v-0, 
 
 J I
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 BY T. S. ARTHUR. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 J. 3. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 
 1877.
 
 Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
 J. B. IJPPINCOTT & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
 Pennsylvania.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 i. 
 
 PAGE 
 THis SEEN AND THE UNSEEN 7 
 
 II. 
 
 OUR CHANGING STATES 23 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SWEET FOUNTAIN 32 
 
 IV. 
 
 COMFORTED , .. 45 
 
 V. 
 
 (KJT OF TUNE 66 
 
 3 
 
 2047319
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 PAG1 
 
 SUNDAY RELIGION .. 68 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE LIFE TO COME 76 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE FACE AND THE LIFE 86 
 
 IX. 
 
 NOT AS OUR WAYS .. 99 
 
 X. 
 
 OUR HEAVENLY HOMES 114 
 
 XI. 
 FORGIVENESS 122 
 
 XII. 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOU? , 187
 
 CONTENTS. 5 
 
 XIII. 
 
 IP I WERE ONLY IN HEAVEN 152 
 
 XIV. 
 UNDER A CLOUD 1W 
 
 XV. 
 
 NOW AND TO-DAY 176 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE 183 
 
 XVII. 
 
 AN HOUR WITH MYSELF ... 190 
 
 1*
 
 THE SEEN AMD THE UNSEEN. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 is a double life with every man the 
 seen and the unseen." 
 
 Thus spoke the stranger, while I listened won- 
 deringly. 
 
 "And two forms of life as well as two lives, 
 for there can be no life without a form of life. 
 Two bodies the one seen, and the other unseen." 
 
 " Two bodies ?" 
 
 " Yes. In the words of Paul, there is a natu 
 ral body, and there is a spiritual body. Many 
 read this as if will be were in the place of is, when 
 the spiritual body is spoken of; but Paul meant
 
 8 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 that no such construction should be placed on his 
 language. He spoke of the unseen body, with 
 out which the seen body could have no exist 
 ence." 
 
 " Your meaning is veiled," said I. 
 
 " Not veiled," answered the stranger ; (i you see 
 the truth obscurely, because your vision is dim. 
 Scales shut out the true light. Let me remove 
 them. Does your eye see ?" 
 
 " If not, how do I perceive forms and colors ?" 
 
 "That beautiful organ of flesh and blood, 
 called the eye I mean that natural orb so won 
 derful in its construction does that see objects 
 around you? or is it only a kind of window, 
 through which the unseen, or true spiritual eye, 
 looks forth upon the world of nature ? Think ! 
 Is it possible for mere matter to have the power 
 of sight?" 
 
 " Not unorganized matter," I replied. 
 
 " Unorgani zed. And what is organized mat 
 ter ? It is a material form in which is a princi 
 ple of life, and the form is determined by the
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 9 
 
 character of the animating principle. Without 
 the unseen, the seen would be inert and dead. 
 Your eye is an organized form, because there is 
 an unseen principle of life in other words, an 
 unseen eye within, giving it the power of natu 
 ral vision. This is as true of the ear and its uses 
 as it is of the eye ; of the brain as of the ear ; of 
 the heart and lungs as of the brain ; and, still fur 
 ther, as true of the whole body as of a single 
 member. Thus, there is an unseen as well as 
 seen body ; and the former is equally susceptible 
 of impressions with the latter nay, more suscep 
 tible, because it is more highly organized." 
 
 " Organized ?" 
 
 "Yes, spiritually organized." 
 
 " You startle me. If this be true, what won 
 derful things are involved !" 
 
 " We are fearfully and wonderfully made," re 
 turned the stranger, in a solemn voice. " This is 
 divine language, and has a divine and spiritual 
 meaning. Yes; wonderful things are involved. 
 If we have this spiritual body, then we have an
 
 10 TUB SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 inner as well as an outer life. And do not all 
 admit this vaguely ?" 
 
 " There is an inner life," I said. 
 
 "If an inner life, then an inner form of 
 life." 
 
 " And that form, as you say, must take impres 
 sions." 
 
 " Yes, and retain them." 
 
 " Not so tenaciously as this outward, physical 
 form." 
 
 " More tenaciouslyj" said the stranger. 
 
 " This I do not clearly perceive. A form so 
 sublimated, so etherial, so unsubstantial, must 
 almost instantly overcome impressions." 
 
 " It is not an unsubstantial, but a truly sub 
 stantial form," was answered. "There is mate 
 rial substance and spiritual substance ; the latter 
 is an abiding substance, but the former is ever 
 changing. Think! Upon which does an im 
 pression remain the longest upon your body or 
 your mind?" 
 
 " Upon my mind."
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 11 
 
 " If it were not a substance, could it receive 
 and retain impressions ?" 
 
 I was silent. The words of the stranger were 
 so full of meaning that I was oppressed by their 
 signification. A window seemed opening into the 
 unseen world ; but, as yet, no objects were plainly 
 visible. 
 
 "Look around you," said the stranger. "There 
 is the dull, cold, lifeless earth. Seeds have been 
 cast into its bosom. Now, by what are they vi 
 vified ? And by what power does each send up, 
 after its kind, its leaf and stalk ? From whence 
 is this wonderful and perfect discrimination ? It 
 is from the unseen spiritual world flowing from 
 its infinitely variant principles of life into forms 
 of matter presented in seeds. In germs lie the 
 points of influx; and each, after its kind, receives 
 life from the unseen world. And as the law of 
 like producing like is an invariable law, it fol 
 lows that, in order to the production of a par 
 ticular plant or tree in the seen world, there 
 must be a like plant or tree in the unseen world,
 
 12 THE SEEN AND THE UNSKEN. 
 
 from which it exists, as an effect flowing from its 
 cause." 
 
 "Trees and plants in the other world!" I 
 shook my head doubtingly. "That is a mere 
 spiritual world." 
 
 "Will you have a world without the objects 
 that make up a world?" asked the stranger. "A 
 spiritual world will have spiritual objects." 
 
 " Oh, spiritual !" 
 
 " Your ideas of the spiritual," said the stranger, 
 "are still dark and obscure. But this is no cause 
 of wonder. Here, all is brought to the test of 
 our sensuous perceptions ; and it is hard to rise 
 above and withdraw our thoughts from them so 
 as to think abstractedly. But do not reject as 
 false what you cannot understand when first pre 
 sented. You need not, you should not, receive 
 as true what comes to your mind without suffi 
 cient evidence. But to negative a proposition 
 because the mind does not rise at once into its 
 comprehension is not the act of a wise man. 
 Hold your mind ever in the affirmative state j
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 13 
 
 Dut admit nothing as truth which is not clearly 
 seen. Prove all things j and, in doing so, bear in 
 mind this wise saying there are more things in 
 heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your 
 philosophy." 
 
 We separated I and the stranger. But I 
 could not forget his remarkable language. 
 
 " Two lives !" said I, as I sat musing alone in 
 the still watches of the night that followed. 
 " Two lives and two forms of life an outer and 
 an inner life ; the seen and the unseen. Two bo 
 dies ; a natural and a spiritual body each sub 
 stantial, and capable of receiving and retaining 
 impressions. How full of meaning is all this! 
 How much does it involve! And can it be 
 true ?" 
 
 The longer I pondered the subject, the more 
 truth seemed involved in the proposition. It was 
 plain to me that the unseen body, the spiritual 
 man, must be as complete in every part as the na 
 tural body, which was but as its outer garment,
 
 14 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 or, ratner, its means of action in the lower and 
 less perfect world of matter. 
 
 "And if all this be so," said I, one thought 
 evolving another, " how wonderful in perfection 
 must that body be, organized, as it is, of spiritual 
 substances ; and how perfectly must the spiritual 
 countenance express the passions and emotions of 
 the soul ! Ah ! how different will all be when we 
 come to lay aside this body of flesh and blood 
 this mass of inertia, now infilled with the life of 
 the spirit, which it is ever bearing down, and 
 whose powers it is ever limiting ! In that un 
 seen world, there will be no veil of matter to hide 
 the moral quality. All eyes will see us in our 
 true characters in our true spiritual forms." 
 
 I paused. The last words were the plane for a 
 new influx of ideas. 
 
 "What is a spiritual form?" I asked myself. 
 I pondered long. 
 
 " What is spiritual"?" 
 
 I mused still further. 
 
 " Tt is thought and affection. A spiritual form,
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 15 
 
 then, is a form of affection ; or, in other words, an 
 affection clothed in its proper thought ; for it is 
 by thought that affection comes into manifest per 
 ception, and shows us its quality. Can this be 
 so? How much, undreamed of before, is in 
 volved ! Will evil affections give a lovely 
 form ?" " No !" was my involuntary answer. 
 
 My thoughts turned toward a beautiful young 
 lady whom I had met during the day, who was 
 greatly admired for her personal charms. In 
 form and face she was almost faultless. I now 
 remembered that, in conversing, she had exhibited 
 a feeling of malice toward another ; and had also 
 displayed a large share of vanity. 
 
 "The seen body is beautiful," said I, still 
 musing; "but, is it so with the unseen body? 
 Can an evil affection clothe itself in a form of 
 loveliness ?" 
 
 I pondered this question until there came a 
 great change. I was no longer in my chamber, 
 musing upon different questions-, but among a 
 company of people who sat in the porch of a
 
 16 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 large building, the architecture of which was 
 more perfect than anything I had ever beheld. 
 Before us spread out a beautiful landscape. 
 
 " This is a new country to me," said I to one 
 who was near me ; and, as I spoke, I tried to re 
 collect the way by which I had come. " What 
 is its name?" 
 
 "This is the World of Spirits," replied the 
 person to whom I had addressed the inquiry. 
 
 "The World of Spirits!" A thrill went 
 through me. Was I then dead ? 
 
 "Not dead," said my companion, who per 
 ceived my thoughts, " but truly alive. You 
 have laid aside the body of flesh, and arisen in 
 the true spiritual body." 
 
 " But these are flesh !" said I, holding up my 
 hands ; " I can touch one against the other. 
 Moreover, I can touch your body, and it is firm, 
 like my own." 
 
 "And yet all is spiritual," was replied. "Your 
 body and my body, and the bodies of all around 
 us, are spiritual in their substance. Our senses
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 17 
 
 likewise are spiritual. What made us men ou 
 earth ? Our flesh and blood ? Mere dead mat 
 ter? Far from it. We were men, because we 
 were spiritually organized, and, in the human 
 form, made after the likeness and in the image of 
 God. Does the laying aside of the natural body 
 make us less men less human ? No ! And can 
 we be men, without having bodily form and 
 senses ?" 
 
 As he spoke, there approached one whom I 
 had known in the world, and who had departed 
 thence a year before. She had many questions to 
 ask about friends she had left behind, all of which 
 I answered. As she left me, after a time, I 
 turned to the one with whom I had spoken, and 
 said to him 
 
 " How is this ? In the other life this person 
 had a beautiful body ; but now she is deformed 
 and repulsive." 
 
 " It is because her aifections are evil, and not 
 good," replied my companion. " In this world, 
 
 all are seen according to their quality. Good af- 
 2* B
 
 18 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 fections give beautiful forms, and evil affections 
 repulsive forms." 
 
 My thoughts instantly turned toward one who, 
 while living in the world, had a sickly and de 
 formed body, but who had a pure and loving spi 
 rit, and whose chief delight appeared to be to do 
 good ; and, as I thought of her, I saw her ap 
 proaching. She drew near, and joined the com 
 pany. Oh, what a change ! The bent body was 
 straight and graceful, and the severe angles of her 
 suffering countenance had given place to a sur 
 passing beauty. My heart was touched with ad 
 miring wonder, as I looked upon her. 
 
 Another whom I had known appeared. He 
 was a man who, while living in the world, had 
 been covetous, but who loved a good reputa 
 tion, and, therefore, concealed his real character 
 under assumed forms of benevolence and libera 
 lity. While in the natural body he was fair in 
 person, but now there was a hideousness about 
 his countenance, that made me turn from him with 
 a shudder; and I understood the quality of his life
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 19 
 
 from the form and expression of his person and 
 face, as clearly as if " Covetousness" had been 
 written upon his forehead. 
 
 " This man was of goodly appearance in the 
 world," said I, turning to my companion. 
 
 " His seen body was fair to look upon," was 
 replied ; " but his evil affections were daily and 
 slowly destroying, in the unseen body, every trace 
 of beauty. Come with me, and I will show you 
 some of those who have become so changed from 
 the human form, through evil lives, as to appear 
 more like beasts than men." 
 
 My companion took me to a valley, before con 
 cealed from view by a dense forest, through which 
 led a winding path. In this valley were compa 
 nies of men and women, engaged in various pur 
 suits that seemed to occupy their earnest attention. 
 
 " Look from this point," said my companion, 
 as we gained a little eminence, "and you will see 
 them in their true forms." 
 
 I looked for a moment, and then turned away, 
 sick with the sight.
 
 20 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 " What did you see ?" asked my companion. 
 
 "Men and women so changed as to appear 
 more like evil and filthy beasts, than forms of 
 human intelligence." 
 
 "As you saw them, so are they. While in the 
 natural body, many of them had beautiful forms, 
 for which they were loved and admired. But, in 
 their life in the world, they marred the form and 
 features of their spiritual bodies by evil and 
 beastly affections. One had the cunning of the 
 fox; another the cruelty of the wolf; and another 
 the filthy sensuality of the swine. All this was 
 hid from the natural sight it was the unseen. 
 But the veil of flesh is removed, and what was 
 unseen has become the seen. They are now be 
 fore you in the forms that correspond to their true 
 affections. 
 
 " Oh, if men knew this !" I exclaimed. 
 
 "Return and give utterance to the truth. 
 Publish what your eyes have seen and your ears 
 heard." 
 
 " But they will not believe," said I.
 
 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 21 
 
 " Tell it, nevertheless." 
 
 At this moment, I saw approaching one whom 
 1 had once loved with a deep affection, and whose 
 loss I had mourned with unavailing sorrow. She 
 had observed me, and was hurrying forward. As 
 she came near, I perceived that she was no longer 
 beautiful as before. Every fair feature was dis 
 torted, and there was an expression of evil in her 
 countenance, that shocked me like an electric cur 
 rent. Oh, she was hideous! I turned to flee; 
 but she threw her arms around me, and uttered 
 words of endearment ; and her voice, instead of 
 being flute-like in its tones, croaked like the voice 
 of a raven. In fear and sorrow I awoke. 
 
 Long did I lie pondering the strange vision. 
 " Dreams are, for the most part, fantastic," said 
 I ; " but they often come in similitudes of truth. 
 There is truth veiled here ; I feel it, I know it. 
 An evil life must distort the features of our inner 
 man, and change them from beauty to deformity. 
 We know that the soul receives impressions, and 
 retains them. Warp the soul in childhood,
 
 22 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 and it ever after retains the unpleasing form, 
 which is ever manifesting itself by means of the 
 outer body. If we could see, by a spiritual vi 
 sion, this soul or inner body itself, we would see 
 the distortion as plainly as we perceive an un 
 sightly crook in a favorite tree." 
 
 And if all this be so, and who will make bold 
 to deny it? each one of us is, day after day, 
 either marring and deforming the unseen body, 
 or rendering it more beautiful. Every evil and 
 selfish affection, every unholy passion, every in 
 dulgence in wrong feelings or actions, deforms 
 the spirit; while every good and generous emo 
 tion, and every act that springs from a purified 
 and all-embracing love of our neighbor, is render 
 ing it more and more beautiful, and, if continued 
 to the end of life, the unseen body, when it rises 
 into the light of the spiritual world, will appear 
 lovely as the form of an angel. 
 
 Reader, lay this up in your heart, and ponder 
 well the words of the stranger. They are not 
 idle sounds, like tones from the passing wind.
 
 OUR CHANGING STATES. 23 
 
 T 
 
 II. 
 
 OUR CHANGING STATES. 
 
 HE weather is not more variable than our 
 states of mind. To-day the atmosphere is se 
 rene, the sky unclouded ; to-morrow, an unquiet 
 thrill runs pulsing through all the air, and our 
 heavens are overcast. We are shadowed and 
 troubled. 
 
 These changes in our mental condition result 
 often from unapparent causes ; and often from dis 1 - 
 turbances of so light a character, that we look 
 back at them in wonder, and question with our 
 selves whether something more serious, which we 
 vainly endeavor to recall, does not exist. It is 
 only an appearance that the primary cause of 
 these sudden, and almost uncontrollable changes, 
 comes from without, jarring us from our tranquil 
 self-possession. The elements of disquietude are
 
 24 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 all within, though the touch by which they are 
 awakened, may reach us from the outside. If 
 there was nothing within to be disturbed, the 
 hand of discord might feel about our heart-strings 
 in vain. The light step of a child will shake the 
 uncertain bog ; but the stamp of a giant moves 
 not the solid earth. 
 
 Our states of mind are always affected by those 
 with whom we come in contact. We cannot pass 
 an hour, or even the tenth part of an hour, witn 
 any one, and not experience some change in our 
 feelings. Sometimes the change is pleasant, 
 sometimes disagreeable. A visitor drops in. 
 We happen to be feeling dull. Something hae 
 gone wrong we are under a cloud. But, sun 
 shine comes in with our visitor, and at the very 
 sound of his voice, the heart beats strong again. 
 His conversation soothes us into tranquil peace, 
 or lifts our thought into the world of pure ideas, 
 beyond life s petty discords. He leaves us, and 
 our mind is calmer for the day. Again we are 
 in a peaceful state. Not a cloud flecks the sky.
 
 OUR CHANGING STATES. 25 
 
 To live is enjoyment. An acquaintance calls, 
 and almost immediately an uneasy motion is felt. 
 His sphere touches us unpleasantly, and we are 
 instinctively on our guard. In less than ten mi 
 nutes we feel a sense of disquietude. Evil and 
 disturbing elements become active. Every word 
 he utters comes as a challenge to some bad pas 
 sion, or hurts some tender spot. He probes our 
 sore places with the cool precision of a surgeon, 
 and goes away, at length, leaving us miserable for 
 the day. 
 
 As there is no gratuitous evil, the class of 
 which this last-mentioned individual is a repre 
 sentative, has, no doubt, its use no credit to the 
 class, of course. It must needs be that offences 
 come ; but woe to him by whom they come. All 
 disturbing elements that exist in our minds are 
 evil elements, and as really hurtful to the spirit as 
 morbific things are to the body; and it is just as 
 important that we be advised of their existence, 
 as of corresponding things in the lower plane of 
 animal life. But, while quiescent, their existence
 
 26 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 is not perceived. Stealthily their evil work may 
 be going on. Like spiders in dark corners and 
 shut chambers, these evil things are silently cast 
 ing fibre after fibre, and loop after loop, around 
 our souls, until threads of gossamer are spun into 
 bonds no strength of ours, may sunder. It is well 
 for us, then, that some hand open a window occa 
 sionally, and let in the light upon these dark cor 
 ners and shut chambers, disturbing the spiders at 
 their work. There will be, of course, a sudden 
 stir, a shaking along the filmy lines, a sense of 
 bondage as the spirit rises to an easy movement. 
 From repose and self-enjoyment from false se 
 curity, there will be an awakening into painful 
 disquietude. We are offended, perhaps, because 
 of this meddling with our individual life. We 
 blame the officious hand that flung open a shut 
 window we call him a disturber of our peace 
 who frightened the spiders at their evil work, and 
 made us aware of their presence. And he may 
 have intended to disturb us, not that he might 
 help us to cast out these evil things, but that he
 
 OUR CHANGING STATES. 27 
 
 might enjoy our pain and humiliation. But, let 
 us remember, that if there be no unclean, no vile 
 and hurtful things, in our minds, the opening of 
 a window, and flashing in of light, cannot touch 
 our tranquil states. If the chambers of our souls 
 are always swept and garnished, sunbeams can 
 only reveal order and beauty. 
 
 And so, if miserable for the day, after such a 
 visitation, good must follow with those who 
 aspire after good with those who, once made 
 conscious of disease, turn to the great Physician. 
 We may not be able to think well of him who dis 
 covered to us how weak, vain, selfish or mean- 
 spirited we were, because he only sought to 
 wound and humiliate. Nay, we will hold our 
 selves guarded at the next interview, lest he re 
 veal to us other spider-filled corners, and humble 
 us in his presence again. 
 
