The Winepress

by Christine Beals

Now questions that at first seemed to come to her timid, elusive, quivered before Mrs. Thorpe's mental vision and insinuated themselves into her consciousness. Was this material evidence before her eyes the substance and reality of that which she saw, or was there something hidden from her mortal vision, something in this scene before her which her senses could not recognize? Here before her was the seed-bed, the seed and the form of the fruitage; but were these the reality, or were they but the fleeting forms of matter, and the divine Idea the only reality? Which is real, the plant and the flower, or the life of the plant and the flower? These questions that had come to her haltingly, falteringly, gradually assumed larger proportions until they included herself, the universe, and all that the universe contains. Time, place, conditions, and all material relations shifted and changed, and she saw God's world, and God's power controlling it; a just and majestic God asking only conformity to the perfect conditions he has created.

Now all of Mrs. Thorpe's preconceived knowledge vanished and melted away. Every structure that she had built had been founded on shifting, undulating sand, upon her belief of life in matter. The ideas and conceits of her childhood, the ardor and energy of her young womanhood, and all the strain of recent years all passed before her, and all were empty, vain, human and finite. She saw mortals bowed and broken, guided by finite wisdom and helped by finite power, trying to do God's work; struggling and agonizing, trying to aid Infinite strength, and to supplement Infinite wisdom.

She saw man--upright, holy, divine--yet dominated by his false beliefs and his conceptions of evil, believing himself the sinful, unclean thing that his distorted vision pictures him to be; ignorant, misguided, toiling in pain and sorrow. Christ, ah, Christ! Who would not be a Christ, a Savior of men; who would not sacrifice this stage of life, yea, die a thousand deaths, if by pain and sacrifice he might show this bruised and broken people the perfection of life, and the harmony of the condition in which Infinite love has placed them?

Every cord that held her to the moorings of her old belief gave way, and Mrs. Thorpe found herself alone on a shoreless, fathomless sea; no sail was in sight, no hand reached out to her. Adrift--alone--there was no measuring of time or space. But she was not afraid, for the science of Being had been revealed to her. Alone--yet he whose voice stilled the sea, he whose voice stills human passion, fear, pain and suffering was with her, and she walked upon the water with this Man of Galilee.

In their blindness and error men have produced that which is not beautiful, and which is not good, but there are no blemishes in God's world, and there are no iniquities. The God of love has put beauty, and grace, and joy, and gladness into everything that He has created.

Now Mrs. Thorpe saw before her all that has been, all that is, and all that is to be; and her eyes were not holden to the emblems and symbols through which the solution of God's world was hers. "Neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," shall be able now to separate her from the love of God.

The peace that passeth understanding is like a calm on mighty waters, like the strength of rugged forests, like the blending of many melodies. Mrs. Thorpe fell on her knees and buried her face in her hands. But this attitude was not taken to humble herself before the God that she had found; this Deity that was revealed to her was the great and perfect Whole, and herself she recognized as the spiritual image and likeness of God.

"There is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." "The inspiration of the Almighty;" there is no other source of supply, no other way to understand than to let the Spirit speak to the "Spirit in man." Mrs. Thorpe's mind was emptied of worldly wisdom; the tablets of her heart were renewed clean as an unwritten page. Freed from the thought of her material selfhood, and her intellectual beliefs, she was receptive, ready and waiting in the hands of the Master of men.

The preparation of the clay that is to be molded into a work of art is of first importance; and when this preparation is completed the artist begins his work of bringing beauty and grace out of a pliable, yielding mass ready to his hand. When a piece of ground is to bring forth a harvest of golden grain or succulent fruit the ground must first be prepared. There must be an upheaval; the weeds and tares must be uprooted; the plow-share and the harrow must do their work; the soil must be torn and broken and turned up to the mellowing sun, and then the seed is sown.

Upon her knees Mrs. Thorpe was not denied the knowledge that her years of suffering were years of preparation; that the anguish and pain wrought by her great desire had not been in vain. When she arose to her feet she knew that she had found the Kingdom of Heaven; it was within her.