER'S FARM. 
 
 "He cutteth out the rivers among the rocks, and His eye 
 seeth every good thing." — Joh 28:10. 
 
 To BE alone with God under the open sky and rest- 
 ing on the bosom of Mother Earth — it is the sunrise 
 hour of the Soul. 
 
 To be alone with God in the temple of Nature, with 
 its forest processionals, bird choruses and variegated 
 lights streaming in through heavenward windows 
 of waving leaves and swaying branches — it's the ves- 
 per hour of the Soul. 
 
 As advancing rays of the setting sun strike the 
 bells of closing day, and as sunlit camp-fires against 
 the western horizon hold back the billows of night, 
 when the lamps in overhead skies are being lighted, 
 and as weary birds fly home to comforting mates, all 
 prophetic of rest and peace, so weary, tired man, 
 nerve-racked, brain-fagged, with mind begrimed and 
 soul thirsty, finds sweet solace on the bosom of Mother 
 Earth. 
 
 Strange aflfinities ! The babe, with outstretched 
 hands and longing cry, seeks the maternal arms. Is 
 it materialistic affinity, flesh for flesh, or bone for 
 bone; or is it a deeper voice of Nature, in reciprocity 
 of love ? Mystic harmonies ! 
 
 We lay ourselves on the lap of Mother Earth. What 
 
BY THE BROOK ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 33 
 
 surcease of tension, what great and holy rest o'er- 
 takes ns ! Perchance we come with tears, but sweet 
 cahn fohows. Sleep may there for a time palsy us, 
 but our eyes there open to the deep and holy things 
 of God, for are not the foundations of His eternal 
 hills beneath us and has He not spread over us the 
 canopy of His universe? 
 
 OFF 'lO THE YACHT RACE. 
 
 On the bosom of Alother Earth ! Do the ma- 
 terialistic elements in our physical structure simply 
 cry out through nerve-ache and weary brain for re- 
 union with former physical mates in the earthy mass 
 beneath us ; or does the spirit of man cry out to the 
 All Present Mind in Nature for a deep and abiding 
 peace? Thus the homing instinct calls us here. 
 
 Our throbbing heart, resting on the mosses, finds its 
 doors and windows opening. From the silent world 
 beneath us voices are speaking, silent forms seem to 
 
34 BY THE BROOK ON GRANDFATHER- S FARM. 
 
 glide into the sacred temple of the soul, while strange 
 lights from the dark world beneath illuminate the 
 mind. A birdlet on near-by swinging grasses hears 
 no voice, while no additional waves of solar light add 
 color to the surrounding day, and yet a darkened soul- 
 house has been here suddenly emptied of black de- 
 spair, while radiant joy and illuminating faith have 
 hand in hand made merry in the tabernacle of the 
 heart, for Mother Earth hath by love tokens called 
 this her tired boy, and her tired boy hath listened. 
 Methinks that voice hath the cadence of the stars, 
 the perfume of the flowerlets, the throbbing of the 
 brooklets, the all-persuasiveness of the all-pervading 
 Father. 
 
 The Earth Mother said to me : "My boy, will you, 
 for a time, cease your greedy rush after my gold and 
 take time to listen to me about my greater treasures? 
 Rest here and listen. 
 
 "Yonder maiden plucking the flowers from my 
 bosom loves the gift. Does she remember the giver, 
 who, through winter and summer, storm and sun- 
 shine, has been building up and feeding this waving 
 outburst of glory to crown her brow? 
 
 "Yonder giant oak, now spreading its gladiatorial 
 limbs in athletic sports with every storm, may forget 
 the mother who bore it, the one wdio nursed and feeds 
 it, and the one to whom it commits its life forces 
 when winter blights it. Perchance the storm, angered 
 by the roughness of this giant's resistance, smites it 
 with the blast of its lightning, and wounded and 
 bleeding it falls to be caught and held on my bosom. 
 It was born of me, it took its strength from me, and, 
 
BV THE BROOK ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 35 
 
 grievously smitten by the storm-bolt or by passing 
 years, it will surely come back to me. Mother first, 
 mother all through life; mother at the last, the lips 
 of the leaflets will tell you the story of the Earth 
 Mother love. 
 
 "Rest here and listen. As but of yesterday you 
 brought to me the form of your loved sister, that 
 wondrous lover of Nature — she who distilled swxet 
 messages from the grasses, holy promises from the 
 flowers and Divine companionship from the stars and 
 trees. She loved me, and loved my children, so much 
 that when you brought her to me I opened my arms, 
 receiving her body, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Only 
 God can summon from that holy sleep. 
 
 "I covered her grave with the grasses, I crowned 
 her burial-place with the mosses, I bejewelled her 
 bed with flowers painted by the Divine Artist, and 
 I will keep her who is death-touched until she is God- 
 called ; then I will give her up to Him. 
 
 "I am the resting-place to whom all the human 
 family will come to await the angels' call, and I am 
 sure that every growing tree and every flying bird 
 will come to me, and entering in, I will hold them in 
 silence for a time until a bright and glorious morning, 
 when the gates of glory will open and the angels will 
 come forth with a resurrection call, and then my 
 doors will open and the Redeemed of the Lord will 
 go forth from me. It will be the gala day of the 
 Universe, the marriage supper of the Lamb, and your 
 loved ones will be there. 
 
 "In the meantime, every hour I am feeding the 
 hungry, giving water to the thirsty, while innumer- 
 
36 BY THE BROOK ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 able multitudes of tiny insects make their happy 
 homes with me." 
 
 And so the Mother Earth talked to me. and I 
 learned that she too was a part of God's great plan 
 for the glory gathering of that host which no man 
 can number. 
 
 Thus I saw that this was only a part of His plan, for 
 "His paths are in the sea." So, taking a boat, I 
 drifted down Forge River until I heard the waves 
 playing among the sands on the shore, and I said : 
 "This night I will also look for Him in the sea." 
 
 I 
 
DRIFTING SEAWARD. 
 
 "Thy way, O God, is in the sea and Thy path in the great 
 waters." — Psa. 77 :k). 
 
 "The sea is His and He made it." — Psa. 95 :5. 
 
 It was ebb-tide, at the twilight hour, and the 
 ocean breezes, having fnlfiUed their blessed mission 
 on land, had veered abotit and were slowly taking 
 their homeward flight seaward. They seemed re- 
 luctant to leave the swaying blossoms, golden chal- 
 iced water lilies and meadow distillations, and yet 
 they were seeking their home oti the ocean bosom 
 and their rest beyond the bar. This night they joined 
 the outbound tides in the bay, and together they 
 moved silently and calmly towards the Atlantic. 
 
 My boat was borne on the bosom of the bay tide, 
 and my throbbing pulses were baptized in breezes 
 charged with the hypnotism of the sea, as they bore 
 on their wings the combined and harmonizing aromas 
 of forest and glen. So I drifted in the hush of the 
 evening hour. The qtiietude deepened as the land 
 receded. The old farm gradually melted away, and 
 the tapestry of the evening mists arose abotit me, 
 like the whitened robes of myriad guardian angels, 
 ascending until they met the falling curtains of the 
 descending night, in which they seemed to hang their 
 lighted evening lamps, and then to vanish into the 
 heavens bevond. 
 
38 DRIFTING SEAWARD. 
 
 And so alone I drifted, under the lis^ht of God's 
 stars, on the waters of Moriches Bay, breathing the 
 Divine atmosphere of the seas and feehng the deep 
 throb of a rhythmic flood. Yet I was not alone when 
 thus drifting, for, being star-watched, I was God- 
 watched ; being tide-borne, I was God-lifted ; being 
 landlocked, I was God-kept. Scanning the circle of 
 
 I 
 
 THE RIVER bANK. 
 
 night about me, I beheld the glimmer of a light, 
 placed by an aged hand in the window of the old farm- 
 house, and then I knew that I was at the meeting- 
 place of two great tides — the tide of God's love, 
 reaching down, and the tide of human love, reaching 
 out. It was a sacred place, rich in holy quiet, where 
 the true child of God with perfect faith can walk 
 with Him on the sea. 
 
40 DRIFTING SEAWARD. 
 
 To break such silence seemed almost profanation, 
 and yet I knew that but one signal of distress would 
 bring instantly to my relief that heroic band of life- 
 savers who, in yonder life-saving station, wrapped 
 now in the shrouds of night, keep eternal vigil at an 
 altar of duty to which they stand pledged to hazard 
 life, if needs be, for the helpless. Methinks the 
 Master's eye follows them in their silent nightly 
 patrols and remembers His own solitary vigils on the 
 shores of Galilee's Sea, when He too was out on His 
 patrol to save the lost. "His head was filled with 
 dew and His locks with the drops of the night." I 
 knew that there was one, and, I believe, many more, 
 watching me from the starry heights above. I knew 
 that some one perchance was swinging a great spy- 
 glass, in the tower of yonder life-saving station, scan- 
 ning the waters to see that all was well, and then I 
 beheld, in dim outline, the semblance of a human 
 form swinging a lantern on the shore, and I 
 knew that grandfather had come down to the dock 
 and was looking for me. All this told me that so 
 long as God lives, angels watch and human hearts 
 beat, we are environed and enveloped in love ; and 
 so, rowing towards the love on shore, I got no nearer 
 to it than I was, and God's great love kept pace 
 with me, so that when I tied my boat at the dock 
 I was no further away from His care. 
 
 I had found the true "lover's lane." His paths are 
 in the sea and I had met Him there. 
 
LOVE ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 "How often would I have gathered thy children together, 
 as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
 would not." — I\Iatt. 23 -.^iJ- 
 
 He who notes witli cynicism the strut and crow 
 of the cock in the barnyard should, with gentler 
 thotight, watcli the brooding hen in her tender and 
 iieroic care of the gay and careless chicklets ; she 
 who, in their defense, with perfect abandon of mother 
 love, will dash her body at the opening jaws of ravag- 
 ing dogs or attacking foxes. 
 
 He who gazes with admiration upon the camp 
 groimds of the yellow ant-heap should look within 
 that citadel and view the object of their defenses, 
 their nurseries, filled with baby ants, with doting at- 
 tendants. How humanlike their guardianship, car- 
 rying forth these little ones to open air in sunny 
 nooks and sheltered corners, when bright skies favor 
 and winds are gentle, and back to their underground 
 quarters when chillv breezes arise or overhanging 
 clouds cut off the sunlight. 
 
 He who tells of the pirates of the air, that raiding 
 hawk of the daylight and that prowling owl of the 
 nighttime, let him behold the devotion of yonder 
 mother bird, who, with maternal solicitude, builds 
 her nest out as far as possible on the branches, where 
 no murderous animal dare climb to seize her little 
 
42 LOJ'E ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 ones, and yet far enough in on the branches for 
 strength to support them. 
 
 Behold her cover these her treasures when the 
 wild, beating storm chills her and when great blasts 
 of wind toss her to and fro amidst swaying branches 
 and frightful enveloping darkness. What anxiety 
 of love in the wild storm of night, as the faithful 
 mother bird feels the throbbing hearts of her nest- 
 lings, snuggling close under her for safety. Sweet 
 is the bird song at the dawn of the morning, when the 
 wild watch is over. 
 
 Perchance to another home in the bird village 
 great sorrow has come in the tempest. What tragedy 
 there is in the treetops when, by some terrible storm 
 blast, a birdling is missing from the nest. Didst 
 thou ever hear the outcry of the father bird and the 
 mother bird, fluttering and calling over the dead bird- 
 ling? What love there is in the shrubbery, and what 
 sweet and tender hearts we find in the grasses. 
 
 Hast thou, with stealth and caution, visited the 
 abode of the birds in the rushes and noted the love 
 and care of the parents, the faithful watching of the 
 mother bird and the long flights of the father bird 
 for food, that he may bring home a bit of grain, a 
 wriggling worm or a luscious cherry? 
 
 Hast thou ever visited the bird village school and 
 witnessed the patience, care and tenderness of the par- 
 ent birds in teaching their little ones to fly, and also to 
 hunt their provisions? Surely love reigns in the 
 feathered parish. 
 
 But love also redeems ! Under cover of grand- 
 father's house a wild kitten found shelter. No rab- 
 
LOJ'E ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 43 
 
 bit fled faster, and no squirrel was more sliy when 
 first courted with kindness, but cautiously a little 
 child voiced to. it a winsome call, and the tempting; 
 plate of milk taught him that love was in waiting, and 
 soon the little child had him in the arms of afl^ection — 
 a wild child of Nature, subdued by the love of a child 
 of the Master. 
 
 GRANDMOTHER S HYDRANGEAS. 
 
 Grandma's hydrangeas have year by year devel- 
 oped and bloomed with amazing glory, because grand- 
 mother loves them. 
 
 No fields owned by him who hates farming rejoice 
 in the abundant harvests that crown the fields loved 
 by grandfather. 
 
 In every flower and fruit God hath left room for 
 improvement under the touch of human love and 
 
44 LOJ'E ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 effort. Thus He doth encourage and reward our 
 co-operation with Him. 
 
 To that so-called philosopher who doubts the ex- 
 istence of a beneficent God in creation, and who comes 
 to us with the strange query as to why sin is 
 in the world to mar its beauty and to make sad dis- 
 cord in its harmony, we do but point in return to 
 vegetation and ask him a question : Why these par- 
 asites to blast the life and sting the fruits ? 
 
 Is Nature, therefore, malignant in her moods? 
 Oh, tliou agnostic, take thou thy pessimistic stand 
 with these parasites in thy garden of weeds and find 
 food for thv thought in malarial atmospheres, and, 
 shutting out the sun by the fog of unbelief, with 
 winged bats and hooting owls of the nighttime for 
 thy music, give thyself over to darkness and to night. 
 Permit me, a Christian optimist, to revel in the joys 
 of the morning, the benedictions of the grasses, the 
 twinkling lights of stellar worlds, the music of sway- 
 ing trees and babbling brooks, with vegetations 
 robed in garments of regal splendor, bedecked with 
 singing birds and dancing sunbeams, and in them 
 all to see the glorious gifts of God. 
 
 Thv blind, ground-mole existence in cold and sor- 
 did matter finds no fellowship with eagle flights, 
 keen-eyed and swift-winged, into lofty atmospheres 
 of blazing glory where God sitteth in the dome of the 
 heavens ! 
 
 Does thy heart-soil bring forth sorrel? It must 
 therefore hold the acids of unbelief and selfishness. 
 Put thou thereon the sweetening ashes of humility and 
 faith, and the grasses and flowers of joy will spring 
 
LOJ-E ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 45 
 
 fortli with praise to God and the soil of thy soul will 
 be reclaimed. 
 
 Holding in my hand one single kernel of corn, I 
 saw that it had in its verv nature and structure an 
 
 NOONTIDE SHADES. 
 
 aspiration for a larger, a more useful and a multi- 
 plied life. So I planted that one grain of corn, and 
 lo ! there stands before me a stalk from which nature 
 returns to me golden ears of corn wrapped in silken 
 tassels and holding a thousand seed. 
 
46 LOJ'E ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 Wliat royal generosity flows through the arteries 
 of Nature ! 
 
 In one moment of sympathy, I picked up a half- 
 drowned, storm-driven birdlet, and, warming it into 
 life, I again gave it its freedom. With but one thrill 
 of joy, I turned aside and for a time forgot it. But 
 lo! that bird, now with a nest in yonder branches, 
 has sung for me a thousand songs, every one as sin- 
 less as the song of an angel of light and all expressive 
 of the goodness of God. 
 
 How munificently repaid am I for one act of kind- 
 ness. 
 
 Grandmother loved her flowers. Bending low over 
 them, we found written all over them that God also 
 loved these same flowers. 
 
 So grandmother and God together keep these 
 flowers. 
 
 Into a darkened room, wdiere sickness and despair 
 held sway, a few of these stalks and blossoms found 
 their way. 
 
 The sufl^erer knew that grandmother loved them, 
 and so they spoke of human love, and then the sick 
 one looked again and somehow a sweet vision ap- 
 peared ; these flowers seemed, as it were, to change 
 into a beautiful mirror, in which was reflected God, 
 the great and loving designer, angels, the messengers, 
 human hearts, the carriers to one of His children for 
 whom Christ died. The head was too tired then to 
 even read the good old Book ; the heart was too weary 
 for the comforting words of friends ; the nerves could 
 not, as it were, endure even the footfall of loved ones ; 
 but these flowers, God's and grandmother's flowers, 
 
LOJ'E ON GRANDrATHER'S FARM. 
 