 Salutary as the influence of these disturbers of 
 our peace may be, through the revelations they 
 give us of ourselves, they only help us to disco 
 ver evil, which they scent as the crow scents car-
 
 28 TIIE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 rion. They are not physicians ; have no oint 
 ment for the sores they uncover; no balm for the 
 wounds made in sharp thrusts into our tender 
 sides. They hurt us, and then go on their way 
 rejoicing that they left us in pain. With us, if 
 we are indeed of those who are striving to ascend 
 to the higher regions of spiritual life, where the 
 sky is clear, and the air serene, they leave, in 
 their departure, the difficult but essential duty of 
 forgiveness. Let us see to it that our hurt in the 
 contact is less than was intended ; nay, that good 
 come, where evil was designed. 
 
 Of that other class to which we have referred, 
 the individuals come to us as angels come, search 
 ing for good. They are those who say to evil, be 
 far from me. In their company the bad in us 
 hides itself still farther away, or skulks to the 
 dim exteriors of our conscious life, shorn for the 
 time of strength. All that is generous and no 
 ble ; all that is self-denying ; all that gives us 
 sympathy with our fellow-man; all that invests 
 goodness with beauty, is made alive and active in
 
 OUR CHANGING STATES. 29 
 
 our souls. They come to us in light they come 
 to us in love making truth clearer, and affection 
 warmer. The peace that dwells with them, per 
 vading their atmosphere like the odorous sphere 
 surrounding a flower, and penetrating to our life, 
 is no slumbrous calm. The sun is shining; the air 
 is clear and vital ; good seeds in the ground have 
 sprung up in thrifty stalks, and the harvest nods 
 hopefully in the swelling grain. And we feel, 
 while with them, our own earth drinking the sun, 
 and thank God for the signs of fruitfulness in our 
 souls. All is not a barren waste, as we some 
 times feared. They have made us more in love 
 with goodness ; strengthened our better purposes ; 
 taught us lessons of forgiveness, and shown us how 
 to walk with him, who, when upon earth, went 
 about doing good. Blessings on all such! Theii 
 lives are in heaven. In the Golden Age, angels 
 walked with men ; not in natural bodies, but in 
 bodies of spiritual substance, made visible to the 
 
 spiritual eyes of celestial men, living in primal 
 3
 
 30 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 innocence. Sin closed the inner senses, and 
 though 
 
 " Myriads of spiritual beings walk the earth unseen, 
 Whether we sleep or wake," 
 
 our darkened vision perceives them not. And 
 yet, in God s inercy, angels still walk and talk 
 with us, leading our thoughts upward, and these 
 are they of whom we have just spoken. Their 
 lives are in heaven ; but they dwell in natural bo 
 dies, and talk with us face to face. Blessings on 
 them, we repeat. 
 
 Our changes of state are all dependent on 
 things within us. Disturbing influences may 
 come from without ; but, if there is nothing to 
 disturb, the pressure is vain. The wind that 
 lashes the sea into fury, sweeps scarcely heeded 
 over the level earth. What a lesson in this ! 
 what a revelation ! Every touch from the out 
 side meets some response within, or dies unheeded. 
 If to an evil allurement an evil desire starts up, 
 what will you say? That the allurement created
 
 OUR CHANGING STATES. 31 
 
 the desire? Not so. The magnet revealed the 
 iron. The evil was there. And so of any and 
 all responses made by the soul. Thus, our 
 changes of state are our instructors. They show 
 us the quality of our lives ; admonish us of hid 
 den diseases ; and encourage us by revelations of 
 progress in the right way, or triumphs in the 
 good fight.
 
 32 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEBN. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SWEET FOUNTAIN. 
 
 cup is too bitter," said the lady "Too, 
 too bitter ! I cannot drink of it." And a 
 shudder ran through her frame. Her face was 
 wan and troubled ; her eyes red from a night of 
 weeping. 
 
 " But at last, it shall be sweet to the taste." 
 "You mock me!" the lady exclaimed, with a 
 sudden throb of almost indignant rejection in her 
 voice. 
 
 " Not so, my dear Mrs. Lea," was calmly, al 
 most tenderly answered. " We are in God s 
 hand, and all his ways are in mercy. If he per 
 mit sorrow or trouble, misfortune or bereavement, 
 to darken our homes, it is that he may open the 
 way for brighter sunbeams to enter. In the bit-
 
 TIIK SWEET FOUNTAIN. 
 
 Page 32.
 
 THE SWEET FOUNTAIN. 33 
 
 tcrest cup placed to our lips, will be found sweet 
 ness at last." 
 
 "There can be no sweetness in my cup. I 
 shall find the draft grow bitterer and bitterer 
 even to the dregs." 
 
 "And yet I say, dear friend! it was dipped 
 from a sweet fountain." 
 
 The face of the lady who thus answered was 
 serene; and yet, no one could look into it without 
 seeing the old marks of pain, of care, of endu 
 rance and long suffering. The lines were not 
 now sharply cut; but rounded and softened by the 
 verdure which heavenly sunshine and refreshing 
 dew had wakened into life. 
 
 " It was dipped from a sweet fountain," she re 
 peated, " and the water is sweet." 
 
 " Sweet ! Why will you mock me ?" And 
 Mrs. Lea, with a half offended air, shut her eyes, 
 and leaned back among the cushions amid which 
 she languidly reposed. Her face was very, very 
 sad. 
 
 " The bitterness lies in your taste. But, when
 
 34 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 that is refined and made perceptive in a higher 
 degree, then will this cup of offence, as it now 
 seems, be found to contain heavenly nectar. I 
 arn not speaking with a vague idealism no, 
 no but from life-experience. What we have 
 lived we comprehend. Time was, when the cup 
 God placed to my lips was as gall and worm 
 wood. Often and often since, have I drank from 
 the same cup, and found it honey to my taste. 
 Have you been very happy in the time past, my 
 friend?" 
 
 Mrs. Lea did not answer this abruptly-put 
 question, and a period of silence followed. As 
 her friend looked into her troubled countenance 
 the eyes were still shut she saw thought begin 
 ning to obliterate many of the lines that expressed 
 only rebellion and suffering. 
 
 " In the time past," she resumed, " the abun 
 dance of this world has been gathered to your 
 door. You have enjoyed wealth and position. 
 But, has your soul, in dwelling with these, found 
 unalloyed pleasure ? Did they bring satisfactions,
 
 THE SWEET FOUNTAIN. 35 
 
 delights, tranquilities ? Was there no reaching 
 of the soul beyond ? No yearnings for a higher 
 life ? Have you not grown weary, and restless, 
 often, under a sense of inadequacy in all around 
 you to minister to crying wants ? Like a caged 
 bird, have you not fluttered as in a prison, pant 
 ing for a wider range and purer atmosphere? 
 Yes, my friend ; it has been even so. You need 
 not answer. We have stood, in past years, very 
 near together, and I have seen it all. You have 
 not been happy !" 
 
 "My own fault," answered Mrs. Lea, with 
 slight impatience of manner. " I had everything 
 to make me happy. Now, I lose everything on 
 which my soul can rest." 
 
 " So far from that," said the friend, " you will 
 lose nothing on which true happiness is based. 
 * Riches and honors have no power, in themselves, 
 to give blessing. That is a state of the soul, and 
 comes from right activities. The will acts in 
 useful ends, and gives delight according to its 
 quality of love to God and man, without reference
 
 36 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 to external conditions. So the way to happiness 
 is set before the humblest and the poorest, even 
 as it is set before the rich and great. If the rich 
 will not, in their riches, find the way that leads 
 to true enjoyment, and it is possible to lead them 
 to right paths through the vale of poverty, God, 
 wlrt) is infinite in his love, will, from love, take 
 them down into this valley, and in it show them 
 the paths of peace,, leading up to the mountains 
 of delight. He will put a cup to their lips which 
 may prove exceedingly bitter to the taste ; but, in 
 the end, they will find that its waters came from 
 a sweet fountain. In these sad times, He is lead 
 ing many thousands down into dark and difficult 
 ways, and they shrink, and tremble, and shudder 
 as they descend. But, He knows what is in 
 them, and will see that no good is lost, and no 
 true source of happiness destroyed. If they will 
 be patient, submissive, and self-denying, he will 
 surely make their sun to shine in an unclouded 
 sky, and their peace to flow as a river. Not, it 
 may be, through any restoration of former things j
 
 THE SWEET FOUNTAIN. 37 
 
 but in a new life, to which shall be given, for 
 nourishment, celestial food. The difference of 
 this life from the former life, will be as that be 
 tween the chrysalis and the butterfly. O my 
 friend, seek for this life ! As you go down in the 
 ways of misfortune that must be trodden, do it 
 with a brave heart and with trust in God. He is 
 very near to all ; but especially and intimately 
 near to those who, in suffering and sorrow, turn 
 to him in tearful hope, and prayerful confidence. 
 He will make what looks so rough in the dis 
 tance, smooth and soft as grassy meadows. Down 
 amid those gloomy shadows that appal your soul, 
 rays of divine light will come. Angel hands 
 shall lead you, and angel voices speak words of 
 consolation and hope." 
 
 And it came, in time, to be even so. There 
 was good in Mrs. Lea. Potent in her heart were 
 all the elements of a true woman, ind these found 
 life and development in a lowe/ plane of social 
 activity from the one in which she had moved in 
 a spirit of proud self-seeking, or idle indulgence.
 
 38 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 Her fall, like that of many others, was rapid. 
 In the concussion, she was stunned and bewil 
 dered; and for a brief time lay as one in whom 
 all useful life was extinguished. But, Mrs. Lea 
 was a wife and mother. Her husband was dear 
 to her, and so were her children. Yet, had she 
 not filled out the measure of her obligations as 
 wife and mother for all the love in her heart. 
 Wealth had placed her in a false relation to com 
 mon duties ; and brought her within the sphere 
 of false ideas. Because she was rich, and could, 
 for hire, command the services of others, she had 
 permitted herself to accept the hurtful fallacy, 
 that in useful employments there was something 
 degrading. And so accepting the ease and idle 
 ness which were offered, she had delegated her 
 most sacred obligations, and left even her tender 
 babes to the exclusive care of those who worked 
 for hire. 
 
 But so sweeping was the disaster that fell upon 
 her husband, that every vestige of fortune disap 
 peared, and, at the age of forty, he found himself
 
 THE SWEET FOUNTAIN. 39 
 
 just on the level from which he started nearly 
 twenty years before. 
 
 Six months after the period of wreck, let us 
 look in upon Mrs. Lea. The cup of misfortune 
 has been, for all this time, at her lips ; let us see 
 whether she has found any sweetness in the 
 draught. The home in which we find her is 
 very humble compared with the one out of which 
 she passed, not long before, with hardly restrained 
 tears. She is sitting with two children by her 
 side, one a girl of seven years, and the other a 
 boy of nine. The boy has his arm around her 
 neck, and is looking upon a book that she is 
 holding. The little girl stands in front, with her 
 large eyes, full of light and happiness, fixed in 
 tently on her mother s face. Mrs. Lea is reading 
 aloud. There is no sadness in her voice ; but, on 
 the contrary, a firm cheerfulness. Every now 
 and then she pauses, and talks to the children 
 about what she is reading. They listen with the 
 deepest interest. Now, in one of these pausas.
 
 40 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 and just as the mother raises the book to resume 
 her reading, the boy says, 
 
 " I like this home best, don t you, Florence ?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed I do;" the little girl answers, 
 with a quiver of delight in her voice. 
 
 " How comes that ? This home is not so large, 
 nor so handsome, and we are poor." Mrs. Lea 
 gazes curiously, and not without manifest surprise 
 at her children. 
 
 There is a deepening of color on the boy s face, 
 and a slight hesitation of manner. He looks up 
 at his mother with eyes so full of love that it is 
 brimming them with tears. 
 
 " Why, my son ? Why do you like this home 
 the best ?" 
 
 "Because " The flush on his face is 
 
 warmer. 
 
 "Say it, dear." And Mrs. Lea draws the 
 answer. 
 
 " Because you are always with us now !" The 
 tears will not hold back. There comes a half
 
 TIIK SWEET FOUNTAIN. 41 
 
 hindered sob, and the boy s face goes down upon 
 his mother s breast. 
 
 Was any joy in all that mother s experience so 
 deep and pure as the joy which now rewards her 
 whole being, giving delight even to the very bo 
 dily sensations ; and there is no power in misfor 
 tune to cast a shadow over it. 
 
 " You love to have mother with you ?" 
 
 "Don t we, Florence?" The boy lifts his 
 head, not ashamed of the tears, that shine like 
 dew-beads on his cheeks, and smiles upon his 
 sister. 
 
 " Indeed we do," answers bright eyes, with a 
 fuller meaning in her tones than she can. express 
 in words ; " and I hope we ll always be poor, and 
 never have a nursery any more, to be shut up in, 
 with cross, ugly nurses." 
 
 A world of new thoughts come pressing in 
 upon the mind of Mrs. Lea. Scales drop from 
 her eyes. She sees how the true woman in her 
 had been overlaid by fashionable observances. 
 How the mere possession of wealth had deceived
 
 42 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 her into the false idea that a mother could trans 
 fer to a hireling the most sacred of all duties. 
 
 "Is the cup so very bitter?" Mrs. Lea is 
 talking with herself, as she sits sewing upon a 
 garment for one of her children. They have left 
 her side, and are at play with themselves. " My 
 friend was right; there is a sweet taste in the 
 water it contains. The bitterness was in me." 
 
 A few hours later, coming in from the small 
 chamber, where she has, after hearing their prayers, 
 given her children to the arms of sleep, Mrs. 
 Lea stands by her husband, and lays her hand 
 upon him. He looks up into her face. His own 
 had worn a shadow when he came in, not long 
 before ; but it is not shadowed now. 
 
 " We have not lost all," he says. 
 
 "JS"o, not all. Much is left much that is 
 priceless in value." 
 
 " Love is left and duty and God s kingdom, 
 into which we may enter by love and duty." 
 The voice of Mr. Lea trembles a little with its 
 burden of feeling, in this new utterance for him.
 
 THE SWEET FOUNTAIN. 43 
 
 He has been listening to the clear, yet reverent, 
 voices of his children, going up in their evening 
 prayer, and from the chamber in which they 
 kneeled by their mother he has gone back 
 through nearly forty years to another chamber 
 and another mother. The treasure-house of good 
 affections and pious thoughts, stored in infancy 
 and childhood, is unlocked now. He has gone in 
 among its precious things, and comprehending 
 their value, he says " Love is left and duty 
 and God s kingdom, into which we may enter by 
 love and duty." It was by misfortune that the 
 key came into his hands. And so in the loss of 
 worldly treasure, he has found the way to a store 
 house of celestial riches. 
 
 " When this cup touched my lips." It is still 
 later in the evening, and there has been long and 
 earnest communion with the past, the present, and 
 the future. "When this cup touched my lips," 
 Mrs. Lea is speaking " its bitterness made me 
 shudder ; yet, now I can see that it brought me 
 water from a sweet fountain. I am happier to-
 
 44 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 night than I was one year ago, when no dread of 
 the storm that has swept over us sent a chill to 
 my heart. There is a foundation, dear husband, 
 on which we may build and rest secure, though 
 the floods beat, and the tempests rage." 
 
 " Let us build thereon," is answered in low, 
 earnest tones, " a building that shall endure for 
 ever."
 
 COMFORTED. 45 
 
 IV. 
 
 COMFORTED. 
 
 drawn curtains stillness; such deep 
 ^ surrounding stillness that breathing was audi 
 ble. In this dimness and silence sat, through 
 the long days, refusing to be comforted, a mother 
 who had lost her child : Not a child in the in 
 nocence of infancy, but in the fragrance and pu 
 rity of young womanhood. 
 
 A sorrow like this is hard to bear. It touches 
 the very springs of life, and dashes their waters 
 with bitterness. It weighs down the heart with a 
 burden that makes every pulsation weak and 
 painful. Clouds envelop the sun and the earth 
 is in shadow. 
 
 " If I could only see her in my dreams," said 
 Mrs. Ellsworth to a friend, who had left the out 
 side cheerful world, and come into the gloomy
 
 46 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 apartment where the bereaved one sat nursing her 
 sorrow. " If I could only see her in my dreams, 
 it would be something. But since the day her 
 face was shut from me by the coffin lid, neither 
 to outward sight nor inward vision has it again 
 been visible. Through how many hours of the 
 night have I kept awake, hoping that I might see 
 her in the darkness. I was not afraid. Dear, 
 dear child ! She has gone from me as completely 
 as if I were sailing over an ocean, and she had 
 dropped down into its fathomless depths. Is 
 there no return of our beloved? My faith begins 
 to fail. I had not thought of the spiritual world 
 as very distant. T had believed the separating 
 veil but thin. Thought gives presence, and love 
 conjunction, as to the spirit, whether we be in the 
 body or out of the body ; so I had said, and so I 
 had believed. But now I sit and think of Mar 
 garet for hours, yet do not perceive her presence." 
 The friend made no attempt to meet the state 
 of Mrs. Ellsworth by theory or doctrine. She 
 understood her case, and knew that there was no
 
 COMFORTED. 47 
 
 comfort in words. So after sitting silent for a. 
 little while, she said 
 
 " You knew Mrs. Garland ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Have you heard about her ?" 
 
 " No ! what about her ?" 
 
 " Not that her husband was killed at Gettys 
 burg?" 
 
 " Why, no ! Killed at Gettysburg !" 
 
 "Yes; and what makes the case sadder, his 
 body could not be found. She will never know 
 the place of his burial !" 
 
 " Have you seen her ?" asked Mrs. Ellsworth. 
 
 "No; my acquaintance was too slight to war 
 rant intrusion. But you were an intimate friend, 
 I think." 
 
 "We have been quite intimate. Poor Mrs. 
 Garland ! How does she bear this terrible afflic 
 tion ?" 
 
 "I have not happened to meet with any one 
 who has visited her." 
 
 Mi s. Ellsworth, who had been sitting in a Ian-
 
 48 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 guid attitude, almost too spiritless to move, loft 
 her chair, and began walking about the room. A 
 new interest had been awakened in her mind. 
 The grief of a friend had for the moment over 
 shadowed her own. 
 
 "You will go and see her?" suggested the 
 visitor. 
 
 Mrs. Ellsworth stood still. She had not been 
 out of her house scarcely out of her chamber 
 since her daughter s death. 
 
 " The words of a very near friend give comfort 
 in sorrow. The heart is sustained by sympathy," 
 
 " We are near and dear friends ; her affliction 
 is heavier than mine; I will go to her," said Mrs. 
 Ellsworth. 
 
 Temperaments are different, and so are the 
 principles on which character is based. No two 
 minds bear sorrow alike. The heart of Mrs. 
 Ellsworth failed her as she crossed the threshold 
 of her friend s dwelling. She had come to offer 
 the comfort of her presence not to deal in fruit 
 less words and now she felt that even her pre-
 
 COMFORTED. 49 
 
 sence could only add gloom to the darkness in 
 which Mrs. Garland was enshrouded. A few 
 moments of waiting, and then a servant invited 
 her up stairs. The chamber in which she found 
 her friend was not in twilight shadows, but cheer 
 ful with tempered light. As she entered, she met 
 a pale, suffering face, and eyes running over. 
 The face hid itself on her bosom. Tears mingled 
 with tears, and sobs answered to sobs. 
 
 " It was so kind in you to come," said Mrs. 
 Garland, as they sat down together. "I have 
 thought of you so many times, and wished to see 
 you." 
 
 A baby sat on the floor a baby ten months 
 old. His nurse had gone down stairs. He was 
 half alarmed at the presence of a stranger, and 
 put up his hands to be taken. His mother lifted 
 him into her arms, and he nestled his head close 
 down against her bosom, but with his eyes on 
 Mrs. Ellsworth s face. 
 
 " Dear baby !" said Mrs. Ellsworth, the mois 
 ture glistening in her eyes.
 
 50 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 "Margaret loved him so! I never look at 
 him that I do not think of Margaret," returned 
 Mrs. Garland. "And he was so fond of her 
 dear girl that she was ! I dreamed of her last 
 night. She was standing in this very room, with 
 Eddy in her arms. How plainly I can se 
 
 her!" 
 
 " Oh, I would give all I have in the world for 
 just such a dream ! to see her, even in my sleep. 
 Oh, yes, she loved Eddy. Come, darling." And 
 Mrs. Ellsworth, in whose heart was born at that 
 instant a tender yearning towards the child, held 
 out her hands. The baby felt the new-born love, 
 and responded by leaping into Mrs. Ellsworth s 
 arms, and laying his head down sweetly on her 
 bosom. 
 
 "Just so he would spring into Margaret s 
 arms," said the mother. 
 
