“Interpreter, say.”
“But I hear the songs of birds?”
“There they are, this side the dark exit: but in a cage, supported above the current by an hour-glass and sickle.”
“Grim emblems.”
“Yes; but it’s a grim truth that love’s joy notes here are caged, hampered and transitory. The hour-glass and sickle are, when those notes are sung, ever.
“Look to the West.”
“I look, and see nothing but the picture of a sunset.”
“Yes, and that curtains the ‘Rest of the Aged’ in our temple.”
“But whither am I led by these words?”
“Led to look toward sunset, for morning, by faith. You remember the Christ was never old; neither are they who draw their life from Him. The ‘Ancient of Days’ not only has, but gives, eternal youth. Oh, there were young men at His sepulcher; yet those angels could count their years by centuries! Let the hour-glass make record and the sickle reap; the passion flower recalls a vernal life, where the oldest saints are the youngest, where all existence is growth, refreshment, glory, exultation! There, love is law and law is love, and to love is to live and to live is to love. We get a breath of this life here as we enter the vicinage of the immortal pair, Jesus and Mary; and we get a distant view of the whole from the mountains of the gospel.”