 47 
 
 brought quietude of heart, cahnness of mind and re- 
 newed faith in a Heavenly Father's love, for they 
 were divinely planned chalices, overtlowin^^ with the 
 sweetness and bliss of two worlds' loves. 
 
 But here opens to us another great mystery. Love's 
 
 WE TWO. wouldn't YOU ? 
 
 redemption on grandfather's farm is only through 
 atonement. Interwoven in the woods, the vines, the 
 harvest fields and the cattle is the weird but undeni- 
 able law of vicarious sacrifice. Grandmother must 
 give much of her life to her flowers to redeem them 
 to their fullest bloom and fragrance. 
 
 A lamb breaks from the sheepfold and grandfather 
 must leave the crackling fire on the Colonial hearth- 
 
4§ LOl'E ON GRANDFATHER'S FARM. 
 
 stone and go ont in the cold and thorn bush, following 
 the lanil) of the flock in bleak wind and darkness. 
 
 He who doubts the law of love's redemption 
 through life's consecration and sufifering should fol- 
 low the farmer in ploughing and seed sowing, and 
 then witness the joyous reward of ingathering. 
 
 Art thou a miner, and hast thou found in mountain 
 and valley indications of gold in soil, sand and peb- 
 bles, and didst thou call it "drift" from a main vein? 
 Didst thou follow on and tliscover more streaks of 
 gold and traces of glittering ore in rocks that sur- 
 rounded you, and didst thou say in calm assurance 
 the "mother lode" must be near? So when we distill 
 love from the dcwdrop, find it again in feathered 
 tribes and fur-coated creatures, we say these are 
 drifts of heavenly ore, for love is the standard of 
 value in the currency of heaven. When we go fur- 
 ther and see among humans childlike fondness, fath- 
 erly love, with more holy maternal affection, then 
 we too know that Divine love, the "mother lode," is 
 very near. 
 
 The God of Love creates the lovely, and the love 
 in us, for the lovely makes us love the most lovable, 
 and God is love. 
 
THE STORM. 
 
 "I will give you rain in due season." — Lev. 26:4. 
 
 Nature, with feminine characteristics, hath her 
 many and variable moods. With kaleidoscopic change, 
 the calm quiet of the autumn eve was transformed 
 into the swirls of the great ecjuinoctial storm. 
 
 It seemed as if the gates of some Euroclydon had 
 swung suddenly open and from "the cave of the 
 winds" there had burst forth all the Furies of an 
 atmospheric devastation ; the Fury of the shipwreck, 
 the Fury that fans the tire of forest conflagrations, 
 the Fury that howls under the eaves in the night- 
 time and, haunting the habitation of the hooting owl, 
 moans and sighs in darkened forest and swaying 
 treetops ; now tearing a branch from some noble elm, 
 then, catching unawares some belated and overbur- 
 dened fruit tree, dashes it to the ground, with shriek 
 and laughter. 
 
 Hath the Solar King of day and the Lunar Queen 
 of the nighttime abdicated their thrones and sur- 
 rendered their beneficent sway over all the earth ? 
 For lo ! the heavens are inky black, with not even 
 one rav of starlight, while under the rule and reign 
 of violence the great sea, which hath so many days 
 rolled its waves on shore with steady roar and boom, 
 now towering up avalanches of water, hurls itself 
 
 49 
 
50 THE STORM. 
 
 upon the yielding sands, like maddened cavalry, when 
 stung by a thousand spurs, dashes in blinding fury 
 upon a wavering foe. 
 
 As the torrents of rain for a moment falter, to 
 give track to a lurid flash of zigzag or forked light- 
 ning, we peer out into the blackness of the night and 
 watch the battle royal as the flying columns of the 
 air attack the entrenched fortresses of the earth. It 
 would seem as if a multitude of Black Spirits were 
 tugging at every tree to dismember it ; were twisting 
 and straining at every rafter to unroof each dwelling; 
 were cavorting about to seize upon and carry away 
 all fences and arbors, while, veiled in darkness, no 
 power could apprehend them. 
 
 It was a wild night ! It hath been said that in the 
 center of many great storms there is a calm ; and so 
 we found many calms in the wildness of this autumnal 
 gale. 
 
 All was calm and peace in the old homestead, for 
 had it not withstood the ragings of the winds well 
 on for two centuries? The teakettle, singing on the 
 hearth, and the kitten, purring at the fireplace, did 
 but illustrate the quiet calm of the household, as the 
 housewife, putting away the dishes of the evening 
 meal, with trustful thought for her brother in com- 
 mand of an "ocean liner," sat down by the fireside. 
 The calmness of quiet faith in the home ! But we 
 knew that this whole storm was environed by calm ! 
 Far above it, in resplendent glory, the sun reigned 
 through the day, and later reflected his glory by the 
 Queen of the Night, with her retinue of a million 
 stars. 
 
THE STORM. 
 
 51 
 
 Beneath the tread of the storm cohorts the old, 
 old earth was unmoved by a single blast, and wavered 
 not at the stroke of conflict, for "underneath are the 
 everlasting- arms!" Thus we knew that boimds of 
 peace had been set about this maelstrom, and that a 
 power greater than the forces of the wind held them 
 in the "hollow of His hand." 
 
 AFTER THE STOUM. 
 
 It was a strenuous night, followed by a glorious 
 autumn day. Night had slunk away. By the command 
 of an Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient power, 
 the storm had fled and the King of Light, in all His 
 splendor, had reasserted His sway. The life-sav- 
 ing crew on the beach had "turned in," after a weary 
 night's watch, thankful that no wrecks had occurred. 
 Some hollow-hearted trees had been revealed in the 
 crucial test of that stormv night. 
 
52 
 
 THE STORM. 
 
 Hardy young timber had been developed and 
 strengthened by the athletic tournament in which 
 they had been enlisted. Vapors from decaying vege- 
 tation in lowlands and meadows had been caught up 
 and carried about as food for plant life. The flash 
 of God's lightning had released the nitrogen from 
 
 
 i^'i* 'it'i', 
 
 THE OLD DOCK. 
 
 atmospheric combinations, and so plants had been suc- 
 cored. Thus, as we moved about grandfather's farm, 
 we realized that the storm was beneficent and not 
 malignant, and that angels, and not demons, had it 
 in keeping. For did not CJod's sun, millions of miles 
 away, call up the waters? Did He not direct the cold 
 winds that precipitated them, and did not His warm- 
 
THE STORM. 53 
 
 ing rays, deflected from the raindrops, give glow to 
 the atmosphere, and so guide its currents? 
 
 I love the rain, for I know that with it God is filling 
 Nature's fountains from which springs, brooks and 
 rivulets draw their life. The birds singing by the 
 brooks make me love the God who gives joy to the 
 birds through the waters. 
 
 The silent dews of the nighttime are His bene- 
 diction upon slender and delicate plants. 
 
 The gentle showers are His blessing to lilooming 
 flowers, trailing vines and luscious fruits. The wild 
 storm, with crashing thunder and streaked lightning, 
 is a ministry of love to all His plantings. 
 
 The heavy blanket of white snow is His protect- 
 ing covering against winter's cold until springtime 
 calls to floral bloom. 
 
 Thus the Storm King is God's messenger of life, 
 health and peace, when he visits grandfather's farm. 
 
 "It isn't raining rain to me : 
 It's raining daffijdils. 
 In every dimpled drop I sec 
 Wild flowers on the hills. 
 
 "The clouds of gray engulf the day, 
 A_nd overwhelm the town ; 
 It isn't raining rain to me. 
 It's raining roses down. 
 
 "It isn't raining rain to me. 
 But fields of clover bloom. 
 Where any buccaneering bee, 
 May find a bed and room. 
 
 "A health unto the happy, 
 A fig for him who frets, 
 It isn't raining rain to me, 
 It's raining violets." 
 
THE VILLAGE CHURCH. 
 
 "Thy way, O God, is in the Sanctuary." — Psa. 77:13. 
 
 It is Sabbath morning on grandfather's farm. All 
 unnecessary labor has ceased, and, with reverent, 
 quiet joy, the day is set apart for family companion- 
 ships, for communion with Nature and for worship 
 of Nature's God. It is a beautiful Sabbath morning. 
 What delicious fragrance all about, as the morning 
 dews, having stayed all the night long in loving em- 
 brace of the flowers, now, startled by approaching 
 day, kiss the blossoms good night, or good morning, 
 and carry up on their breath the fragrance of the 
 mignonette, the hyacinth and a wealth of seductive 
 aromas. 
 
 "This is the Lord's own day ; 
 I stand alone in the wide field. 
 It is as if a multitude 
 Knelt down and prayed with me." 
 
 Methought what wondrous fields, what wondrous 
 birds, what wondrotts flowers, what wondrous trees 
 in Nature's Oratorio of Praise. 
 
 No tree was ever accursed. It was one tree — a 
 martyr tree — that took part in the Crucifixion of our 
 Lord. Did it not die first? And has not every tree 
 before and since proclaimed the Glory of God and 
 that poor martyr tree, slain and dragged in death to 
 
THE VILLAGE CHURCH. 
 
 55 
 
 bear the body of our dying Lord, has it not been glor- 
 ified by becoming the symbol of a world's Salvation? 
 
 Grandfather calls, and we make ready to attend 
 divine service at the village church. Sacred place ! 
 its belfry beckons to the living, its churchyard holds 
 in sacred trust the bodies of the villagers' beloved 
 dead. 
 
 We gladly joined in the procession of townspeople 
 wending their way to the house of God. 
 
 The pastor came from the plain but cosy parson- 
 age. He was a Godly man, saddened in visage, for 
 was he not the confidant into whose ears were 
 poured and on whose heart were laid the sorrow and 
 cares of the village ; brightened in visage, too, for 
 (lid lie not carry about with him the consolation of 
 the Lord Jesus? So, in his very likeness, the shadows 
 about tlic cross were tinged as of old by love's light 
 from the cross. So the pastor came, and with him 
 came the pastoress, who, in sympathetic quietude, 
 comforts, consoles and cheers, carrying a brighter 
 face, for she sees of the travail of the pastor's soul 
 and is satisfied. In secret here she shares his cup, 
 as in glory hereafter she will share his crown. So, 
 with reverent hearts, we turned our steps and fol- 
 lowed the leader to the house of God, the village 
 church. 
 
 Why should there be a church when all Nature is a 
 house of worship and every immortal soul is created 
 to be a temple of God? 
 
 Ah, we have here love's bower in the Garden of 
 God. A church is man's and Nature's combined gift 
 to the glory of the Creator. 
 
56 THE ULLAGE CHURCH. 
 
 Mother Earth said : "Let me open my bosom for 
 it," and so they furrowed deep the trenches for its 
 resting-place. The rocks and crags cried out: "Use 
 us for His glory," and so from quarries and hillside 
 they laid the foundations. The forests said: "We 
 too would help to proclaim liis glory," so great trees 
 poured out their lives that the altar might be lifted 
 up and that it might be roofed in, sheltered and kept, 
 while from raging fires and volcanic furnaces the old 
 bell was cast — the bell that now calls to prayer, that 
 rings out the joyons wedding notes, and also tolls for 
 our loved ones here, as celestial choirs sing their wel- 
 comes over there. A cliurch is love's conspiracy to pay 
 affectionate tribute to the (iiver of All Good, and to 
 whose house His children may come for pra-\-er and 
 praise. 
 
 The pastor's words were simple, for we were but 
 plain and simple folk. Somehow, as he in praver 
 lifted to God the needs of his people, as he sought 
 Divine sympathy for the weary, heavy-hearted, as the 
 sick were carried by him and left at the feet of the 
 Great Physician, and there, as he confessed the sins 
 of his people, methought, in the stillness of that 
 sacred honr, that it was not strange that the Master 
 forsook the waters of the Jordan, the breezes of Oli- 
 vet, the shady pool of Siloam and turned His feet 
 to the temple of God for heart comfort, where God 
 and the common people of Galilee met ; and so we 
 found here that Jesus was in their midst. 
 
 The choir loft was not occnpied by professional 
 singers of mercenary spirit, but country yonths and 
 maidens did bnt lead their fathers, mothers, brothers, 
 
S7 
 
58 THE ULLAGE CHURCH. 
 
 sisters and neighbors in the holy act of praise to 
 God. It was a vokinteer choir of praise to Him, 
 just as we heard the birds in their freedom and joy 
 making- music for Him in the woods. 
 
 Thus we worshiped God in the Httle viUage church 
 to which the hving came and about which in silence 
 sleep the villagers' beloved dead. 
 
 Memories of their beloved ones, now resting there 
 in the churchyard, came up before these true-hearted 
 worshipers like rays from the setting sun — down 
 below the horizon, earth-concealed, lost to vision, 
 buried from sight, yet lifting up luminous waves of 
 ineffable beauty ; or, like distant stars, which, having 
 ceased to exist in their place and having moved on to 
 other orbits, still shed their light upon the earth to 
 cheer and guide. 
 
 The sermon was ended, the last song was sung, and 
 with the ]3astoral benediction upon us, we moved out, 
 better fitted for a higher cnjo}'ment of life on grand- 
 father's farm. 
 
THE CHARM OF A SACRED SABBATH 
 ON THE OLD FARM. 
 
 "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day and heard behind 
 me a great voice." — Rev. i :io. 
 
 Once again it is Sabbath on grandfather's farm. 
 Deep pity for him or her who in the ordinary walks 
 of Hfe Ignores the true import of this day and with 
 thoughtless mien the whole week through moves on 
 in the ceaseless tides of commercial or social life and 
 loses the mystic touch and heart impress of a Sab- 
 bath with God in the wildwood. 
 
 He who here on Sabbath day gives wings to 
 thought, and, with perfect mental equipose, mounts 
 up above sordid thoughts and base ideals, meets the 
 Eternal Mind iii all its wonderments, incomprehen- 
 sible but love-eliciting. 
 
 The imagination, here freed from fancies of com- 
 mercial and social conquests, beholds the artist of all 
 the universe flashing his penciled rays of streaming 
 light through measureless spaces, tracked by orbits 
 of revolving worlds, while He tints the tiny flower 
 with sympathetic loveliness. 
 
 Lo ! He rolls the glorious landscape before our 
 vision, framed in an environment of illimitable spaces 
 flooded with solar glory or sttidded with multitu- 
 dinous stars. 
 
 Oh, artist! wouldst thou paint a picture glowing 
 
6o SABBATH ON THE OLD FARM. 
 
 with eternal love light and breathing the breath of 
 immortality ? Spend thou one Sabbath alone with God 
 in woody glen and blooming meadows and read the 
 interpretation thereof. 
 
 There gently flowing waters of crystal clearness 
 lave the feet of forest giants and hold on their throb- 
 bing bosoms the pulsating charms of alabastrine lilies, 
 
 FiiRCE RIVKK. 
 
 while the finny tribe dart here and there in sparkling- 
 waters. 
 
 Setting suns, in herculean protest against ex- 
 tinguishment, roll up against western horizons waves 
 of flashing glories, like bursting gem caskets from a 
 million realms. 
 
 Oh, musician, thou in whose soul God hath writ- 
 ten His melodies, and whose beating pulses do but 
 
SABBATH ON THE OLD FARM. 6i 
 
 keep time with the rhythmic harmony of His songs 
 in thy Hfe, come ye to grandfather's woods on this 
 God's Holy Day. Shut out the world, and alone with 
 Him, amidst the melodies and harmonies of land, sea 
 and sky, thou wilt give thy soul to ecstasies incited 
 by His divine intonations. Thou wilt there catch the 
 waves of music rolling in from Nature's choruses as 
 shepherds of old, looking into the starry night, heard 
 angelic voices flood the land and sky. 
 
 Hushed be the unhallowed spirit of Sabbath dese- 
 cration that would enter in to despoil this sacred 
 temple of divine music on grandfather's farm. 
 
 Oh, chemist ! thou to whom we look to learn of 
 God's mysterious and enchanting ways in gathering 
 all the energies and elements of past generations to 
 niake more glorious and happy the present and on- 
 coming multitudes, come thou apart, on this God's 
 Holy Day, in this Divine laboratory. Rest thou here 
 a while and watch God's great transformation scenes, 
 as by His marvelous pr<;)cesses He throws His crea • 
 tive shuttle in His works of love and mercy. All 
 mineral elements are, at His bidding, woven into the 
 fabrics in which arc cradled vegetable, animal and 
 spirit life, until by His dissolving touch the fabrics 
 fall to earthy matter and the spirit arises above all 
 chemical combinations to the great and good God 
 that gave it. 
 
 Oh, chemist! stop thou for a time thy devotion to 
 the creating of deadly explosives, or thy series of 
 distillations that debauch the grains and fruits of 
 Nature, to craze the human brain and rob the heart 
 of peace, and, turning aside, catch thou thy stimulus 
 
62 SABBATH ON THE OLD FARM. 
 
 from the Divine Chemist, whose every process on 
 grandfather's farm is to make more happy and joy- 
 ous the children of His loving care. 
 
 Oh, thou, electrician and engineer, thou who didst, 
 with great content and joy, devote years of thy life 
 that human professors might impart to thee some por- 
 tion of the meager store of knowledge possessed by 
 them, step thou aside on this God's Holy Day and in 
 His wildwood note thou the energies and constructive 
 skill displayed by Him. 
 
 Lo, His matchless power and wondrous will gen- 
 erate electric currents with swinging worlds and fly- 
 ing comets, while He giveth flight to the bird, gravi- 
 tation to the raindrop and majestic curves and 
 strength to the swaying elms. 
 
 Oh, scientist, wouldst thou hear celestial voices 
 through the audiphone of the soul, or wouldst thou 
 catch wireless messages from realms supernal ? Then 
 rest thou here, on this blessed day, set apart in love by 
 Him who would speak to thee, and somehow in forest 
 stillness there will be enchanting preachments, and 
 from rustling leaves and rippling brooks there will 
 come to thee ravishing sermonettes. 
 
 Out of it all thou wilt have had told thee that back 
 of all life and power, and underneath all construc- 
 tion, there is the Divine Mind and the great pulsating 
 heart of the loving and sympathetic God. 
 
 He who here would admit the flood-tides of sporting 
 life, on this God's Holy Day, so that boisterous hilari- 
 ties would break the sacred Sabbath watches of the for- 
 est and cruel sportsmen would slay or frighten away 
 nestling birds from loving and dependent birdlets, 
 
SABBATH ON THE OLD FARM. 6^ 
 
 while tlic charm of God's Day in meadow and upland 
 would lose its hallowed atmosphere for the soul ; he 
 who would thus do would undertake to walk the 
 heavenly pavements with nuiddy feet, while angelic 
 spirits and redeemed souls from all planetary worlds 
 in heavenly choirs swept the stars and all radiant 
 spaces with Halleluiah Clioruses. 
 
 Choruses of praise to Him who is the author of 
 all life, the possessor of all power and the loving 
 giver of a holy and sacred Sahhath to a world of 
 tired, heart-hungry humanity. 
 
 To such as defile the Gates of Heaven are closed, 
 and grandfather puts up the hars against Sabhath 
 desecration on the old farm. 
 
THE TEMPLE IN GRAND- 
 FATHER'S WOODS. 
 
 "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, 
 the pine tree and the l)ox tree, together to beautify the place 
 of rny Sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glor- 
 ious." — Isa. 60 :i3. 
 
 Turning aside from the beaten paths on grandfath- 
 er's farm, and cntcrinj^' the confines of a wooded fairy- 
 land, a melodrama in Nature, we follow a winding 
 wa}' through a tunnel of trees, until suddenly we find 
 ourselves, in reverent awe, standing in the luidst of a 
 forest cathedral, where no Druid circle in grim silence 
 waits, but where three worlds crowd in to worship. 
 
 In this sylvan seclusion, teiupled of God, meeting 
 with mighty congregations, not sin-stained but glory- 
 crowned, we intruders prostrate ourselves in silent 
 awe and listen. 
 
 Mighty oaks, called of God from moss-covered 
 groveling acorns, have been here lifted up into ser- 
 ried cohuuns, and have swung the architraves of this, 
 a temple not made with hands. 
 
 Pilaster after pilaster of cedar, oak and maple lend 
 support to this glorious structure, while over all this 
 wondrous pilation the interlacing leaves and inter- 
 weaving vines swing their bewitching lacery, as if 
 to shut in a holv of holv, and yet as if to let in the 
 light of God's stars, the homeward flight of God's 
 
 64 
 
THE TEMPLE IN GRANDFATHER'S WOODS. 65 
 
 birds and the whispering winds, as they voice at this 
 ahar, in varying accents and in united chorus, the 
 Creator's praise. 
 
 As Atlas would carry the earth on his shoulders, 
 so here the mineral world, that faithful steward to 
 whose custody the Almighty has entrusted in loving 
 keeping for man such wealth of precious minerals 
 
 IIIE WOODS ROAD. 
 
 and flashing gems, becomes a foundation supporting 
 on its patient body and supplying from its arteries 
 the life of the uplifted and uplifting Sanctuary of the 
 woods. 
 
 Superb carpeting ! Human-made looms are mute 
 and silent as the sprites of the air, the lea and the 
 light give their magic touch to the earth. They 
 
66 THE TEMPLE IN GRANDFATHER- S WOODS. 
 
 breathe upon it with the clews of the morning; they 
 flash upon it with the torch of the sunbeam; they 
 feed it with the flying seedlets ; they awaken it ; and 
 lo! the floor of this cathedral is laid with living mo- 
 saics, not carrying the fiery light of Mars, nor yet the 
 selfish color of greedy gold, nor the despairing black 
 of the night watch, but calm, subduing green, the 
 ordained green of the wildwood, while here and there, 
 uplifted flowers, earth-rooted, heaven-painted, bid 
 us by their example to catch our beauty from above, 
 our light from afar and our soul life from the Divine. 
 
 We rest here in no pulseless Westminster ! The 
 architect of this Nature Temple is not dead. This 
 structure is not a concentric of dead stones, dead tim- 
 bers and dead tile. Woodsman cut it not, for it will 
 bleed ! It breathes, it moves, it grows heavenward. 
 It is a living temple, not fashioned by mortal man. 
 Its glory of to-day is but a foretaste of the glory of 
 to-morrow, for the glories of this day, being absorbed 
 into its life, burst forth renewed and mingle with 
 the glories of the coming day, while all the denizens 
 of the woods, from the mineral, the vegetable and 
 the animal kingdoms, with one accord, and with one 
 uplifted voice, unite here in the Grand Oratorio of 
 the Creator, Preserver and Benefactor, and all of 
 the trees of the fields do clap their hands. 
 
 And then from a choir loft of waving foliage we 
 heard a bird sing. 
 
 Hush ! A holy silence fills the mind, while a thrill of 
 sacred joy, like multitudinous phosphorescent lights, 
 makes rich glow upon the hearthstone of the soul, for 
 God is speaking in the wildwood. 
 
THE OLD I.\blAx\ TRAIL. 
 
 67 
 
68 THE TEMPLE IN GRANDFATHER'S IJ'OODS. 
 
 Alone with God in the hving temple of Nature, 
 with eye keen to see Him in His priestly office, with 
 ear alert to hear the voices of exhortation, counsel and 
 praise, and with all the windows and doors of the 
 heart wide open to the breezes and light of heaven — 
 it's the rhapsody hour of the soul ! 
 
 God is speaking. Listen ! He speaks not in human 
 words, such impotent and impossible carriers of a 
 single heart-throb, but in Nature's still, small voice, 
 spiritualized by the twilight, illuminated by the sun- 
 light, made liquid by the springlets from the bosom of 
 the earth and lifted in adoration by the arms of the 
 forest, for all Nature is here conspiring together to 
 interpret the heart of God. 
 
 Listen ! A father's hand has struck a chord in 
 Nature : "I love my children," and great trees and 
 beautiful vines, shaking off their bridal garments of 
 apple blossoms and prophetic flowerlets, bow and 
 bend in homage under a rich and loving burden 
 of golden and juicy fruitage. God is speaking in the 
 fruits as He always speaks in the flowers, and as He 
 also, in meadow and upland, tells of His love in wav- 
 ing corn, in golden harvest fields and in the trill of 
 the bird song. His trees here shelter us. His mosses 
 here form for us our pillow. His breezes cool our 
 wearied brows and tired forms, while His birds sing 
 for us from the tree tops, and also from the meadows 
 on whose bosom sleep a thousand rainbows. Surely 
 the glory of the Lord has filled the earth, as the 
 waters cover the sea. 
 
 Hark ! A cry cometh from without. It is a child's 
 cry to a father's heart, calling to us, and we leave 
 
THE TEMPLE IN GRANDFATHER'S JVOODS. 69 
 
 this nook in the woods and, following" an Indian 
 trail, we come within sight of a quaint and strangely 
 interesting Colonial homestead. We enter the door ; 
 the board is spread, grace is being said, for we are 
 late to our Sunday dinner on grandfather's farm. 
 
RESURRECTION VOICES ON GRAND- 
 FATHER'S FARM. 
 
 "Oh, death, where is thy sting? 
 Oh, grave, where is thy victory?" 
 
 — First Cor. 15:55. 
 
 Hast thou heard the whispers of inimortahty from 
 the Hps of the flowers abotit thee? 
 
 Their morning expansion and their twiHght folding 
 portray the varying courses of their daily life, but 
 autumn's call in Nature's sadder hour bespeaks an- 
 other and a longer sleep. 
 
 The short lease of life so effulgent in beauty is 
 over; petal and stamen, calyx and honey pouch dis- 
 solve and vanish. Not ended, cry the genii of spring- 
 time, for behold in faith the glory of the coming days ! 
 Only believe. 
 
 What pathos there is on the farm at the approach 
 of the winter. Who does not feel conflicting emo- 
 tions when Nature puts on her resplendent garments 
 of autumn? This is the last act in the mid-year fes- 
 tivities — ere the cold grasp of winter divests her of 
 beauty and buries her currents of life in the dark- 
 earth beneath her. How calm Nature's abiding in 
 the deathlike silence of winter, awaiting the call of 
 the May budding season for her resurrection to an- 
 other year's glory. 
 
 With what strange fascination we bend over the 
 
RESURRECTION J VICES ON THE FARM. -ji 
 
 death of the annual flowers, knowing that the frost 
 that kills them does but burst the bonds of the seeds 
 (vhich they planted that their life may arise from the 
 grave in the fields of their fathers. 
 
 Strange is the autumn commotion among the birds 
 in the treetops. What gatherings and chatterings, what 
 flutterings and calling! 
 
 The dear old nests seem all but deserted, the feed- 
 ing places are almost forgotten, while great congresses 
 are called in hedges and bushes. A strange impulse 
 has seized these children of- Nature. Something within 
 them has told them that a season of death and de- 
 struction is coming and that "Lo, there is a happy 
 land far, far away," where eternal summers beckon 
 and where flowers always bloom and birds forever 
 sing. 
 
 The farmer, with a deep longing for a similar 
 destiny, watches these gathered songsters following 
 the impulses of Nature, and then, musing by the fire- 
 place, asks himself the question: "If birds, following 
 the instinct of Nature, move on to perennial joys and 
 everlasting summers, why should not I, as the winter 
 of old age approaches and my heart yearns for sum- 
 mer and the vigor of youth, pass to joys that are 
 eternal ? Why should not I believe the same whis- 
 pers of Nature and rest in the hope of immortal re- 
 unions ?" 
 
 Thus he spoke, and, taking down a cocoon from 
 over the mantle, he remembered how this little cat- 
 erpillar, when quietly feeding on a common cabbage, 
 must have heard a silent voice calling him to get 
 ready for translation to a better and a higher life, 
 
72 RESURRECTION VOICES ON THE FARM. 
 
 So this worm, crawling down from the plant on 
 which he was feeding, laboriously spun his shroud, 
 and when all was ready calmly and quietly entered 
 his tomb, and all was forgotten. Here he waits and 
 only waits for a higher summons, when, bursting 
 forth to a larger, better and winged life — putting on 
 the robes of sunlight and bedecked with all the colors 
 from sparkling gems and flashing jewels — he will 
 soar away to feed on honeys distilled from flowers of 
 marvelous beauty — his old life forgotten, his new 
 life a superabundance of happiness. 
 
 Year after year on grandfather's farm I have 
 watched the multitudinous blossom- and fruit-bearing 
 children of Nature living out their sinless testimonies 
 by a joyous life of complete dependence upon the 
 goodness of God, and I have witnessed their anticipa- 
 tions and preparations for the oncoming winter into 
 which they have vanished or fallen asleep. Then I 
 have awaited the resurrection call of the springtime, 
 and lo ! Eden bloomed again, while seemingly the 
 very birds of Paradise trilled their songs over fen, 
 forest and moor. Then, over and above a thousand 
 philosophies, I knew that God reigned, and that in 
 every line of Nature is written the sweet and sure 
 prophecy of the resurrection. 
 
 I saw, in our country home, the exquisite beauty 
 of my father's life of faith, and there I witnessed 
 the glory of my mother's joyous death in eager confi- 
 dence of a glorified life hereafter, and, over and 
 above a thousand wrecked sophistries, I knew that 
 my Redeemer lived. 
 
 As autumn flowers devoutlv bend their heads to 
 
RESURRECTION J'OICES ON THE FARM. 
 
 73 
 
 winter's chill, with faith in the coming springtime, 
 and as birds move out towards summer lands, so 
 mother plumed her spirit's wings for her heavenly 
 flight. 
 
 The flowers bloomed again. The birds sing in the 
 smmv lands of the South and the surest philosophy 
 
 THE OLD COLONIAL RURYING GROUND. 
 
 of all the ages, the voice of Nature, tells me that my 
 parents are reunited in the summer land of the soul. 
 
 Do I fear the dawn of that eternal morning when 
 visions of celestial glory shall first burst upon my 
 sight ? 
 
 The birdlet breaking through its shell into the un- 
 tried life of this present strange world hath instant joy 
 and sweet content in bird-mother love, and bird-mother 
 
74 RESURRECTION 1 VICES ON THE FARM. 
 
 love, like the fragrance of the rose and the honey of the 
 flowers, is a gift from God. 
 
 The tiny squirrel born amidst the dangerous denizens 
 of the forest, but cuddling close to the maternal heart 
 hath no dread or affright, while the brooding hen cover- 
 ing her chickens under her wings did give to the Mas- 
 ter his imagery of Divine love. 
 
 The loving God of Nature did decree that births into 
 this earth world, where dangers lurk and many hearts 
 are cruel, should be panoplied by protecting love and 
 free from fear and alarm. 
 
 Has He not by these same tokens undertaken to 
 teach us that when He shall call his children to the 
 birthday of the soul's celestial life in that other world 
 where no dangers invade and where all hearts are 
 tender he will cause their celestial life to open with 
 the sweetness of the flower and with the joy of the bird 
 song at the dawn of the morning? Death is but the 
 door to life ! 
 
 I fear not the dawn of the eternal day where angels 
 greet and where the loving God stands in the portals 
 keeping watch and guard over all His own. 
 
 Nature and the Good Old Book tell me that "I shall 
 be satisfied when I awake in His likeness." 
 
 So also thought the farmer, and, going to the win- 
 dow, he looked out through the small panes of glass 
 towards the old Colonial burying-ground, in which 
 sleep the bodies of his forefathers, and he spoke, in 
 the words of Scripture: "Shall these too live 
 again?" And a voice that speaks in the wildwood, 
 in bird song and in starlight, spoke to the farmer in 
 love and affection; "I am the resurrection and the 
 
THE CREEK. 
 
 7S 
 
76 RESURRECTION f DICES ON THE EARM. 
 
 life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, 
 yet shall he live." 
 
 Oh ! there is faith in the old homestead, for a voice 
 from within, a voice from without and a voice from 
 on high — with one accord and in Nature's full har- 
 mony — make a pledge of a resurrection hour. And 
 so the farmer sows his seed in faith that in the ful- 
 ness of time the sun will call the buried seed to the 
 full glory of the summer-time, and that he too some 
 day will be called to the better land. 
 
BACKWARD HO! 
 
 "The Master is come and calleth for thee." — John ii 128. 
 
 The beauty of the forest, the aromatic fragrance 
 of blossoming flowers, the shadows chased away by 
 sunshine and the ministry of service so sweetly dis- 
 played in panoramic glory on grandfather's farm 
 were correlated to the inner life of that "wondrous 
 lover of Nature," our sister Bessie, lovingly referred 
 to herein. She who here gloried in the wonderful 
 works of God now rejoices amidst the flowers of 
 Paradise, and in angelic companionships has holy 
 fellowships in the presence of Nature's God. 
 