 "She loved all little children. A baby was 
 her delight." And something of that very de 
 light transfused itself through the soul of Mrs. 
 Ellsworth. Since her own little ones lay on her
 
 COMFORTED. 51 
 
 breast, she had never perceived such beauty in a 
 baby. 
 
 And Margaret had loved this very baby so ten 
 derly ! had so often held him in her arms, and 
 fell his head against her bosom as she felt it now ! 
 A thrill of strange pleasure ran along her nerves. 
 She had an intimation of Margaret s presence 
 such as had not been given since the veil of death 
 dropped down between them. 
 
 " She so tenderly loved little children while in 
 this world," said Mrs. Garland, "that, I doubt 
 not, God has placed her in the midst of them. 
 Their pure spirits are going upwards daily and 
 hourly. Angels are gathering them, like fra 
 grant harvests, from thousands of earthly homes, 
 and garnering them in heaven. I have often pic 
 tured Margaret to my thought, surrounded by ba 
 bies and little children, in ministering to whom 
 she found a purer and more unfailing delight 
 than she ever knew upon the earth." 
 
 The countenance of Mrs. Ellsworth lightened. 
 Her eyes glanced upwards ; the close compression
 
 5J THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 01 her quivering lips gave way to something like 
 a smile. 
 
 " While my thought has dwelt too often with 
 the body in the grave," she answered, "even 
 when it followed her across the dividing river, it 
 realized no actual condition of life saw her in no 
 congenial associations realized nothing. Dear 
 friend ! you have put stones beneath my sinking 
 feet. It may not be just as you have imagined ; 
 but, one thing is plain to me now the pure and 
 innocent loves of her heart will not flow forth to 
 be lost like water in sand." 
 
 " No, no," said Mrs. Garland. " Defect, im 
 pediment, hindrance are of this world. They are 
 born of evil. But, in heaven, every pure de 
 sire every tender love is gratified. Let our 
 souls take up their rest in this ; let us find some 
 relief to pain in the sure faith that it is well with 
 our departed ones ; and that, if they come to us 
 in spirit, they will be able to draw nearer if our 
 souls are calm and resigned to God s will, than if
 
 COMFORTED. 53 
 
 they were shrouded in despair, and turbulent 
 with complaint." 
 
 "Yes, yes. It must be so," returned Mrs. 
 Ellsworth. "A new suggestion comes to me. 
 Have I not so hidden my spirit away amid pall 
 and cloud, that my child could not find me? 
 Her love is still the same. Her thought could 
 not have turned itself from me. Why have I 
 had no sign of her presence ?" 
 
 Mrs. Garland reached her hands for the child, 
 who was still in Mrs. Ellsworth s arms; but Mrs. 
 Ellsworth drew him closer, saying : 
 
 " Let him remain dear baby ! I have hardly 
 acknowledged it to myself, but since he has been 
 lying here, Margaret has seemed almost in bodily 
 presence beside me. I came to grieve with you, 
 dear friend, in your deeper sorrow, and lo, my 
 heart has been comforted !" 
 
 " I have been hiding away from my darling," 
 said Mrs. Ellsworth, talking with herself as she 
 went homeward. " I have so darkened all the 
 chambers in which my soul dwelt, that she could 
 
 5*
 
 54 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 not find me. I must open the windows ; I must 
 let in the light ; I must clothe my spirits with 
 fairer garments. I must no longer think of my 
 loss, but of her gain. As God s kingdom in the 
 heavens into which she has been born is a king 
 dom of mutual love and service, my life must 
 dwell amid useful things if I would be in associa 
 tion with angels and she is an angel." 
 
 That night she had a dream of Margaret. She 
 came to her in spotless garments, holding little 
 Eddy in her arms, and smiling down upon him 
 with looks of ineffable sweetness. How real it 
 all was ! 
 
 "Take him, dear mother!" She held him 
 forth, and he sprang to the arms of Mrs. Ells 
 worth. 
 
 The smile on Margaret s face grew tenderer, as 
 she said : 
 
 " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 The dream passed. Morning came. But a 
 sense of Margaret s presence remained. If she 
 thought of her sadly ; if she repined at her loss ;
 
 COMFORTED. 55 
 
 if she sat down with folded hands, gathering 
 gloomy states around her, this sense of presence 
 began to fade. The departed one seemed to 
 move afar off. But, in all cheerful work, in all 
 self-forgetfulness, in all service for another, she 
 felt her very near. Sometimes she could say : 
 " Margaret has been with me all day long." 
 And so she was comforted. In an almost con 
 strained effort to leave her own sorrow, and try 
 to soften the pain that lay close and hard upon 
 another spirit, she had found the way of consola 
 tion.
 
 56 T1IE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 r. 
 
 OUT OF TUNE. 
 
 " TF I had leisure, quiet, repose ! If I codld 
 escape from this fret and fever of life from 
 this daily contact with things that chafe and 
 worry ; that hurt and agitate. Ah, my friend ! 
 There is something wrong. Something out of 
 joint in the constitution of society, when its ac 
 tion is so painfully felt. If I were as immovable 
 as stone; or if my nerves were steel, I might pass 
 through the world with unruffled feelings. But 
 I am a bundle of sensitive fibres, which answer, 
 like a finely-strung instrument, to every touch ; 
 giving melody to sort-falling and skillful fingers, 
 and discord whenever a rough hand invades." 
 
 "A living soul, fearfully and wonderfully 
 made," I answered. "A delicately-wrought in 
 strument, created for choral harmonies."
 
 OUT OF TUNE. . 57 
 
 My friend looked at me with a face that ques 
 tioned as to the meaning of what I had said. 
 
 " It is not escape from society that you need," 
 I remarked. 
 
 " What then ?" 
 
 " The chording of your instrument with the 
 grand life-chorus. Drop out of your place go 
 away by yourself and you will be as a solitary 
 hautboy, a trombone, a flute, or whatever the in 
 strument may be to which you correspond in the 
 living orchestral world." 
 
 "Ingenious and fanciful. But, accepting your 
 thought as true, how can an instrument, finely - 
 strung, find its true relation and power where all 
 is discord ?" 
 
 " Impossible in the nature of things," was my 
 reply. "But there is a grand life-chorus, into 
 which all human instruments, if in tune, may 
 come, each in its turn giving increase to the 
 harmony." 
 
 " My senses are not acute enough to perceive 
 this harmony," returned my friend. " I listen j
 
 58 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 but to my ears come shocks of discord, thai send 
 thrills of pain along the strings of my soul. For 
 me there is no hope but in escape from this Babel 
 of sounds. I must get away, and live cl.eer to 
 nature. I must talk with the babbling streams ; 
 with the birds; with insects; with sweet airs, per 
 fume-laden ; .with forest and sky ; with all things, 
 in fact, which are in the order of their creation, 
 and so image the Creator. Oh, how I am long 
 ing to escape ! And I will escape !" 
 
 My friend was in earnest, and so, seeking for 
 opportunity, he made his escape, going from the 
 city in which his life had been passed, far away 
 into the country, that he might stand face to face 
 wtth nature, and so be in harmony with her. 
 He found leisure, quiet, repose. The stream 
 which had, almost from its source, moved along 
 in a free current now hurrying past flowery 
 banks, now flashing back the sunlight in silvery 
 gleams as it swept over stony places or down 
 rocky heights composed itself to sleep in a tnn- 
 quil lake.
 
 "The smooth, tree-encircled lake impresses you with a sense of 
 tranquillity." Page 59.
 
 OUT OF TUNE. 59 
 
 lie found it very pleasant and peaceful for a 
 time. The rush, the hurry, the change were 
 over. No more discords no more strivings no 
 more contact with rudeness and coarseness, with 
 all-absorbing selfishness. 
 
 " I am at one with nature," he wrote me, soon 
 after the change. "All her peace, and order, and 
 harmony flow into my life. She speaks to me, 
 and I understand her language. She takes me 
 by the hand, and leads me into green pastures 
 and beside still waters. I never understood life 
 before." 
 
 The smooth, tree-encircled lake impresses you 
 with a sense of tranquility. You look upon its 
 calm surface, and feel its quiet influence per 
 vading your soul. But, as you gaze down into 
 its bosom, you begin to have an impression of 
 something hidden and hurtful ; of a place in 
 which evil things may be at work. Though the 
 water looks clear, it has nothing of that crystal 
 line life so beautiful in the flowing stream. 
 Dark masses of something you cannot make out,
 
 60 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 lie at the bottom. Around the edges, weeds grow 
 in wild luxuriance. You begin to feel a slug 
 gishness in the air, and to perceive stifling odors 
 from rank vegetation. How deep and exhila 
 rating is every breath, as you come into the open 
 fields or ascend some mountain paths again ! An 
 hour by the still lake has sufficed. It would be 
 death in life to dwell there. 
 
 Very pleasant for a time my friend found it in 
 his new dwelling-place, far away from the great 
 centres of humanity. The agitations that swept, 
 sympathetically, from circle to circle of life, did 
 not find him out in his calm retreat never stirred 
 his heart, reminding him that he was a member 
 of the great body of the people. He was the still 
 lake, reflecting sky and tree, and holding peace in 
 his bosom. The still lake of the soul is arfected 
 by moral laws in strict correspondence with natu 
 ral laws. As it was with the lake on the lower 
 and material plane, so it must be on a higher and 
 spiritual plane. There was no escape for him. 
 Reason would have taught him this, if he could
 
 OUT OF TUNE. 61 
 
 have gone so far above his sensuous self as to 
 comprehend her clear inductions. 
 
 I did not meet him again for years after he 
 dropped away from our social and business world, 
 lost to us as an instrument from an orchestra, or a 
 fine voice from a choir. There was gain on nei 
 ther side, I think; but loss to both. A few let 
 ters had passed between us ; then communication 
 ceased. Our minds were not in harmony they 
 did not chord in the music of life. 
 
 Two or three months ago, I was in a neighbor 
 ing city. The call for a public meeting attracted 
 my attention, and I went to note the proceedings. 
 The organization was going on as I entered the 
 hall, and greatly to my surprise, I saw my friend 
 take the chair. I could not be mistaken in him, 
 for his physique was peculiar. If I had been in 
 doubt, his voice would have assured me. Time, 
 and life, had been at work with him, and through 
 both, his true manhood was coming out. There 
 was an air of strength r.bout him of self-poise 
 of will that knoweth no hindrance. I lost half
 
 62 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 my interest in the meeting, because of interest in 
 my friend. How quietly, yet with a full con 
 sciousness of what the assembling involved, did 
 he, as chairman, hold all its proceedings in the 
 bonds of that rational order out of which so 
 much right action comes. He gave rythm to the 
 whole. 
 
 When I stood face to face with him, grasping 
 his hands, and looking into his clear, thoughtful 
 eyes, I saw that he was a new man. That there 
 had been deaths and births losses and gains 
 the laying aside of lower things, and the putting 
 on of what were higher and purer. 
 
 " I thought you were vegetating in your coun 
 try hermitage," I said to him, " and lo ! I find 
 you in the very heart, as it were, of the world of 
 action." 
 
 " Come home with me," he answered. " We 
 must talk about that. I have thought of you a 
 great many times." 
 
 I went with him and passed the night. He 
 was in business again. The fret and fever of life
 
 OUT OF TUNE. 63 
 
 4 
 
 were all about him. He was once nore in con 
 tact with things that chafe and worry, that hurt 
 and agitate if we will let them. 
 
 " Tell me," I said, " of your states and experi 
 ences during the time you lived separate from the 
 world, and alone with nature. You wrote me 
 that you were at one with her; that all her 
 peace and harmony and order flowed into your 
 life ; that she spoke to you in a language clearly 
 understood; that she was leading you in green 
 pastures and beside still waters." 
 
 He dropped his eyes, and looked thoughtful. 
 
 "A mere fancy," he replied. "You know in 
 what state of mind I broke away from society 
 dropped out of the orchestra, to use your own 
 figure, and went away with my solitary instru 
 ment, to enjoy its music alone. An athlete, ex 
 hausted in the arena, finds sweet repose on a soft 
 bed in a quiet chamber. It fills, for a time, his 
 idea of heaven. But, when the weary limbs have 
 rested, and every organ and fibre is flushed with 
 blood and animal spirits, the chamber becomes as
 
 64 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 a prison. He could not live there. He would 
 grow sick for want of freedom and action. A si 
 milar state was mine. The peaceful retreat into 
 which I withdrew myself, was as the bed and 
 chamber to the strained athlete. 
 
 " There was far more of fancy than experience," 
 he continued, " in those fine words about my in 
 telligent intercourse with nature. I expressed 
 what I believed possible, rather than what I had 
 experienced. It seemed to me that I was stand 
 ing at the door opening into the arena of nature, 
 and that a hand was moving it on the inner side. 
 My heart bounded in confident anticipations 
 which were not realized. The door never turned 
 on its hinges the mystery of nature was not re 
 vealed. I soon wearied of asking vague ques 
 tions of the trees and stones of the birds and 
 brooks of the earth and sky. If they answered 
 me, I did not comprehend their language. The 
 peace, the beauty, the order o^ external life, did 
 not long transfuse themselves into my soul nay, 
 transfuse is not the word did not long reflect
 
 OUT OF TUNE. fw 
 
 themselves from the surface. The old disquiet 
 came back upon me ; and I awoke, gradually, to 
 the truth, that disturbing causes were within me, 
 rather than without ; that my instrument was not 
 in tune. It was a painful awakening. After 
 thjs, nature, which at first seemed flushing with 
 intelligence, grew stupid and dumb. I knew no 
 thing of botany, of mineralogy, of entomology ; 
 and the science wanting, there was no basis for a 
 true interest in things below or above the earth s 
 surface. 
 
 "A few years of dull, weary, soul-corroding 
 life, and I came back into the world again, some 
 thing wiser than when I went away to live by 
 myself. I do not see that we have changed in 
 anything since my first experience; and yet I find 
 my action accordant with the general action in 
 hundreds of cases where it was discordant before. 
 The change is in myself; my instrument is in 
 better tune, and chords more perfectly with other 
 instruments in the grand chorus of life. There 
 is, I find, a great deal around us that we speak 
 
 6* E
 
 66 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 of as discord, when the fault is in ourselves. Of 
 one thing I am satisfied, and that is, that in 
 the great social body, marred and diseased as it 
 is, there is a life as harmonious and reciprocal as 
 in the single body of a man a life inflowing 
 from the source of life, and order, and by virtue 
 of that Source, in the perpetual endeavor to re 
 form, restore, and bring back humanity to its lost 
 image and likeness of God. We see this in the 
 effort of every community to get just laws, and 
 have them executed for the common good ; in the 
 devotion of men to useful employment, each in 
 his sphere ; in concerted benevolent, sanitary and 
 corrective movements, by which diseased and 
 hurtful things may be cast out. Now, just in the 
 degree that each individual brings himself into 
 harmony with this higher circle of life, which is 
 common to the whole, will he find discord and 
 obstruction ceasing. The world will put on a 
 new face for him. She will speak to him in a 
 different language. He will not need to go away 
 into the still places of jiature to find rest and
 
 OUT OF TUNE. 67 
 
 peace, for they will abide with him. But, if he 
 narrow his life down to the merest selfish ends, 
 seeking, as some disordered member of the body, 
 to appropriate only, and not to give to act for 
 himself alone, and not in concert with the whole 
 for the health and well-being of the whole then 
 he will be out of tune. His life will be jarred by 
 perpetual discords, and he will vainly imagine 
 that he is suffering from defect of harmony in 
 society, when the defect is in himself. 
 
 " This," added my friend, " is the lesson I have 
 learned. Taking my peculiar mental construction, 
 there was no way for me to learn it but by the 
 hard one of experience. I had to drop out of the 
 orchestra and try my instrument alone. What 
 poor music I made, sitting afar off in solitary 
 places by myself! I thought it passing sweet at 
 first; but its thinness and monotony soon wearied, 
 and at last disgusted me. I longed for choral 
 harmonies. How they ravished my ears when 
 their chorded delights broke into them again !"
 
 68 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 VI. 
 
 SUNDAY RELIGION. 
 
 " "I T ERE Sunday religion, and not worth any- 
 
 *" thing," said a lady, whose age and appear 
 ance gave weight to her words. The remark 
 seemed to occasion something like surprise in the 
 little group around her. 
 
 "What do you mean by Sunday religion?" 
 was asked. 
 
 "Pious observances of any kind singing, 
 praying, listening to sermons, reading the Bible, 
 receiving the sacraments, and the like." 
 
 "And do you mean to say that these are worth 
 nothing as means to the attainment of a heavenly 
 life?" 
 
 "No; far from it. They are of inestimable 
 value ; I might almost say of essential value." 
 
 "Then," said the other, "I am at a loss to
 
 SUNDAY RELIGION. 69 
 
 comprehend your meaning. Sunday religion not 
 worth anything !" 
 
 "Mere Sunday religion, I said, which is about 
 all the religion possessed by the large class to 
 whom I was referring. An exterior of sanctity, 
 without a living principle of charity in the heart ; 
 that is the Sunday religion I meant to condemn." 
 
 "There is too much of that, I fear," was an 
 swered. 
 
 " Too much, alas !" 
 
 " It is a self-deceiving form of hypocrisy," re 
 marked one of the company. 
 
 "And as such," said the lady, "without any 
 saving principle. Men and women may sing and 
 pray devoutly read the w r ord of God in all so 
 lemnity of utterance hear preachings receive 
 the sacred correspondential elements in the com 
 munion give of their substance to churches 
 and yet be in the broad way to destruction, in 
 stead of in the narrow way to heaven. All these 
 things will be as nothing if the week-day life fail. 
 If, from Monday morning until Saturday night,
 
 70 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 love of self and the world rule the whole mind, 
 all Sunday service will go for nothing in our ac 
 count with heaven. In every day of every week 
 we are writing down that history of our lives by 
 which we shall be judged when this mortal puts 
 on immortality ; and will not six days of God- 
 forgetting selfishness stand in fearful contrast with 
 a Sunday record of constrained worship ?" 
 
 "Must religion come down into everything?" 
 was asked. " How can you bring piety into 
 trade ? It does not follow, because a man is ear 
 nest in his employment, that he is sinning against 
 God. Nothing can be done rightly, unless the 
 mind goes into it with full vigor ; and a man can 
 not think of business and religion at the same 
 time. He who made us, comprehended this, and 
 set apart one day in seven for religious thoughts 
 and duties. I m afraid you depress the value of 
 our Sabbath ceremonials." 
 
 " It is not in my heart to do so, for I find in 
 them both help and comfort," replied the lady, 
 whose remark had led the conversation in this di-
 
 SUNDAY RELIGION. 71 
 
 rection. " Of all good gifts from our heavenly 
 Father, I prize, as among the bast, this Chris 
 tian Sabbath, when we may lay down our bur 
 dens of care and work, and gather up strength, 
 hope, encouragement, and lessons of spiritual wis 
 dom, by which to lead truer, because more unself 
 ish, lives, in the days to come. But, if it is used 
 as the only means of advancing heavenward, 
 through devotional acts, and neither God nor the 
 neighbor be regarded in the weeks that follow, 
 then will its services be in vain. There must be 
 religion in business, or there can be no religion at 
 all." 
 
 " I am at fault as to your entire meaning," said 
 the one who had previously spoken. " Religion 
 in business ! that is a novel proposition. Would 
 you have a man praying and psalm-singing in his 
 shop, store, office, or manufactory ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then, how is he to bring down his religion 
 into his business ?" 
 
 " Religion is life," was answered j " that is, a
 
 72 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 life in obedience to the precepts of religion. 
 Now, men live through the week as well as on 
 Sunday in their stores and shops as well as in 
 their homes or closets; and they can lead only 
 one of two lives religious or irreligious the life 
 of heaven or the life of hell. This is true of 
 every day, and hour, and moment. Think 
 must it not be so?" 
 
 There followed a thoughtful silence. 
 
