Parables of Life Class JPS^-SSS- Book :p.3_ Copyright N!*,,, COPYRIGHT DEPOStr. i^fel^ Parables of Life Parables of Life Hamilton Wright Mabie New York The Outlook Company 1902 THE LiBHtARY eF GONG.TESS, Two C':viw ..ioeivE* MAR. 24 1902 COI»V«HB»iT ENTRY CLmS4 ^ XXfl;. No copY a TSs-S-^^ -^3 I'l Xj Copyright, 1902, by The Outlook Company THE DEVINNE PRESS To Lyman Abbott Contents The Inflexible Guide The Waiting Figure The Last Judgment Behind the Mask . . At the End of the Journey That Which Abides The Touch of Nature . Out of the Agony . . Dream and ReaUty . Out of Pain .... The Awakening . 9 19 25 31 37 45 S3 63 71 81 95 THE INFLEXIBLE GUIDE THE INFLEXIBLE GUIDE THEY stood together in a fra- grant garden, Love holding the child by the hand and looking down into its face with a tender- ness so deep that it held in its heart the compassion, the sacrifice, the passionate yearning of universal motherhood. Long ago Love had come into the world, and through immemorial years she had walked the stony and terrible ways of life with innumerable children, but the light of heaven had not vanished from her face and the purity of II PJRJBLES OF LIFE God lay inviolate in the depths of her beautiful eyes. There was so much gaiety in her mood that sunny morning, such joy radiated from her face, that the child thought his companion the most winning playfellow in the world. In those deep eyes, luminous with devotion, no denial could find a home ; within those tender and protecting arms no sorrow or bitterness could come ! So Love always seems to those who watch her face and do not know her heart. Two things Love learned in heaven: infinite tenderness and perfect loyalty to truth. The child saw the play of the tenderness rising like a great 12 THE INFLEXIBLE GUIDE tide from unfathomable springs; far beyond, in the years that were to come, he was to learn the deeper compassion of truth. The journey lengthened and still the boy looked up to the face of Love, and Love smiled like an un- clouded sun. But there came a time when he would walk alone and find his own way, and the boy loosed his hand from the hand of Love and chose another path. Un- seen, Love still walked beside him and stood between him and many a peril, and in the darkness made a light about him which came the man knew not whence. But the face of Love was often infinitely 13 PJRJBLES OF LIFE sad, and sometimes there shone through its beautiful tenderness a flash of white hght which smote the very heart of the man, so that he cried out in pain and turned to Love to be comforted ; and, be- hold ! the hand of Love grasped his as firmly as before, but there was infinite sternness, touched with pas- sionate sorrow, in her eyes. And while the man looked to be led gently in fragrant places. Love guided him along perilous preci- pices and over bitter roads and up great heights, relentlessly urging him forward, herself silent, resolute, inflexible. And the man rebelled in his heart and strove to free him- 14 "THE INFLEXIBLE GUIDE self, and cried out that another had usurped the place of Love and stolen her raiment. And Love made no answer, but strode on, inflexible as the will of God and terrible as his purity. Her face was turned away and the man did not see the anguish there, the drops of blood, the print of thorns; did not know that his suffering was but a shadow of the pain in the heart of Love, and the weariness of the way on his soul but a dim reflection of its bit- terness in hers. By as much as her heart was deeper and her spirit purer than his was her cross heavier and her anguish more poignant. He suffered because the way was 15 PARABLES OF LIFE hard; she suffered because the end of it was shame and misery and death. As he strove to break away, she held his hand the more firmly; as he strove to find the easier path, she implacably set his fiset in the harder road. He thought her harsh and stern and unseeing ; and her eyes were wide with the terror of that to which he was blind, and in her agony she wept great tears of an- guish. And when the man found she would not leave him, he ceased to resist and let her take her way ; and after a little the road began to grow easier, the ascent less precipi- i6 rHE INFLEXIBLE GUIDE tous, the trial of strength less pain- ful. And presently they came to a height, and the man looked back and saw whither the path he had meant to take led, and he shud- dered and fell at the feet of the inflexible and terrible figure at his side. And again, as in childhood, he looked up into the face of his guide ; and, behold ! Love smiled down on him with eyes full of in- finite tenderness. 