The Wedding Guest: A Friend of the Bride and Bridegroom. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
did not see this beautiful truth as clearly as did Rosa. But she went on, in her loving way, and very soon she raised him into that inner sunshine in which she dwelt, and then he saw it all clearly, for she said—
"You know, dear Paul, that we read in the Bible that 'God is a sun, and that He is the fountain of life,' and thus all life flows from Him into us, just as in the tiny flowers upon the earth comes the warm living ray of the material sun, developing in them beautiful colours and odours—so the life-ray from God fills us with warm affections. We are but dead forms—the power and the life is in Him, and if we were cut off from Him, how could we love each other?"
Paul was convinced, and did not fail to make Rosa realize the Heaven-derived life and power that was in him. And as they kneeled together in their evening devotions, and Paul clasped his wife in his arms, how clearly he felt the influence of that Divine sun upon his soul, filling it with a gushing, yearning tenderness for his beloved and beautiful one; and how fervently he prayed that the light might grow in her, and through her descend to him! Beautiful are the prayers of such loving hearts, for the inner door of their existence then opens, and the great King of Glory enters in, and they are in the Lord, and the Lord is in them.
Yes, Paul had found a wife—not an external type or shadow of one to mock and vex his soul with an unsatisfactory pretence, but a most blessed and eternal reality. He was married not only in the sight of men, but before God and the angels. And the heart of Rosa responded to his mind as truly and unfailingly as his heart beat to the breath of his lungs. She was as his inner life, and he felt himself strong to guard and protect her as he would his own existence. She had become one with him, and henceforth there was no separate existence for these two.
So serenely and lovingly flowed their life in its interior light and beauty, that cares and anxieties seemed scarce to touch their states. True, these came to them in the guise of those calamities and disappointments, that so often sweep as the destructive tornado over the lower lives of the earth-loving children of men. But as their affections were spiritual, they were not wounded by the earth-sorrows. Their treasures were laid up above, where "moth and rust doth not corrupt." Paul realized this when he saw Rosa hold her dead baby in her arms and smile through her tears. And yet this was her "little Paul" that she loved with such an intense delight and devotion; because in him, all the day long, she saw that wonderful life of God manifested in such a heavenly innocence and purity, as in a tiny image of her own Paul. Yet, when the spirit of the child was gone, she adorned the clay form in which it had dwelt, with such loving care, and laid it in its little coffin, that her hand might serve it to the very last, and then turned and rested her head in the bosom of her husband as a wounded bird in its downy nest.
Paul's love seemed to lift her to the Heaven to which her baby had gone; and when, after a few days, she urged him to leave her and go to his office where his duties called him, Paul feared that she would feel lonely, and would fain have stayed beside her. But she said—
"No, dear Paul; I shall never be alone again; the spirit of the child will be with me: it is so beautiful to have loved him on earth, for now I can love him in Heaven." And so Paul left her, not as one in a dark land of sorrow, but floating in a world of light and love. And how eagerly he hastened back to his gentle, stricken dove, and folded her to his heart, as though he would shield her from all sorrow! But he scarce found a sorrow; she was all light and joy, and said—
"Oh, Paul, I am so happy, for I have been thinking all day how happy the angels must be to have my little Paul with them! It seemed to me that I could see them adorning him with heavenly garments, and I could see his happy smile; and I was glad that he was no longer oppressed by his weak, earthly body. Yes, he is now a blessed angel in Heaven, and is it not beautiful, dear Paul, that we have given an angel to Heaven?"
Thus was the earth-sorrow turned to a heavenly joy. And though other children were born to Paul and Rosa, yet their chief delight in them was, that they were to be angels in Heaven. How often Rosa said, "Paul, they are the children of the Lord—not ours; only we have the loving work to teach them for Heaven."
Through Rosa, Paul realized this beautiful truth, and earnestly strove to impart truth to the tender and impressible minds of his children; he presented it to them in the most beautiful and attractive forms. But it was Rosa that made them love it and live in it; it was the teachings of the father that fell like "golden grains" in the earth of their minds; but it was the gentle, never-ceasing culture of the mother, that caused it to spring up into the sunshine of Heaven, and bear the fruit of kind and loving actions. When Paul saw this, he felt himself a man in the true sense of the word; one, who could perform the highest uses in life, without being clogged and thwarted by the want of concert in action by his partner in life. Thus it is that a harmony of thought and feeling produces a harmony in action.
And how elevated and noble became all the ends of Paul's life! It was Rosa that elevated and refined them, and directed them Heavenward. It was beautiful to see how she could draw down the light of Heaven into all the outer life. Everything on earth seemed to her but the symbol of something in Heaven. And when Paul once gave her money, she thanked him with such a grateful warmth of affection, that he laughingly asked her, if she loved money, that she was so grateful for it. She answered, "Yes, Paul; I love your money, because you have worked for it; and when you give it to me, it seems to our outer life what truth is to our inner life. If you gave me no truth, I could not adorn your inner life with love; and if you gave me no money, I could not adorn your outer life with good. I could not alone attain either money or truth. I should be very poor, dear Paul, both spiritually and naturally, without you. But you, as a husband, bring me truth and money. With the first I call the angels around you; with the second I call earthly friends around you; and thus, both your inner and outer life are made glad and warm and genial."
And Paul knew this; for his home was beautiful—a feminine taste and tact reigned through it, and Rosa's diffusive charity made him the centre of a circle to whom he dispensed not only earthly goods, but the noble thoughts of his large understanding. And Paul realized that while he guided all things by his wisdom, given to him of God, Rosa was as the motive power to his existence. Her influence pervaded his every thought and feeling, and while it made his life upon earth so full and perfect, it allied him to Heaven; and thus he held her in his house and heart as the Holy of holies.
Happy is the earth if it have one pair of such married ones, for through such, the Spirit and life of God descend upon the earth, and bind it to Heaven. But blessed, yea most blessed will be the earth when it has many such, for then the heavenly sunshine will flood the whole earth with its light and glory, and the Lord, who is the centre and source of this glorious Sun, will see His image reflected, in its mercy and tender beauty, in the lives of the dwellers upon earth, even as it now is seen by Him in those of the dwellers in Heaven, and thus will the "kingdom of God" come upon earth "as it is in Heaven."
MARRIAGE.
IN the truest sense of the word, woman was created to be man's comforter, a joyous helpmate in hours of sunshine, a soother, when the clouds darken and the tempests howl around his head; then, indeed, we perceive the divinely beautiful arrangement which marriage enforces. Man in his wisdom, his rare mental endowments, is little fitted to bear adversity. He bows before the blast, like the sturdy pine which the wintry storm, sweeping past, cracks to its very centre; while woman, as the frail reed, sways to and fro with the fierce gust, then rises again triumphant towards the blackening sky. Her affection, pure and steadfast, her unswerving faith and devotion, sustain man in the hour of darkness, even as the trailing weed supports and binds together the mighty walls of some mouldering ruin.
Would you know why so many unhappy marriages seem to falsify the truth that they are made in Heaven? Why we see daily diversity of interests, and terrible contentions, eating the very life away, like the ghoul in the Arabian tales, that prayed on human flesh? It is that women are wrongly educated. Instructed, trained, to consider matrimony the sole aim, the end of their existence, it matters not to whom the Gordian knot is tied, so that the trousseau, wedding, and eclat of bridehood follow. Soon the brightness of this false aurora borealis