 " What I mean by religion in business," said 
 the lady, "is that justice and integrity which ne 
 ver loses sight of the neighbor s well being 
 which is based on the divine law, Whatsoever 
 ye would that men should do unto you, do ye 
 even so to them. It is in business that men 
 come in contact with men under the peculiar 
 temptations that love of self inspires; and here it 
 is that they are more especially called upon to 
 live that life of religious trust in God by which 
 they can overcome the evil inclinings of their 
 hearts. In church, and on the business-free Sab 
 bath, they are not in the soul-trying temptations
 
 SUNDAY RELIGION. 7c! 
 
 that meet them in their world s work, and the 
 armor of religion is not so needful for defence. 
 It is to him who overcometh that the promise is 
 given ; and life s battle is not on the Sabbath, nor 
 in church. Our way to heaven is through the 
 world. A Sunday religion, therefore, which is 
 not the complement of religion in daily life, is of 
 no avail whatever, and to them who trust therein 
 will come a sad awakening in that time, when all 
 hearts will be seen as they are. God is a spirit, 
 and they who worship him must worship him in 
 spirit and in truth. It is the heart s quality that 
 gives acceptance in the eyes of God not prostra 
 tions of the body, nor any mere acts of devotion. 
 There can be no true external worship without 
 the internal worship of a good life ; and a good 
 life consists in a faithful and just discharge of all 
 our neighborly duties from a principle of obedi 
 ence to Divine laws. When such obedience is 
 rendered, external Sabbath worship will flow in 
 natural sequence, and be a form of that genuine 
 worship which brings us near to God, and fills us
 
 74 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 with his spirit a spirit not of self-love and nar 
 row self-seeking, but of genuine regard for others. 
 When that spirit rules in a man s heart, he will 
 be just in dealing, and careful that no one has 
 loss through his gain. He will take no advan 
 tages in trade, nor profit through another s igno 
 rance. Charity, or neighborly good-will, will 
 make one with his piety. In the ground of love 
 for the neighbor, whom he has seen, will the 
 seeds of love to God, whom he" hath not seen, be 
 planted." 
 
 " You make the way to heaven very narrow. 
 Who can walk in it?" said one of the company. 
 
 A sigh came faintly from the lips of the lady 
 \vho had spoken so wisely and well. 
 
 " If we would go to heaven we must come into 
 the life of heaven," she said, " and that is a life 
 of mutual love and service. God is love not 
 self-love, such as we cherish, but a love of doing 
 good. And the religion that leads to heaven is 
 an everyday religion of good-will to the neigh 
 bor, showing itself in justice, integrity, truth,
 
 SUNDAY RELIGION. 75 
 
 honor, and genuine humanity. Without this re 
 ligion, Sunday worship is nothing ; with it, con 
 junction with heaven, and a joy unspeakable. 
 If the way is narrow, it is, nevertheless, the way 
 marked out by God himself. It is not my way 
 but his. And it is hard only because self-love is 
 strong. Deny this self-love, and heavenly love 
 will flow in. Then the way will become plain, 
 and its rough places smooth. Flowers will spring 
 along its margin, as it winds upward and upward 
 into clear mountain regions, from which new 
 worlds of beauty will open successively to the 
 vision. So I read the laws of heavenly life, as 
 written in God s word."
 
 76 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE LIFE TO COME. 
 
 " mHANK God for the life to come !" said a 
 - pale, sad-looking woman, in a voice marked 
 less by the patience of Christian hope, than by 
 fretfulness and despondency. 
 
 " What life to come, Aunt Lucy ?" 
 
 The questioner was a slender girl, not over se 
 venteen or eighteen in appearance, but, really, in 
 her twenty-first summer. 
 
 "Are you a heathen, Grace?" The woman s 
 dark eyes flashed half-angrily. " Did you never 
 hear of the life to come, pray ? What kind of 
 people have you been amongst? Didn t they 
 teach you anything about God and heaven ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes." A gentle smile parted the maid 
 en s lips. 
 
 "Well, then, you know what I mean by the
 
 THE LIFE TO COME. 77 
 
 life to come life in the next world life in hea 
 ven. Of this bitter life, with its sorrows, be 
 reavements, disappointments, and pains, I am 
 weary, and, therefore, say in my heart, Thank 
 God for the life to come !" 
 
 The countenance of Grace did not lighten up 
 with the satisfied expression of one who under 
 stands and appreciates another. A gentle sigh, 
 that was half involuntary, parted her lips. Her 
 eyes fell away from the eyes of her aunt a shade 
 of thought crept over her quiet face. Mrs. Fleet- 
 wood looked at her curiously, and with a falling 
 brow. 
 
 Nearly ten years had passed since this sis 
 ter s child had been left motherless and among 
 strangers, and not once, until now, during these 
 ten years, had Mrs. Fleetwood seen her niece. 
 Her own life had been too worldly and selfish to 
 admit of a generous, loving sentiment toward the 
 child of a sister, whose marriage with a man of 
 no " position or promise," as she expressed it, had 
 been felt as a humiliation ; and so, she had been
 
 78 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 content to let her remain with those who had re 
 ceived her to their hearts and homes when God re 
 moved her widowed mother. But a change in her 
 own life had come, bringing sorrow, bereavement, 
 and misfortune ; and now her thought went out 
 towards Grace, her sister s child not lovingly, 
 but selfishly not with a desire to be miuistrant to 
 her conditions of life, but with a desire of being 
 ministered to herself. From this state she sum 
 moned, rather than invited, her niece ; and from 
 this state sought to read her character and dispo 
 sition, when she came, with eyes that endeavored 
 to look into her very consciousness. That she 
 was baffled in this will hardly be a matter of sur 
 prise. Persons of her class are without the key 
 that unlocks the inner chambers of a soul whose 
 life-mansions are not built on earthly foundations. 
 Mrs. Fleetwood was a church- woman whose re 
 ligion, up to the time when her sky became over 
 cast, consisted in formal service alone. Beyond 
 this she had no conception of duty to God. 
 After all the blessedness of her natural life had
 
 THE LIFE TO COME. 79 
 
 been extinguished after children, fortune, 
 frienis, were gone, and darkness drew down 
 over her world like a curtain, then her selfish 
 heart began to sigh for the blessedness of a life 
 to come then she lifted her eyes toward the 
 far-off mountains of heaven, which her imagina 
 tion painted as beautiful with verdure, and balmy 
 with the odors of immortal flowers. And still, as 
 the pictures spread themselves all lovely to be 
 hold, and fancy, as she dwelt upon them, gave 
 ever multiplying attractions, she grew almost im 
 patient to put off the poor, torn vestments of 
 mortality, and rise into life eternal. 
 
 You understand Mrs. Fleetwood now, and are 
 not surprised at the curious look and falling brow 
 with which she regarded her niece, whose coun 
 tenance did not answer to her warmly uttered 
 " Thank God for the life to come !" As the eyes 
 of Grace fell away from those of her aunt, and 
 thought-shadows crept about her lips and brow, 
 Mrs. Fleetwood said, with a slight tremor of im 
 patience in her tones
 
 80 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 " Maybe you don t believe in another life." 
 
 Instantly the eyes of Grace flashed up into 
 those of Mrs. Fleetwood; not with any fire of in 
 dignation in them, but with a light as pure as 
 that which dew-drops gather from sunbeams a 
 light full of hope and sweet anticipation. 
 
 " I have been taught to thank God for the life 
 to come, aunt, and to seek for it in duty and self- 
 denial," replied Grace, a smile playing softly 
 around her lips. 
 
 A change was apparent in Mrs. Fleetwood s 
 face. Its expression was slightly puzzled. The 
 brief answer was not satisfactory to her state, for 
 it involved things admitted by common percep 
 tion, yet not clearly seen. 
 
 "I mean life in another world life in heaven, 
 Grace." Mrs. Fleetwood s manner was subdued. 
 
 " There is no life in another world that is not 
 born in this, aunt. So I have been taught." 
 
 Mrs. Fleetwood gazed at her niece with a look 
 of half perplexed inquiry.
 
 THE LIFE TO COME. 81 
 
 " The life to come must come here, or it can 
 never come at all," added Grace. 
 
 " Child, you talk in riddles !" said Mrs. Fleet- 
 wood, moving impatiently. " I can t get at your 
 meaning. Life in this world is the present life, 
 and life in the next world is the life to come. 
 Isn t that so ?" 
 
 " There is natural life and there is spiritual life, 
 aunt." 
 
 " Well, child ?" 
 
 " Natural life is the earthly life, and spiritual 
 life the heavenly life." 
 
 " Yes. Every Christian knows that." 
 
 "Natural life, that into which we are born, 
 and spiritual life, the life to come," said Grace, 
 speaking slowly, and with significant emphasis. 
 
 Mrs. Fleetwood, with lips slightly apart, sat 
 looking into the earnest face of her niece, which 
 seemed all at once to become instinct with 
 thought. 
 
 "The beginning in each of us of this life to 
 
 come - -this heavenly life, aunt I have been 
 F
 
 82 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 taught to regard as the new-birth, without which, 
 as our Lord has expressly said, we cannot en 
 ter the kingdom of heaven. That which is 
 born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born 
 of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said 
 unto you, ye must be born again. This is the 
 life to come, aunt ; this is the actual rising into 
 another state of existence. Death can make no 
 change in the quality of our lives, aunt so I 
 have been taught, and so do I believe. As our 
 life is at death, so will it remain to eternity. We 
 shall only pass from the world of material, to the 
 world of spiritual things; and these spiritual things 
 will be such as agree with our states and qualities 
 of soul such as we have loved and delighted in 
 here. If we have passed, by regeneration a new 
 birth and a new growth into the full stSture of a 
 spiritual man, then, our lives having been in hea 
 ven while our bodies were yet upon the earth, we 
 shall simply rise, by death, out of the material 
 into the spiritual plane of existence, and live con 
 sciously, as we lived before actually, among the
 
 THE LIFE TO COME. 83 
 
 angels. But, if our lives have been selfish and 
 worldly, we shall pass by death into a conscious 
 association with spirits of a like character, who 
 have been our soul s companions while our bo 
 dies and our thoughts have been in this outward 
 world." 
 
 " You bewilder me, Grace," said Mrs. Fleet- 
 wood, with a troubled look. " I can t see clear. 
 By God s mercy, I hope to pass into heaven, 
 when I leave this world. My Saviour died for 
 me. I trust in him. He is able to save to the 
 uttermost." 
 
 " Dear aunt," said Grace, " we must be like- 
 minded with the Saviour if we would dwell with 
 him forever. His infinite mercy has redeemed us 
 from the power of hell. He bowed the heavens, 
 and came down, that he might raise us out of our 
 sad condition; and as he bowed the heavens once 
 for all mankind, so he bows it now and forever 
 for each individual of the human race, and thus 
 makes redemption perpetual. But we must be 
 born again natural life, which is selfish, must
 
 84 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 die in us through self-denial, in order that spirit 
 ual life may be born in our souls. As He loved 
 us, and gave himself for us, so must we love 
 others, and give ourselves for them. This life of 
 love is the life to come, and without its birth in 
 our hearts here, we cannot enter heaven." 
 
 The shadow fell deeper on Mrs. Fleetwood s 
 countenance. This same doctrine may have been 
 preached in her ears again and again, many times 
 over, but, certainly, never before had it gone down 
 to the region of conviction. Loving others, and 
 giving her life for others, had been no part of 
 Mrs. Fleetwood s creed. Self bounded her world. 
 And as her thought went forward to that " life to 
 come" of which she had spoken, it was pictured 
 as a life in which all delight was selfish instead 
 of reciprocal or beneficent. But that common 
 perception of truth, which, when a truth is first 
 stated, gives it a real embodiment, now struck 
 her mind with conviction, and sobered her feel 
 ings. Grace had moved the foundations of her 
 hope in heaven.
 
 THE LIFE TO COME. S5 
 
 From that hour there was a change in Mrs. 
 Fleetwood. In the walk and conversation of her 
 niece, she saw a beautiful illustration of her more 
 interior doctrine. Grace never seemed to think 
 of herself, nor to feel that in serving another she 
 was robbing her own spirit. Always cheerful, 
 always ready to communicate, always reaching 
 forth the willing hand, she so embodied for Mrs. 
 Fleetwood the true life of heaven, that she grew 
 at last to comprehend and to desire it. 
 
 "Thank God for the life to come!" It was 
 many years afterward that Mrs. Fleetwood said 
 this again, but with what a new and Higher 
 meaning in her thought !
 
 86 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE FACE AND THE LIFE. 
 
 " YI THAT kind of a looking man was he ?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "I saw his face only for a moment. It did 
 not impress me favorably. But faces in repose 
 do not always give a right index of character." 
 
 " I am not sure of that," said I. " The face in 
 repose is, I think, the true face. We all have 
 two lives, the external for the world, the internal 
 for ourselves. And we are with ourselves, living 
 our own internal lives, more than we are with the 
 world living our external lives. Our external is 
 a constrained and superficial thing, to be put on 
 and off as interest, pleasure, or love of reputation 
 may dictate. But our internal is made up of our 
 real ends and purposes is our very self, and si 
 lently, but surely, day by day, and year by year,
 
 THE FACE AND THE LIFE. 37 
 
 is it writing on our faces a true record of our cha 
 racters. This is why the countenances of the 
 good grow beautiful as they grow old ; and why 
 the countenances of the selfish and evil grow 
 more and more repulsive with age." 
 
 " I think there must be exceptions to this," re 
 marked my friend. 
 
 "There may be apparent exceptions, but no 
 real ones, for there is an eternal relation between 
 cause and effect." 
 
 " Look at Dr. Mayfield," said he. 
 
 " You cite a strong case," I answered. 
 
 " Did you ever know a better man ?" 
 
 " I think him one of the best of men," said I. 
 
 "And yet, his face in repose is as hard as 
 iron." 
 
 " It is very hard, and very homely," I ad 
 mitted. 
 
 " Yet all this fades when it lights up in con 
 versation, and you wonder if it can be the same 
 face you looked upon a little while before." 
 
 " If you study that face when the glow of ex-
 
 88 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEES. 
 
 ternal thought and feeling has died away," said I, 
 "you will not find among its hard angles and 
 deep lines any lurking signs of cruelty." 
 
 " No ; it is not a cruel face." 
 
 " Nor do we find covetousness there." 
 
 " It could not be there," ray friend answered, 
 promptly ; " for of all vices, Doctor Mayfield is 
 freest of this." 
 
 " Nor envy, discontent, or fretfulness." 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Hard and homely as his face is, it does not 
 repel you." 
 
 "No," replied my friend, "there is nothing 
 about Doctor Mayfield to repel. Everybody is 
 attracted by him." 
 
 "If internally he were cruel, selfish, envious 
 and discontented, these repulsive qualities would 
 radiate from his countenance when in repose, and 
 no one could mistake the signs. And so, in 
 looking more narrowly at this strong case, I 
 find that it does not invalidate the theory. In 
 the instance of Doctor Mayfield, it seems that a
 
 THE FACE AND THE LIFE. 89 
 
 spirit of more than ordinary purity had become 
 enshrined in a body of less than ordinary beauty, 
 and of such an unyielding substance, that scarcely 
 perceptible impressions were made, even in the 
 lapse of years. But the artist-soul is at work, 
 and that hard face shall yet put on lineaments 
 that to some eyes will only thinly veil the beau 
 tiful." 
 
 "And so you think the face in repose a right 
 index to character?" 
 
 " I do, and for the reason given." 
 
 " There is the face of Mrs. Lawson," said my 
 friend. "The thought of her has just come into 
 my mind. No one questions her goodness. Yet 
 her face when in repose is anything but pleasing 
 to contemplate. Her mouth has a troubled ex 
 pression, singularly in contrast with its sweetness 
 when she smiles." 
 
 "Mrs. Lawson has known trouble," I re 
 marked. " She has passed through many fires of 
 affliction." 
 
 8*
 
 90 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 " Yes ; the cup of life placed to her lips was 
 bitter indeed, and she drank to the dregs." 
 
 " Through many years, she drank." 
 
 " Yes through many years." 
 
 " Do you wonder that her face grew in all these 
 painful years into an expression of her inner life? 
 That the perpetual trouble in her heart should 
 have left its unattractive signs upon her counte 
 nance ? Was it possible for her to pass long sea 
 sons of terrible suspense and fear? to watch, 
 day by day, the light of life grow fainter and 
 fainter in a beloved face, until it went out forever 
 in this world ? to see a destructive vice gaining 
 by slow yet sure accumulations of strength, power 
 over a son, and finally bearing him down, and 
 binding him in fetters that were never broken ? 
 Was all this possible to be borne without a dis 
 figuring line of pain ? I think not." 
 
 "No, it were impossible," said my friend. 
 " Impossible," he repeated, in a half absent way, 
 his eyes fixed, as if some image in his thought 
 had made itself outwardly visible.
 
 THE FACE AND THE LIFE. 91 
 
 " But she has reached her tranquil days, thank 
 God!" I remarked. "The long years of suspense 
 are over the worst, as they say, has come to the 
 worst death has made still the hearts whose 
 every throb of pain ran thrilling down the wires 
 of sympathy that bound them to her own. Like 
 a brave, true Christian woman, she walked stead 
 ily onward in the ways of duty, and by duty and 
 suffering she has been purified. But the marks 
 of fire are still upon her. She was but human. 
 The old lines of trouble are not yet chiselled 
 away ; may never be wholly obliterated." 
 
 "And so," persisted my friend, " the counte 
 nance in repose does not always give the index of 
 character." 
 
 " As instance Mrs. Lawson ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I say, yea, and instance Mrs. Lawson." I 
 was persistent in my view of the case. 
 
 " You do ?" 
 
 " I do." was my firmly spoken reply. " The 
 face of Mrs. Lawson, when not lighted up by
 
 92 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 thought and feeling, is brooding and troubled, 
 and gives the character of her inner life and con 
 sciousness, through a long, long series of years, 
 during which time the denser fibres that move in 
 expression, hardened in one direction ; and they re 
 tain that direction still. Facile they are, of course, 
 to predominant emotions; but, when released from 
 tension, draw back to their old position." 
 
 " Then," said my friend, " I must still ques 
 tion the proposition that the face in repose is the 
 true face. You argue against yourself. Mrs. 
 Lawson s inner life is now serene ; but her coun 
 tenance indicates trouble and sadness." 
 
 "Memory is not lost, nor old states entirely 
 obliterated," I answered. "As to her inner life 
 being serene, I am not sure that such a condition 
 is yet possible to her. It is, no doubt, in compa 
 rison to what it has been. But, after such storms 
 as have agitated her soul, the deep ground-swell 
 must long continue. And, moreover, the best of 
 people have often the most painful discipline to 
 endure."
 
 THE FACE AND THE LIFE. 93 
 
 "T have heard that before," said my friend 
 ioubtfully. 
 
 "And, if I draw a correct inference from your 
 tone of voice, do not credit the proposition," 1 
 remarked. 
 
 " I have not said that I question the truth of 
 your remark." 
 
 " It is only not agreeable ?" 
 
 " If your position is true, it is very far from 
 being an agreeable one," he answered. 
 
 "The Bible says that the Lord loveth whom 
 he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he 
 receiveth." 
 
 " I know ; but, not to speak irreverently, I do 
 not fancy that way of showing affection." 
 
 " The love," said I, letting my voice fall into a 
 low tone, " that consents to the infliction of pain, 
 must be of the truest and deepest kind. Divine 
 love has for its end the salvation in heaven of 
 every one. But the Lord can only save us in the 
 degree that he can lead us out of our hereditary 
 and actual evils, and bestow upon us good affec-
 
 94 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 tions. All who will permit him to lead them, 
 whether it be through light troubles or fiery 
 trials, he draws heavenward. In the beginning 
 of this heavenward journey, the walk is in the 
 path of external obedience to Divine precepts. 
 Truth shines into the mind, and shows us the 
 way of life. It seems for awhile, an easy thing 
 to move onward. But after a time, our heavenly 
 Father, who is really seeking to work a change in 
 the quality of our affections, so that we shall not 
 merely do right in obedience to a law, but right 
 because we love what is good, so disposes the 
 things of our natural lives that we come into sor 
 row, trouble, or misfortune. By this means, he 
 seeks to produce a separation in the mind between 
 worldly things and the things of heaven be 
 tween what is of time, and what is of eternity. 
 If there should be in the mind, stored up in in 
 fancy, childhood, and youth, by means of pa 
 rents, teachers, and preachers, good affections, as 
 well as holy truths from the holy Book, the Lord 
 can by means of these lift the striving soul out
 
 THE FACE AND THE LIFE. 95 
 
 of the darkness of natural life, into the light of 
 spiritual perception. With this state is given a 
 foretaste of celestial blessedness, in the temporary 
 fruition of which all earthly delights sink into 
 meanness. Only for a time does this state abide. 
 It is like a temple made suddenly visible in the 
 air, yet having no foundation to rest upon, whose 
 ravishing beauty forever after dwells in the ima 
 gination, and dims by contrast even the grandest 
 works of men. 
 