17 THE WAITING FIGURE THE WAITING FIGURE A HOST of stars watching in the vast silence of the night; the earth, a great ball, still and white and dim with sleep, sweeping through illimitable space; fading in the distance the long, faint glow of time, visible for a moment like a beam of light on a measureless sea; suddenly an apparition, born of the night and the stars and the endless movement of the years as they steal out of eternity and recede again into its depths, which every man sees and no one knows. The 21 PJRJBLES OF LIFE figure is vague, mysterious, veiled from head to foot in soft radiancy ; a form undefined and elusive, but with hidden nobility of line, molded like a goddess, and like a goddess shielded from the intimate gaze ot men. About this sublime figure floats a mist, in which light and darkness are magically blended, half revealing and half concealing, as if a soul were in the process of birth — a soul penetrated with strange, dim, obscure radiations of the re- mote past, and waiting for the plas- tic touch of the future; old as the stars, but wearing the garb of im- mortal youth; bearing the impress of immemorial years, and yet sensi- 22 "THE ^JITING FIGURE tive to the stir of the forces that play through the life of to-day, and to the shaping touch of to-morrow. A mysterious figure, seen by all and known by none, with a face that seems on the verge of clear revela- tion into familiar features, with in- timations of lifelong acquaintance, and yet waiting for some final act of creation, some touch that shall define and fix and turn the plastic stuff of life into perfect distinctness and immortality. Beside every man the figure seems to stand silent, ex- pectant, mysterious ; waiting the impress of his hand ; full of all no- bility of line and feature; a shape for the touch of genius to mold 23 PJRJBLES OF LIFE into a beauty akin with the stars, and yet at the mercy of the hand that strikes bHndly, passionately, idly, ignobly; the stuff of immor- tality waiting for myriad-handed time to mar or glorify ; coming from the Infinite to set the eternal beauty again in the ways of men, or to bear again the old marks of those who waste and spoil and de- stroy the fair visions of the soul: the veiled figure of the New Year, standing mysterious and silent be- side every man, under the vast and solemn arch of the midnight sky. 24 THE LAST JUDGMENT THE LAST JUDGMENT SLOWLY and painlessly con- sciousness returned. He looked about him and remembered. It seemed but a moment, and yet the life he had lived on earth was as far from him as if he had died a century ago. In the stillness and the measureless quiet which en- folded him after those last agoniz- ing hours he knew that he had already entered into rest. So deep was the peace which fell softly as if from the vast heights above him that he felt no curiosity and was 27 PARABLES OF LIFE without fear. He was in a new life and he must find his place in it, but he was content to wait; and while he waited his thought went swiftly back to the days when, a little child, he looked up at the sky and wondered if the stars were the lights in the streets of heaven. One by one the years rose out of the depths of his memory and he re- called, step by step, all the way he had come: childhood, youth, man- hood, and age. He read with deep- ening interest the story of his life — all his thoughts, his words, the things he had done and left undone. And as he read he knew what was good and what was ill; everything 28 rHE LAST judgment: was clear, not only in the unbroken record of what he had been, but in a sudden perception of what he was. At last he knew himself. And while he pondered one stood beside him, grave and calm and sweet with the purity that is per- fect strength. Into the face which turned toward him, touched with the light of immortal joy, he looked up and asked, " When shall I be judged?" And the answer came: "You have judged yourself. You may go where you will." 29 BEHIND THE MASK BEHIND THE MASK A FIERCE wind beating against the trees and lashing them with merciless severity ; vast drifts of snow filling every hollow and drifting aimlessly from point to point; the landscape white and bleak from horizon to horizon, locked by the cold into desolate stillness, without sound or sight of life from sky to sky across the world ; the heavens cold, steel-blue, re- *mote, inaccessible, penetrated by an arctic chill ; the air bitter, remorse- less, with a hint of death in the icy PARABLES OF LIFE breath of the gale ; everywhere si- lence save for the rush of the wind ; everywhere bonds and fetters and desolation : hard, glittering, inex- orable Death supreme in earth and air. So it looked to the solitary man who braced himself to meet the force of the gale, and, in the par- tial shelter of a great oak, gazed across the shining fields to the hills whose lines, in the crystalline air, seemed to cut into the blue. So it would have been, in reality, to a man less wise in the wisdom of Nature. This man smiled as he looked, and, if Nature had been less intent on her work far away, 34 BEHIND THE MASK she too would have smiled ; for we always smile when some one recog- nizes us behind our masks. This man knew the mask so well that, perfect as was its counterfeit of death, he was not for a moment in doubt. He knew that behind the mask life was pulsing, coursing, throbbing, beating, gathering vol- ume for a tide that should presently break like a fountain out of the depths of the earth and strew the world with flowers from sky to sky. Behind that mask, secure from all prying eyes, from profane curiosity, from the cold searching of the fact- gatherer, the ancient mysteries were being enacted the primeval miracle 35 PJRABLES OF LIFE was being wrought again; in dark- ness and silence all things were moving to birth ; behind the face of Death, Life was passionately brooding over the radiant loveliness asleep in her heart. 