 We wondered at her here ! She who loved the 
 bloom of fields and the divine-like whispers of great 
 forests — she who bent in love over the little violets 
 and held sweet converse with the stars, how could 
 she leave regions where Nature's heavenly gifts and 
 holy companionships in country life fed the mind 
 and made the atmosphere of the Eternal the daily 
 climate of the soul ? How could she leave all these 
 and, plunging into the crowded city school, devote 
 her hours to the child of the tenement and her ram- 
 bles of love and mercy, to paved streets and city air? 
 How could she? The secret is ours, and we share 
 it with thee. God called her higher, and we laid 
 her away near her father and mother in silent sleep 
 and where her loved flowers bloom. 
 
78 BACKWARD HO! 
 
 Returning heavy-hearted with our sorrow, but deep- 
 ly thankful for her joys, my bereaved sisters lovingly 
 handed me her Bible as my heritage — her best trea- 
 sure ! I reverently opened its covers, and there 
 between its pages learned a secret of her inner 
 life that solved that mystery of her city living. It 
 read like this : 
 
 MORICHES BATHING BEACH. 
 
 I said, "Let me walk in the field." 
 He said, "No; walk in the town." 
 
 I said, "There are no flowers there." 
 He said, "No flowers, but a crown." 
 
 I said, "But the clouds are black. 
 
 There is nothing but noise and din ;" 
 
 And He wept as He sent me back. 
 
 "There is more," He said; "there is sin. 
 
 I said, "But the air is thick, 
 And fogs are veiling the sun." 
 
 He answered, "Yet souls are sick 
 And souls in the dark undone." 
 
BACKWARD HO! 79 
 
 I said, "I shall miss the light, 
 And friends will miss me, they say." 
 
 He said, "Choose you to-night 
 If I am to miss you or they." 
 
 I pleaded for time to be given ; 
 
 He said, "Is it hard to decide? 
 It will not seem hard in heaven 
 
 To have followed the steps of your guide." 
 
 We loved her here, but understood her not ! So 
 now, with her open Bible before me and with the 
 call of the city reaching us, can we wonder as to 
 what the true mission of the Nature-lover is? Look- 
 ing further into the recesses of that now doubly sacred 
 book, I found hidden therein another quotation : 
 
 "A little girl at her evening prayer was heard to 
 say : 'And I saw a poor little girl on the street to- 
 day, cold and barefooted, but it is none of our busi- 
 ness, is it, God?' " 
 
 "None of our business!" wandering and sinful, 
 All through the streets of the city they go, 
 Hungry and homeless in the wild weather — 
 "None of our business!" Dare we say so? 
 
 "None of our business !" children's wan faces, 
 Haggard and old with their suffering and sin ; 
 Hold fast your darlings on tender, warm bosoms, 
 Sorrow without, but the homelight within. 
 
 What does it matter that some other woman — 
 
 Some common mother — in bitter despair. 
 
 Wails in a garret or sits in a cellar 
 
 Too broken-hearted for weeping or prayer? 
 
 "None of our business !" sinful and fallen, 
 
 How they may jostle us close on the street! 
 
 Hold back your garment ! Scorn ! They are used to it ; 
 
 Pass on the other side lest you should meet. 
 
8o BACKWARD HO! 
 
 "None of our business !" On then the music ; 
 On with the feasting, though hearts break forlorn ; 
 Somebody's hungry, somebody's freezing, 
 Somebody's soul will be lost ere the morn. 
 
 Somebody's dying — On with the dancing ! 
 One for earth's pottage is selling his soul ; 
 One for a bauble has bartered his birthright. 
 Selling his all for a pitiful dole. 
 
 THK LIFE-SAVING CKF.W. UNCI E EZRA HyWVKINS IN 
 COMMAND. 
 
 Ah ! but one goeth abroad on the mountains, 
 
 Over lone deserts, with burning, deep sands. 
 
 Seeking the lost ones (it is His business!) 
 
 Bruised though His feet are and torn though His hands! 
 
 Thorn-crowned His head and His soul sorrow-stricken 
 (Saving men's souls at such infinite cost); 
 Broken His heart for the grief of the nations — 
 It is His business, saving the lost ! 
 
 Duty calls us away. It is God's call. The vacation 
 ends, the trunks are packed, one more walk in the 
 
BACKWARD HO! 8i 
 
 forest, one more sail on the bay, one more farewell 
 to loved ones. 
 
 We watched the waving of the hands, we heard 
 the receding songs of the birds ; an old gray squirrel 
 ran to the topmost branches of a great tree to see 
 us off; and another chapter of life's joys had been 
 written, bound and filed away on memory's shelves, 
 to which we go from time to time in "the quiet hour" 
 and revel again in the sweet and loved recollections 
 of grandfather's farm. 
 
Celestial Phones 
 
 Voices from the Invisible 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Anticipatory . . , „ , 5 
 
 Prelude . . . . , .6 
 
 Interlude . . o = . 7 
 
 postlude . . , , „ -9 
 
 Within the Sheen . , , 11 
 
 Our Vanished Loved Ones . . -5' 
 
 A Vision by the Sea , , . 62 
 
ANTICIPATORY. 
 
 Fellow Pilgrim : 
 
 Christmas — Easter — the Setting Sun and the Star- 
 Ht Night — speak to ns in the mystic melody of silent in- 
 tonations, causing no sound vibrations, yet transmit- 
 ting their sweet messages to the innermost soul, just as 
 we are bound to each other by golden cords of Chris- 
 tian Brotherhood, immaterial and invisible, yet 
 stronger than links of steel. 
 
 Please open this book and visit with me that most 
 real place ot all, commonly called " the unreal." You 
 will see invisible forms, hear noiseless footfalls, feel 
 the touch of spirits, and. I trust, partake of heavenly 
 calm. 
 
 Yours in Him, 
 
 S. L. Mersiion. 
 
 MONTCLAIR, N. J. 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 A SHORT time since, I took ship at Providence, 
 Rhode Island, at evening tide. The steamer carried 
 over one thousand souls. 
 
 As we moved down the river and out into the deep, 
 joy, animation, and music filled that gliding palace, 
 while pyramids of electric lamps poured a flood of 
 golden light upon us in the caljin. 
 
 I moved out upon the deck, and all was dark. 
 Great angry billows rolled tempestuously about us, 
 while rushing winds tore their way over the hurricane 
 deck. 
 
 It was a wild storm without. 
 
 It was all peace and joy within. 
 
 Strange phenomenon ! Why, amidst such a storm, 
 should there be such a calm? 
 
 Ah ! something weird w'as playing with the hearts 
 of men. 
 
 It held us mentally, as it were, in a Haven of Calms, 
 landlocked from a raging sea of fear. 
 
 There was supreme faith in an iiiz'isiblr pilot at the 
 wheel. 
 
 Something above reason saw something beyond the 
 range of vision, " as seeing Him who is invisible," and 
 we were at rest. 
 
INTERLUDE. 
 
 I FOUND my way into a " Home for the Deaf and 
 Dumb," and there I met a man in the middle of hfe 
 who once was in perfect physical condition, but now 
 deaf, dumb, and blind. 
 
 £3^.^ sightless. — The beauties of the world are en- 
 tirely shut out. 
 
 Ears soundless. — The melodies, symphonies, and 
 harmonies of love and life are mute or dead at that 
 golden highway to the soul. 
 
 Tongue speechless. — A pent-up mind, starved of 
 love's messages and life's beauties, is not even per- 
 mitted to relieve itself by one outcry of despair. 
 
 A soul in solitary confinement, enshrined in the hor- 
 ror of perpetual night and locked in the maddening 
 hall of ceaseless silence ! 
 
 He seemed like a strange and silent craft taking its 
 mysterious way in solitude over the darkened sea of 
 human life. 
 
 I said to a friend, " What a prisoner! " 
 
 My friend replied, " Ah ! but he is the happiest man 
 here." 
 
 " How do you know ? " T responded. " Ask him, and 
 he cannot hear. He has no voice to tell you, and those 
 sightless e3'es are expressionless." 
 
 " Wait a moment," he replied ; and taking hold of 
 this strange being's hand he, by an appeal to the sense 
 
 7 
 
8 INTERLUDE. 
 
 of touch, made in that hand signs which I knew were 
 from the language of the deaf and dumb. 
 
 My friend told him that I thought he must be un- 
 happy, and requested him to send a message for me 
 that would explain how it was that I was mistaken. 
 
 As the sun suddenly bursts through a rift in the 
 clouds overhanging a dark and turbid sea, so the ra- 
 diance of an ineffable light billowed the place where 
 we stood, as there flashed back a message translated 
 for me from mystic signals. 
 
 " I am simply waiting for the time when these eyes 
 shall be opened and I shall see the King in His glory ; 
 these ears shall be unstopped and I shall hear the 
 heavenly music ; and this tongue shall be loosened and 
 I shall sing of Him who hath redeemed me from my 
 sins." 
 
 He was dwelling on the border-line between two 
 worlds, with windows open toward Jerusalem ; and he 
 evidently saw something beyond the vale. 
 
POSTLUDE. 
 
 I HAD purchased a ticket at Cleveland for Chicago 
 and was comfortably seated in a sleeping car when 
 suddenly, as we left the depot, a strange feeling of 
 alarm came over me. I could not shake it off. As the ■ 
 conductor came through the train I inquired of him 
 whether we stopped again wathin or near the city, as I 
 desired to leave the train. He answered " No." 
 
 I was deeply stirred, for something said clearly, dis- 
 tinctly, and repeatedly to me, " You are in great dan- 
 ger." 
 
 Soon, with the train rushing along at the rate of fifty 
 miles an hour, I fully realized that I was helpless — and 
 yet that warning! There was but one refuge: 
 
 " There is a calm, a svire retreat, 
 'Tis found beneath the Mercy Seat," 
 
 I bowed my head in prayer and asked God for 
 special protection from disaster. Just at that moment 
 there was a crash. 
 
 I was sitting in Section Six, the upper compartment 
 of which was hinged exceptionally lo\v. The springs 
 on that berth had broken. The shaking of the cars 
 loosened the catch, and the whole berth, loaded with 
 bedding and side boards, fell to the ends of the guard 
 chains with terrible force, crushinsf mv stiff hat ; but 
 
lo POSTLUDE. 
 
 as my head was bowed in prayer I escaped what 
 otherwise must have been a fatal blow. 
 
 The conductor sprang to me and exclaimed, " I 
 thought you were killed." No; a voice had spoken to 
 me. 
 
 Whence came it? 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 Will yon link your imagination with mine and fly 
 with me into the distant past ? — yet not very far. 
 
 I wotild have you stand with me on the hihtop where- 
 the City of Dothan is buih on one of nature's pin- 
 nacles, and from that high point I would have vou 
 look over a fertile valley robed in the luxurious verdure 
 of unsmitten Palestine. As the blackness of night has 
 swept in over mountain and vale, and the city has fallen 
 into slumber, I would have you watch while the 
 chariots and horsemen of cruel Syria of the north 
 come silently as possible, drawing their iron net of war 
 about the unconscious little city in which abode Elisha 
 the man of God. 
 
 Invading warriors polished their spears that they 
 might the more surely reach in vindictive hate the beat- 
 ing hearts of fellow-men ; while the sword was whetted 
 that it might cut the more readily through nerves and 
 sinew's, to turn loving wives into widowhood, and 
 children into orphans, or worse — yea, far worse were 
 the awful thoughts that blazed in the hearts of the war- 
 calloused veterans waiting for the dawning day ere 
 they should sack the little city. 
 
 With the first 
 
 FLASHING RAYS OF LIGHT 
 
 gleaming over the distant hilltops the wild cry of alarm 
 bestirs the city, while its sons flock to its walls in dis- 
 
12 miHlN THE SHEEN. 
 
 may. Among them is a young man, the servant of 
 the prophet EHsha, who, having caught the infection 
 of the panic, rushes hack to his master with the de- 
 spairing cry, " Alas, my master! How shall we do? " 
 
 We would listen, as calmly amidst the fearful tu- 
 mult the old man replies, " Fear not, for they that 
 he with us are more than they that be with them." 
 Then, falling on his knees, the old man sweetly prayed, 
 saying, " Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may 
 sec." And the Lord opened the eyes of the young 
 man, and he sazv — " And behold the mountain was 
 full of horses and chariots of fire around about 
 Elisha." Somehow the Syrian host vanished from the 
 young man's mind ; the terror-stricken crow'd, surg- 
 ing through the narrow streets of the city, was for- 
 gotten ; and the young man, with a soul glance into the 
 invisible world, saw eternal verities and witnessed 
 omnipotent power surging about God's servant in de- 
 fensive phalanxes. 
 
 Prayer-called — Heaven-sent — Love-commanded, the 
 celestial army lay in the calm curtainings of the spirit- 
 ual world, separated by the simple veiling of human 
 limitations from the wild concourse of the terror- 
 stricken crowd. 
 
 I w^ould also have you read with me from that po- 
 etical gem in Hebrew^ prophecy, the book of Joel, 
 while we consider the promise contained therein, that 
 the Holy Spirit shall appear in all His heavenly light 
 in this world of ours, wdien the daughters shall proph- 
 esy, and the old men shall dream dreams, and the 
 young men shall see visions. 
 
 Does it seem incredible to thee that God should re- 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 13' 
 
 veal Himself to His children by other means than that 
 of the physical sense of sound or sight? When in 
 that 
 
 SUBLIME TRANSFIGURATION HOUR 
 
 a voice from the invisible world cleft the clouds, say- 
 ing, " This is my beloved Son; hear Him," it was not 
 to reveal the heart of God the Father to Christ, Init that 
 the Saviour might lie magnified before men as the in- 
 carnation of divine life. Christ did not need that at- 
 testing voice, for He already knew His oneness with 
 the Father ; but gross, sensuous, materialistic men 
 needed once for all the revelation of the invisible to 
 human senses — hence, that voice of identification from 
 the clouds. 
 
 The deepest revelations of love and tenderness made 
 to our dear ones are manifest the most when unseen by 
 human e}-e and unheard by human ear. 
 
 Wilt thou deny to the deaf and blind child the sweet 
 ministries of mother love because he cannot hear or 
 see? Or will you permit them in heart language, 
 known onlv to each other, to develop stronger, deeper, 
 and holier ties than we know of — made more intense 
 because of these very impediments ? Knowledge shuts 
 out the necessity for sight and sound. 
 
 " Sweet voices come to every ear, 
 Bright visions to all ej^es appear. 
 The touch divine each soul may feel. 
 And God in us Himself reveal. 
 We see Him in each beam of light. 
 His are the voices of the night. 
 The myriad stars that shine on high 
 Record His name across the sky. 
 
14 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 " But brighter far the gems that shine 
 Upon the pages all divine; 
 The gems of truth that gleam afar 
 More brilliant than the brightest star. 
 To His inviting words give heed, 
 And listen when He deigns to plead; 
 Hear what those heavenly voices say. 
 And every gracious call obey." 
 
 Under the spell of divine influences a man may close 
 his eyes, and there will float before his spiritual vision 
 scenes of such transcendent splendor that the tongue 
 will fail and language must break down in all attempts 
 to reveal the scene ; \\ hile in the corridors of the soul 
 angelic voices will ring and the language of heaven 
 will float by melodies rippling in from celestial seas of 
 song. 
 
 Has God entered into thy life? Then let us for a 
 moment stop straining our eyes for Him along the 
 highway of the clouds ; and our gazing down the 
 paths through meadows and forests. Entering into 
 the heart, we will close the door, pull down the cur- 
 tains, stir the embers of love on the hearthstone of the 
 affections, for He. is within, a resident of the soul. 
 
 Hast thou prepared well the furnishings? When 
 love and purity preside in thy heart, then thou wilt 
 hang on the walls of memory, that most sublime of all 
 picture galleries, only scenes of holy joy, while the mu- 
 sic of thy thoughts, as they sound the measure of thy 
 spirit, will but bring thee into closer communion with 
 Him who enters into the guest chamber of thy heart. 
 Guard well thy guest, keeping out all that would tend 
 to mar His joy or make unhappy His stay. 
 