 "But," I continued, "this beatific vision this 
 foretaste of celestial blessedness is not given to 
 mock the soul, born with infinite longings after 
 the good and the true, and with almost infinite 
 capabilities, but as a lure. There is a temple to 
 be builded, gorgeous and beautiful ; but the foun 
 dations must be laid, stone upon stone, with labor 
 and care. First is given the fair ideal, as it is 
 given to the architect who is to construct some 
 grand earthly temple. It is seen, only as in a vi 
 sion ; then becomes fixed in the idea ; and after 
 wards is wrought out and built into an abiding
 
 96 THE SEEN AND THE UNStEN. 
 
 structure. It is to incite us to the work of lay 
 ing, in patience, self-denial, and good deeds among 
 our fellow-men, the foundations of a temple into 
 which He may enter and dwell that God gives to 
 us, in this first state of separation between things 
 that are of heaven and the world, glimpses of 
 celestial beauty. 
 
 " The regeneration of a human soul, fallen into 
 the low deeps of selfishness, is no light task. It 
 cannot be accomplished in a day, nor in an hour. 
 It is the achievement of years. Weak, human 
 hands must do the work though not unassisted. 
 If divine aid were not given, the case would be 
 hopeless. But this help comes only in the de 
 gree that effort can be inspired in man. He 
 must work as of himself; yet with the conscious 
 ness and acknowledgment that power to act is 
 from God. Is it not plain, that in the beginning 
 of the effort to resist and overcome the natural in 
 clinations, which are all selfish, he would soon 
 grow weary? That after struggle and conquest 
 on the first field of battle, the exhausted spirit
 
 THE PACE AND THE LIFE. 97 
 
 would shrink from a renewal of strife? And 
 now it is, that we see the operation of that divine 
 love, which consents to the infliction of pain in 
 order to save the objects of its love. There must 
 be another, another, and another battle j and the 
 weary soldier must be pricked to the contest. 
 
 "And thus it will be through the whole of this 
 spiritual battle prolonged for years. God loves 
 his children too well to spare the chastening of 
 natural life, whenever it is needed, in order that 
 true spiritual life may be born. But after every 
 battle there is given a season of rest and peace; 
 after the pains of birth, delicious tranquility, and 
 joy for the oifspring and these are so far above 
 natural rest and joy, that no degree of comparison 
 exists between them. 
 
 "And this is why the best of people have often 
 the most painful discipline to endure ; such disci 
 pline as would destroy those in whom is no spi 
 ritual strength as baser metals are consumed in 
 the fires by which gold is made pure." 
 
 I had grown unusually earnest in this effort to
 
 98 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 demonstrate the proposition at which my friend 
 had seemed to demur. 
 
 "You may be right," was answered "no 
 doubt are right ; but you do not make the way to 
 heaven attractive." 
 
 "But heaven is attractive; and there is only 
 one way to get there as there is only one way for 
 the distant mariner to reach his home that lies 
 far across a stormy ocean." 
 
 " Through toil and suffering ?" 
 
 " Through a denial of selfish and worldly affec 
 tions; and just in the degree that this denial in 
 volves suffering, must pain come. It is because 
 we are evil that we suffer. Evil must die in us 
 before good can be born ; and there is pain in 
 both conditions death-pains and birth-pains 
 but after the new birth, tranquil peace, and joy 
 that passeth understanding."
 
 NOT AS OUR WAYS. 99 
 
 IX. 
 
 NOT AS OUR WAYS. 
 
 " I LL His ways are in mercy," said the mi- 
 ** nister. "Do not forget that, my sister." 
 They were the parting sentences of one who 
 had often tried, in the sunny days of Mrs. Field 
 ing s life, to lift her thoughts above the outer 
 world, into a consciousness of those higher and 
 purer things, from which abiding happiness 
 comes. Yet, until now, he had spoken to sealed 
 ears. Until now ! Ah, the sunshine had gone 
 from her sky. It was night with Mrs. Field 
 ing dark and silent night ; for sorrow and trou 
 ble had found her out. But, in the stillness of 
 this night, the sound of voices, speaking from an 
 inner world, had power to reach her ears. These 
 were angel-voices, and at first she only felt their
 
 100 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 tenderness and sweetness, without any clear con 
 sciousness of meaning in their utterances. 
 
 Less than one year before, Mrs. Fielding was a 
 wife and mother; now, she was widowed and 
 childless. Then she had a home, in which every 
 comfort for natural life was provided ; now, she 
 was in the home of another, and dependent. No 
 wonder the truth that all of God s ways are in 
 love and mercy, was afar off from her perceptions, 
 and but dimly seen. She was one of those who 
 tenderly love children. In her own babes, her 
 very life had rested ; rested in such overweening 
 tenderness, that weak indulgence took the place 
 of a wise maternal discipline. She could not 
 bear to cross their natural desires in anything, 
 even though reason told her that it was essential 
 to their higher good. Better for them, the wiser 
 ministrations of angels, in the heaven of inno 
 cence, than the weak compliances of an over-fond 
 mother. They were safe, and she sorrowing for 
 their loss as one without hope. Widowed and
 
 NOT AS OUK WAYS. 101 
 
 childless ! Ah, the night was very dark around 
 the mourner! 
 
 Mrs. Fielding had an active, independent mind. 
 As her bowed spirit lifted itself, feebly, under the 
 weight which had at first crushed her to the earth, 
 and she began to realize her new position and re 
 lation to the world, thought turned in all direc 
 tions, searching for the right way. She could not 
 sit down, with folded hands, and become a burden 
 some drone ; pride, if no higher impulse, would 
 have forbidden that. But, like far too many 
 young ladies, whose parents expend large sums 
 on their education, she had closed her school-girl 
 days without a thorough knowledge of any one 
 of the branches to which she had given attention. 
 She had a clear, intelligent mind, and was re 
 garded as a well-educated woman ; but her educa 
 tion was not of the kind to fit her for the duties 
 of a teacher. She was not well grounded in Eng 
 lish ; nor in French, Italian, or German, though 
 she had attempted the acquirement of these lan 
 guages under competent instructors. For music, 
 a*
 
 102 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 she had no taste ; and, though she played tolera 
 bly well at the time of her marriage, her skill 
 soon left her, for want of practice. Tenderly she 
 loved children, as we have said, and this love led 
 her thoughts out towards them in her questioning 
 as to the future, and she was beginning to think 
 of a school for little ones. " I can teach them," 
 she said. And of this, it had come into her 
 thought to speak several times. But, the way 
 did not look clear before her yet. 
 
 "All His ways are in mercy." She was still 
 dwelling upon what the minister had said, and 
 trying to see how affliction and poverty could be 
 in mercy to her, when a friend who had drawn 
 very near since her days of darkness began, came 
 in. 
 
 " It must be so," Mrs. Fielding said, referring 
 to the minister s words, " and yet, in coming down 
 to my own case, doubt arises. In my heart, I 
 cannot accept this faith." 
 
 " The time is not yet, but it will come," an 
 swered the friend, " for it is a true faith. God s
 
 NOT AS OUR WAYS. 103 
 
 ways are not our ways especially not as our 
 ways in regard to the individual alone. Good is 
 always the end of God s providences ; not good to 
 you or to me only, in the dispensations that reach 
 us, but good, as well, to all who can in any way 
 be affected through our lives. Did you ever 
 think of that ?" 
 
 Mrs. Fielding s countenance showed a newly 
 awakening interest. " The thought, as you pre 
 sent it," she said, " has never before come into my 
 mind." 
 
 " Yet, it must be true. Think for a moment. 
 In the Lord s eyes, all are equal. He regards 
 you with the same tenderness and care that he re 
 gards me, and the children of my neighbor are as 
 precious in his sight as mine." 
 
 " Yes, yes. That must be so," assented Mrs. 
 Fielding. 
 
 "And He is ever making us the ministers of 
 His good, one towards another, through willing 
 service, if there is love in our hearts ; but through 
 constraint, and the compelling power of circum-
 
 104 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 stances, if our hands are held back, in selfish idle 
 ness, from useful ministrations. It is not always 
 for individual discipline alone that sorrows and 
 misfortunes come. Involved therein is the indi 
 vidual s relation to society, and the good to others 
 that will spring from the new life that is to bo 
 born in him as the old natural and selfish life ex 
 pires. We are all God s agents for good, work 
 ing in our day and generation ; and the nearer we 
 draw towards him in self-denial and neighborly 
 love, the higher and more angelic will be the ser 
 vice we render to his children. He has work for 
 you, my dear friend work for which he has been 
 educating you in these dark days of affliction, and 
 happy will you be when you find this work. 
 The very delight of heaven is the delight of be 
 ing useful to others, and just in the degree that a 
 love of serving others for the sake of use comes 
 into our hearts, just so near shall we be to hea 
 ven, and partakers, in that degree, of heavenly 
 happiness." 
 
 "How can I be useful?" asked Mrs. Fielding,
 
 NOT AS OUK WAYS. 105 
 
 as her perceptions entered into the thought of her 
 friend j and with perception, came an influx of 
 desire. 
 
 " May I suggest a way ?" 
 
 " Yes yes." 
 
 " You know Mrs. Garland ?" 
 
 " Yes ; or, at least, have some knowledge of her. 
 We were not visiting acquaintances." 
 
 " She is a light, vain, selfish woman, and com 
 pletely absorbed in fashionable life." 
 
 "So I have understood." 
 
 "The mother of three sweet little children, 
 who are given over almost entirely to servants. 
 I was talking, only yesterday, to Mr. Garland s 
 sister about them; and she said, that the neglected 
 condition of his children was a source of deep 
 concern to her brother, who was anxious to get 
 into his family a woman of education, good prin 
 ciples, and Christian regard for duty, who would 
 be to them as a true mother. The thought of 
 you, Mrs. Fielding, came at once into my mind ; 
 and I even suggested your name."
 
 106 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 "And what was said?" Mrs. Fielding showed 
 considerable interest. 
 
 " If she will take the place, my brother will be 
 a happy man," was answered. 
 
 Mrs. Fielding s breast heaved with a single, 
 long-drawn sigh. Her face grew very sober; her 
 eyes rested on the floor. She sat very still and 
 statue-like. 
 
 "Accept the trust, my dear friend! Take 
 these neglected little ones innocences, precious 
 in God s eyes and nurture them for heaven ; for 
 that heaven where your own sweet babes have 
 found celestial homes and angel-mothers." 
 
 In the glow of an unselfish tenderness, that 
 warmed the heart of Mrs. Fielding, she answered, 
 tears brimming in her eyes : 
 
 " I will not hold back my feet from the way 
 of duty, if I see it plain before me. God being 
 my helper, I will follow as he may guide. I 
 love children. It is my delight to be with 
 them."
 
 NOT AS OUR WAYS. 107* 
 
 " Shall I make the arrangement for you ?" said 
 the friend. 
 
 Again the face of Mrs. Fielding was over 
 shadowed by thought. Her eyes dropped to the 
 floor, she sat still and statue-like again. Some 
 natural emotions stirred in her heart, and there 
 was a brief struggle with them for the mastery. 
 When she looked up, a sweet smile was touching 
 her lips, like a sunbeam, and love sat in her se 
 rene eyes. 
 
 " If I am wanted, I will go," she answered. 
 
 "You are wanted," was the friend s decided 
 answer. " To-morrow I will see you again," she 
 said, as she pressed her hand in parting. 
 
 In less than a week there was a change of both 
 place and state with Mrs. Fielding. From sad, 
 tearful, idle dependence, she moved upwards into 
 a sphere of usefulness, in which her heart became 
 at once interested. Three bright, beautiful, and 
 affectionate little ones were given wholly into her 
 care by a mother who was daily showing herself 
 to be unworthy of the high and holy trust reposed
 
 108 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN 
 
 in her by the Father of all human souls. Soon 
 was transferred the sweetness of that unselfish 
 love of children, which is the mother s highest 
 blessing passing from a cold and worldly heart 
 to one in which suffering was accomplishing its 
 true work. 
 
 Mrs. Fielding, as we have said, was one of 
 those who tenderly love childhood. Towards the 
 babes, who were flesh of her flesh, this love was 
 overshadowed by the weakness of a natural, ma 
 ternal tenderness, that shrank from the exercise 
 of needed discipline. Now, she was truer to all 
 perceptions of right and duty. To her own chil 
 dren, love had been weak and compliant, but to 
 wards these children of her adoption, it was clear, 
 strong, wise and tender. 
 
 Five years passed on with Mrs. Fielding, each 
 bringing to her heart new increments of abiding 
 peace. The neglected little ones had been taken 
 at once into her love, and wisdom had prompted 
 this love ever to seek their highest good. They 
 were, in her affections, as though born of her own
 
 NOT AS OUR WAYS. 109 
 
 body. The mother-instinct in her nature had 
 gone fully out to them. 
 
 Five years had passed ; and, for more than two 
 years, the unworthy mother of these children had 
 been at rest from earthly passion. Her sun 
 went out ere life had touched its fair meridian ; 
 and there was not much heart-grief at her loss. 
 So the mere selfish worldlings die. Even those 
 who stand nearest, and whose ties are, or should 
 be, strongest, rarely sorrow as those who refuse to 
 be comforted. 
 
 A man of a strong, true, tender nature was Mr. 
 Garland. Life to such an one, bound to a mere 
 worldly, vain, selfish and fashionable woman, is 
 little more than a weary desert. Dutiful, patient, 
 and upright had he been through all the years of 
 an unsatisfying union; and when death closed the 
 compact, he gave tears to the memory of her who 
 had once been dear to him ; of her who was the 
 mother of his precious children and threw a veil 
 over the unhappy past. 
 
 Two years had lapsed away since the angel of 
 
 10
 
 110 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 death drew her from his side. Mrs. Fielding 
 still held her place as the true mother of his chil 
 dren. Her life had become so bound up in their 
 lives their good so dependent on her ministra 
 tion that no thought of separation had intruded. 
 
 Is it remarkable that a true man and a true 
 woman, whose daily lives so met in a mutual in 
 terest, should be attracted by stronger forces ? Is 
 it remarkable that respect, regard, and admiration 
 should take love into their fraternity, and give 
 her the highest place ? 
 
 "As you are, and have been, for years, their 
 true mother," said Mr. Garland, taking the hand 
 of Mrs. Fielding one evening, as she came back 
 from the apartment where the children slept, to 
 their family sitting-room he had listened, as he 
 sat alone to the tender inflections of her voice as 
 she talked with, and read to them ; that voice 
 stirring emotion deeper and deeper, like music to 
 which the heart lifts itself in sweet responses. 
 "As you are, and have been, for years their true
 
 NOT AS OUR WAYS. Ill 
 
 mother, will you not be a mother to them in 
 name also ?" 
 
 He held the hand tightly, and looked into her 
 face. Her eyes, startled at first, dropped away 
 from his, and fell upon the floor. Mr. Garland 
 felt an impulse in her hand, as if she were about 
 to withdraw it, and his, with a responsive im 
 pulse took hold with a firmer clasp. 
 
 "The currents of our lives," he said in his 
 calm, true, earnest voice, " have in God s provi 
 dence been for some time running side by side, 
 taking equally the sunshine and shade, and feel 
 ing, almost as one, the rippling breezes. Shall 
 they not flow together ? I testify, here, to your 
 dignified, womanly conduct in every relation in 
 my home. You have been true to yourself and 
 your sex in all things. So true, that from respect 
 and admiration, a deeper and tenderer feeling to 
 wards you has been born. I say this frankly. 
 And now, Mrs. Fielding, how stands the case? 
 Shall our lives flow together as a single stream ? 
 It is for you to say."
 
 112 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 For more than a minute Mrs. Fielding stood, 
 looks downcast and breath indrawn to an almost 
 imperceptible respiration. When she raised her 
 eyes, slowly, they were wet with blinding tears, 
 and her lips had an irrepressible quiver ; but Mr. 
 Garland saw light shining through the tears, and 
 consent on her trembling inarticulate lips. He 
 led her to a scat. 
 
 " I have not sought this, Mr. Garland heaven 
 be my witness " Her delicate woman s na 
 ture shrank. 
 
 "And I am also your witness, dear, true, right- 
 hearted friend, whom God his ways are not as 
 our ways has so kindly led to my side! Be 
 nearer and dearer to me than a friend ; that is, if 
 in your heart you can draw nearer. I do not 
 want the hand I hold unless all that can bless a 
 man goes with it." 
 
 And the blessing was his. 
 
 How sweetly, purely, and tranquilly flowed 
 their stream of life, full to the grassy and flower- 
 decked brim ! a true man and a true woman,
 
 NOT AS OUR WATS. 113 
 
 with high aims and heaven-rising aspirations, 
 walked onward side by side in duty and love, 
 and not a heart-throb beat in discord. Could an 
 idle, sorrowing, self-afflicting life have so crowned 
 the years of Mrs. Fielding with blessing ? It is 
 only along the path of usefulness that the Lord 
 can lead to life s best fruitions here, and tht 
 
 happiness of heaven hereafter. 
 10 H
 
 114 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 X. 
 
 OUR HEAVENLY GOMES. 
 
 " 4 LITTLE while longer," and the speaker 
 lifted her eyes upwards with a pious air 
 " only a little while longer, and then I shall put 
 off this vile body, and go upwards to my home !" 
 " Where the wicked cease from troubling, and 
 the weary are at rest." The response came from 
 a sad-looking person, on whose face discontent 
 and weariness of life were strongly written. 
 "Only a little while longer," she added, re 
 peating the words of her who had first spoken. 
 " There are some of us who would bless God if 
 our feet were as near their journey s end as 
 yours. The ordeal of this life is not an easy one. 
 Toil, sorrow, weariness, disappointments from 
 cradle to grave the path is rugged ; and out of the
 
 OUR HEAVENLY HOMES. 115 
 
 depths of its pain and darkness the soul cries out, 
 Lord, shorten the way ! " 
 
 "Ay, shorten the way," groaned a third of the 
 group which had surrounded the bed of a sick 
 sister. u We have no house here no abiding 
 place no continuing city. Open, Lord, the 
 pearly gates of the new Jerusalem, and let our 
 feet move down the golden streets." 
 
 Pious responses fell from tremulous lips, and 
 pious eyes went upwards. 
 
 "Going home." One who had not, till now, 
 spoken, let her voice steal out in a low, but firm 
 utterance. She was a woman who had passed the 
 summit of life, and was now stepping downwards 
 on the graveward side. Her face was placid, 
 though pain marks were on her forehead, and 
 pain shadows on her lips. "Going home. Home 
 is a sweet word, my sisters ! But to what kind of 
 homes are we going ? That is worth a thought." 
 
 "To heavenly homes," was answered by one. 
 " To the paradise of God." 
 
 " In my Father s house are. many mansions,"
 
 116 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 said another, repeating the sweet assurance of our 
 Lord. 
 
 " We are in exile wanderers from home 
 waiting and longing for the time of our return," 
 sighed out a third. 
 
 " Did it never occur to you," said the one who 
 had asked as to the kind of homes to which they 
 were going, " that our dwelling-places in the 
 other life will be just what we make them ?" 
 
 Eyes full of questions and doubts were turned 
 upon the speaker. 
 
 " I go to prepare a place for you, that where T 
 am ye may be also." It was the sick sister s an 
 swer. " The Lord prepares and makes beautiful 
 our heavenly homes. The mansions are ready 
 and waiting our arrival." 
 
 "And we do nothing towards the work?" 
 asked the last speaker. 
 
 We must be meet for the habitation of an 
 gels." 
 
 " Vague all, my sisters," was answered. " Let 
 us look inward, and study the movements and re-
 
 OUK HEAVENLY HOMES. 117 
 
 suits of our own lives. We build, each for him 
 self, our eternal dwelling-places, and when we 
 come into their manifest occupation, we shall find 
 them beautiful or deformed, according as we have 
 made them. It is so in this life ; and the order 
 will not be changed. As we feel and think, and 
 thence act, so are our surroundings here; and 
 such will be the law of our surroundings in the 
 life to come. Can it be otherwise ? We should 
 be . indeed strangers and aliens, if the homes in 
 which we dwelt did not correspond with our 
 states of thought and feeling. The mind makes 
 for itself a habitation, and peoples it with compa 
 nions, among which it loves to abide. This is its 
 home. Death cannot change these companion 
 ships ; but, by the removal of external and inter 
 vening things, renders them closer and more inti 
 mate. Turn your thoughts inward; think calmly, 
 closely, seriously ; and your convictions will as 
 sent to what I have said." 
 
 A few moments of silence, but no reply. The 
 speaker went on.
 
