“Is it possible you do not know —— ——?”
My informant gave a name which indeed was not unfamiliar to me; it was that of a woman who had united to extreme beauty of private character, and a high type of faith in invisible truths, life-long devotion to an unpopular philanthropy. She had never been called a “great” woman on earth. Her influence had not been large. Her cause had never been the fashion, while she herself was living. Society had never amused itself by adopting her, even to the extent of a parlor lecture. Her name, so far as it was familiar to the public at all, had been the synonym of a poor zealot, a plain fanatic, to be tolerated for her conscientiousness and—avoided for her earnestness. Since her death, the humane consecration which she represented had marched on like a conquering army over her grave. Earth, of which she was not worthy, had known her too late. Heaven was proud to do honor to the spiritual foresight and sustained self-denial, as royal as it was rare.
I remember, also, being deeply touched by a sight upon which I chanced, one morning, when I was strolling about the suburbs of the city, seeking the refreshment of solitude before the duties of the day began. For, while I was thus engaged, I met our Master, suddenly. He was busily occupied with others, and, beyond the deep recognition of His smile, I had no converse with Him. He was followed at a little distance, as He was apt to be, by a group of playing children; but He was in close communion with two whom I saw to be souls newly-arrived from the lower life. One of these was a man—I should say he had been a rough man, and had come out of a rude life—who conversed with Him eagerly but reverently, as they walked on towards the town. Upon the other side, our Lord held with His own hand the hand of a timid, trembling woman, who scarcely dared raise her eyes from the ground; now and then she drew His garment’s edge furtively to her lips, and let it fall again, with the slow motion of one who is in a dream of ecstasy. These two people, I judged, had no connection with each other beyond the fact that they were simultaneous new-comers to the new country, and had, perhaps, both borne with them either special need or merit, I could hardly decide which. I took occasion to ask a neighbor, an old resident of the city, and wise in its mysteries, what he supposed to be the explanation of the scene before us, and why these two were so distinguished by the favor of Him whose least glance made holiday in the soul of any one of us. It was then explained to me, that the man about whom I had inquired was the hero of a great calamity, with which the lower world was at present occupied. One of the most frightful railway accidents of this generation had been averted, and the lives of four hundred helpless passengers saved, by the sublime sacrifice of this locomotive engineer, who died (it will be remembered) a death of voluntary and unique torture to save his train. All that could be said of the tragedy was that it held the essence of self-sacrifice in a form seldom attained by man. At the moment I saw this noble fellow, he had so immediately come among us that the expression of physical agony had hardly yet died out of his face, and his eye still blazed with the fire of his tremendous deed.
“But who is the woman?” I asked.
“She was a delicate creature—sick—died of the fright and shock; the only passenger on the train who did not escape.”
I inquired why she too was thus preferred; what glorious deed had she done, to make her so dear to the Divine Heart?
“She? Ah, she,” said my informant, “was only one of the household saints. She had been notable among celestial observers for many years. You know the type I mean—shy, silent—never thinks of herself, scarcely knows she has a self—toils, drudges, endures, prays; expects nothing of her friends, and gives all; hopes for little, even from her Lord, but surrenders everything; full of religious ideals, not all of them theoretically wise, but practically noble; a woman ready to be cut to inch pieces for her faith in an invisible Love that has never apparently given her anything in particular. Oh, you know the kind of woman: has never had anything of her own, in all her life—not even her own room—and a whole family adore her without knowing it, and lean upon her like infants without seeing it. We have been watching for this woman’s coming. We knew there would be an especial greeting for her. But nobody thought of her accompanying the engineer. Come! Shall we not follow, and see how they will be received? If I am not mistaken, it will be a great day in the city.”
XI.
Among the inquiries that must be raised by my fragmentary recital, I am only too keenly aware of the difficulty of answering one which I do not see my way altogether to ignore. I refer to that affecting the domestic relations of the eternal world.
It will be readily seen that I might not be permitted to share much of the results of my observation in this direction, with earthly curiosity, or even earthly anxiety. It is not without thought and prayer for close guidance that I suffer myself to say, in as few words as possible, that I found the unions which go to form heavenly homes so different from the marriage relations of earth, in their laws of selection and government, that I quickly understood the meaning of our Lord’s few revealed words as to that matter; while yet I do not find myself at liberty to explain either the words or the facts. I think I cannot be wrong in adding, that in a number of cases, so great as to astonish me, the marriages of earth had no historic effect upon the ties of Heaven. Laws of affiliation uniting soul to soul in a relation infinitely closer than a bond, and more permanent than any which the average human experience would lead to if it were socially a free agent, controlled the attractions of this pure and happy life, in a manner of which I can only say that it must remain a mystery to the earthly imagination. I have intimated that in some cases the choices of time were so blessed as to become the choices of Eternity. I may say, that if I found it lawful to utter the impulse of my soul, I should cry throughout the breadth of the earth a warning to the lightness, or the haste, or the presumption, or the mistake that chose to love for one world, when it might have loved for two.