36 AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY SHE had come a long way, and the fatigue of the journey was on her face and the stains of it on her garments. She walked slowly and painfully, and in her uncertain step there was the record of leagues of travel. She had forgotten many hardships, for memory often sleeps in order that the spirit whose record it keeps may regain lost strength and refill the depleted lamp of life; but she remembered many bitter griefs, and the hand of sorrow had 39 PJRJBLES OF LIFE left a visible impress on her coun- tenance. And the way had long been lonely as well as sorrowful; for they who set out with her had vanished from her side, and she had gone on in a solitude that seemed to deepen about her. Far behind, as she traveled on, was the glow of the morning light, once gloriously glad over the whole earth, now faint and distant as the light of a sun that has long set. And after the morning passed there had come midday with its heat, its far-reach- ing activities, its strenuous energy, its deepening experience; and after noontide, evening ; and so long had she traveled in the darkness, the 40 at: the end of the journet little group about her silently steal- ing away one by one from her side, that it seemed to her as if it had always been night and she had al- ways been alone. Of late she had lost the feeling of motion, although she was conscious that the landscape about her was changing. She had set out with a high spirit and with a deep sense of joy in ac- tion and movement and life; but years and sorrows had saddened her, and she had come to think of her- self not only as weary and alone, but old. There was bitterness in the thought because it seemed a denial of her nature. In youth the fountain of life in her soul had 41 PJRJBLES OF LIFE seemed inexhaustible; and in later years, when the rare times of rest from grief and travel came, it had leaped up and sent a gush of joy to her heart. But now, for a long time, there had been no stir of the waters, and age had touched all that she possessed; and so, traveling slowly and painfully with set pur- pose but with fading hope, she came one dark night to the gate which closes the road. She knocked feebly and the gate swung wide on noise- less hinges. No one stood beside it, for it marked neither end nor beginning of journey, and the road ran straight through it unbroken and unchanged, save that a soft light 42 Ai: THE END OF THE JOURNET rested on it and in the air there was infinite content. No landscape was visible for the mist that lay over it, and no sounds were heard; but when one passed through, he knew without knowing that nature bloomed there with a fulfilled love- liness, and he heard without hear- ing the songs of birds which are never hushed by wintry skies. The woman rested within the gate, and as she rested she was conscious of no change in herself, but the raiment which she had worn thin and bare fell away and vanished, and she saw that the fading and fraying and wearing away had despoiled only her garments and left her untouched ; PJRJBLES OF LIFE and as she rested, the Unes vanished from her face and the pain from her limbs, and silently the fountain rose once more. The stains of travel were gone, the signs of age had vanished; once more young, but with a wisdom beyond youth, she started with buoyant step and with | a rising hope in her heart; for through the soft mist beautiful forms | seemed to be moving, and faint and far she heard voices that seemed to come out of her childhood, fresh I with the freshness of the morning, and her spirit grew faint for joy at the sound of them. 44 THAT WHICH ABIDES THAT WHICH ABIDES THE throng was moving on without order and apparently without purpose; though here and there in the crowd there were faces set toward some invisible goal, and eyes which glowed with exaltation and shone like stars in a heavenly order. The road was broad, rough, and full of pitfalls ; low clouds hung over it, sometimes lifting and showing a clear sky, sometimes settling about it so closely that its boundaries vanished in obscurity. The throng swept along as if driven 47 PJRJBLES OF LIFE forward by some inward impulse ; a few pressing on with steady step; many hurrying or loitering as the mood seized them ; and here and there one vanished with despairing face into