 118 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 * We are too much inclined to look at death as 
 the producer of some great change in our inner 
 lives. We talk as though we expected to put off 
 discontent and selfishness; hardness towards the 
 neighbor; jealousies and anger; all the evil 
 things we cherish in our minds and to rise into 
 some vaguely conceived states of celestial blessed 
 ness, purity and peace. My sisters, this is all a 
 vain delusion. Simply and nakedly as we are 
 when we die, shall we rise into a perception of 
 our existence in the spiritual world. There are 
 two worlds, remember the spiritual and the na 
 tural ; one interior, the other exterior ; and we 
 live in both of them at the same time : in the 
 outer or natural world as to our bodies and 
 senses ; in the inner or spiritual world as to our 
 souls and mental consciousness. Now we dwell 
 as to our bodies in material homes, among visible 
 companions ; and at the same time, as to our spi 
 rits in homes not made with hands, among invisi 
 ble companions, with whom our minds hold inter 
 course. And of what quality are these compa-
 
 OUR HEAVENLY HOMES. 119 
 
 nions ? Ah, that is the significant question ! Do 
 they lift our thoughts heavenward, or hold us near 
 the earth ? Do they stimulate pride or teach us 
 lessons of humility ? Are they ministers of dis 
 content or resignation ? Do they inspire love of 
 self and the world, or love of God and the neigh 
 bor ? We do not part company with these com 
 panions at death they belong to our inner habita 
 tion ; to the dwelling-places that we are building 
 for our souls. God cannot take us out of ourselves, 
 for that would be to destroy us. He can only pro 
 vide for our happiness according to the free deter 
 mination of our lives, and give of the good things 
 of his love and wisdom in the degree that we are 
 capable of receiving them. The measure can be 
 no greater and will be no less. All that we can 
 receive, he will give for he is the good Giver." 
 
 No one ventured a reply, for the sister s words 
 had penetrated the region of conviction. 
 
 " And so, my sisters, let us not turn our eyes 
 longingly away to an imaginary home beyond the 
 grave, which we can never find ; but inwardly
 
 120 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 upon ourselves, in careful examination. Let us 
 look well to the home we are building, and to the 
 companions with whom, in our hidden hearts, we 
 most delight to associate. If the spirits of pride, 
 indolence, murmuring, impatience, self-indulgence, 
 envy, disregard of the neighbor, vaunting esteem, 
 and conceit of personal goodness, dwell with us 
 here, we shall go home to them when we pass to 
 the other world. But if patience, meekness, love 
 of the neighbor and forgetfulness of self, endu 
 rance, humble-minded ness, and the delight of 
 serving others, abide in our souls, we shall enter 
 the heavenly mansions where angels dwell forever 
 with the Lord. Let us then no longer keep look 
 ing away and longing for the time of going home, 
 but rather set ourselves diligently to the work of 
 furnishing the homes which are to be our eternal 
 abiding-place; for, as we make them, so will they 
 be found when we come to enter and dwell in 
 them consciously. May that time be far away, 
 for we cannot have too many years in which to 
 build and people our heavenly homes."
 
 OUR HEAVENLY HOMES. 121 
 
 The silence that followed was broken by the 
 sick woman, who, with clasped hands and tearful 
 eyas raised heavenward, thus prayed audibly 
 
 " Lord, give thy servant patience to wait, and 
 diligence to work." 
 
 And the murmuring responses that met her 
 
 prayer, showed that the lesson was understood. 
 11
 
 122 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 XI. 
 
 FORGIVENESS. 
 
 A MONG the varieties of individual experience, 
 ** we occasionally meet with a singular condi 
 tion utter want of faith in God s willingness to 
 forgive. In this state of mind was a lady of con 
 siderable intelligence, and well known for her 
 charities. Early in life, she had been gay and 
 fashionable; but, after thirty, became a devout 
 church member. 
 
 Mrs. Olney was not a happy Christian. From 
 the very commencement of her religious experi 
 ence, her soul dwelt under a cloud. That " God 
 is love," she read in Scripture ; and she also read 
 therein this other declaration "I am a just 
 God." But, from some mental peculiarity, she 
 was not able to see how, in forgiving her for her
 
 FORGIVENESS 123 
 
 past transgressions, God could be in harmony 
 with himself. 
 
 "He must be just as well as merciful," I heard 
 her remark, one evening, to a friend. The an 
 swer, to which I listened, went over the common 
 ground of atonement for the satisfaction of jus 
 tice. I watched Mrs. Olney s face. It did not 
 brighten. The argument failed. 
 
 "Yes yes I understand all that," was her 
 answer. 
 
 "And are you not satisfied to rest here?" asked 
 the friend. 
 
 " No," was the despondent reply. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Simply, because having broken the law, and 
 thus offended God, I cannot see how forgiveness 
 is possible. My early life was an insult to him. 
 I made light of his precepts ; I scorned the offers 
 of salvation. When he said, Give me thy heart, 
 I turned from him, and laid my heart an offering 
 upon the shrine of this wicked world. And now,
 
 124 THE SEEN AND T1IE UNSEEN. 
 
 when I seek him, he hides his face from me. I 
 am in terror, but he mocks at my fear." 
 
 " Every one that asketh receiveth ; and he that 
 seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh, it 
 shall be opened." So answered the friend in 
 words of divine truth. 
 
 I again observed the lady s face, to see how 
 this clear declaration would aifect her. For a 
 moment, it seemed to lighten ; but the shadow 
 was not lifted. 
 
 "It must be regarded only as an appearance 
 that God is angry," I ventured here to remark. 
 "Divine love infinite compassion are qualities 
 adverse to anger. The wicked, under such suf 
 fering and restraint as are the consequences of 
 evil, naturally enough attribute their pains to the 
 angry punishment of an offended God. And 
 when God speaks in warning to the wicked, it is 
 as a father to his disobedient children. He ap 
 pears with signs of anger, though love and com 
 passion are in his heart. There is a state of evil 
 *mong men, which will obey no law but that of
 
 FORGIVENESS. 125 
 
 fear. The sword must be unsheathed, and the 
 right arm bared, or the wicked will not submit. 
 This is the state addressed, when anger and 
 punishment are spoken of in the word. God s 
 infinite love, which yearns over every creature, 
 was veiling itself under forms of wrath." 
 
 She listened calmly, and with evident interest ; 
 and did not offer any suggestions adverse to what 
 I had said. Still, I could see no light drifting 
 through the shadows on her face. Her mental 
 condition interested me, and I endeavored to 
 comprehend its meaning ; but, after a long con 
 versation, I found myself unable to get down to 
 the real cause of her morbid state. To the clear 
 est teaching of the Bible, and the fairest conclu 
 sions drawn therefrom, she had only her doubts 
 to oppose. They were, enshrouding her like a 
 pall, and no sun-rays of truth seemed strong 
 enough to scatter them. 
 
 " I cannot see it," was the answer she gave ; 
 " and unless / can see it, what help for me is 
 
 there in all you say ?" . 
 
 11*
 
 126 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 J was interested in Mrs. Olney. So far as her 
 outward life was concerned, she lived in obedience 
 to the precepts of religion. She was always in 
 her place at church, and among the foremost in 
 the various uses of church membership a devout 
 worshiper, and a doer of good deeds. If any, it 
 seemed to me, were to live in the sunshine of spi 
 ritual confidence, her sky, of all others, should 
 have been clear. But, clouds and obscurity were 
 there. 
 
 " Do you know Mrs. Olney ?" I inquired of a 
 most excellent lady, who was a member of the 
 same church to which Mrs. Olney belonged. 
 
 " I used to know her," was the answer received. 
 " But we have not spoken for ten years." 
 
 " I am sorry to hear you say this," I returned. 
 "Mrs. Olney is a true woman, if I read her 
 aright." 
 
 "There is much in her character that I ad 
 mire," said the lady, " and from all that I hear of 
 her, she is trying to lead a good and useful life.
 
 FORGIVENESS. 127 
 
 But, she bears in her heart a spirit of unforgive- 
 ness." 
 
 " Towards whom ?" I asked. 
 
 " Towards me," she answered. " I was so un 
 fortunate as to offend her very deeply. The 
 cause of offence I will not excuse. I am not sur 
 prised that she became angry ; nor even that she 
 refused, for a long time afterwards, to regard mo 
 with anything but displeasure. The act, on my 
 part has been sorely repented I have suffered, 
 on account thereof, painful humiliation of spirit. 
 I condemn it as wrong I have put far from me 
 the spirit by which it was inspired ; and I believe, 
 that, as a sin before God, it is not kept in remem 
 brance against me. If Mrs. Olney could only 
 forget and forgive !" 
 
 1 had now the clue to Mrs. Olney s state. It 
 was her own unforgiving spirit that clouded her 
 mind. In her idea of God, there was an attribu 
 tion of perverted human passions; and as she was 
 not able to reach a state of forgiveness towards 
 her friend, so she found it impossible to under-
 
 128 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 stand how God could put aside anger and receive 
 her with divine forgiveness. 
 
 "Have you made efforts towards a reconcilia 
 tion?" I asked. 
 
 " Not of late. After she became a member of 
 our church, I several times purposely threw my 
 self in her way; but she refused to meet my 
 advances. Once, happening to be in the same 
 company, where conversation was general, I re 
 sponded to a remark which she had just made; 
 but she took no notice of me whatever. On an 
 other occasion we were introduced by a mutual 
 friend, who was not aware that we had met be 
 fore ; when she bowed icily, not even offering her 
 hand and after standing in silence for a few mo 
 ments, turned away, and moved to a distant part 
 of the room." 
 
 " Has she spoken against you ?" I further in 
 quired. 
 
 " I fear that she has, judging from the manner 
 of a few who are her intimate friends. In seve 
 ral instances, I have observed a drawing off from
 
 FORGIVENESS. 129 
 
 me, and a standing at a distance, of persons who 
 were once familiar and friendly. The cause of 
 this, right or wrong, I have laid at her door. 
 Not that I believe her capable of trying to injure 
 me through indulgence of any vindictive spirit 
 for I think better of her Christianity than that ; 
 but, not having forgiven me in her heart, she 
 finds it impossible to think of me as being in any 
 essential degree changed from what I was ten or 
 fifteen years ago, and so not only retains her old 
 dislike, but infuses something of its quality into 
 the minds of her intimate friends." 
 
 Now I understood Mrs. Olney s case better. 
 At our next meeting, I so managed the conversa 
 tion, that it drifted towards herself and her un 
 happy state of mind. Shadows gathered over her 
 face ; all cheerfulness died away from her tone?. 
 
 " I have thought of you a great deal, since our 
 last conversation," said I. 
 
 This expression of interest naturally opened 
 her mind to anything I might say.
 
 130 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 " The hindrance," I added, " must be in your 
 self; for it cannot be in God." 
 
 " If I knew the hindrance !" she sighed heavily. 
 
 " Is it not possible," I suggested, " that some 
 where in your heart, hidden away from distinct 
 consciousness, dwells an unforgiving spirit ?" 
 
 Her eyes were cast down as I spoke ; but, she 
 raised them instantly from the floor, in a half 
 startled way, fixing upon me a look of inquiry. 
 
 "It often happens," I continued, "that our 
 ideas of God take the hue of interior states. We 
 can only think of him as like-minded with our 
 selves. Angry at sin, because we are angry when 
 the laws we make are violated ; unforgiving, be 
 cause we cannot forgive those who trespass against 
 us." 
 
 She dropped her startled eyes away from mine, 
 a jd let them rest upon the floor again. 
 
 "There may be much involved in what you 
 say," she remarked, not long afterwards, in a sub 
 dued voice. " Some things are hard to forgive," 
 she added, like one thinking aloud.
 
 FORGIVENESS. 131 
 
 "And yet," I ventured to say, "only in the 
 degree that we forgive men their trespasses, can 
 we expect God to forgive our trespasses in other 
 words, there must be a forgiving state in our 
 own hearts, before we can have any realizing 
 sense of the Lord s infinite forgiveness." 
 
 Evidently, thought with her was flowing in a 
 new direction. I did not think it well to press 
 the subject, but left her to continue, or change it, 
 as she might feel inclined. 
 
 " Do you really think," she asked, " that God 
 only forgives us in the degree that we exercise 
 forgiveness towards others?" 
 
 " Literally, that is the teaching of Scripture," 
 was my reply. " ( If ye forgive not men their 
 trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father for 
 give your trespasses. But, going past the literal 
 sense of this law, let us go down to its spirit. A 
 state of true religion is a state of love love to 
 God and the neighbor. If we cannot forgive, we 
 cannot love. God is not angry he does not de 
 cline forgiveness but, because of our unforgiving
 
 132 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 states, he cannot dwell with us in love. Ever he 
 stands at the door, knocking, and asking for en 
 trance. It is for us to open the door, by re 
 moving the evil things set in it as bars and bolts ; 
 and until we do this, he cannot enter." 
 
 A window was opened in the mind of Mrs. Ol- 
 ney, through which clearer light came in. What 
 she had regarded as only a just displeasure to 
 wards one who had injured her in past times, but 
 whose life in the present was, to human eyes, 
 blameless, she now saw to have in it the hai d 
 qualities of an unforgiving spirit. It was for 
 what had been done to her, that she retained dis 
 like. Mrs. Olney belonged to that class of per 
 sons, who, when clearly satisfied in regard to any 
 course of action, move forward with resolute self- 
 compulsion. First she decided, that, as a Chris 
 tian woman, she could no longer hold towards 
 the lady of whom I have spoken the attitude of 
 a stranger. Next came the question as to how 
 the lady was to be approached ^whether for 
 mally, and with oral reference to the past ; or, by
 
 FORGIVENESS. 133 
 
 friendly advances, when next they happened to 
 be thrown together in company. The latter me 
 thod was chosen ; and the opportunity was not 
 long delayed. I was present, and witnessed the 
 unobtrusive scene. Perhaps no other person had 
 any conception of what it involved. 
 
 The lady referred to, as having given offence 
 to Mrs. Olney years before, was sitting on one end 
 of a sofa. She had been conversing with a friend 
 who had just risen and crossed the room, leaving 
 the place at her side vacant. At this moment, I 
 saw Mrs. Olney quietly pass over, and occupy the 
 seat, offering her hand as she sat down. The 
 hand was taken and held not at once relin 
 quished. Both faces were in full view. That 
 of Mrs. Olney was considerably heightened in 
 color ; but, its expression, though subdued, was 
 frank and kind. Over the other face, light was 
 leaping ; and I saw sudden tears almost brim 
 ming the eyes. Only for a short time, the na 
 tural embarrassment of this meeting continued. 
 
 The tender of forgiveness and Christian fellow- 
 12
 
 134 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 ship for all that was involved was so gladly 
 accepted, that Mrs. Olney felt her heart begin 
 ning to warm and glow, almost immediately, 
 with new-born pleasures. 
 
 For nearly the whole of that evening, these two 
 old friends, between whom a gulf of years had, in 
 a moment, been bridged over, kept close together. 
 There was, in Mrs. Olney s countenance, a new 
 expression. All the clouds which had rested 
 over it for so long a period were swept away, and 
 peace dwelt there amid sunshine. The reconcili 
 ation was complete. From that hour, they be 
 came tenderly attached to each other ; and were 
 inseparable co-workers in all the external things 
 appertaining to their church membership. 
 
 " You have come up from the valley of doubt," 
 I said, in meeting her not long aftewards. 
 
 " Yes," she answered. " I am not troubled as 
 in former times. That strange, shadowed state 
 of the soul no longer exists." 
 
 " Were you conscious when and how it passed
 
 FORGIVENESS. 135 
 
 away? There is a lesson in your experience, 
 from which others may profit." 
 
 Mrs. Olney reflected for a little while. 
 
 " It was all here," and she laid her hand over 
 her heart. "God s love was not withholdeu. 
 The obstruction was in me. The memory of 
 wrong was cherished, brooded over, held almost 
 as a sweet morsel under my tongue. Not being 
 able to forgive, I could not realize the possibility 
 of forgiveness in God. The words of Scripture 
 were plain enough ; and I tried to rest on them 
 with confidence. But, external faith and interior 
 conviction, are very different things. I was in 
 darkness and doubt, and there seemed no hope 
 for me. But, when the law of forgiveness ruled 
 in my own soul, doubt and darkness fled away. 
 It seemed as if I had passed from a narrow, suffo 
 cating chamber, out into the free air, and under a 
 cloudless sky. In the freedom of my new state, 
 I am in wonder at the bondage from which I 
 have been delivered. The process of cause and 
 effect, I am unable to follow. I only know, that,
 
 136 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 whereas I was blind, now I see. God has not 
 changed, for he is unchangeable. My own state 
 has governed all." 
 
 And so it is in very religious experience. 
 Our own states determine our ideas of God. He 
 is to us an angry God, because we are angry and 
 vindictive towards others ; a hard exacter of legal 
 penalties, because we will have the uttermost far 
 thing ; slow to forgive, because there is a spirit 
 of unforgiveness in our hearts. But, when love 
 dwells with us, He is love.
 
 T JT WELL WITH YOU? 137 
 
 XII. 
 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOU? 
 
 " TS it well with you, my brother?" Such was 
 -*- the preacher s salutation. He was not a 
 young man, standing erect in conscious strength, 
 abounding in doctrine and clear in logic ; nor in 
 the vigor of middle age, with full fruited boughs 
 just beginning to droop from their proud erect- 
 ness ; but an old man, in whom perception had 
 taken the place of doctrine and logic wise be 
 cause good. 
 
 " Is it well with you, my brother ?" He had 
 grasped the hand of one in whose house, for 
 many "years, had been set apart a guest-chamber 
 for the servant of God. 
 
 " I trust that it is well with me," replied the 
 12*
 
 138 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 host, as lie returned the old man s greeting, and 
 then led him into the house, giving him of the 
 best he had to bestow. 
 
 It was midday when the preacher arrived. In 
 the evening, he sat alone with his brother in the 
 church, talking on themes of immortal interest. 
 At first, he was a listener ; and then the thought 
 of his brother dwelt wholly in things of natural 
 life. He spoke of his farm, his mill, his money 
 at interest, and the prosperity with which God 
 had blessed him. 
 
 " He hath made my corn and wine to in 
 crease," he said, with a confidence that was near 
 to boastfulness. 
 
 A faint sigh parted the old minister s lips ; and 
 a slight shadow veiled the sweet serenity of his 
 countenance. 
 
 " Have you never thought, my brother, that 
 God s increase of corn and wine, means something 
 more than this ?" 
 
 The question had a disturbing effect. 
 
 " That there are corn and wine for the soul s
 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOU? 139 
 
 nourishment and growth, as well as corn and 
 wine for the body ?" he added. 
 
 " Doubtless it is so," replied the brother, with 
 that marked falling of the voice which accompa 
 nies the reluctant admission of truth in conflict 
 with an existing state of mind. " We do not 
 live by bread alone. And yet, God blesses us in 
 our basket and store prospers us in our outgo 
 ings and incomings." 
 
 "His providence touches us in the minutest 
 things of external life," answered the preacher. 
 " When it is well with us, the blessing is from 
 his hand. But, " well with us, has a higher sig 
 nificance than you have expressed by the words 
 basket and store. Is it well with you, my bro 
 ther ? Let me put the question again. What is 
 the state of your mind ?" 
 
 " I trust in God," was returned, with unfalter 
 ing speech. " I know in whom I have believed. 
 Faith is the anchor of my soul." 
 
 " Your acceptance is clear ?" 
 
 " Yes." Not spoken with full confidence.
 
 140 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 There followed a brief silence. 
 
 " It is the saddest of all sad things, a mistake 
 in this, ray brother," the old man said, with an 
 impressiveness that hurt his listener, for, both in 
 language and tone was an intimation that he was 
 building his immortal hopes on foundations that 
 might not stand. 
 
 " There are two elements that go to make up 
 every state of mind," continued the preacher, 
 after a pause in which there was no response, 
 " thought and feeling. The thought is most ex 
 terior, and in it we see reflected, as from a mirror, 
 the feelings, the desires, the impulses that have 
 in them the essential qualities of a man s life. 
 But, thought has wings, and the power to rise 
 into higher and purer regions to separate itself, 
 for brief periods, from its bondage to low and 
 worldly desire ; and thence, the danger of self- 
 deception of considering our states of U ansient 
 thought, and not our states of permanent feeling, 
 as the just expression of the interior quality as it
 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOU? 141 
 
 is seen by God. Do you apprehend me, my 
 brother?" 
 
 " In a degree," was answered. 
 
 "As God sees us, so we are; and as we are, 
 when death finds us, will be our state in the other 
 life. Lovers of the Lord s kingdom, or lovers of 
 ourselves." 
 
 "But, how can we see ourselves as God sees 
 us ?" asked the brother, with a suddenly awaken 
 ing concern. " He knows our hearts better than 
 we can know them. Nay, He alone knows 
 them." 
 