 The prophet Joel teaches us that the day shall come 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 15 
 
 when the servants of the Lord may have in this world 
 heaven's atmosphere without them and heaven's cH- 
 niate within them, and, being engulfed thereby, they 
 shall float therein as a casket filled to the brim floats 
 in the great tide of the sea. As that 
 
 GLORIOUS PROMISE BURSTS FORTH 
 
 from the stereopticon of prophecy I would have you 
 catch its picture on the screen of history, so I would 
 add to our vista that marvelous revelation, when in the 
 fullness of time tlicrc came that baptism of the Holy 
 Ghost upon the waiting Church. Then Pentecost 
 stood out before the workl : the crystalline throne to 
 which the invisible but unmistakably present Holy 
 Spirit came, as He assumed the sway and directed the 
 influences that were to guide the Church of God into 
 all truth, the child of God into all light, and the world 
 to the foot of the Cross. 
 
 I would ask you now to forget the limlis that bind us 
 to the ground ; the stomach that seeks the orchard, the 
 harvest field, and the vineyard ; the lungs that make 
 their appeal to the air; and, higher up, the eye that 
 claims the jesthetical and clings to the beautiful in na- 
 ture ; but flee with me up into that observatory where 
 all revelation must come by soul vision and spiritual 
 emotion — where, alone, thou art divorced from the 
 earth, earthy, and can take thine outlook upon the 
 great sea of the Infinite. 
 
 Soon all that is visible and tangible in thee will sink 
 back into the earth, pass away into the air, and make its 
 journey to the sea ; excepting only that part of thee 
 which is the flashing spark from the infinite flame of 
 
i6 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 divine thought ; that must pass again somewhere into 
 the invisible realm. 
 
 Ponder, then, with me as to what are these invisible 
 forces that are constantly surging against us. How 
 can we let into our souls the blessed emotions that are 
 sweeping about us, and how can \\& link thereto the 
 holy emotions that are playing within us? 
 
 Two worlds have floated in together, and lie broad- 
 side to broadside. How are the bridges of thought to 
 be thrown across? Are they ever thrown across, car- 
 rying messengers from each to the other? 
 
 The stars, hundreds of millions of miles away, speak 
 to us without a voice. Men who disappeared a thou- 
 sand years ago still help to shape the thought of the 
 world. They shot into the world, ran along on its sur- 
 face for threescore years and ten, and then glanced off 
 into the Invisible ; but, while gone, are in fact to-day 
 molding the minds of men. The Almighty God, in- 
 finite, eternal, the Creator of all things, is by some sup- 
 posed to be imprisoned in a celestial city, walled in by 
 His own hands. Having completed the superb work- 
 manship of a world that He has been building up 
 through all the ages, has He at last left man — His 
 highest creation — alone and helpless on top of this 
 marvelous structure, beyond the reach of his Mas- 
 ter's voice and with no visible escape? When man at 
 last drops oft' Where? where? or nowhere? 
 
 Can anyone sincerely ask the question, " Is there a 
 God in the world ? " This is a question easily pro- 
 pounded and quickly answered. Come with me to 
 Newport, and let us \\ander into that old and tenant- 
 less tower. If I should exclaim, " This structure is 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 17 
 
 a freak of nature, and was never built by buman 
 bands ! " you would cballenge tbe rasb statement and 
 tbcn demonstrate tbat from tbe general plan of tbe edi- 
 fice and its adaptation to man's requirements it must 
 bave been designed by an intelligent mind and con- 
 structed by buman bands for buman occupation. I 
 transcribe to my tourist notebook your argument, and 
 simply cbange tbe word " tower " to " world," and tbe 
 words " arcbitect and builder " to " God," and rest my 
 case on your own logic as to wbetber tbere is a God in 
 tbis world. 
 
 In tbat similitude we but widen out tbe tbougbt un- 
 der tbe same infallible rules of proof. 
 
 A line tbat runs straigbt for tbe distance of a mile, 
 wben carried forward will be straigbt to tbe realms be- 
 yond tbe farthest star. 
 
 Pantbeism exalts tbe design. Christianity worships 
 the designer back and above tbe design. 
 
 Pantbeism glorifies tbe house. Christianity crowns 
 the architect and builder of the bouse. 
 
 The house in which you live is but an imperfect rep- 
 resentation of a luminous picture in the mind of your 
 architect. It is but a soul vision caught in wood and 
 mortar. No chemist by analyzing it, and no scientist 
 by rending it apart, can discover tbe tbougbt which 
 permeated it or the mind that inspired it. 
 
 The arcbitect is in the building, and yet be is not of 
 the building. 
 
 The world is the matchless expression of matchless 
 thought — the mighty design of the Almighty Designer. 
 
 The logic of tbe house is but tbe logic of nature. 
 
 " Tbe heavens declare tbe glory of God and the 
 
i8 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day 
 utterelh speech and night unto night showeth forth 
 knowledge. There is no speech nor langnage where 
 their voice is not lieard." 
 
 L-et us take tlie wings of the morning, and fly up, up, 
 and see if we cannot distill from the clouds sweet 
 whispers of love ; from the sun's rays melodies rich 
 with divine heart-throbs as they vibrate, having been 
 touched for us by the unseen fingers of God. I believe 
 that back of the rustling of the leaves of the trees of 
 the forest, back of the stars singing together, back of all 
 nature's melodies, we find the Master Mind of all the 
 universe sitting in the great dome of heaven, from 
 whose chimes ring out nature's harmonies. Let us 
 climb up the winding stairs of faith, and we, the chil- 
 dren of the Musician, standing at His side, will see 
 Him bend over to us, and will hear Him speak the sw eet 
 words of father love that are lietter, grander, and holier 
 sounds than those which with rush and roar sweep 
 through nature's vaulted temple, though the former are 
 heard only by His children standing at His side. God 
 of the universe, God of father, mother — our God — 
 speak this hour to us through Thy Holy Spirit for the 
 Christ's sake. 
 
 Sometimes as we contemplate the vastness of nature 
 and the overwhelming power of Almighty God, the 
 heart cries out, " Does He care for poor insignificant 
 me? Am I not lost track of bv Him in the vast surg- 
 ing tide and ceaseless flow of humanity? " So I inaud- 
 ibly spoke in solitude amidst the shadows of a mighty 
 forest, when a little violet, nestling under a sheltering 
 rock, replied to me, and said to my soul : " The great 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 19 
 
 sun cares for me. I draw from it my life, my beauty, 
 and my fragrance. There is but one sun to me, and it 
 acts as if I am the only violet ; for it fills and satisfies 
 ni}- whole nature. One supreme joy, however, is mine, 
 that while not robbing me in the least, there is enough 
 of my sun for all the other violets, and so it and I live, 
 but not I, for it liveth in me." 
 
 Thus I discovered that the mission of the great sun 
 in the physical world is but a i)artial expression of the 
 mission of Jesus the Christ in the spiritual world. It 
 redeems out of darkness and death and exalts to life 
 and light. 
 
 " God of the granite and the rose, 
 
 Soul of the sparrow and the bee, 
 The mighty tide of being flows, 
 
 Through all Thy creatures, out frojii Thee. 
 It leaps to life in grass and flowers; 
 
 Through every grade of being runs, 
 Till from creation's radiant towers 
 
 Its glory streams in stars and suns. 
 
 " God of the granite and the rose, 
 
 Soul of the sparrow and the bee, 
 The mighty tide of being flows. 
 
 Through all Thy creatures, back to Thee. 
 Thus round and round the circle runs, 
 
 An endless sea without a shore, 
 Till men and angels, stars and suns, 
 
 Unite to praise Thee evermore." 
 
 vSo I find all nature spiritualized. As the sun in the 
 midst of the great solar system, with all its infinite 
 number of planetary and meteoric bodies charged with 
 a natural trend toward " outer darkness," is gradually 
 drawing and drawing them to itself, so the Sun of 
 
20 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 Righteousness stands in the midst of Hfe, with all His 
 magnetic power gradually but surely drawing the natu- 
 rally wayward sons of men to Himself. The two con- 
 tending forces in the physical w^orld are typical of the 
 two mightier contending forces in the spiritual world. 
 
 The soul of man is too large for its earthly taber- 
 nacle of clay called the human body ; hence, the latter 
 falls into dissolution in the short space of threescore 
 years and ten. while the immortal life within moves on 
 in co-existence with the eternal Creator of all things. 
 
 The mind of man is too capacious of vision to be 
 alone dependent upon the optic nerves for sight, and 
 too fond of music and converse to be limited by the 
 auricular channels to the mind. So we find the blind 
 seeing and the deaf hearing through strange channels 
 and along mysterious highways. 
 
 Man sees visions beyond the vista of physical sight. 
 
 He hears amidst the sacred silences of his soul's 
 temple, while silent stars speak to him of God, and the 
 rocks and flowers voice to him the messages of infinite 
 power and love. 
 
 Man's inner nature hungers so keenly in the hours of 
 his loftiest aspirations that physical appetite is forgot- 
 ten while the soul craves sympathy and feeds upon love 
 and hope. 
 
 He feels the touch of kindred spirits without calling 
 into play nerves of sensation. 
 
 So divine-like is man in the midst of the sacred bow- 
 ers of his own Eden home that he calls into existence 
 immortal life, and the children of his love live on for- 
 ever. 
 
 Such human life is awfully grand ! 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 21 
 
 In length it is henceforth co-existent with God. 
 
 In height it reaches up to the foot of the eternal 
 throne, while in depth who can sound it with the line 
 of love or fathom it with the plummet of black despair? 
 
 Is not man's nature too exalted to be satisfied with 
 sin? 
 
 Should not the soul of every rational being abhor 
 sin? 
 
 The protest of truth against sin is like the protest of 
 the jMuses against malignant discords in Sacred Ora- 
 torios. 
 
 The protest of virtue against vice is like the protest 
 of the spirit of music against the ruthless barbarism 
 that would seize the harp strings while they are vibrat- 
 ing with the soul's most sacred emotions and would 
 convert them into snares for rats, lizards, and serpents. 
 
 How can it be possible for God to arrange, classify, 
 and determine the moral accountability of each indi- 
 vidual in this mighty army of humanity which has 
 passed, is passing, and will pass through the ages out 
 of this world into eternity? So much of heredity, en- 
 vironment, physical and mental weakness having 
 operated to warp and twist the moral natures, how can 
 moral responsibility be fixed ? 
 
 I have learned a great lesson from the sea, which 
 explains how the greatest physical law in nature — 
 gravitation — illustrates what may be the working of 
 the wonderful law of final judgment. 
 
 Far out where the ocean is fathomless, like the sea 
 of eternity, to human thinking, from all directions 
 there flows in from time to time the debris of the 
 world. All manner of materials, of varying shapes, 
 
2 2 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 sizes, and weights, perchance pass together out and 
 down into the deep, but each to its proper level by that 
 law of gravitation which by divine decree passes un- 
 erring judgment on the specific gravity of all. 
 
 Is it more strange that the Creator of all should have 
 and enforce a law of moral accountability that would 
 give to the highest virtues the greatest rewards and to 
 the deepest vices the deepest condemnation ? 
 
 It seems to me that as I look through the open doors 
 of the vegetable and animal worlds I behold this same 
 awful moral conflict raging amidst the trees of the 
 forest, the fruits of the orchard, and the flowers of the 
 garden. At the same time the animal world, strug- 
 gling in a pandemonium of horrors, appears to reveal 
 the fact that all nature does verily groan and travail 
 in pain until now. 
 
 There are two forces in nature — the Benevolent and 
 the Malevolent. 
 
 A power in nature plants a tree for luscious fruitage ; 
 thereupon a force in nature sends the insects to suck 
 its life, blight its flowers, and sting its fruit. 
 
 The desire of certain dogs to kill birds of heavenly 
 plumage and angelic song originated not in the ten- 
 der heart of God. 
 
 The disposition of the cat, when hunger is satisfied, 
 to amuse itself with the dying agonies of a mouse, 
 rending it limb from limb, is not of Him who watch- 
 eth the sparrow when it falls. 
 
 So pondering, I discover that while hateful treat- 
 ment develops viciousness in the horse and dog, and 
 while neglect destroys the orchard and vineyard, lov- 
 ing care brings the spirit of gentleness to the brute and 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 23 
 
 self-sacrificing" labor produces the highest vintage. So 
 love redeems all nature and becomes the shield against 
 the forces that make for evil and death, and lifts to a 
 higher and better life the recipients of its care. 
 
 A poorly clad, poverty-stricken, orphaned appren- 
 tice, day after day, on his w ay to work, watched the un- 
 equal struggle of certain wild flowers for existence 
 against choking weeds and crowding brambles. 
 
 Learning to love them, through sympathy he lifted 
 the plants, one by one, from their dreary places and 
 replanted them in his little garden under the shelter 
 of a great stone fence, which protected them from the 
 blasts of the north wind, while they drank in the life- 
 giving rays of the sun. 
 
 When the heavens withheld for a space their dews, 
 he watered them from the nearby spring, while with 
 tender hands he nourished their roots and guarded 
 their beds. 
 
 Month by month and year by year love's nurture 
 developed richer bloom and lovelier flowers, until the 
 gardener, now an old man, standing in the midst of his 
 floral bowers and leaning on his stafif, said, " Lo, I 
 have redeemed these wild flowers to their perfection 
 by love and have crucified myself to the outside world 
 all the days of my life that I might cause them to at- 
 tain to and express in their lives the Master's true de- 
 sign, which He implanted in their natures. I wonder 
 if I am not a Christ to these flowers, having given my 
 life to them because of love that they might be re- 
 deemed to God's great plan ? " And so he gave them 
 back to God in all their beauty, for he believed not that 
 heresy that any one of them 
 
24 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 " Is born to blush unseen 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air," 
 
 for they were all in God's great garden, and He ^\ho 
 created them and who is the lover of the lowly, and 
 ever in his world, witnessed here a type of Geth- 
 semane and Calvary in a little floral world which had 
 been redeemed by vicarious love. 
 
 The little girl playing in the wild woods found the 
 hidden little offspring of the wild cat. Taking the 
 group of kittens to her home, she brooded over them 
 with sweet childish love which they at times resented, 
 but more often reciprocated. Later in life she, then 
 a matron, loved and petted the descendants of her first 
 charge, while in the evening-tide of her aged life, 
 sitting in the old armchair, with the family pet of a 
 much later generation mewing by the fireside, she 
 thought, " I wonder if I too have not redeemed this 
 generation by love, and have I not put back into that 
 nature some of the spirit of God — see how this kitten 
 loves me." 
 
 If we can charge inanimate nature with the forces 
 of evil, how reasonable it is to believe that we can im- 
 plant in animate nature the spirit of good ! 
 
 Surely in the day of this world's final glory we shall 
 witness the fulfillment of the prophet's vision in which 
 the lambs rested with the ravenous beasts, then re- 
 deemed. The trees of the fields will then clap their 
 hands amidst blossoming bowers, while parched des- 
 erts will burst forth in floral bloom, for all creation, 
 animal, vegetable, and mineral, has groaned and 
 travailed in pain for that hour of the New Birth. 
 
UlTHIN THE SHEEN. 25 
 
 Surely a New Earth will be the offspring- of vicariotis 
 and redemptive love. 
 
 In that day the Master will see of the travail of His 
 soul and will be satisfied. 
 
 The Creator of all things gave iron to man as one 
 of his blessings. Iron is charged with God's love, 
 and yet the assassin forges from it the stiletto. If 
 righteousness and evil so contend in inanimate ob- 
 jects as well as in the highest order of creation, why 
 may we not see the same fearful conflict everywhere, 
 including, as a participant, the serpent in the Garden 
 of Eden? 
 
 A few facts are demonstrated in this connection. 
 
 There is a power in the animal and vegetable world 
 that makes for life. 
 
 There is a force in the animal and vegetable world 
 that makes for death. 
 
 The conflict between them is incessant. 
 
 Love has redeeming and exalting power wherever 
 applied. 
 
 All animate creation seeks eternal life — either 
 through rootlet or seedlet. 
 
 While the vegetable and animal kingdoms, amenable 
 to this universal law that makes for everlasting life, 
 are satisfied through offspring, this is not so of the 
 soul that is born of God. 
 
 That soul is a divine entity. 
 
 No inanimate matter has ever been annihilated. 
 There is no such thing as annihilation in the universe 
 of God. 
 
 Scientifically, disappearance never means destruc- 
 
26 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 tion, and, logically, ignorance of our own destiny can 
 never imply the destruction of the soul. 
 
 Truth is what we seek, and truth we must discover ! 
 The most inscrutable mystery in all creation is man's 
 terrible responsibility to know the truth. 
 