the fog and was seen no more. Some ran freely, with buoy- ant and active step ; many wavered, broke from the crowd, rested awhile, and then patiently set out again. And ever and anon, in the hurry or the loitering, one stumbled and fell and lay prone, bewildered and ex- hausted; or rose again, stunned and hurt and soiled, and slipped back into the crowd and was swallowed up in the disorderly ranks. One there was who seemed born 48 "THJT ^HICH JBIDES to run well and with speed, and at times he shot far ahead as if he saw his goal; then, when the light was on his face, he stumbled and fell headlong and lay apparently with- out consciousness. But after a time he lifted himself and looked about him with despair on his face. Some- times a hand was stretched out toward him; oftener the throng swept on and left him prone in the mire. He staggered to his feet and began to walk slowly, as if in great pain ; and he was filled with shame, for his garments were defiled from head to foot and he was one mass of uncleanness. And some who were near drew away, that their 49 PJRJBLES OF LIFE own raiment might not be defiled; and he crept on, soUtary and sor- rowful. Now this man, whose steps were so unsteady that he seemed to fall into the pitfalls against his will and often unaware, hated his own uncleanness and counted himself unworthy the companionship of the white-robed men and women about him. And ever as he fell he loathed the more the mire which clung to him and thought himself the more unfitted to touch hands with the clean. But in his soul there was something, he knew not what, which sent him forward in spite of hurt and pain and mire. When he lay prone, a great sickness of heart 50 TH J T IV HI C H ABIDES smote him and a great longing for cleanness, and so, with shame and much defiled and with loathing of himself, he pressed on with little help, with many cold glances, with a deep sense of repulsion borne to him from many faces. At last, footsore and weary and faint in heart, he came to a place where the mist lay on the road and many halted, fearful of what might lie beyond ; but he, caring only to be clean and fleeing from his own defilement, ran into the mist. And, behold, the mist lifted and a fair country lay smiling about him, and hands were held out to him in wel- come. But when he looked into 51 PJRJBLES OF LIFE the pure faces of those who stood guardians of the country, he drew back, crying, in great agony of spirit, "I cannot enter, for I am unclean." And they smiled and pointed to his garments; and he looked, and, behold, his garments were like snow. And he stood trembling, knowing not what had befallen him and doubting if he were himself. And while he doubted, a voice came to him saying : *' In thy heart thou didst hate uncleanness and love purity, and that only which we love abides." 52 THE TOUCH OF NATURE THE TOUCH OF NATURE IT was the stillest of June morn- ings; nothing stirred save that deep, mysterious life which had risen again out of the heart of the earth, and, like some divine emo- tion, brought the soul of nature to shy disclosure. The flight of birds did not break the silence, and their songs seemed hardly to ripple the quiet of the solitude which folded all things in its heart. There was no priestess at the shrine; there were no sacred vessels of gold ; no censers swung; no chorused praise 55 PJRJBLES OF LIFE floated from adoring hearts like a mist heavenward; but the woods were silent with adoration, and the very earth seemed to worship in a deep quietude which was tremulous with life. A sense of infinite peace brooded over the place, and in the soft shadows of the trees a fragrant coolness enfolded and calmed and soothed. Into this refuge came a woman whose step was agitated and whose face was convulsed with anguish. She came alone, but something seemed to be pursuing her; she walked swiftly, fearfully, as if car- ried forward by dread of that which followed her. In the heart of the 56 'THE TOUCH OF NjrURE wood she paused a moment, struck, apparently, by a sudden recognition of the vast change between the world from which she had fled and that into which she had come; and it seemed as if an impassable gulf opened between her agitated spirit and the deep tranquillity of the shaded solitude. She glanced over her shoulder as if she half expected some torturing vision, as if some agonizing grief were swiftly ap- proaching ; but there was no stir in the woodland paths and the silence was unbroken. At a distance a clear, sweet, mysterious note floated upward, untouched by human pas- sion or care or toil; a note which 57 PJRJBLES OF LIFE flowed through the upper air with the purity, the stainlessness, the lonely freedom, of the mountain brook. The trembling woman lis- tened; it came again and again, borne to her as if from a distance, and bringing with it subtle sugges- tions of remoteness, of the ancient quiet of immemorial woods, of the vast, impersonal repose of nature, whose years