 " True ; but He has given us the clearest in 
 struction. His word is a lamp unto our feet and 
 a light unto our path. It is full of heavenly 
 teaching. Let us ponder a single passage, and 
 bring onr individual lives to the standard therein 
 proclaimed. Speaking of the godly, or regenerate 
 man, the Psalmist says, His delight is in the law 
 of the Lord. Mark the expression His delight. 
 Now, feeling, of which delight is predicated, is 
 interior to thought. When there is delight in
 
 142 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 the law, then there is meditation. First, the de 
 light; then the medication not a mere transient 
 uplifting of thought to purer regions, but a 
 dwelling therein with love. Ah, my brother ! 
 Do we not find a revelation in this brief passage, 
 clear as noonday, and full of instruction ? Not 
 one to discourage us, because our life falls far be 
 low the state described; but one full of encou 
 ragement, because it shows us that to which our 
 heavenly Father wishes us to aspire. And now 
 again, as one sent to you of God for I am his 
 servant, and he has laid on me the duty of win 
 ning souls let me ask, Is it well with you, my 
 brother?" 
 
 How very tenderly, in his seriousness, did the 
 old man speak. There was nothing of ambassa 
 dorial dignity ; nothing of conscious goodness ; 
 nothing that said, "I am holier than thou." 
 But such winning gentleness ; such pure concern ; 
 such earnest solicitude, that the brother who had 
 been losing his interest in spiritual things amid 
 the absorbing life of natural good amid his
 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOU? 143 
 
 farm, his mill, and his merchandise felt scales 
 dropping away from the blinded eyes of his soul, 
 and saw by that interior light which comes in 
 from heaven. And seeing, he answered, with 
 drooping head and falling voice 
 
 " It is not well with me, I fear. My delight 
 is not in the law of the Lord. I do not meditate 
 thereon. Perpetually, my thought dwells in the 
 things of this world. In my sowing and reaping; 
 in my gathering and grinding; in my gaining and 
 hoarding. Even as the rich husbandman in the 
 gospel, whose harvests overflowed his barns, I 
 have been planning to pull down mine and build 
 greater, so as to lay up goods for many years. 
 You have sent a tremor of fear through my 
 heart ; and I hear a strange, solemn voice, ask 
 ing, t What if thy soul be required of thee this 
 night? " 
 
 " Be wise, then, my brother. Yet do not take 
 counsel of fear; for, in fear there is bondage. 
 Love delight casteth out all fear. God s true 
 service is from love not fear. From aifection, not
 
 144 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 from constrained obedience. Is this clear to your 
 mind?" 
 
 "As noonday," was answered. 
 
 " You did not see this a little while ago," said 
 the preacher. 
 
 " I knew that it was so ; knew it from 
 thought but, until now, not from perception. 
 Ah, my brother ! You have shown me a way to 
 walk in that I did not see before; but it is a more 
 difficult way, and I do not see the gate of en 
 trance. I can think and do, by constraint ; can 
 force my thought, for a time at least, up into 
 heavenly regions, and compel myself to keep, in 
 act, the law of God. But I cannot change my 
 affections by any effort of will ; cannot enforce de 
 light. If I do not love God s law, what is to 
 help me ? And soberly and sadly, T fear that I 
 do not love it. I have said, often, among the 
 brethren This is my assurance ; Whereas, once 
 I was blind, now I see ; therefore, have I passed 
 from death unto life ; but now, I have no assu 
 rance, for I do not love ; and love is the fulfilling
 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOU? 145 
 
 of the law. You have come to me as a disturber 
 and not as a comforter. I believed myself one 
 of God s chosen ones ; now the light of his coun 
 tenance is withdrawn." 
 
 "It is never withdrawn," answered the 
 preacher, "but always turned towards the chil 
 dren of men. God s love never fails. It is in 
 love that he now troubles you, darkening false 
 hopes that he may establish such as are true and 
 abiding. Over the heart he alone has empire. 
 He alone can change its quality; he alone can 
 give that delight in his law which is felt by an 
 gels, and without which we can never enjoy their 
 companionship." 
 
 " He changes the heart, I know." 
 
 "And you believed, long ago, that he had 
 changed yours !" 
 
 "I did; but, alas! I am not changed. My 
 delight is not in his law." 
 
 " You left Him to do the work alone," said 
 the preacher, "and all at once. To wash you 
 every whit clean from inherited evils in a mo- 
 
 13 K
 
 146 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 ment of time. And in the belief that this had 
 been done, you thought yourself fit to dwell with 
 angels ; and thus secure, turned to your farm, and 
 your mill, and gave up your life to the world. 
 You forgot that regeneration must progress from 
 the feebleness of a simple vivified germ of life, to 
 birth ; and onward from tender infancy to the sta 
 ture of a full man that you must cooperate with 
 God, and work out your salvation with fear and 
 trembling before him that while he stood with 
 out, knocking, you must open the door. Behold 
 I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear 
 my voice and open the door, I will come in to 
 him. The opening of the door is our work, my 
 brother; and until that work is done, the Lord 
 cannot enter and give delight in his law." 
 " But how are we to open the door ?" 
 " That question involves the all of a religious 
 life," answered the preacher. "And until it is 
 clearly answered and fully comprehended, we 
 grope in the dark, and our feet stumble along 
 uncertain ways. But here again, his word is a
 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOUf 147 
 
 lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. 
 Note this remarkable feature in the Ten Com 
 mandments, which are an epitome of the whole 
 Divine Word, and contain, in a summary, all the 
 laws of spiritual life. We are not required to do 
 difficult or impossible things ; but, simply not to 
 do evil things. Not to have idols ; nor take the 
 name of God in vain ; nor profane the Sabbath 
 day by worldly thoughts and employments; not 
 to murder, or commit adultery, or steal, or bear 
 false witness, or indulge a spirit of covetousness. 
 I have often heard it said that these Divine laws 
 could not be kept by man ; and that faith alone 
 and not obedience must save him. But, herein 
 lies a fatal error. Obedience is the essential of 
 faith. A true faith in God, is vital with effort. 
 Just look at these commandments. How plain 
 and easy the way they point out. There is no 
 requirement of good deeds; but a simple shun 
 ning of what is wrong. Behold I stand at the 
 door and knock. You hear the summons, but 
 how shall the door be opened ? What will draw
 
 148 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 hack the bolt, and turn the rusty hinges? The 
 answer is ready. Put away evil." 
 
 " I do not break the Ten Commandments. 
 So far as they go, I am blameless," said the 
 brother. 
 
 " His words are spirit and life," answered the 
 preacher. " To the mere natural man, they speak 
 of natural things, and bind him by external re 
 straints ; to the rational man, they speak a higher 
 language, and illustrate his reason ; to the spirit- 
 aal man, they give divine laws for the govern 
 ment of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 
 The natural man sees in the precept, Thou shalt 
 not steal/ only a prohibition of actual theft ; 
 while the rational man understands it as binding 
 him to upright dealing ; but, the spiritual man 
 looks down into his heart, and in the very desire 
 to appropriate to himself what is another s goods, 
 honor, or praise recognizes a broken command 
 ment. Nay, my brethren ! We are all com 
 mandment-breakers in some degree of their sig 
 nificance. And it is in ceasing to break them,
 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOU? 14? 
 
 as we understand them, that we open the door at 
 which the Lord stands knocking. At his en 
 trance, the evil desires that ruled us are removed, 
 and he implants good desires in their stead. 
 
 "And now," continued the old preacher, in his 
 tender, impressive way, " let me add this essential 
 doctrine, which must ever be kept in mind. Sim 
 ply of ourselves, we can do nothing. We are but 
 finite created have in us no life that is not the 
 perpetual gift of God and, therefore, cannot even 
 open the door by the putting away of evil, except 
 through strength from above; and so, in every 
 effort of resistance to evil allurement, we must 
 look to God for strength. If we so look, in ac 
 knowledgment of our weakness, power will come, 
 and we shall say effectually as he said, in the 
 hour of temptation, Get thee behind me, Satan ! 
 Now, if it be well with you, my brother if you 
 have really begun to open the door of your heart 
 then you are beginning to feel delight in the la\\ 
 of the Lord ; are beginning to love the things of 
 heaven more than the things of this world ; and 
 
 13*
 
 150 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 to desire the riches of Divine love, more than 
 gold and silver that perish ; for, just in the de 
 gree that God enters into our hearts, does he 
 bring in with him aifections opposite to those 
 through the resistance of which the door was 
 opened. But if there be none of this love and 
 delight, it is not well with you, my brother." 
 
 " It is not well with me, I fear," was answered 
 in all sadness of spirit; "but, God helping me, I 
 will open the door at which I hear him knocking, 
 and may he give me delight in his law." 
 
 On the morning of the third day, the white- 
 haired preacher left his benediction, and passed 
 onward. Many days afterwards, as his enter 
 tainer stood at the door of the empty guest-cham 
 ber and looked in, these few words fell softly 
 from his lips, "An angel unawares." A short 
 space he lingered with clasped hands, and eyes 
 most earnestly glancing upwards. There had 
 come, even as he stood there, an evil allurement, 
 and with prayer to God for strength, he had re 
 sisted its power. Then flowed in through the
 
 IS IT WELL WITH YOU? 
 
 151 
 
 open door of his heart a love of good, before 
 which that evil enticement disappeared, as night 
 when the day advances, and his soul was filled 
 with blessedness and peace.
 
 152 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " TF I were only in heaven !" 
 
 -*- There are few mortal lips from which these 
 words, or something equivalent to them, have not 
 fallen in hours of pain, sorrow, or disappointment, 
 when hope in the world grew faint, and the old 
 foundations of happiness seemed crumbling into 
 ruin. 
 
 " If I were only in heaven !" 
 
 The words came sighing through pale lips. 
 
 "And you expect to go there?" 
 
 The tone in which this was said expressed a 
 doubt. 
 
 " We all expect to reach heaven at last. God 
 is merciful." 
 
 " He is good to all, and kind even to the un 
 thankful and evil. But what is heaven ? Three
 
 IF I WEUE ONLY IN HEAVEN. 
 
 Page 152.
 
 IF I WERE ONLY IN HEAVEN. 153 
 
 times, within a few days, I have heard you wish 
 yourself there." 
 
 " Heaven is a place of happiness ; there are no 
 tears there ; no sorrow ; no pain ; no cruel disap 
 pointments, nor heart-rending separations. Hea 
 ven is heaven. The very word is full of signifi 
 cation." 
 
 " And you expect to go there ?" 
 
 A second time was this uttered, and now the 
 doubt it expressed quickened in the mind of the 
 complainer a feeling that was rather more of earth 
 than heaven. 
 
 " You seem to question my fitness," she said, 
 with just a shadow of indignation in her voice. 
 
 " Far be it from me to judge the state of any one. 
 God alone knoweth the hearts of his children." 
 
 "And still, you ask, in a doubting way, if I 
 expect to go to heaven when I die." 
 
 " To a place of happiness, which lies in the far 
 distance, and towards which we sail through life 
 as mariners on a perilous voyage ?" 
 
 " Yes ; the haven of felicity."
 
 154 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 "Where you trust to moor your time-worn 
 bark when the stormy ocean is crossed ?" 
 
 " Yes ; trusting in God s mercy." 
 
 " I m afraid you will be disappointed," said 
 she who had assumed the office of monitor. 
 
 The pale cheek of the complainer flushed, and 
 her sad eyes threw out some rays of light that 
 gleamed from an earth-enkindled fire. 
 
 " Heaven is not in the far distance," continued 
 her friend. " We do not reach it at the end of 
 our earthly journey. We must enter long, long 
 before that time, or its sweet rest and peace can 
 never be ours. And we are in heaven when our 
 souls are filled with heavenly affections. This 
 infilling of the soul alone takes place on earth ; 
 and thus we enter. We must have some of the 
 joys of heaven here, or we cannot receive its 
 fuller delights when mortal puts on immortality. 
 The life of heaven must be born in us in time, or 
 it cannot be developed in eternity. Your present 
 state, my dear friend, is not one of preparation 
 for that paradise towards which your eyes stretch
 
 IF I WERE ONLY IN HEAVEN. 155 
 
 so longingly, but one of self-affliction and vain re- 
 pinings. You are closing your heart to heavenly 
 influences, instead of opening it to their reception. 
 I speak plainly, for you have all at stake." 
 
 The flush faded from the complainer s cheeks ; 
 her eyes lost the sudden brightness which had 
 gleamed out upon her friend ; and she sat silently 
 pondering this strange language strange to her 
 while a shade of fear crept into her heart. Were 
 her hopes of heaven resting, indeed, on so sandy 
 a foundation? Was she vainly looking beyond 
 the darkness in which she sat to a world of 
 brightness and beauty ? Would there be no hea 
 ven for her to enter when the weary burden of 
 life was laid down? The questions crowded 
 upon her. 
 
 "Come out from beneath the shadows with 
 which you have surrounded yourself," said the 
 friend, "and enjoy the cheerful sunlight. In 
 stead of idly longing for a heaven that lies afar 
 off, receive heaven in your heart, in the delight 
 that flows in with all good deeds. Be a worker
 
 156 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 in the vineyard of your Lord, not a weak repiner j 
 a faithful servant, not a talent-hider. They who 
 are entering heaven grow more and more peaceful 
 in spirit; more and more resigned to the Father s 
 will ; more and more willing to work and wait 
 in patient hope. Instead of wishing themselves 
 in heaven, as a place of rest afar off, they are 
 daily tasting of its sweet felicity." 
 
 " You take away the foundations on which my 
 feet have rested. You scatter my hopes to the 
 wind. I have looked to you for consolation, but 
 you have none to offer." 
 
 " If I have broken the foundations on which 
 your feet rested, it is that you may plant them 
 more surely on the Rock of Ages. If I have 
 scattered vain hopes to the wind, it is in order 
 that living hopes may spring up in your heart. 
 If you have looked to me for consolation, and 
 found it not, then, I pray you, look higher ; even 
 unto Him who says, Come unto Me, all ye that 
 labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you 
 rest. "
 
 IF I WERE ONLY IN HEAVEN. 15* 
 
 "But my heart is crushed. I have no 
 strength; no hope in life; all that I held dear 
 nas departed ; and I have only wished to die and 
 be at peace." 
 
 "There are other crushed hearts; others wit lout 
 hope ; others from whom all the dear ones have 
 departed. Think of them, and of their loneliness 
 and suffering instead of your own ; and as pity 
 conies into your heart, think whether it is in your 
 power or not to ease a pain; to send a ray of com 
 fort into a mind sitting in darkness ; to speak a 
 word that may reach the mourner with consola 
 tion. God is the great Comforter, but he acts 
 through angels and men in his ministrations of 
 good, thus making his blessings double. They 
 who act with him are partakers in the peace, joy, 
 and consolation that flow through them, and are 
 thus received into heaven, while, as to the body, 
 they are still in the world of nature." 
 
 For awhile after this plain-talking friend had 
 left, the lady sat in her usual place in the dim, 
 closely-curtained room, where most of her time
 
 158 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 was spent. But the truths which had been ut 
 tered in her ears did not pass as the idle winds. 
 She dwelt on them, pondering their scope and 
 meaning, and seeing them in clearer and clearer 
 light. But states of feeling soon turn our 
 thoughts in their own direction. It was not long 
 before she was musing on her unhappy condition, 
 and in the weariness of life that came back upon 
 her, she murmured the oft-repeated words 
 
 " Oh, if I were only in heaven ! If I could 
 only die and be at peace !" 
 
 Then came back the suggestions of her friend ; 
 and with such a force of conviction that she 
 clasped her hands together, and rising up, moved 
 in some agitation of mind about the room. As 
 she did so, the thought of a poor sick woman in 
 the neighborhood came into her mind. She had 
 heard of her serious illness on the day before, but 
 let the intelligence pass with only a word of pity. 
 It did not once occur that she ought to go, or 
 send to the woman s relief. Now the thought of
 
 IP I WERE ONLY IN HEAVEN. 159 
 
 her came with a suggestion of duty, and acting 
 upon that suggestion, she rang the bell. 
 
 " Mary," she said, as a domestic came in to an 
 swer to the bell, " have you heard from Mrs. Ellis 
 to-day ?" 
 
 " Yes, ma am," was replied. 
 
 "How is she?" 
 
 " Very sick, ma am, they say." 
 
 "What ails her?" 
 
 " Pleurisy, I think, ma am." 
 
 " Have you been over to see her ?" 
 
 " No, ma am." 
 
 " I wish you would step in and see how she is, 
 Mary. She may be suffering for want of proper 
 attention. I would like to know." 
 
 The girl left the room with a look of surprise 
 on ner face that did not escape the lady s notice. 
 Its meaning was partly understood. 
 
 " How did you find her, Mary ?" was asked 
 when the girl returned. 
 
 "I wish you could only see for yourself, 
 ma am," said Mary. " It would make your
 
 160 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 heart-ache. If somebody don t look after her 
 she ll die, and then what will become of her poor 
 little babies ?" 
 
 There was a look of real distress in the girl s 
 face. 
 
 " Is she is in want of anything ?" inquired the 
 lady. 
 
 " O ma am, won t you just step over and see 
 for yourself," was answered in an appealing way. 
 " She is in want of everything ; I don t believe 
 her poor little children have had anything to eat 
 this day !" 
 
 " Mary !" 
 
 " Indeed, ma am, and I shouldn t wonder at 
 all. To think of it, in a Christian neighbor 
 hood !" 
 
 "Somebody should have looked after her," said 
 the lady, in a tone meant to blame every other 
 person in the neighborhood except herself. 
 
 " What s everybody s business is nobody s busi 
 ness," replied the girl. 
 
 The sight that met tta lady s eyes, when, under
 
 IF I WEttE ONLY IN HEAVEN. 161 
 
 the force of a strong self-compulsion, she entered 
 the room where this sick woman lay, gave her, 
 too, the heart-ache. Alone, exhausted with pain, 
 without fire or food for her children, or medicine 
 for herself, she was stretched on a hard straw bed, 
 which no hand had beaten up or smoothed for 
 days. As the lady came in, a gleam lit up her 
 dull eyes, which turned with an appealing look 
 to the three little children who were sitting close 
 together in silence on the floor. From the in 
 stant that weary complainer entered this room, 
 she forgot herself in an overpowering pity. A 
 few questions were asked and answered then 
 prompt hands and a prompt will changed the 
 whole aspect of things. There were food, medi 
 cine, warmth and comfort, in a room where, a 
 little while before, all was cold, desolate, and 
 exhausted. As the lady looked around, and 
 thought of the change a few words and deeds had 
 wrought as if by magic saw the look of peace, 
 rest and hope which had settled over the sick wo 
 man s pale face, and followed her almost smiling 
 
 14* L
 
 162 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 eyes, as she looked after her cleanly dressed and 
 now happy children she felt a deeply penetrating 
 glow of satisfaction, and a sense of tranquility to 
 which she had long been a stranger. She had 
 forgotten herself in an earnest desire to help 
 another, and the heavenly delight that always 
 springs from good deeds done from right impulses 
 was flowing into her soul. 
 
 " How is it with you to-day ?" asked the friend 
 who had spoken so plainly. It was a week after 
 this first visit to the sick woman. She was hold 
 ing the lady by the hand, and looking earnestly 
 into her countenance, which had more light and 
 hope in it than she had seen there for a long 
 time. 
 
 "As well as I could expect." A faint smile 
 hovered around her sad lips, hiding the pain 
 which lay there like a shadow from some moun 
 tain of sorrow. 
 
 "Ah, what little girl is this ?" 
 
 A child had entered the room in a quiet,
 
 IF I WERE ONLY IN HEAVEN. 163 
 
 half-timid way, and not with the confidence of a 
 genuine home feeling. 
 
 " The child of a poor sick woman in the neigh 
 borhood," was answered. " The mother was very 
 ill, and there was no one to see after this little 
 one. I brought her home. She has been here 
 for several days." 
 
 " You have been to see her mother, then ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I ve called over every day to see 
 after her. She would have died, I believe, if I 
 had not met her case promptly. It is shameful 
 to think how, in the very midst of a rich neigh 
 borhood of people calling themselves Christians, 
 a sick woman may be left to suffer and die with 
 out a hand being raised to help her. I wouldn t 
 have believed it, if this case had not come under 
 my immediate notice." 
 
 " I see," said the friend, still holding the lady s 
 hand, and smiling into her face, " why that old, 
 sad, life-weary look has departed." 
 
 An answering smile lit up suddenly the lady s 
 countenance.
 
 164 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 " Has it departed ?" she asked, half Avondering 
 at her friend s remark. 
 