 Nature know s no pardon for ig'norance and no leni- 
 ency for error. Ignorance of too high pressure in a 
 steam boiler never saved an engineer from an explo- 
 sion. Error in under-calculating the force of the wind 
 never saved a sailor from death. 
 
 Our cemeteries, with many of our loved ones, sent 
 there to untimely graves, are silent witnesses to the 
 inaccuracy of human thought and errancy in human 
 calculations. 
 
 In the moral realm the same fearful responsibility 
 seems to attach itself to error in thought. 
 
 The sea of spiritual life on this planet is crowded 
 with moral wrecks stranded or engulfed because of 
 honestly intended but ignorant moral instruction at 
 home, in the school, and in the church. 
 
 If ignorance is a doorway through which death 
 stalks and seizes our children ; if error in instruction 
 does damn the morals of our sons and daughters, 
 \\ hat may be the fate of our own immortal existence 
 by the application of erroneous thought to that most 
 sacred of all trusts committed to our thinking — 
 
 OUR SPIRITUAL DESTINY? 
 
 In the moral realm ignorance stands for danger, and 
 error is synonymous with death ! 
 
 Let us, then, with supreme fidelity to the cause of 
 truth, and with minds appreciative of such a stupen- 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 27 
 
 dous responsibility, move further along the line of in- 
 quiry which is so tragically important to universal 
 man. 
 
 The world concedes the presence of a supreme mind 
 in this great universe, yet there are many who seem 
 to think that it is irrational to believe that the human 
 mind can be put in such accord with the divine mind 
 that the latter can actually control and direct the for- 
 mer. 
 
 These very ones will admit that the desire and in- 
 tiuence of such a supreme mind must be and are toward 
 the highest and best good, and yet they deny the pos- 
 sibility of divine control over human minds. The 
 teaching of our blessed Lord was that by the submis- 
 sion of the human will to the divine there would come 
 into the life of man the overruling mind of God. 
 
 The objectors to this proposition have been present 
 in audiences when some operator possessing great 
 power of will and thought has, through voluntary sub- 
 mission of the will of his subject, caused the latter to 
 think his thoughts and perform his deeds. 
 
 Why, then, does it seem to anyone incredible that the 
 Supreme Mind of all the universe should influence the 
 consenting mind, but lovingly permit it to exercise 
 freedom of will should it desire to release itself even 
 from the control of infinite love ? 
 
 If we call upon Him w'ho is invisible, can He answer 
 by active interposition in human affairs? 
 
 One barrier — to many minds, an insurmountable one 
 — seems to intervene. Can He set aside the " laws of 
 nature " in response to the pleading of His children ? 
 Thought rules matter, untrammeled, irresistible ; and 
 
28 in THIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 thought is moved and swayed by love. Of this we are 
 daily witnesses. 
 
 Sitting in my library, with one of my children play- 
 ing on the floor, I am suddenly startled by my child's 
 piercing cry for protection, as a book case comes 
 " toppling over." 
 
 Terrible situation ! All the " inexorable laws " of 
 materialistic nature are at work to make sure the de- 
 struction of that child before my very eyes. 
 
 The book case is falling in strict accord with the 
 " laws of gravitation." I am held fast by " the force 
 of inertia, which causes all matter at rest to remain at 
 rest." Can I work a miracle and set aside nature's 
 laws in answer to that child's cry to my father heart? 
 
 SOMETHING acts! 
 
 What is it? Matter? Ah, no! a force called iiiiiid 
 acts on matter. It has no fulcnnii and no leverage. 
 It ignores all natural rules of attraction and repulsion. 
 No law in matter applies to it. but by behest of ivill 
 it causes a human arm of many pounds' weight to 
 move. That immaterial, invisible, and indefinable 
 something called mind sways matter in the human 
 arm, intercepts the laws of gravitation, nullities the 
 power of inertia, all in answer to a child's prayer to 
 a human father's heart. 
 
 Mind caused that motion — mind governed that mo- 
 tion, and the laws of nature became simply the ol^edi- 
 ent slaves to its will. Mind in the human body liy its 
 will-power controls the laws of its limited physical be- 
 ing, just as the same natural laws in wider cycles are 
 governed and controlled by an infinite mind — even the 
 
in THIN THE SHEEN. 29 
 
 mind of God. Surely the servant is not greater than 
 his Lord. 
 
 Man, however, turned his back on God at the dawn 
 of human history, and then was witnessed the carnival 
 of sin from which the human race has been struggling 
 to find its way back. 
 
 When first amidst the wealth of primeval forests and 
 floral beauty man appeared and became the abode of 
 the first human thought, that being must have been 
 sinless. A moment, a period of time, existed in that 
 first life before the spirit of rebellion to moral law 
 seized upon him. Perchance he poised on that sub- 
 lime height for but a single moment, but in that poise 
 
 PURITY WAS REGNANT. 
 
 Then came " the fall." Some say that there was 
 no "fall," but that there was an evolutionary rise. We 
 accept that dictum. Thus by sin man was lifted from 
 the Elysian fields of purity where he had reveled in 
 the sw^eet smiles of his soul's approval. He was by 
 sin exalted from the benignant atmosphere of heavenly 
 perfection to the bleak mountain heights where the 
 rough crags and rugged caverns of abutting and de- 
 coying sin have e'er since in delusive mockery mad- 
 dened the soul. They have benumbed by their sear- 
 ing scars the delicate sensibilities of his original spirit- 
 ual life. 
 
 That sweet angel. Heredity, whose blissful mission 
 it is to gather up all the blessed fruit germs of each 
 generation and strew them as seed in the harvest fields 
 of oncoming multitudes, has found her plantings 
 
30 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 mixed with the tares of a poisoned and polkited 
 growth. 
 
 Thus conscience became ahiiost mute ; thought took 
 on its selfish bias ; superstition enveloped the race and 
 the black horrors of antediluvian and subsequent ages 
 swept in upon a world. From this moral debris man 
 cried out wildly for help. The " soul of nature " had 
 sent to man the cooling sea breezes, and he in turn 
 worshiped 
 
 THE LEVIATHANS OF THE DEEP. 
 
 The " world's life " had given to man the beasts of 
 the fields to bear his burdens and to satisfy his hunger. 
 Appeasing the latter for the moment, the cravings of 
 man's spiritual nature bent his knees in worship to the 
 brutes. So while the intelligence, love, and tender- 
 ness of " a great predominating unity in nature " 
 spoke to humanity through forests, flowers, and spar- 
 kling streams, a great cry of despair went up from the 
 universal man who had been blinded and depraved by 
 sin. 
 
 Out from amidst the smoke of human sacrifices the 
 gurgling waters of the bloody Ganges and a thousand 
 horrible forms of insane worship, a great weird and 
 agonized chorus of misery flooded the heavens. God 
 knew that the human race, cursed by its own sins, 
 could find no story of redemption in natiu'e, and was 
 sinking into the bottomless abyss of certain death. A 
 new voice to speak in nature became necessary. The 
 occasion demanded a new voice of righteousness, 
 heralding some plan of salvation. A new element had 
 come into this world — the element of sin. If man had 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 31 
 
 not sinned, the revelation of God in nature would have 
 been complete for him. 
 
 He who looks for God in nature will find in nature 
 all the attributes of God as displayed for man before 
 human sin entered this w orld. 
 
 Human sin was not in the world at the creation, 
 only divine love for oncoming man, so the works of 
 early creation — the rocks, fields, and forests — speak to 
 us of all the divine attril)utes. excepting redemption 
 from sin. 
 
 After physical creation sin entered the moral realm 
 of this planet. Then its divine antidote of necessity 
 appeared in the spiritual life of Jesus the Christ. 
 Thus w^e have 
 
 A DUAL MESSAGE FROM GOD. 
 
 First : God in nature as he spoke to all man's needs 
 before sin came into the human heart. Added to this 
 we now have, 
 
 Second : God in Jesus Christ as he speaks to all the 
 spiritual needs of sinful man. 
 
 Nature and Jesus the Christ are an old and a new 
 testament, containing the complete romance of divine 
 love in creation and in redemption. 
 
 The story of Christ had to be written that the 
 \\orld might know the matchless redemptive love of 
 God, and so we venerate and love God's Holy Book, 
 not as a fetich, but as a loving child folds to the heart 
 the letter penned by the dying mother before passing 
 into glory. Yea, more, for we catch from its pages 
 the only message of eternal hope for our own hearts, 
 the sweet words of redemption from sin, and salva- 
 
32 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 tion to the immortal life. We exalt that Book as God's 
 second best gift to man, for it tells a sweeter story than 
 the winds speak or the rocks whisper. It is the story 
 of the Messiah — that Messiah, God's gift of Himself 
 for a lost world. 
 
 Most wondrously He grew. Too unique and holy 
 was that life for our poor human thought to compass 
 or fathom. 
 
 Methinks that as that infant heart enlarged beyond 
 its first feeble responses to motherly affection, there 
 steadily flowed into it a ceaseless stream of divine love. 
 As capacity to will developed, there kept apace the in- 
 filling of the divine will. As thoughts multiplied, lo ! 
 there gradually showed forth in Him the mind of God. 
 
 Thus from infantile and dependent existence rest- 
 ing on the bosom of the blessed Virgin Mother, with 
 all His physical limitations for receiving, but perfect 
 in all his receptions, there steadily expanded a physi- 
 cal capacity for a larger portion of divine life. In 
 never-failing proportions that divine life occupied to 
 the full that expanding tenement of purest clay, until 
 there stood forth before the w orld the Human and Di- 
 vine Messiah in all his physical maturity. Thus " He 
 grew in favor with God and man," always in perfect 
 equipoise in His dual nature, but growing to the full 
 stature of a complete physical life. 
 
 By this incarnation of divine life there was neither 
 more of God on earth nor less of God in heaven, but 
 " God manifest in the flesh." 
 
 The electric bulb is but the form which reveals the 
 light from the electric current pervading the wire. 
 It is the power of electricity made manifest in the bulb; 
 
IN GETHSEMANE. 
 
I 
 
Ill THIN THE SHEEN. ^^ 
 
 but \\ hen by age and use the bulb falls away the great 
 current moves on in its silent course. 
 
 The lamp was but the medium for the revelation of 
 the electric light, as the human form of Jesus the 
 Christ showed forth the true light of the world. In 
 this manner there came to the world a Redeemer — 
 Christ our King. " Through His stripes we are 
 healed." 
 
 VICARIOUS suffering! — 
 
 a mvsterv which seems at first insolvable to mortal 
 mind. Innocent love bruised and bleeding at the feet 
 of sin that justice may be satisfied. A selfish soul, 
 calloused to all the mystic influences of sadness and 
 suffering about it, moves in cold and unfeeling courses 
 amidst the despairing and struggling victims in life's 
 moral wreckage. When the divine element of love 
 and tenderness enters such a life, then that blessed Init 
 now sad angel — sympathy — causes the heart to yearn 
 for others, the tear to start, and turns the customary 
 hours of sleep into night vigils by the cot of human 
 woe. He who possesses most of holy love in this 
 world suft'ers most vicariously. It may not be in a 
 Gethsemane, on the side of Olivet, or upon the cruel 
 cross of Calvary, but, oh, how the spear thrust reaches 
 the heart of innocent love ! The tenderest hearts are 
 susceptible to the keenest mental agonies. As we 
 move upward in the scale of holy love, ascending step 
 by step, from friend to brother, sister, father, mother, 
 God, the sacrificial suffering of the soul by sorrow for 
 the sins of others is graduated and intensified by the 
 angle of ascent. 
 
34 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 Love from its very nature becomes a mediator. He 
 who in childish days with hsping, stammering peni- 
 tence poured into his mother's ear the story of rebel- 
 Hon against fatherly authority, should recall how that 
 penitence and that chosen mediator, in a mysterious 
 way, known only to love, sweetened, intensified, and 
 illumined the atmosphere of that hour of reconcilia- 
 tion. 
 
 But can the suffering of the innocent atone for the 
 guilty? Can another one's heart blood, and that the 
 blood of the innocent, atone for sin? There is here 
 
 A MYSTERY OF DIVINE ALCHEMY. 
 
 A little fellow deliberately threw a stone and 
 smashed the window glass. The father upon his re- 
 turn home found the little culprit holding to his 
 slightly older brother, who said, " Papa, Willie did 
 it, but I had some pennies in my bank and I went over 
 with Willie and I paid the lady for it. Please, papa, 
 don't punish Willie." As the two little fellows stood, 
 one shielding by love, the other seeking the protec- 
 tion of love, the innocent having suffered with and for 
 the guilty — what think ye? Was it simply that after 
 the act of sin the act of paying money made amends 
 for the willful deed, or was it that a far higher result 
 was obtained ? Was not the love of each for the other 
 intensified by that reciprocity of love, and was not that 
 father greater, grander, nobler, and more faithful to 
 the law of justice in forgiving rather than punishing? 
 To our human thought, the penitence of the one and 
 the vicarious sacrifice of the other made forsfiveness 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 35 
 
 a moral necessity. And so the innocent suffers for the 
 guilty. Vicarious suffering in a world of sin by its 
 reflex influences on the other souls about it, makes the 
 world a brighter, better, and holier place. 
 
 Widen this same circle now and take in the whole 
 moral realm. We will find within it sin, atonement 
 in Jesus Christ, and God. Read again the story of 
 the little boys and then see how that from sin, atone- 
 ment in Jesus Christ, and the forgiveness of God we 
 experience " the joy of the redeemed." 
 
 We are now up in the realm of the highest thought. 
 Is there darkness about us? Is there any mist of 
 doubt or uncertainty obscuring our vision? Then let 
 us watch with sincere heart-yearning for that sunrise ! 
 It's coming! May we stand together on the highest 
 point of observation raised above the great ocean of 
 time? That mountain top is an exalted life spanned 
 by just thirty-three years and tracked by the earthly 
 footprints of our Lord. Back of us is the rugged 
 range of Old Testament history, while before us the 
 foothills of the New Dispensation stretch away into the 
 dim distance to a sea of universal love, which sweeps 
 about the \\alls of 
 
 THAT CELESTIAL W'HITE CITY 
 
 whose domes and minarets are just beyond. The sun 
 of prophecy has long since set. It went down first be- 
 tween the twin peaks of lofty Isaiah and rugged Jere- 
 miah. The weird Ezekiel next becomes shrouded, un- 
 til at last the sun of prophecy is veiled behind the minor 
 prophets, disappearing in the sea of silence. For four 
 
36 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 hundred years thereafter no ray of prophetic Hght 
 found its way through the hlack and lowering clouds. 
 With four long centuries of undisturbed night behind 
 us, we cast an expectant glance to the eastern horizon. 
 A setting sun throws its rays backward ; a rising sun 
 casts its rays forward. The last rays of prophecy 
 were shed here on this mountain where we stand, while 
 the first dawn of sunrise will be witnessed here. In 
 our thinking we are at the corona of glory — our vision 
 sweeps a world. Glorious opportunity ! Precious 
 hour this, fated with possibilities of wonderful out- 
 look ! 
 
 Is it strange to thee that the divine and human should 
 here meet and coalesce in a God-child born of a 
 woman? By the touch of Almighty God at the 
 world's dawn of human life, inanimate nature was en- 
 ergized, vivified, and glorified, while from planetary 
 dust there arose by the divine inbreathing of life, a 
 race of poets, philosophers, and philanthropists — soul- 
 ful beings endowed with God-like qualities of father- 
 hood, motherhood, the love of children, and all the 
 sweet virtues of spiritual life. 
 
 Marvel of marvels that a little handful of clay, God- 
 touched, should have become divinely formed and en- 
 dowed with an immortal soul — yea, should have be- 
 come a child of God ! 
 
 Is it more of a miracle, then, that He who caused in- 
 animate nature to conceive and bring forth immortal 
 man, should unite with and enter into the life of that 
 sweet and pure virgin of Bethlehem, revealing thereby 
 the fatherhood of God and sanctifying the mother- 
 hood of earth? 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 37 
 
 It is indeed most natural that the supreme thing in 
 the celestial world, the loving- heart of a Heavenly 
 Father, should be displayed to our sordid human race 
 through the most supernal of all earth's possessions — 
 motherhood — by immaculate conception. Eden is a 
 greater mystery than Bethlehem. 
 
 While we are waiting here for the advancing light 
 to burst in over Bethlehem's hills, let us, between the 
 hours of the immaculate conception and the angel 
 songs of eastern morn, look up into the calm vault of 
 heaven. 
 