are forgotten in the abyss of time. In that clear, pene- trating note, held in the air by the silence which it penetrated, nothing spoke to the woman's anguish, to her tortured fancy, to the throbbing pain in her heart; there was no tone of consolation for the grief 58 I THE TOUCH OF NJTURE which had driven her into that soli- tude; no balm for the suffering of the moment; but something was borne in upon her spirit; a sooth- ing and quieting touch was gently laid upon her soul. The measure- less life of the world spoke to the immortal life in her. She waited, still suffering, but calmed and expectant. And as she waited in the silence and solitude, with the distant song of the lonely thrush in her ears, the tumult in her heart subsided, the murky air of her mind cleared, the strain of her spirit relaxed. Out of the depths of the woods there came a solemn peace. 59 PARABLES OF LIFE She looked up, and through the network of trees the sky was radi- ant as of old; she looked back to the life from which she had fled, and she saw that her pain was only a part of it, and that the universe had not become a great instrument of torture ; that the place where she had suffered was only a point in a world which spread out to far horizons on every side; and the anguish which had seemed to en- velop earth and sky no less than her own heart appeared but an incident in an endless life. No voice yet spoke to her pain, but there came a calmness, a sanity, an opening of mind and heart for the 60 THE TOUCH OF NJTURE comfort which was moving toward her, borne onward by slow-footed time. She had found that quiet- ness which is the open door for the incoming of truth and strength and peace. 6i OUT OF THE AGONY OUT OF THE AGONY IT was midday, and the sun beat on the course with merciless in- tensity; a cloud of dust hung over the track and enfolded the runners so that they saw neither the sky nor the crowd that waited and watched, excited, eager, ready to break into thunders of applause. They saw one another only indistinctly — vague figures moving in a suffocat- ing fog. The agony of the contest had entered their souls ; their faces were strained, sweat poured from them ; they ran with a silent, steady 65 PJRJBLES OF LIFE persistence that was full of pain and yet indifferent to it. The few who still ran had ceased to count suffer- ing ; that was part of the price of the reward, and they paid it with- out questioning. It was, after all, only a kind of acute fatigue, and the brave spirit makes sport of fatigue. The weak, the irresolute, the fickle-minded, had long since fallen out of the race. They had started with assurance on their faces ; for the course lay so clearly before them that it seemed but a little way to the goals shining in the fresh morn- ing air. There was an eager throng cheering the runners as they sped away from the starting-post, and 66 U 1' OF THE J G N T friendly faces and shouts lined the path or followed them long. It was pure pleasure to run in the bracing air, with flying competi- tors, with goals to guide the feet, and vociferous praise following like a noisy wave. But the distance lengthened, the morning passed, the heat grew bitter, the dust of racing feet rose in a suffbcating cloud, sweat ran from every pore, the strug- gle became agonizing. Those who were untrained, who had borne no yoke of discipline, who needed the stimulus of applause or of visible rewards, grew faint and weary and ceased to run. In the cloud of dust which moved along the course there 67 PARABLES OF LIFE was left only the little group of those whose sinews were steel, whose wills were iron, who cared neither for applause nor for rewards if only the race might be well run. They had ceased to hear the cheers so long that they had forgotten that there were any spectators ; they were so intent upon putting forth their full strength that they had ceased to think of the goals. They ran as if running were life and nothing else were worth while. They had given themselves to the race, they were paying the price; that was the whole of their simple, heroic story. And while they ran, long for- 68 OUT OF THE A G N T getful of all save the speed of the moment, the dust began to settle, the sky began to clear, the heat be- gan to pass, faces began to appear on either side, and sounds broke the silence. And, lo, when they had ceased to care for reward in the strain and stress of the trial, suddenly the goals shone clear and close at hand in the soft afternoon air, and long cheers thundered about them, and flowers rained from friendly hands, and crowns of wild olive were outstretched. 