“And what is this? Oh, how beautiful! just where our Father has built His mansions. Look! those snows and glaciers reflect His Glory! I can see it! That blue canopy overhead, and those forests below, are like the Earth-Beautiful He made for us, and there is the roseate light of a Holy Place. God is there! Yes! I know it—I feel it! He is here, too! Yes! surely. He is here! How holy is this place!”
Then assured of the nearness of her Father Creator, she tried to grasp some idea of the meaning of His Presence to her; and unto her was granted a glimpse of the very highest possible conception of the facts visible in nature, of things as they are, for the study of both science and religion.
She stood in the presence of the loftiest mountains upon the globe; and what were they? What was this earth at her feet?—the world and all that is therein!
“The Lord is in His Holy Temple! The Lord! and His Temple! Holy! both Holy—God and His Temple. I can see that, too! He made it, and all that is therein. He said it was ‘good,’—it is—it must be Holy! It is His own.”
The word “Temple,” and what it implied, impressed itself upon her mind, as if it revealed some tremendous fact in nature which before she had not fully realized. She gazed right and left, up the cross-valleys, and into the forest depths; then finally towards the Celestial Summits bathed in that roseate light which symbolized so much to her personally since her earlier experience when her attention had been called to it by her earthly father. What before she had really seen but dimly, yet strong enough to be a constant aid to enlightenment, now became a living reality. It was verily a temple; and anew she began to idealize her surroundings.
“It is a Cathedral! this whole region! a mighty Cathedral! God’s own, built by Him here in these mountains, the Himalaya Cathedral!—the greatest upon Earth!” And while possessed by this vivid thought, there came a still small voice, as if from a sub-intelligence, whispering: “His service is here, His ritual.” She heard this but faintly; then, rejoicing in her idealization, she went straight on to picture the Cathedral.
“Look! there is the Nave, this great valley! and there is the crypt beneath, that sombre forest far below! There is plenty of room in that Nave for the congregation—free seats everywhere. I can see it filled with all sorts of people. There! there is some one now, in that tea-garden under those tree ferns, a party of them looking towards the blue sky. They wish to know what the weather is going to be like, wish to know what God intends it to be, for they are looking upwards; perhaps that is their way of worshiping! who knows?
“And there is the Transept! there is more than one, those valleys; they reach to the end of the earth. How curious that so many of these valleys lead directly up to the front, not so ‘crosswise’ as in other churches. I never saw a Cathedral so well arranged for approaching and hearing. Ah! there’s a Chapel in that transept! it looks more like a hut! some one within is burning incense—it comes out of the chimney! Well, we’ll call it incense, and that home is a chapel.”
And while she mused, a little group of natives crossed an open field and entered a clump of trees surrounded by shrubbery, a thicket. “Some other sort of worship,” she thought. “I wonder what they are going to do? I’ll wait and see.”
Numerous parties on ponies passed along the mountain roads, ascending and descending from different levels. “Why, this Cathedral has most extensive galleries, and how many real workers all on the move! Well, I rather like a gallery at times; one can sit up there and not feel too conspicuous, only worship.”