"What does the world seek most ardently?" it demanded—"The Love of God?—or the Love of Self? If it seeks the first, all things in heaven and earth shall be added to its desire—if the second, all shall be taken from it, even that which it hath!"
I had, as I thought, no answer to give, but I covered my weeping eyes with both hands and knelt before the unseen speaker as to some great Spirit enthroned.
"Love is not Love that loves Itself,"—went on the Voice—"Self is the Image, not the God. Wouldst thou have Eternal Life? Then find the secret in Eternal Love!—'Love, which can move worlds and create universes,—the love of soul for soul, angel for angel, god for god!"
I raised my head, and, uncovering my eyes, looked up. But I could see nothing save that all-penetrating light which imprisoned me as it were in a circle of fire.
"Love is that Power which clasps the things of eternity and makes them all its own,"—said the Voice in stronger tones of deeper music—"It builds its solar system, its stars, its planets with a thought!—it wakes all beauty, all delight with a smile!—it lives not only now, but for ever, in a heaven of pure joy where every thousand years is but one summer day! To Love there is no time, no space, no age, no death!—what it gives it receives again,—what it longs for comes to it without seeking—God withholds nothing from the faithful soul!"
I still knelt, wondering if these words were intended only for me or for some other listener, for I could not now feel sure that I was without a companion in this strange experience.
"There is only one Way of Life,"—went on the Voice—"Only one way—the
Way of Love! Whosoever loves greatly lives greatly; whosoever misprizes
Love is dead though living. Give all thy heart and soul to Love if thou
wouldst be immortal!—for without Love thou mayst seek God through all
Eternity and never find Him!"
I waited,—there was a brief silence. Then a sudden wave of music broke upon my ears,—a breaking foam of rhythmic melody that rose and fell in a measured cadence of solemn sound. Raising my eyes in fear and awe, I saw the lambent light around me begin to separate into countless gradations of delicate colour till presently it resembled a close and brilliant network of rainbow tints intermingled with purest gold. It was as if millions of lines had been drawn with exquisite fineness and precision so as to cause intersection or 'reciprocal meeting' at given points of calculation, and these changed into various dazzling forms too brilliant for even my dreaming sight to follow. Yet I felt myself compelled to study one particular section of these lines which shone before me in a kind of pale brightness, and while I looked it varied to more and more complex 'moods' of colour and light, if one might so express it, till, by gradual degrees, it returned again to the simpler combination.
"Thus are the destinies of human lives woven and interwoven,"—said the Voice—"From infinite and endless points of light they grow and part and mingle together, till the destined two are one. Often they are entangled and disturbed by influences not their own—but from interference which through weakness or fear they have themselves permitted. But the tangle is for ever unravelled by Time,—the parted threads are brought together again in the eternal weaving of Spirit and Matter. No power, human or divine, can entirely separate the lives which God has ordained shall come together. Man's ordainment is not God's ordainment! Wrong threads in the weaving are broken—no matter how,—no matter when! Love must be tender yet resolved!—Love must not swerve from its given pledge!—Love must be All or Nothing!"
The light network of living golden rays still quivered before my eyes, till all at once they seemed to change to a rippling sea of fine flame with waves that gently swayed to and fro, tipped with foam-crests of prismatic hue like broken rainbows. Wave after wave swept forward and broke in bright amethystine spray close to me where I knelt, and as I watched this moving mass of radiant colour in absorbed fascination, one wave, brilliant as the flush of a summer's dawn, rippled towards me, and then gently retiring, left a single rose, crimson and fragrant, close within my reach. I stooped and caught it quickly—surely it was a real rose from some dewy garden of the earth, and no dream!