"This time there was no mistake. The thousand bolts flew back, the ponderous brazen gate moved forward and back, like a vast curtain, as if swayed by a gentle wind; while a million silvery voices sang gloriously, 'In all cases have a spirit of forgiveness!'
"Joyously I tried again, intuition plainly telling me that only one thing more was necessary to end my lonely pilgrimage, and exalt me to the blessed companionship of the dear ones whom I so longed to join in their glory-walks adown the celestial glades and vistas of God's Garden of the Beatitudes. I spoke again:
"'I have fallen from man's esteem in pursuance of what appeared to be my duty. A new faith sprung up in the land, and unwise zealots brought shame and bitter reproach against and upon it. Lured by false reasoning, I yielded to the fascinations of a specious sophistry, and for awhile my soul languished under the iron bondage of a powerful and glittering falsehood. At length, seeing my errors, I strove to correct them, and to sift the chaff from the true and solid grain; but the people refused to believe me honest, and did not, would not understand me; but they insisted that in denouncing Error, I ignored the living truths of God's great economy; yet still I labored on, trying to correct my faults, and to cultivate the queen of human virtues, Charity!' Scarcely had this last word escaped my lips, than the massive portals flew wide open, disclosing to my enraptured gaze such a sight of supernal and celestial beauty, grandeur, and magnificence, as human language is totally inadequate to describe; for it was such, as it stood there revealed before my ravished soul; and I may not here reveal the wondrous things I saw and heard.... Lara, Lara, my beautiful one, the dear dead maiden of the long agone, stood before me, just within the lines of Paradise. She loved me still—aye, the dear maiden of my youth had not forgotten the lover of her early and her earthly days—
"'When I was a boy, and she was a girl,
In the city by the sea,'
ere the cruel Death had snatched her from my arms, and love, a long, long time ago; for the love of the Indian, as his hatred, survives the grave.... And she said, 'Paschal, my beloved—lone student of the weary world—I await thy entrance here. But thou mayest not enter now, because no hatred can live inside these gates of Bliss. Wear it out, discard it. Thou art yet incomplete, thy work is still unfinished. Thou hast found the keys! Go back to earth, and give them to thy fellow-men. Teach, first thyself, and then thy brethren, that Usefulness, Love, Labor, Forgiveness, Faith and Charity, are the only keys which are potent to cure all ill, and unbar the Gates of Glory.'
"'Lara! Beautiful Lara, I obey thee! Wait for me, love. I am coming soon!' I cried, as she slowly retreated, and the gate closed again. 'Not yet, not yet,' I cried, as with extended arms I implored the beauteous vision to remain—but a single instant longer. But she was gone. I fell to the ground in a swoon. When I awoke again, I found the night had grown two hours older than it was when I sat down in the chair in my little chamber in Bush street, the little chamber which I occupied in the goodly city of the Golden Gate."
Thus spake the Rosicrucian. We were all deeply moved at the recital, and one after the other we retired to our rooms, pondering on the story and its splendid moral. Next day we reached Acapulco, and not till we had left and were far on our way toward Panama, did we have an opportunity of listening to the sermon to the eloquent text I have just recounted.
At length he gave it, as nearly as it can possibly be reproduced, in the following words: