“There is no mistake,” persisted the girl, with gentle obstinacy, smiling delightedly at my dogmatism, “I came here because I loved you. Do you not see? In loving you, I loved—for the first time in my life I loved—goodness. I really did. And when I got to this place, I found out that goodness was the same as God. And I had been getting the love of God into my heart, all that time, in that strange way, and never knew how it was with me, until—Oh, Miss Mary, who do you think it was, WHO, that met me within an hour after I died?”
“It was our Master,” she added in an awe-struck, yet rapturous whisper, that thrilled me through. “It was He Himself. He was the first, for I had nobody, as I told you, belonging to me in this holy place, to care for a wretch like me.—He was the first to meet me! And it was He who taught me everything I had to learn. It was He who made me feel acquainted and at home. It was He who took me on from love of you, to love of Him, as you put one foot after another in learning to walk after you have had a terrible sickness. And it was He who never reminded me—never once reminded me—of the sinful creature I had been. Never, by one word or look, from that hour to this day, has He let me feel ashamed in Heaven. That is what He is!” cried the girl, turning upon me, in a little sudden, sharp way she used to have; her face and form were so transfigured before me, as she spoke, that it seemed as if she quivered with excess of light, and were about to break away and diffuse herself upon the radiant air, like song, or happy speech, or melting color.
“Die for Him!” she said after a passionate silence. “If I could die everlastingly and everlastingly and everlastingly, to give Him any pleasure, or to save Him any pain— But then, that’s nothing,” she added, “I love Him. That is all that means.—And I’ve only got to live everlastingly instead. That is the way He has treated me—me!”
IX.
The shore upon which we had landed was thickly populated, as I have said. Through a sweep of surpassingly beautiful suburbs, we approached the streets of a town. It is hard to say why I should have been surprised at finding in this place the signs of human traffic, philanthropy, art, and study—what otherwise I expected, who can say? My impressions, as Marie Sauvée led me through the city, had the confusion of sudden pleasure. The width and shining cleanliness of the streets, the beauty and glittering material of the houses, the frequent presence of libraries, museums, public gardens, signs of attention to the wants of animals, and places of shelter for travelers such as I had never seen in the most advanced and benevolent of cities below,—these were the points that struck me most forcibly.
The next thing, which in a different mood might have been the first that impressed me was the remarkable expression of the faces that I met or passed. No thoughtful person can have failed to observe, in any throng, the preponderant look of unrest and dissatisfaction in the human eye. Nothing, to a fine vision, so emphasizes the isolation of being, as the faces of people in a crowd. In this new community to which I had been brought, that old effect was replaced by a delightful change. I perceived, indeed, great intentness of purpose here, as in all thickly-settled regions; the countenances that passed me indicated close conservation of social force and economy of intellectual energy; these were people trained by attrition with many influences, and balanced with the conflict of various interests. But these were men and women, busy without hurry, efficacious without waste; they had ambition without unscrupulousness, power without tyranny, success without vanity, care without anxiety, effort without exhaustion,—hope, fear, toil, uncertainty it seemed, elation it was sure—but a repose that it was impossible to call by any other name than divine, controlled their movements, which were like the pendulum of a golden clock whose works are out of sight. I watched these people with delight. Great numbers of them seemed to be students, thronging what we should call below colleges, seminaries, or schools of art, or music, or science. The proportion of persons pursuing some form of intellectual acquisition struck me as large. My little guide, to whom I mentioned this, assented to the fact, pointing out to me a certain institution we had passed, at which she herself was, she said, something like a primary scholar, and from which she had been given a holiday to meet me as she did, and conduct me through the journey that had been appointed for me on that day. I inquired of her what her studies might be like; but she told me that she was hardly wise enough as yet to explain to me what I could learn for myself when I had been longer in this place, and when my leisure came for investigating its attractions at my own will.
“I am uncommonly ignorant, you know,” said Marie Sauvée humbly, “I have everything to learn. There is book knowledge and thought knowledge and soul knowledge, and I have not any of these. I was as much of what you used to call a heathen, as any Fiji-Islander you gave your missionaries to. I have so much to learn, that I am not sent yet upon other business such as I should like.”
Upon my asking Marie Sauvée what business this might be, she hesitated. “I have become ambitious in Heaven,” she answered slowly. “I shall never be content till I am fit to be sent to the worst woman that can be found—no matter which side of death—I don’t care in what world—I want to be sent to one that nobody else will touch; I think I might know how to save her. It is a tremendous ambition!” she repeated. “Preposterous for the greatest angel there is here! And yet I—I mean to do it.”
I was led on in this way by Marie Sauvée, through and out of the city into the western suburbs; we had approached from the east, and had walked a long distance. There did not occur to me, I think, till we had made the circuit of the beautiful town, one thing, which, when I did observe it, struck me as, on the whole, the most impressive that I had noticed. “I have not seen,” I said, stopping suddenly, “I have not seen a poor person in all this city.”
“Nor an aged one, have you?” asked Marie Sauvée, smiling.