69 DREAM AND REALITY DREAM AND REALITY THE great square was thronged with busy people; Httle groups gathered and dispersed again with- out apparent reason or order; a murmur of confused sounds arose, some musical and many discor- dant; the noise of many kinds of work rose and fell with a rhythmic movement, in a unison which was without melody but not without dignity and power; the dust raised on the highways by many ap- proaching feet hung over the place, and the smoke of great chimneys 11 PJRJBLES OF LIFE obscured the heavens; tumult, dis- sonance, toil, and weariness per- vaded the place. Through the crowd an eager boy was trying to make his way. He had come from quiet places sweet with the breath of flowers; from the radiancy of soft skies, whence every night be- nignant stars had lighted his mus- ings; from great dreams which moved across his mind as the clouds drifted across the heavens, vague and formless but full of fer- tility; from visions which were more beautiful than the world he saw about him but not difl^erent from it — sublime fulfilments of visible and audible promises of per- 74 DREJM JND REJLI'Tr fection, divine completions of reali- ties. Out of the quiet valley in which the boy had played and shouted and taken the world into his heart, youth had led him up long and steep ascents to a great height, over which the sky seemed to bend, and from which far-stretch- ing landscapes and a great city were visible; and there, in the breadth and clearness of his vision, the boy had come to himself and knew that the dreams which had encom- passed his childhood were the fore- shadowings of the truth he was to find and to impart, the beauty he was to see and to set anew in some fresh and appeaUng form; for a 75 PJRJBLES OF LIFE man cannot reveal the truth until he has found it, nor make beauty flash again on many eyes until he has looked into its soul, not as it floats, serene, ineffable, and flawless, in some distant heaven, but as it shines through the substance and shape of realities. And so, led by his genius, the boy had come down from the heights into the market-place, for truth's sake and beauty's sake, and wandered about like a lost spirit, oppressed and bewildered by the tumult and disorder. The discords smote him like blows; the dust and smoke blinded him ; the up- roar and contention and ugliness 76 DREAM AND R E J L I "T T pierced him like arrows. He shrank from the touch of the gross and palpable imperfection about him ; his spirit cried out for the peace and serenity, the vision and beauty, of the valley where he had shouted in the joy of childhood, and the heights whence he had seen the things that were to be. Presently, as he wandered, with infinite homesickness in his heart, he began to discern here and there touches of beauty, hints of loveli- ness, foregleams of perfection. And as his soul fastened upon these fragmentary glimpses of the world which lay in his memory, remote and inaccessible, a new note became 77 PJRJBLES OF LIFE audible in the tumult, a new mean- ing seemed to flash for a second over the vast, tumultuous disorder — a note prelusive and prophetic, a meaning born of some vast pur- pose slowly and mysteriously being wrought out with men and tools; with iron, clay, and wood; in trial and strife and agony; in love and sorrow and life and death. As he caught this deeper mean- ing, borne in upon his spirit by the sighs and sobs and groans of men and women in that great multitude, his vision grew clearer and deeper, and he saw everywhere the signs and sorrows and joy of the work which every man does not only 7^ DREAM AND REJLITT with his hands but with his soul; and slowly, through the dust and turmoil and smoke, he discerned the meaning of it all: the passing of truth into life, the birth of beauty, through anguish and sorrow, into visible form. Then he understood that the per- fection he had once looked upon, and which lay inviolate in his soul, had been wrought by Another; that it lay outside and apart from him and he had no place or share in its shaping. And so there came to him the discovery which comes to all lovers and makers of the good and the beautiful, to the creators whom men call artists, that the 79 PARABLES OF LIFE beauty in his memory was but a vision of delight until he made it real with his own hands in spirit or flesh or stone or wood. And the noisy place became still to him; and the crudity seemed about to take on noble shapes; and on the faces of his sorrowing, toiling fel- low-workers he saw the image of God slowly dawning like a glorious morning out of mist and darkness as they touched the stuff of mor- tality with the power and beauty of the immortal. 