“The picture of heaven is getting realized in my mind, Johnny—though I know how poor an idea of it it must needs be. A wide, illimitable space; the great white throne, and the saints in their white robes falling down before it, and the harpists singing to their harps.”
“You must think of it often.”
“Very often. The other night in bed, when I was between sleep and waking, I seemed to see the end—to go through it. I suppose it was one part thought, and three parts dream. I was dead, Johnny: I had already my white robe on, and angels were carrying me up to heaven. The crystal river was flowing along, beautiful flowers on its banks, and the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. I seemed to see it all, Johnny. Such flowers! such hues; brighter than any jewels ever seen. These colours are lovely”—pointing to the sky—“but they are tame compared with those I saw. Myriads of happy people were flitting about in white, redeemed as I was; the atmosphere shone with a soft light, the most delicious music floated in it. Oh, Johnny, think of this world with its troubles and disappointments and pains; and then think of that other one!”
The sunset was fading. The pale colours of the north were blending together like the changing hues of the opal.
“There are two things I have more than loved here,” he went on. “Colours and music. Not the clashing of many instruments, or the mere mechanical playing, however classically correct, of one who has acquired his art by hard labour: but the soft, sweet, dreamy touch that stirs the heart. Such as yours, Johnny. Stop, old fellow. I know what you would say. That your playing is no playing at all, compared with that of a skilled hand; that the generality of people would wonder what there is in it: but for myself, I could listen to you from night till morning.”
It was very foolish of him to say this; but I liked to hear it.
“It is the sort of music, as I have always fancied, that we shall hear in heaven. It was the sort I seemed to hear the other night in my dream; soft, low, full of melody. That sort, you know, Johnny; not the same. That was this earth’s sweetest music etherealized.”
Hearing him talk like this, the idea struck me that it might be better for us all generally if we turned our thoughts more on heaven and on the life we may find there. It would not make us do our duty any the less earnestly in this world.
“Then take colours,” he went on. “No one knows the intense delight I have felt in them. On high days and holidays, my mother wears that big diamond ring of hers—you know it well, Johnny. Often and often have I stolen it from her finger, to let the light flash upon it, and lost myself for half-an-hour—ay, and more—gazing entranced on its changing hues. I love to see the rays in the drops of the chandeliers; I love to watch the ever-varying shades on a wide expanse of sea. Now these two things that I have so enjoyed here, bright colours and music, we have the promise of finding in heaven.”
“Ay. The Bible tells us so.”