 The starry world hangs pendent over our heads. 
 World upon world and constellation upon constella- 
 tion swing in golden-belted highways, swayed by in- 
 visible power. No material arm is in sight, yet in- 
 finite arm power sweeps the sky. It's there. Some- 
 how — }-et there. Our soul's ear catches a voice in- 
 audible and our heart stands almost still as a message 
 comes in. The doors are locked and the windows 
 bolted, and yet a messenger enters in and, standing be- 
 fore conscience, speaks, speaks, and conscience answers 
 to it, yet no vibrations disturb the air and no waves of 
 sound break the sacred silence of the soul's temple. 
 While we are waiting keep thine eyes riveted upon 
 the heavens above thee. The blanket of night is spread 
 over the world at thy feet, and thou art throwing thy 
 soul into the expanse above thee, where the invisible 
 forces are evidencing the mightiest intelligence of the 
 universe, as its worlds are swinging pendulums from 
 golden suns held in place by invisible power. From 
 whence? Invisible power and invisible persons are 
 what we are dealing with this dav. 
 
38 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 ALL POWER IS INVISIBLE. 
 
 The flashing" Hght in the wake of the flying meteor 
 which you saw was not the power that launched it 
 forth. The mallet struck the ball — you saw it. The 
 mallet stopped, but the ball sped on. Secret, invisible 
 power lurked within — unseen and invisible — but tlicre. 
 But above thee, where thou art looking with me now, 
 no visible physical contact transmits, but power 
 sweeps the abysses and climbs the heights unspoken 
 and unseen, except as to thy soul. There it both 
 speaks and is seen in the white-walled inclosure of 
 thine inner consciousness, where no materialism finds 
 its way and where thou and the Infinite meet. 
 
 During the Revolutionary War a spy passed through 
 the British lines, bearing in his pocket a message to 
 Washington. He was arrested, and the letter ex- 
 amined ; but there being nothing seen in it but a com- 
 monplace letter to a friend, he was released and sped 
 on. When Washington received from his hand the 
 letter he held it up to the light, and there, traced with 
 milk, was a communication of vital importance to the 
 American armies. Will you hold up to the light 
 " God's book of nature " and its sequel, " God's book of 
 inspired revelation," and catch a message for your own 
 heart as you discover the invisible power and the in- 
 visible persons lurking therein? 
 
 Until recently I thought there were but three per- 
 sons crucified together that awful night on Calvary: 
 Christ in the center, and a thief on the right and a 
 thief on the left. By putting the Gospel accounts to- 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 39 
 
 gether, with a study of Paul's epistle, I find that we 
 cannot harmonize the accounts of the Crucifixion, un- 
 less we admit that there were four crucified together. 
 Christ's cross bore not only himself, but another. I 
 follow the narrative, and find that Joseph of Ari- 
 mathaea's tomb contained Christ and a couipanion from 
 His cross, while on the golden morning of the Resur- 
 rection, when the flashing angelic swords cleft the seal 
 and cut the bands, Christ and a coiupaiiion came forth 
 together to that Resurrection. Noting the phraseol- 
 ogy, I sweep back in eager thought to the scene of 
 Christ's baptism, and there too the Word admits of an- 
 other being baptized with Him. Let us, with the most 
 solemn thought toward God, press the inquiry. Who 
 was that other one ? 
 
 BELIEVER, THOU ART THE ONE ! 
 
 " With Christ in baptism " (Col. ii. 12) ; " Crucified 
 with Christ " (Gal. ii. 20.) ; " Dead with Christ " (Col. 
 ii. 20) ; " Risen with Him " (Col. ii. 12) ; " Compan- 
 ions with Him forevermore " (Matt, xxviii. 20). 
 
 Believer, how do you honor or dishonor that com- 
 panionship? Oh, servant of God, dost thou only 
 dream of this, or hast thou gotten the thought of di- 
 vine companionship woven into the very warp and 
 woof of thy nature, so that thou art weaving the de- 
 sign of thv life like unto the life of Jesus the Christ of 
 God ? 
 
 While we have been waiting and talking together 
 the light has burst over Judah's hills. 
 
 " There's a mother's deep prayer, 
 And a baby's low cry! 
 
40 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 And the Star rains its fire while the beautiful sing, 
 For the Manger of Bethlehem cradles a King." 
 
 The angelic chorus has startled the morning still- 
 ness ; the wise men have bowed at the manger's side, 
 and the temple has received the youth. His fame has 
 gone out through all the land. Sickness has fled be- 
 fore Him, while death itself has for the first time felt 
 the irresistible power of a revealed Christ who came 
 to lift the weight of human sorrows. 
 
 Enthtisiastic crowds meanwhile pressed Him on 
 all sides, until, transformed into a raging mob, they 
 showed Him to us crucified, dead, buried. Then came 
 the dashing charge of the angels to the sepulcher, the 
 very flash of whose glances paralyzed the Roman 
 guards. Then followed the reassertion of life. We 
 now in this panorama behold the glory-crowned 
 Mount of Ascension, and " He is received out of their 
 sight." 
 
 A forsaken world visited and a visited world for- 
 saken ! Is that your creed? If so, stand with us as 
 the advancing day permits us to discern the succeeding 
 acts of the Apostles, in which the Invisible is brought 
 to our sight with such strange power and overwhelm- 
 ing influence. 
 
 The revelation opens up with the statement that what 
 has passed in such rapidity before our vision between 
 Bethlehem and the Ascension was but the bcgiiuiing of 
 Christ's work. From Bethlehem to the Ascension 
 marked but the beginning of Christ's marvelous re- 
 demptive work. 
 
 Listen to the record (Acts i. i) : Luke says "The 
 former treatise have I written unto you, O Theophilus, 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 41 
 
 of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach." The 
 gospels are but the history of the inauguration of 
 Christ's work and words. " Began both to do and to 
 teach." Either He has abandoned His work, or He is 
 yet doing it. " Lo, I am w ith you all the days " was 
 the statement. How can that harmonize with His 
 actual absence? Ah! Note ye: "a cloud received 
 Him out of their sight." He became invisible! As 
 He appeared " in the upper room " and was invisible 
 between the door and the middle of the room, so He 
 vanished from their sight, but remained our ever-pres- 
 ent Lord. No more physical, earthly presence to di- 
 vide or limit the soul thought. Alary, the sister of the 
 entombed Lazarus, said, " Lord, if thou hadst lieen 
 here, our brother had not died." Was not our Lord 
 there ? Being physically out in the desert, He was not 
 thought of as being in Bethany. He was hedged in 
 to the thought of His most loving followers the 
 
 WOMEN OF BETHANY, 
 
 because of His physical environment. Freed from 
 those earthly conceptions and His embodiment. He is 
 lifted up in our thought to the eternal throne of God 
 and becomes to us our always-present Lord and 
 Saviour. 
 
 It was a strange message that Christ delivered to His 
 disciples just before He left, and which, while one of 
 the most sublime and important of all His utterances, 
 is one of the least comprehended by the Church. He 
 stated the necessity of His l^ecoming invisible that He 
 might give unto His follow^ers the ministration of the 
 Holy Spirit. The doctrine laid down is that compan- 
 
42 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 ionship with Christ is not enough. Note carefully the 
 petitions of His disciples and their reliance all centered 
 in the visihle Christ. No prayer is recorded before 
 the Ascension in which the disciples prayed to the 
 Father or to the Holy Spirit. Yet Christ prayed con- 
 tinually. Therefore it became a necessity that He 
 should go into the invisible realm so that the Holy 
 Spirit should reveal unto them the Fatherhood of God, 
 the Omnipresent Christ, and the universal ministra- 
 tions of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Bcthlchcui was a necessity to reach the world. 
 Calvary was a necessity to redeem the world. Pente- 
 cost was a necessity to sanctify the world. 
 
 When our Lord had departed, there were two things 
 that His disciples knew that they must do : 
 
 First : Model their lives after His. 
 
 Second : Witness for Him. 
 
 But our Blessed Master had practically said : " I am 
 going away, and will leave you unfitted to witness for 
 me. You know all about my miraculous coming. 
 You know all about my ministry. You were with me 
 in Gethsemane and at Calvary. You stood by at the 
 Resurrection. You companioned with me during 
 many days of happy reunion after death, and thou art 
 to see me caught up into the invisible realm beyond 
 thee, while heavenly heralds are to bid thee speed on. 
 I know your hearts are eager to tell the story, while 
 Calvary stands as a monument to the intensity of my 
 desire to win a lost world. But," He said, " wait, 
 wait, wait ! " 
 
 Those disciples had knozvledge, experience, and will- 
 iJig hearts. " Not enough," says our Lord, " to carry 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 43 
 
 the priceless message to a lost world." Not enough! 
 There is a force, a power, a personality that must come 
 into thy life before thou art prepared. Thus does 
 Christ magnify the Holy Spirit, invisible to our sight, 
 but present at our side, waiting to take possession of 
 our hearts. 
 
 While wise men bow at Bethlehem let wise men also 
 bow at Pentecost. While the frankincense and myrrh 
 sweeten the air in that City of David, the birthplace of 
 the Messiah, let the ofiferings of love and adoration be 
 likewise poured out at Pentecost, the birthplace of the 
 Holy Ghost. Oh, thou blessed Comforter, be Thou 
 our Guide forevermore ! 
 
 r)h, brethren, do you know Christ? So did the un- 
 prepared disciples. Have you experience in walking 
 in His footsteps? So had the unprepared disciples. 
 Have you a willing heart for testimony ? So had the 
 u)iprepared disciples. Do you say, '' What lack I 
 yet?" Do you not lack what the Church of Christ 
 so greatly needs to-day — a special baptism of the Holy 
 Spirit? Are you being guided in all your thoughts 
 and speech by the Holy Spirit, or are you like the pro- 
 fessed disciples just before Pentecost (casting lots for 
 a successor to Judas), having your course steered by 
 chance or uncertain events? I call your close and 
 prayerful attention to the Apostles as we watch them 
 from our vantage-point of observation. The com- 
 mand of our Lord to His disciples to wait until the 
 Holy Spirit should be given to them was met by their 
 gathering together and spending ten days in prayer for 
 such a baptism and a personal revelation of a personal 
 comforter. Think of it for a moment. That com- 
 
44 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 mand meant. Do not take a step ; do not speak a word ; 
 do not undertake in any way to make a move to carry 
 into effect the great commission unless under the per- 
 sonal influence of the Holy Spirit. Now let us watch 
 the eft'ect, as with 
 
 MIGHTY, MAJESTIC STEP 
 
 the Holy Spirit, receiving- the intense petitions of the 
 disciples, crowns Pentecost with His sublime pres- 
 ence. Oh, what tremendous obligations crowd in upon 
 us to God the Fatlicr, who from the wealth of His 
 infinite love sent His Son into the world. Oh, what 
 tremendous obligations crowd in upon us to God the 
 Son, who gave Himself a sacrifice for a lost world ! 
 Oh, what tremendous obligations crowd in upon us to 
 God the Holy Spirit — He who brooded over the world 
 at the Creation ; He w ho gave the torch of light to the 
 Old Testament prophets, enabling them to foreshadow 
 the Messiah to come ! It was the Holy Spirit who 
 brought the man Christ into being, descended upon 
 Him in the form of a dove at baptism, and was with 
 Him in the desert. It was of the Holy Spirit that our 
 blessed Lord loved to talk in His last conversations 
 with His disciples before the Crucifixion. It was the 
 Holy Spirit of whom He made that glorious prophecy 
 that portends so much to you and me — that He should 
 descend upon His disciples in all time and fill them 
 with Himself. Then follows that resplendent galaxy 
 of flashing promises that reveals to us the blessed mis- 
 sion of the Holy Spirit who was to descend as " that 
 other Comforter." 
 
 He shall lead the disciples into all truth. 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 45 
 
 Do you w ant to be guided and led into a full knowl- 
 edge of the divine love? Do you want to know your 
 Saviour as you have never known Him before? Do 
 you want His Word to blaze forth with new light and 
 ring with sweeter words of comfort and joy? Then 
 pray for the Holy Spirit, and cease not that prayer 
 until the answer comes. 
 
 He shall be the guide and companion of the Church. 
 
 Dost thou want that Holy Spirit to companion with 
 thy soul ? to lead thee into labors of love, lighten 
 thy days with His sweet converse, and keep thee close 
 to the Father-heart of God? Then pray for the Holv 
 Spirit, and cease not that prayer until the answer 
 comes. 
 
 He shall make us like unto Christ. 
 
 Do you want the same mind in a-ou that was in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord? Do you want fitness for serv- 
 ice? Do you want to have power from on high? 
 Then pray for the Holy Spirit, and cease not that 
 prayer until the answer comes. 
 
 Then to that Holy Spirit, to whom we owe our 
 salvation, our knowledge of Christ, our promptings 
 to a better life, and from whom we receive the blessed 
 guidance and help of His daily companionship, be 
 glory and honor for ever and ever ! 
 
 Shall we open up our hearts now — even now — to the 
 reception of the Holy Spirit? " Be ye filled with the 
 Holy Ghost." Oh, that we workers could be brought 
 by the Blessed Spirit close to the heart of the Man of 
 Sorrows ! Then we would easily find our wav to the 
 heart of sorrowing humanity. The secret of the early 
 Church was that it was 
 
46 WITHIN THE SHEEN. 
 
 First : Full of Faith. 
 
 Second : Full of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 How did the Holy Spirit descend upon the earlv 
 disciples? 
 
 First : As a sound of rushing wind ( hut there was no 
 wind). Manifest power! 
 
 Second : Cloven, fiery tongues. Witness power — 
 power to witness. 
 
 " Ye are my witnesses." But note the statement, 
 " After the Holy Ghost is come upon you. ye shall be 
 witnesses unto me." After — after — " after the Holy 
 Ghost is come upon you." Dare you teach a Sunday- 
 school class without being filled with the Holy Ghost? 
 Dare you live? Dare you live without the intense as- 
 surance that He is abiding in thy soul? How sweet 
 the atmosphere of thy secret life will be with such a 
 guest ! The Holy Spirit is always spoken of in God's 
 Book in terms of gentleness, love, and tenderness. We 
 read of the wrath of God the Father, the wrath of 
 God the Son. the judgment and the tribunals of the 
 Father and the Son ; but the Holy Spirit is always 
 spoken of as tenderness and love. 
 
 Oh, that He might enter into full possession of our 
 souls, to guide our ambition, illuminate our thought, 
 and, taking complete possession of our minds, make 
 our lives conform to His whole nature ! 
 
 Now lift thy thought to the very throne of God ! 
 
 Jesus was a man. Within Him was God, and He 
 became the Christ of a world. 
 
 You are a man. The promise is that within you 
 God the Holy Ghost may dwell, and then thou wilt 
 become a Christ in thine influence. " As thou hast 
 
WITHIN THE SHEEN. 47 
 
 sent me into the world, even so, even so, send I them 
 into the world." Marvelous possibilities, stupendous 
 ])rivileges. Shall we not seek above all other things 
 to be filled wath the Holy Spirit, and so companion 
 with Him for the Christ's sake? Amen. 
 
" I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of them who are 
 asleep." 
 
THE FIRST EASTER MORN. 
 
OUR VANISHED LOVED ONES. 
 
 " I am He that liveth, and was dead ; and behold, I am alive 
 forevermore, amen; and have the keys of death and of 
 the realm of the departed spirits." — Rev. i. i8. 
 
 Onck in boyhood days, when fever laid its hand 
 ttpon me, I tossed with bhnded eyes and deHrious 
 brain, fearing every imaginable evil, when otit of the 
 blackness abotit me I heard a voice that dispelled all 
 the discordant cries which were rending my disordered 
 brain. I felt a throbbing which I knew meant that I, 
 a little boy, was held and kept on mother's bosom and 
 was being spoken to by mother's love. An ineffable 
 light illumined my soul, and I was at rest. 
 
 Later on I followed her down to where two worlds 
 met, and kneeling at that bedside I saw the marvelous 
 radiance from a redeemed spirit already pluined for 
 its heavenly flight. Then I saw her pass beyond the 
 range of mv natural vision, but she did not hurry. 
 She for some little time rested there in the Valley of 
 Shadows and sweetly talked with me. She told me 
 that siie knew the shado\^ s were there, but they were 
 onlv there to us who remained behind. " All is light 
 to me." she added, " all is light ; Jesus is here." I was 
 behind her, as it were. The golden light of the Celes- 
 tial One she saw beyond her, left for me the shadow of 
 my earthly loss. Her vision was clear. Two worlds 
 for her were billowed in light. As I brushed away 
 the blinding tears, behold, I saw no more, for 
 
 51 
 
52 OUR VANISHED LOFED ONES. 
 
 SHE HAD BECOME INVISIBLE. 
 
 Somehow my mind has not been satisfied with the 
 statement that we are separated. Only one change 
 has come over me — I cannot see her with these now 
 faiUng natural eyes ; that is all. I never did see her, 
 anyway. I daily saw her face, which carried an out- 
 ward expression of a wonderful spiritual life within, 
 but I never saw that life. I had heard her expressions 
 of love for her boy, and had felt its manifestations, but 
 I never saw that divine flame. So when her voice failed 
 and her face took on its last beatific expressions, love 
 lived on with me, and I know that love lived on w^ith 
 her ; the reflecting medium had simply given out, or 
 had it been changed for another? Were those loves 
 separated ? Would God separate them ? 
 
 I have been ever since watching the opening into 
 that mystic realm called death. Other of my dear 
 ones have meanwhile vanished therein, and there has 
 gradually come to me a new and strange impression, 
 a deep calm and a blessed companioning, until the long- 
 ing of my soul is now not to go, but only to see, for 
 seeing is going and going is seeing — one is but a 
 synonym of the other. The term " departed spirit " is 
 a misnomer, if I read aright the Word of God. In 
 wandering along the portals constantly swinging open 
 into that realm, I came to an old passageway. It was 
 where Jacob went through, and the statement is made 
 on indisputable authority that he was " gathered to his 
 people." A strange expression prevalent among no- 
 madic tribes, the memory of whose sepulchered dead 
 
OUR VANISHED LOVED ONES. 53 
 
 haloed their resting-places along the line of wandering, 
 as in solitary graves they kept death's vigils. 
 
 How hlessed to our thought that this wondrous 
 Book of God opens so early with the statement that in 
 passing over we go to our loved ones ! Yea, even be- 
 fore Jacob's invisibility God had hung out a light over 
 the entry into the eternal world by telling Abraham in 
 a wondrous revelation that when he should be called 
 hence he would go to his fathers who had gone before. 
 And so there comes that assurance of reunion with our 
 loved ones, as old as the Word of God itself. This 
 answers to the heart-yearning so strong in all of God's 
 children. It responds to our desire for the unity of 
 loves in the realms of light. 
 
 Somehow with anxious forebodings we ponder 
 the thought, " Will our loved ones who have entered 
 into the larger life be to us, when we join them, 
 what they were to us when we companioned together 
 with them in this lesser life?" What means that 
 strange utterance of the inspired writer, " In a moment, 
 in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed"? 
 Will earthly ties vanish ? Does the statement that 
 there " They neither marry nor are given in marriage " 
 sound the death knell to that liond, sanctified by love's 
 joys and sorrows? Can it be that the sweetest ties 
 born of life's companionships are " changed " or de- 
 stroyed as we pass through that strange ordeal so mis- 
 takenly called death? 
 
 Let us bear in mind that the better life is a spirittial 
 existence. The physical, sensual, and materialistic na- 
 tures that we now have will there be transformed into 
 glorified bodies which will thrill only with the highest 
 
54 OUR VANISHED LOVED ONES. 
 
 and holiest spiritual emotions. Sensual joys will be 
 forever succeeded by spiritual delights. 
 
 We all appreciate the fact that there are blood re- 
 lationships here, where no " kinship of spirit " exists. 
 On the contrary, we ofttimes witness in this world evi- 
 dences of a spiritual brotherhood where there beats but 
 the physical pulsations of a common humanity. 
 
 When our Divine Master said, " He that doeth the 
 will of my father which is in heaven, the same is my 
 mother, my sister, and my brother," He let us some- 
 what into the secret of the relationships which shall 
 exist when we shall bt " at home with the Lord." 
 
 Let us gather up in thought all that there is in the 
 heart of motlierhood, in sisterly love and brotherly af- 
 fection, and l)lending it together as we conceive it ex- 
 ists in our Heavenly Father's home, we will have but a 
 faint conception of the love ties, or spiritual relation- 
 ships, between the redeemed spirit and our blessed 
 Lord. If, then, all who enter into that larger life are 
 to experience such a marvelous enrichment of the soul's 
 affections, will not the element of character which we 
 so adore in our loved ones here be infinitely beautified, 
 to the intensifying of our affections toward them 
 there ? 
 
 Will not our own infilling from the Divine Nature 
 make its irresistible appeal to the hearts of those who 
 with a new heavenly vision will see our likeness to 
 Jesus Christ? 
 
 When our loved ones shall sit with us at the feet of 
 Jesus in the celestial realm, with all human frailties 
 gone and all hearts filled to overflowing with the holi- 
 est emotions, will not love flow at high tide? 
 
OUR VANISHED LOVED ONES. 55 
 
 But are they far hence? The babe Ufted by angeHc 
 beings from its mother's bosom, but also from a 
 world's terrible moral hazards — 
 
 IS IT FAR OFF? 
 
 The loved wife on whom someone leaned in that 
 sweetest of life's joys — wifely love — is she far hence? 
 It is not a day's journey ! This is certain, for He who 
 lifted the penitent one from the cruel cross to celestial 
 joys said to him, " This day shalt thou be with me in 
 Paradise," and so within the compass of but a few 
 hours our thought should look with that confident hope 
 that we shall find within it our spiritual ones, and in 
 the finding shall have new joys by companioning with 
 them in the Divine Presence. 
 
 One joyful thought entering into this inquiry is that 
 time and distance are unknown and non-existent in the 
 other life. A thousand years to them are " but as 
 yesterday." Not as to-day w'ith its wearisome cares, 
 but as yesterday with its vague recollections, or as a 
 single " watch in the night." The whole period of 
 human existence on this planet is less than the dim 
 memories of an earthly day's span to the glorified 
 spirits amidst the beatific joys of eternity. " No 
 more time ! " Wherever our loved ones are, the as- 
 surance comes to us that in point of time they cannot 
 be far away, for time is eliminated from the heavenly 
 life. For our hungry hearts, wearied with the lonely 
 vigils here, this truth, while comforting, does not en- 
 tirely fill the void that seems to exist between us and 
 our invisible ones. It might not take them long to 
 come to us, but do they come and are they very near? 
 
56 OUR VANISHED LOVED ONES. 
 
 Oh, for an answer whereby our turbulent thoug'hts 
 might safely rest in conscious companionship with 
 them here, as we shall some day in more clearness of 
 vision companion with them there ! 
 
 One thing is sure : the angels are constantly minis- 
 tering to all His loved ones in this world of ours. 
 " Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to min- 
 ister unto them who are heirs of salvation?" All 
 down through the ages, kings, prophets, apostles, and 
 martyrs, with the blessed Christ, have borne testimony 
 to these sweet messengers of comfort. There can be 
 no mistake but that there is a clear revelation contained 
 in the Word of God that most of heaven is here with 
 us. God's universality is left nowhere in doubt. Our 
 blessed Lord said, " Lo, I am with you always," and 
 the Holy Spirit's constant al^iding among us and in 
 us is clearly affirmed with such supreme delight to the 
 heart of every true child of God. How the soul should 
 fill with joy over the divine goodness in revealing the 
 fact that all the angels are sent forth to minister to 
 Christ's followers in this earthly conflict ! There can 
 be no question, then, that all the celestial powers, from 
 the Most High God to the humblest angel of light, 
 
 ARE ACTIVELY ENLISTED 
 
 in a world's redemption, and are with us in the con- 
 flict. Why should we, then, for a single moment sup- 
 pose that our own loved ones are the only exiles from 
 this most sweet and joyous service to Him who gave 
 Himself for us? With our present conceptions of God 
 such would not seem possible. Let us, however, move 
 
OUR J'ANISHED LOJ'ED ONES. 57 
 
 along- the line of the Christ revelation, and new gleams 
 of light will flash in upon us with heavenly radiance. 
 
 Jesus the Christ taught His disciples by special reve- 
 lations when He desired them to know more fully some 
 deep truth. 
 
 When in the darkness of the prison's gloom John the 
 Baptist felt the black shadow of doubt in his soul, he 
 sent to Jesus and asked Him if He was really the One 
 that was to come, or must he look for another. Jesus 
 replied by simply letting John's disciples look into His 
 miraculous work. 
 
 When the disciples needed to be taught of His great 
 love for the sinner. He let them witness the climax to 
 the scene at Samaria's well. 
 
 As the lesson of humility was needed, they beheld, 
 and lo ! He washed their feet. 
 
 So as He desired to let them and us further into the 
 secret of the eternal world, He took Peter, James, and 
 John with Him into the mountain for a soul vision. 
 
 It was no new thing for Him to go into the moun- 
 tain apart. All day He walked and talked with those 
 of this world, and then as " every man went unto his 
 own house Jesus went into the Mount of Olives " or 
 elsewhere and companioned with the Invisible. The 
 record is very plain that spiritual communings were 
 His sometimes for a whole night. So He took the 
 three disciples up into the mountain with Him, and 
 they fell asleep. When they awoke He permitted them 
 to sec who were with Him, and there in calm, sweet, 
 heavenly converse sat Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. They 
 were talking about earthly events that were to occur 
 in the life work of our Lord. Just as angels had been 
 
58 OUR ]' AN I SHED LOJ'ED ONES. 
 
 found to 1)6 witli Him elsewhere, so here in the divine 
 counsels, and seen hy special permission, were these 
 earthly redeemed ones. Conversant they seemed to 
 be with the affairs of the earthly kingdom. Strange, 
 was it not, that the disciples being permitted to use their 
 spiritual vision knew who Christ's two companions 
 were ? Simply by a change in their power of sight 
 they also beheld a new Christ, for He was transfigured 
 before them. Ah, could we but see with that peculiar 
 sight from which our eyes are now holden, whom 
 might we not see? The disciples 
 
 SIMPLY HAD A FOREGLEAM 
 
 of that hour when they should know even as they were 
 then known. These heavenly ones were present with 
 the disciples while they stupidly slept, and were appar- 
 ent only to them when God for a moment opened their 
 vision a little wider. It should be remembered that 
 there were three witnesses who beheld this glorious 
 scene. 
 
 One fact is clear : Wherever Jesus is, there are our 
 saved, vanished, and loved ones. When we depart we 
 shall be with Christ, which is far better (Phil. i. 23), 
 so that when we are absent from the body we are pres- 
 ent with the Lord (2 Cor. v. 8). 
 
 Another fact is clear : If we are His disciples, then 
 wherever we are, there Jesus is. 
 
 Our blessed Lord on the Moimt companioned on His 
 earthlv side with Peter, James, and John, and on His 
 heavenly side was companioning with Moses and Eli- 
 jah ; so that side by side in the holy company of our 
 Lord these of heaven and earth sat together — to the 
 
OUR VANISHED LOJ'ED ONES. 59 
 
 disci]3les for a time unconsciously, but they were there 
 tog-ether, nevertheless. 
 
 With this wonderful picture before us, we have an 
 illustration given to us by our loving Master that the 
 redeemed in heaven and the redeemed on earth coni- 
 panion together in that most blessed of all associations 
 — Unity ill Christ. If that unity is perfect, no space 
 can divide and no time can separate us from each other. 
 Oh, how we should seek to keep in that most holy 
 bond ! Separation from our loved, invisible ones can 
 only occur when they or we are exiled from Christ. If 
 so near, may we not speak to these dear ones, and why 
 can we not receive just one message from them? Why 
 should we desire to commune one with the other? 
 Perfect faith in the word of God should satisfy this 
 craving of our souls. 
 
 Fellow-disciples, is it possible that we so doubt our 
 Lord's statement that in order to believe Him we must, 
 Thomas-like, see with the mortal eye and hear with the 
 fleshlv ear? Lo ! He speaketh to the heart of man, and 
 onlv to the eye of faith does the celestial vista now 
 open to the soul of man ere he is permitted to wing his 
 flight through realms of eternal joy. Somehow I feel 
 that 
 
 MESSAGES ARE PASSING 
 
 constantlv from one to the other, but there is failure 
 here to understand the heavenly voices, coming as they 
 do in the language of heaven. Our limited knowledge 
 of the spiritual world narrows the possibilities down, 
 and vet some few things we do know. In this world 
 
6o OVR VANISHED LOVED ONES. 
 
 of ours \^ords are but the evidences of mental action. 
 It is the thought we are after. So as we ponder the 
 problem, it seems very clear that God through His in- 
 finite love gives us the key to the soul desires for us 
 of our invisible loved ones and transmits to us the reve- 
 lation of their heart-throbs in our behalf. 
 
 Son, is thy mother with Christ in the better realm? 
 You know then, under the divine light of God's Word, 
 what her message to your soul is. Could it be other 
 than Christ's invitation to you? 
 
 Husband, has the wife of thy love passed into that 
 realm so near, so beautiful, and so holy? Listen to the 
 voice speaking in thy soul. Does it not interpret her 
 message. Yes ? 
 
 Oh, mother, wife, daughter, sister, thy loved one is 
 with Jesus, and Christ is either in your heart or at the 
 door of your heart, and your loved one is there with 
 Him. Stop and listen ! Away back in the secret cham- 
 ber of your soul His voice speaks. Listen ! Would 
 your loved one send any other message than that? In 
 the awful extremity of a world's need, all heaven can 
 have but one message for each of us, while the world 
 can have but one answer which it could feel was fitted 
 to it. 
 
 Heaven's united message is, Follow Jesus. The an- 
 s\\ ering message should be the gift of self to God. 
 Then that bond of blessed companionship is completed, 
 and we in our very deepest natures will enjoy that most 
 holy relation, simply waiting for that bright and 
 golden moment when the veil shall be riven, the vision 
 expanded, the weary body divested, and we move, not 
 out to, but into that realm where we shall be gathered 
 
OUR J\4MSHED LOT ED ONES. 6r 
 
 to our people. Happy moment — oh, longed-for hour! 
 F'eeling the sweetness of their blessed presence with us 
 now, but then seeing the celestial light of their spirits 
 divine. Now knowing something, but so weakly, of 
 the divine companionship, but then knowing as we are 
 known. 
 
A VISION BY THE SEA. 
 
 I PITCHED my tent one summer night on a point of 
 land extending far out into the sea. As darkness set- 
 tled down upon me the storm-clouds that had been 
 gathering all that day came rolling in upon the land. 
 The wild winds swept sea, hill, and vale, while great 
 angry waves dashed themselves in fury on the shore. 
 
 IT WAS AN APPALLING STORM ! 
 
 As I peered out of my tent into the blackness of the 
 night I saw a great lighthouse lifting its golden bea- 
 con far into the clouds. All night long the storm 
 raged. All night long that flaming signal was exalted 
 far into the clouds ! 
 
 But soon the morning dawned. That wild, tumult- 
 uous sea had now become an imperial highway of royal 
 purple, flecked by golden flashlights sparkling in the 
 pathwav of the sun. Flocks fed in the valleys and 
 along peaceful streams, while the flowers of the fields 
 lifted their heads, still glistening with the tear-drops 
 of the night, that they might be kissed by the lips of 
 the rising sun. 
 
 A great fleet of vessels was moored under the shelter 
 of yonder reef, having found its way into port by fol- 
 lowing the light through the stream. Their anchors 
 were cast, their sails were furled, the waves had ceased 
 from troubling: and the sailors were at rest. 
 
A VISION BY THE SEA. 63 
 
 No need of the lighthouse now, for the sun had he- 
 come the Hght thereof, and the waves had ceased their 
 trouhhng and the sailors were at rest ! 
 
 Oh, Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land ! Oh, Para- 
 dise, sweet Paradise ! Oh, Golden City, sweet Golden 
 City ! May we hold aloft the glorious light of the Gos- 
 pel of Jesus Christ above the raging seas of time ; that 
 the storm-tossed mariners may find their way by its 
 rays into the port of peace, where " the Lamb is the 
 light thereof " and " the wicked shall cease from 
 troubling and the weary shall be at rest ! "" 
 
 Oh, Golden Day ! Speed thou thy glorious com- 
 ing! 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 ^o 
 
 '^oV^ :;^^'* '^^0^' Z^'^^'-. '^oV^^ 
 
 .0^ 
 
 
 
 ^o ^^ 0<v 
 
 WERT 
 BOOKBINDING 
 
 Crantnlle, Pa 
 Nov -Dec 198