80 OUT OF PAIN OUT OF PAIN IT was a radiant world on which the boy opened his eyes; a world so beautiful that it was im- possible to look at it without seem- ing to see through it a richer and more wonderful loveliness about to rise out of its depths. It was a beauty which made the spirit faint with expectation and the heart ache with a sense of coming joy. In such a world all things were within reach of the eager soul, blithe with the bliss of the morning and eager to share the impulse of life which, 83 PJRJBLES OF LIFE like a fathomless tide, crept to the summits of the hills and left ver- dure and fragrance sweeping on behind it. The boy's eye was clear and keen; he saw at a glance the wonder of things in endless variety and exquisite adaptation. The boy's thought was orderly, coherent, vital ; he discerned the marvelous relation of parts to the whole and the glo- rious unity in which all things were held and harmonized. The boy's imagination kindled and glowed; the vision of an invisible loveliness, a higher and diviner beauty, rose before him as sight and thought brought the visible world closer to his spirit. The boy's will stirred 84 our OF PAIN with the slowly rising energy of a force at once concentrated and sus- tained. He stood there like a noble figure in a garden, touched with the glow of the morning, bathed in light, encompassed with the in- finite suggestiveness of a universe in which God's thoughts, sown in the furrows of the sea, the broad stretches of land, the measureless spaces of sky, bloomed in inde- scribable splendor, and on every wind set loose other seeds which should make fragrant the far limits of the universe. This marvelous world was silent, and he had a voice; this sublime mystery waited for interpretation, and he divined 85 PJRJBLES OF LIFE its meaning; this measureless force of life needed other wills and minds and hands, and he waited, eager and impatient, for his place and his task. All things were within his reach; all things summoned him. He put forth his hand, and sud- denly a throb of pain shot through it, and it fell by his side; he stepped forward, and a swift anguish smote him so that he paused, stunned and uncomprehending. These things were so strange in that fair scene, so much at variance with all he saw and divined, that he paused until they should pass; for they could be but fleeting touches of something alien and intrusive. But 86 U "T OF PAIN the pain did not pass; it became more intense. The anguish did not abate; it grew more bitter. Then, when he began to under- stand that these terrible things were part of the world, that world grew black and horrible before h's eyes; the light pierced and hurt him ; the beauty stung and maddened him. He was like one who slowly dies of thirst while the music of running water is in his ears, who slowly starves while fields of wav- ing grain encircle him. In the bitterness of that merciless denial of the claims of his soul for joy and beauty and work, he was ready to curse and die; for his life had 87 PJRJBLES OF LIFE turned to pain, and the loveliness he saw seemed a dream of madness. But he could not die, for he was immortal; nor could he shut out the loveliness of the world, for the image and memory of it lay like a vision in his mind. His will, which would have laid hold of noble tools for noble work, grew strong and stern and steadfast; for the boy, become a smitten and solitary man, was shut off not only from tasks but from fellowship with those who worked. In his loneliness and deso- lation only the inner voices spoke to him ; his companionship was with his own spirit. Presently thoughts began to rise out of the depths of 88 U "T OF P J I N his pain as they had once come to him out of the heart of the beau- tiful world — thoughts so deep and at times of such awful meaning that they made him forget his pain. And this power to rise out of pain grew with the strength it brought, and became a refuge and comfort to him. And as he suffered, silent and inactive, there came to him slowly the knowledge of that world of sorrow into which he had come; so near the world of beauty and yet seemingly so remote from it and so alien ; and in that world he was slowly transformed until he saw with other eyes and heard with other ears. 89 PJRJBLES OF LIFE When he found that something was being wrought within him, he became patient and waited ; for new hopes were beginning to stir in his heart and new dreams began to take wing in his imagination. Silent and soHtary as he was, these changes were unrecorded and left their traces only in the passing away of despair, the slow incoming of a tenderness, a sympathy, a wistful longing to succor and help, which had had no place in the unconsciousness of his radiant youth. And as the years went by, the tenderness in his soul, born of old-time sorrow, became a passionate impulse, and a great crav- ing awoke within him ; and one 90 U "T OF PAIN day he opened his eyes and looked once more, and, behold ! the world of his memory had vanished like a dream, and before him lay another world vaster and more awful and more divinely fair, not with the beauty which glows and fades but with that which discloses itself through the revelation of life, with the pressure on the spirit of the shaping hands of care and sorrow and bitter knowledge. And as he looked he was no longer alone, for the world was full of those who stumbled and fell and were heavily burdened and smitten with great in- firmities. And he, knowing the bitterness through which they were 91 PJRJBLES OF LIFE passing and seeing the end which was invisible to them, rose