“I remember that once, when Dr. Lyman Abbott was visiting him here in Washington, he pointed out a little brown bird in a tree, just over his head, and while he talked, in his own charming enthusiastic way, about the markings of its plumage, reached up into the tree, took the bird from the bough, held it in his hand to illustrate his impromptu lecture, and then replaced it, unharmed and unaffrighted, upon its shady perch.
“Perhaps that bird, dwelling near his home, knew him already. But there could be no such explanation of the incident which occurred far from here, when Mr. Gibson, sitting with friends on a hotel piazza, called their attention to a humming-bird, hovering over the flowers before them, and saying, ‘Would you like to see him nearer?’ put out his hand, and the little creature, who would scarcely light on a blossom, rested upon the finger of his new friend, and submitted to the inspection of human eyes. Mr. Gibson was himself amazed at this proof of spontaneous trust.
“He used to tell, with a sort of thankful awe, how one day, in Brooklyn, he went through crowded, noisy streets to register his name as a voter, in one of those barren, unattractive places which are ordinarily rented by the State for this temporary purpose; and how, as he stood there in a group of men, waiting for his turn, a white dove flew in from the street, circled round the dingy room, alighted upon his shoulder, received with murmuring delight his caresses, and then flew out. No one knew whence it came or whither it went.
“And he told also, how once he went into the Brooklyn Library, to examine a colored plate, representing a certain butterfly, which he wished to reproduce in illustration of an article; and how, as he stood with the book open before him, in the dim little corner-alcove which used to be the office of his friend Mr. Bardwell, the librarian, a butterfly of that very species fluttered around the great hall into the alcove, and, hovering above his head, dropped at last upon the book, and folded its wings by the side of its own pictures.
“We smile at such coincidences; but the fact that they happen over and over again to one man suggests a coincidence beyond a mere accident—a coincidence of life with life and love with answering love. Indeed, what do we know of these wild creatures that surround us, and seem to be drawn so easily to some of us? What have we done to lead us to know them? We ignore them, or we chase and trap and slay them, or we imprison them and play with them for our own amusement. How would it be if we truly and unselfishly loved them?
“The apostle represents the whole creation as groaning and travailing in pain, waiting for some new manifestation of the human children of God. And the last word of our Master bids us go into all the world and tell the glad tidings, not merely to every man, but to ‘every creature.’ Is there not, then, an evangel of joy for those humbler companions of mankind? When men shall have advanced so far as to cease hating and oppressing one another, may they not still advance to a true sympathy with all living things? And would not that make indeed a new heaven and a new earth, populous with friendships? Of such a joyous consummation, men like our brother whose life we celebrate to-day are prophets and forerunners. Thank God for them!
“And they may also encourage us to stimulate a love of nature in our growing children. We, who have formed our habits of human exclusiveness, cannot say to ourselves in momentary enthusiasm, ‘Let us be as Will Gibson was! Let us begin at once to cultivate the acquaintance of all living things!’ We have outgrown the art. We stand embarrassed in the presence of a squirrel or a bird, and, far from knowing how to attract it, are fain to be satisfied if, by doing nothing at all, we avoid scaring it. But our children, rightly encouraged, may develop unsuspected powers of sympathy. In the great blessing which Mr. Gibson’s work conferred upon us all, the dear old Master of the Gunnery, who cherished into flame the spark of his first inspiration, lived, and still lives, to see the reward of his own loving labors.
“But in another and yet higher aspect, this life was a precious gift to us by virtue of its strong support to our faith in immortality. If all men died in old age, and by slow decay of strength and faculty, it might be hard to imagine the new birth and new beginning which should rejuvenate them. But when a vigorous, full life is withdrawn from our sight in the prime of its power, the very momentum of it carries our faith forward with it. It is like an arrow, shot towards the forest by a strong-armed archer. Has it ceased to move because, in swift mid-flight, it enters the shadow and we suddenly lose sight of it?
“‘The avalanche that has slid a mile will not stop for a tombstone!’
“Still another hint of immortality—and a truer one—is given by the character developed in earthly life. Science, it is true, affords us, as yet, no demonstration of a future life. Perhaps we shall always rest for that truth, as we do to-day, upon the word of our Lord, who went and came so easily between the two chambers of the Father’s house. Yet science has done much in these later times to illuminate His declaration. It has hinted to us a God, patient and tender through the ages of ages, carrying the world upon His bosom and nursing its slow growth, from stage to stage, through crystal, cell, and soul, that He might at last fill the spaces immeasurable with loving and beloved human souls, as dear companions of Himself. He cannot afford, it seems to us, to destroy perpetually the fairest fruits of this long preparation. They have lain upon His heart and felt the pulse-beat of the Universe. He is no Arabian tyrant, to slay them one by one, every morning. Having loved His own, He loves them to the end, and beyond the seeming end—for love is immortality. Our brother, who knew and loved every one of God’s trees on these hills of Washington,—shall he not have access to the Trees of Life, that grow by the River of Life? Shall his spirit, attuned already to the divine harmonies of earth, be dumb amid the songs of heaven? Nay; such completed souls declare the Life Eternal, echoing to us the Master’s word of hope: ‘I live; and because I live, ye shall live also!’