from his place and raised one and spoke to another; and for those whom he could not reach he lifted up his voice and sang the great song of love that knows not fear, and the song of consolation which follows it like a beautiful echo. Many looked at him, and, seeing on his face the deep lines of such grief as they bore, were comforted ; and many listened, and, hearing in his voice those deep tones which come out of great anguish, heeded and were helped. He, meantime, thought not of these things, but, seeing the unspeakable beauty shin- 92 OUT OF P J I N ing more and more clearly through cloud and storm and ugliness, pushed on eager and joyful, a mighty pas- sion of hope and helpfulness mov- ing with him. And when he paused, he suddenly became aware that he too still suffered; but he had forgotten himself. 93 TKE AWAKENING THE AWAKENING THE dream lasted long, and many times the man seemed about to awaken. The night wore on through many changes; shrouded at times in densest darkness, and at other times gloriously lighted bystars. Men moved through it in throngs, some- times like real persons, full of life and thought and will, and then like shadows, flitting pathetically from point to point, vague and dim and meaningless. Sometimes great tu- mults rose and fell on the night, and then a deep silence filled 97 PJRJBLES OF LIFE the hours and all things seemed asleep. The turmoil and the stillness touched the sleeper while he dreamed, but did not awaken him. He was conscious of the night, the storms, the silence, and the stars, and these things mingled with his dream, but did not mar its beauty. He dreamed that he was moving through a world marvelously beau- tiful and without limit of bound- ary, variety, or loveliness ; that other beings like himself bore him com- pany and kept the way with all bro- therliness, sweetness of fellowship, and joy in one another and in the common journey; that as they 98 1' H E J fP^ J K E N I N G moved, borne onward by pure im- pulse and kindling hope, each man's sight grew clearer, every man's heart warmer, all men's natures nobler; and as each man's vision cleared, the world through which he journeyed became more deeply and marvelously beautiful, as if the reality without were shaping itself to meet and match the growing no- bility of the spirit that looked and saw and understood. In the souls of all those that trav- eled there were secret hopes of per- fection, sacred passions for purity, deep and silent puttings forth of the heart for joys which were beyond the reach of speech ; and as they PJRJBLES OF LIFE moved forward every man came to his own, and found infinite easing of soul and fathomless peace in the harmony between his spirit and the world about him. For life had come to complete fulfilment in clarity of knowledge, in the perfect play of love, in beauty beyond the dreams of those divinely guided dreamers, the poets, in that health which is wisdom and joy and the deep living in which action instantly matches thought and a man's word and deed are clean as his love and true as his conscience. And beyond this fulfilment of life there rose a radiant prophecy of diviner visions and works and I GO "THE J IV J K E N I N G joys; a kindling of the sky as if a more radiant day waited below the horizon ; and beyond that, in end- less procession, the days of God, rich in power and knowledge and love and service forever and forever. And every man's spirit was aglow with that which filled his soul to the uttermost of the happiness of fullilled life, and every man's heart beat as he saw, like a far flight of the unfallen and the purified, the dawning of such bliss as the heart of man hath not conceived nor the mind of man pictured. And the air was full of fugitive strains of old songs sung in old homes which every man kept in his heart, and of lOI PJRJBLES OF LIFE far echoes of a music so deep and vast and unfathomably sweet that every man seemed to hear his own soul speaking, and knew that he was hearing the first notes of the ultimate harmony of life. And there fell a silence on the company so deep that every man heard the beat of his companion's heart and knew his thought; and behold, in all the company there was not one heart that was not pure nor one thought that was not sweet ; for the chord of self had "past in music out of sight." And while the man dreamed, he passed out of childhood into man- I02 "THE JfVJKENlNG hood and through manhood into age, and his sleep became broken, and strange confusions of shadow and reahty came upon him, for the night was far spent. Suddenly he awoke, and, behold, even as he dreamed, so was it now that his sleep had gone. *' As yet lingers the twelfth hour and the darkness; but there will come an- other era when it shall be light, and man will awaken from his lofty dreams, and find — his dreams all there and nothing is gone save his sleep." 103 \li A P S-J A I fWlQ IVUd COPY nr « LIBRARY OF CONGRESS llllllllillilllllll 015 762 685 1