 " Yes, and may it never return to tell of brood 
 ing self-torlure, and idle longings after that hea 
 venly peace in the far-off future, which never 
 comes except as the fulness of a heavenly peace 
 that flows into the soul while patiently doing its 
 work in the harvest-fields of time. You have 
 opened the gate of heaven, my dear friend, and 
 your feet are upon the threshold. The first draft 
 of its pure crystalline air has swelled your lungs 
 with a new sense of pleasure, and given to your 
 heart new pulsations of delight. Do not linger 
 in the outer courts, but enter in, daily, by good 
 deeds done in the name of our common humanity. 
 Sit no longer idle. A stagnant mind, like stag 
 nant water, breeds noxious vapors and hideous 
 monsters. Health and happiness come only in 
 active duty. If, at home, you find not work 
 enough to keep your thoughts and hands busy, 
 go abroad, and by good deed and good example, 
 become a co-worker with the angels, into whose
 
 IF I WERE ONLY IN HEAVEN. 1G5 
 
 blessed ( ompany you have so many times desired 
 to enter through the gate of death. We must be 
 come associated with them here, my friend, or we 
 cannot enter into their society above. Heaven is 
 a state of mutual love ; but if we are mere lovers 
 of self here idle repiners instead of active ser 
 vants in the Lord s work of doing good how 
 can we pass by death into heaven ? Death only 
 separates the soul from its mortal body ; it makes 
 no change in its quality. What we are as to qua 
 lity good or evil j selfish or unselfish when we 
 depart hence, will we remain to eternity. And 
 so, my friend, if you wish to come fully into hea 
 ven when you die, press forward through the gate 
 by which you have now entered, and the further 
 you progress here, the higher will be your posi 
 tion when, at the close of this earthly life, it. shall 
 
 * 
 
 be said unto you Come, ye blessed of my Fa 
 ther, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from 
 the foundation of the world ! "
 
 166 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN 
 
 XIV. 
 
 UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 * TT7HAT a joyous creature !" said a friend, 
 glancing, as he spoke, towards an attrac 
 tive girl, whose laugh rang out at the moment, 
 and went musically fluttering through the rooms. 
 " It always does me good to meet the outflowing 
 life of such a being. She is like a ruddy blossom 
 in a bed of sombre-hued plants, catching the 
 sunbeams, and throwing them, by reflection, all 
 around her." 
 
 "She is a fair, human flower," I answered, 
 " with rich stores of perfume in her heart ; only, 
 I have thought, sometimes, a little too gay and 
 joyous. She seems to live in perpetual sur- 
 shine." 
 
 " I see no objection in that. Flowers grow in 
 the sunshine. It is their life-imparting element,"
 
 UNDER A CLOUD. 167 
 
 was returned. "Give me the radiant natures; 
 souls that dwell beneath unclouded skies ; hearts 
 that know no shadows." 
 
 " The sky is not always sunny," I remarked. 
 
 My friend looked at me, as one who did not 
 clearly see the drift of this sentence. 
 
 " There are intervals, in which clouds obscure 
 the heavens intervals of rain." 
 
 He looked at me still ; a slight change passing 
 over his face, as if some unpleasant thoughts were 
 coming into his mind ; but did not reply. 
 
 " Are not clouded skies, and falling rains, also 
 good for the flowers? Would their richest 
 beauty their sweetest odors come out, if they 
 dwelt only in the sunshine? Nay, more than 
 this, would the fruit-germ perfect itself fully in 
 the flower-heart, if there were given only hot, un- 
 tempered and over stimulating beams of light 
 from time opening bud to falling petal ?" 
 
 My friend was yet silent. The illustration 
 brought doubts and queries not easily set aside. 
 
 " The soul is not a flower," he said, at length.
 
 168 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 "Because plants need the alternations of rain and 
 sunshine, does it follow that the same is true of 
 our souls ?" 
 
 " There is a perfect correspondence between the 
 soul and nature," T returned j " for was not the 
 world of nature created for man ? And, if cre 
 ated for him, must it not in all things correspond 
 to what is in him ? If it were not so, how would 
 it be possible for him ever to be at one with na 
 ture? Granting this perfect correspondence, then, 
 as to objects and their relations in the phenome 
 nal world, with the inner world of mind, will not 
 growths, processes and developments in the latter, 
 advance by corresponding laws to final results? 
 So, nature becomes, in a higher degree, our 
 teacher." 
 
 The merry laugh rang out again. It was near 
 us, the maiden had crossed the room, her arm 
 drawn within that of another maiden, and now 
 stood the centre of a little group. The laugh 
 was musical as before ; and yet, something of its 
 sweetness to the ear was gone. We paused to
 
 UNDER A CLOUD. 169 
 
 observe her, and could not help but hear the sen 
 tences that dropped from her lips. Flippant tri 
 fles first then a thoughtless personality, that 
 must have hurt the one at whom it was thrown 
 and then a witty sarcasm, at the expense of an 
 excellent, but peculiar lady, who made one of the 
 company. 
 
 " Too much sunshine," I remarked, leaning to 
 my friend, as the group separated, and our merry 
 maiden passed beyond the range of our voices. 
 " The life blood is too abundant the growth too 
 lusty. She needs the tempering of clouds and 
 rain." 
 
 " Trouble sorrow or sickness. Is that what 
 you mean ?" 
 
 "Whatever God sees best," was my answer. 
 " He knoweth the heart, and understandeth what 
 discipline is needed. She is with him, and he 
 will not suffer the good in her to be lost." 
 
 Again the bird-like, warbling laugh went 
 
 through the rooms. A sigh, almost at the same 
 
 . moment, parted my friend s lips. Either my 
 
 15
 
 170 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 suggestions, or the want of harmony between the 
 beautiful and glad exterior of the maiden and the 
 glimpses she had given of her inner state, had 
 changed his feeling towards her. He was disap 
 pointed, as we so often are in plucking a beautiful 
 but unfamiliar flower, to find the odor unpleasant. 
 
 " Perhaps you are right," he said, in a changed 
 voice. " There may be need of clouds and rain." 
 
 " There is always need of them," I remarked ; 
 "just as much need of them for the perfection of 
 a human soul, as for the perfection of a plant or a 
 tree. When the poet said 
 
 Into each life some rain must fall, 
 Some days must be dark and dreary, 
 
 he was not playing with figures of speech, but 
 uttering a truth of universal application." 
 
 " It may be so," the friend remarked, with in 
 creasing sobriety of manner " but, I cannot see 
 why the soul, of necessity, must have dark days 
 and rainy seasons for the perfection of its life. I 
 cannot see why one like Miss Saroni, for instance,
 
 UNDER A CLOUD. 171 
 
 may not grow into a true, loving and perfect wo 
 manhood, and yet dwell always in sunshine. I 
 know that our higher nature must be developed ; 
 that we must rise above the natural into the spi 
 ritual, and become heavenly-minded. But, I am 
 of those who do not believe in a gloomy, self- 
 tormenting religion. Why should doing right, 
 and being right, according to God s precepts, 
 shadow a man s soul ?" 
 
 " It is right living that breaks the clouds which 
 darken our sky," was my answer. " Religion is 
 life a life in harmony with divine precepts. 
 The natural life into which we are born is below 
 this, and responsive to the world of nature un 
 happily, through inherited evils, always, in its de 
 velopment, turning itself away from good. Did 
 you not observe that tendency in Miss Saroni? 
 Bright, happy, lovely as she is, a contempt for 
 others has already found a place in her mind. 
 Will not that feeling under the strong stimulant 
 of sunshine, grow vigorously ? Depend upon it, 
 there must be dark days, winter and rain for her,
 
 172 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 as for all. A new ground must be prepared in 
 her mind ; new seeds sown even spiritual seeds, 
 which are divine truths and these must be shel 
 tered from scorching heats, and receive dews and 
 rains. So, of necessity, in order that the first 
 life, which is by nature evil and selfish, may re 
 cede, and permit a new life to be born, states of 
 trouble, of sorrow, or affliction, must come. If 
 man had not fallen from his first estate, all would 
 have been different. His natural life, developed 
 in just order, would have been as a garden ready 
 for spiritual seed, which being cast into the earth, 
 would have germinated and grown into goodly 
 plants bearing spiritual fruit. But it is different 
 now. The natural mind is filled with evil seeds, 
 and the growth of evil plants is rank and rapid. 
 It follows, that unless these be removed, hurt or 
 hindered in some way, no good seed can find a 
 lodgment or grow. The hurting, the hindering 
 and the removing, take place for the most part, 
 through misfortunes, afflictions, sickness, or trou 
 bles, by which natural things recede from the
 
 UNDER A CLOUD 173 
 
 affections, and the soul is led to aspire after hea 
 venly and eternal things. We must all pass un 
 der the cloud ; we must all have gloomy days ; 
 we must all suffer, that life from heaven may be 
 born within us." 
 
 A few years of sunshine followed, in which our 
 young friend did not grow more lovely in spirit, 
 though richly endowed both in mind and person. 
 Beauty made her vain ; mental superiority caused 
 her to think with contempt of those with feebler 
 endowments ; wealth, instead of being thankfully 
 accepted, created a feeling of superiority. Vanity, 
 pride, self-estimation, contempt for inferiors 
 such were the evil plants fast attaining to a full 
 growth in her mind. It was needful, in the wise 
 previsions of a good Providence, that, to save her 
 and others from the sad fruitage of these, she 
 must pass under a cloud. And so, dark days 
 came angry skies and swift-driving tempests. 
 
 I did not see her during these dark days; but 
 afterwards, I met her frequently. What a beauty 
 there was in her life! She had been long under 
 
 15*
 
 174 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 the cloud, and the shadows it left still lingered 
 about her face; but, as thought and feeling stirred 
 in her, responsive to your touch, how sweetly the 
 quiet smiles broke through ! There remained in 
 her lower tones, a memory of past suffering, that 
 touched you at times; but her words were ever 
 cheerful. Of others, she spoke with considerate 
 kindness ; dwelling on the good in them rarely 
 touching the evil. Never a complaint passed her 
 lips ; but she often referred to the wise and good 
 dealings of God to the children of men. Once 
 she said to me, " I am only happy when useful." 
 What a volume of meaning the sentence contains! 
 Let not its triteness take from its just significance. 
 
 " Was it not best ?" I said, to the friend with 
 whom I had talked years before " best for her 
 that the sun was hidden and the rain fell ?" 
 
 " Perhaps," he answered, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Do you question it ?" I asked. 
 
 "No, I will not say that. Doubtless it was 
 best. One thing is certain, the sphere of her life 
 is sweet. You cannot pass an hour in her com-
 
 UNDER A CLOUD. 175 
 
 pany without being more in love with right prin 
 ciples without feeling an inspiration to good 
 deeds." 
 
 And it was even so. In the winter of hei 
 adversity " much wheat had grown ;" in the 
 night of sorrow she had been still gathering 
 strength ; while under the cloud, holy truths had 
 dropped into her mind and germinated, the cloud 
 still shadowing her sky, and tempering both light 
 and heat, until the springing seeds gathered 
 strength at the root, and lifted up green blades 
 into the caressing air. She was coming into the 
 light and heat again ; but now, the sun whose 
 rays poured down upon her life with blessing, 
 was^ spiritual and divine.
 
 176 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 XV. 
 
 NOW AND TO-DAY. 
 
 to-days how inadequately are the) tj>- 
 preciated ? Now in which all the blessings 
 of life are alone included with what strange in 
 difference do we turn from its rich offerings, to 
 feast our eyes on gardens of delight, that spread 
 away, temptingly, in a future that forever mocks 
 us with the unattained ? There are pearls and 
 diamonds scattered all along the paths we are 
 treading, but we cannot stop to gather them for 
 looking at the mountains of gold that gleam 
 against the far horizon. All of our unhappiness 
 springs from neglected or misspent nows and to 
 days. The present moment is God s loving gift 
 to man. In it we weave the web of our future, 
 and make its threads bright with sunshine, or 
 dark with evil and suffering:.
 
 NOW AND TO-DAY. 177 
 
 "Come and kiss me, papa," cried a voice full 
 of music and love. 
 
 But papa was in the hall below, with coat, hat 
 and gloves on, all ready to go forth to the day s 
 business, and little pet Louis was up in his mo 
 ther s chamber, only half-dressed. 
 
 " Haven t time now, I ll kiss you when I come 
 home," papa answers back, and then starts from 
 the house in a hurried manner. 
 
 A pearl lay at his feet, and Mr. Edwards had 
 failed to lift the precious thing. He would have 
 been so much the richer for life. 
 
 " Dear Lu !" he said to himself, as he moved 
 along the street, " that kiss would have done us 
 both good, and consumed but half a minute of 
 time ; and I hardly think that I shall find an 
 other half minute so richly freighted with blessing 
 to-day." 
 
 At the corner of the next square, Mr. Edwards 
 waited four minutes for an omnibus. It was lost 
 
 time. Four minutes spent with dear, pet Louis, 
 M
 
 178 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 how full of pleasure they would have been ! how 
 fragrant their memory through all the day ! 
 
 When Mr. Edwards arrived at his store, nei 
 ther his morning newspaper nor his book-keeper 
 was there. So, he could neither get at his books, 
 which were in the fire-proof, nor glean from his 
 Gazette the commercial news, or state of the mar 
 kets. No customers were in at so early an hour. 
 And so Mr. Edwards passed the next twenty mi 
 nutes in comparative idleness, his mind burdened 
 just enough to make him feel uncomfortable, 
 with the thought of little Louis, grieving over 
 the coveted parting kiss. 
 
 At the end of twenty minutes, the book-keeper 
 arrived. The honey of Louis parting kiss would 
 have sweetened the temper of Mr. Edwards for 
 the day. Without it, under slight annoyances, 
 his spirit grew sour. He spoke to the book 
 keeper with slight impatience, and in words of 
 reproof for being late. A sick child was the ex 
 cuse; and as he looked into his clerk s face, he 
 saw that it was pale with trouble and watching.
 
 NOW AND TO-DAY 179 
 
 Mr. Edwards sighed. The pressure on his 
 feelings was heavier. Everything, during that 
 day, seemed to possess a strange power of annoy 
 ance ; and to the failure to lift a pearl from his 
 feet in the morning, was added many failures of a 
 like character. 
 
 " "Will you please to buy an almanac ?" said a 
 childish voice, near him. 
 
 " No, I do not please," was the gruff reply of 
 Mr. Edwards. He spoke as he looked up, on the 
 moment s impulse. The timid, half frightened 
 face of a tender child, scarcely a year older than 
 his darling at home, glanced upon him for an 
 instant, and then he saw only the retreating 
 form of a little girl. Before his better feelings 
 prompted a recall of his repellant words, she was 
 in the street, and out of sight. 
 
 This was a little thing in itself, but it told 
 sharply on the feelings of Mr. Edwards, who was 
 naturally a kind-hearted man. He sat very still 
 for a little while, then, sighing again, went on 
 with the letter he wa,s writing when the little
 
 180 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 almanac-seller disturbed him at his work. An 
 other "now" had passed, leaving a shadow, in 
 stead of the sunshine it might have bestowed. 
 
 "Can you help me out, to-day? I have a 
 large note falling due." 
 
 " I cannot," replied Mr. Edwards. 
 
 The neighbor looked disappointed, and went 
 away. 
 
 Now that neighbor had many times obliged 
 Mr. Edwards in a similar way. Our merchant 
 had no balance over in bank. That may be said 
 for him. But he had money out on call, and 
 could, without inconvenience, have helped his 
 neighbor. He remembered this after it was too 
 la^e. The "now" had passed again, and left 
 upon his memory another burden of unquiet 
 thought. 
 
 And so the hours of that day passed, each one 
 leaving some "now" unimproved some pearl 
 lying by the wayside some offered blessing un 
 touched ; and when, at a later period than usual,
 
 NOW AND TO-DAY. 181 
 
 Mr. Edwards turned his steps homeward, he felt 
 as if he had lost instead of gained a day. 
 
 Dear Louis ! Away, faster than his feet could 
 carry him, went the heart of Mr. Edwards, to 
 wards his darling boy. Somehow, the father s 
 imagination would present no other image of the 
 child but that which showed him in grief for the 
 kiss denied that morning. 
 
 " Where is Louis ?" were the first words 
 spoken by Mr. Edwards, as he entered the room 
 where his wife was sitting. It was at least an 
 hour after nightfall. 
 
 " In bed, and asleep," was the answer. 
 
 At another time, this answer would have pro 
 duced no unpleasant feelings ; now, it was felt 
 almost like a painful shock. 
 
 Mr. Edwards went to the chamber where Louis 
 lay, in his little bed. The gas was burning low ; 
 he turned it up, so that the light would fall upon 
 his face. How beautiful it was, in its childish 
 innocence ! How placid ! And yet, the father s 
 eyes saw, looking, as they did, through the mo- 
 
 16
 
 182 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 dium of a troubled state, a touch of grief upon 
 the lips, and a shade of rebuking sadness on the 
 brow of his darling. 
 
 " Precious one !" he said, as he bent to kiss the 
 pure forehead. " I wronged both your heart and 
 mine." 
 
 It seemed to him, after the kiss and confession, 
 that the sleeper s face took on a more peaceful, 
 loving aspect. For many minutes, he stood 
 gazing down upon his unconscious boy; then, 
 murmuring to himself " It shall not be so 
 again, sweet one !" lowered the gas to a taper 
 flame, and went with noiseless footsteps, from the 
 room. 
 
 For the gain of half a minute to business, in 
 the morning, what a loss had there been to love, 
 and peace, and comfort, for the space of hours. 
 Let us take care of our nows and our to-days; for 
 herein lies the true secret of happiness, and the 
 true philosophy of life.
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE. 183 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE. 
 
 " T WILL stop now," said Mr. Fanshaw, at 
 forty-five, pausing in his life-work, and 
 looking back over the broad fields through which 
 he had been reaping for years, and then at his 
 barns and store-houses, that were filled to over 
 flowing. " Having enough and to spare, why 
 toil on, eagerly and anxiously, for more? Having 
 borne the burden and heat of the day, why not 
 accept the rest that a liberal competence oifers? 
 Let others work now; my part is done. If I add 
 to the wealth already accumulated, can I enter 
 more into its enjoyments ? Then why strive on ? 
 No ; I will stop now, and take the good life has 
 to offer. Only a few years remain to me at best ; 
 why waste them in this dull round of simple 
 money-making ?"
 
 184 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 Mr. Fanshaw was a philosopher, in his own 
 estimation. He pondered this view of the case at 
 intervals which grew briefer and briefer, seeing 
 it in a stronger and stronger light, until the pro 
 position was fully accepted, and he calmly ar 
 ranged to withdraw from all active participation 
 in business. With the very first step in this ar 
 rangement came a shadow of misgiving. Then 
 he went all over the argument by which he had 
 been influenced to retire " r >m active life, but 
 could discover no flaw therein. He had ample 
 wealth, yielding an income beyond what, even in 
 luxurious living, he could spend. Why, then, 
 dig and delve ? Why gather in more, and lay it 
 up for others to scatter ? Why waste his energies 
 for naught ? 
 
 Mr. Fanshaw regarded the argument as conclu 
 sive, and notwithstanding the shadow of misgiving 
 which, at the very first movement, crept over his 
 feelings, he walked steadily to the result in view. 
 It took him over a year to get disentangled from 
 the many business connections in which he was
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE. 185 
 
 involved, during all. of which time that faint sha 
 dow kept growing more and more palpable, and 
 when,- at last, freed from cares and duties, he sat 
 down in the sunshine of his prosperity to simply 
 enjoy, he could perceive little or no warmth in 
 that sunshine. He looked up, doubting and 
 questioning, into the sky that bent over him. It 
 was not blue, and bright, and sparkling to the 
 eye, but had a kind of leaden dullness that left its 
 hue upon his feelings. A strange unrest began 
 to disturb his spirit. Wearily the days passed, 
 and the nights became more and more sleepless. 
 
 " Go into the country," said a friend, who saw, 
 in the face and manner of Mr. Fanshaw, the evi 
 dences of a growing life- weariness. " Build your 
 self a handsome villa, and surround it with all 
 the charms of nature made more beautiful by 
 art." 
 
 But Mr. Fanshaw had no taste for rural life or 
 landscape gardening. His mind had received no 
 cultivation in that direction ; and there were no 
 early associations to draw him back to woods and 
 
 16
 
 186 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 fields. A city boy, he had grown up among city 
 scenes, and the city s hard features were stamped 
 upon him. For over twenty-five years all inte 
 rest had been absorbed in bales and boxes of 
 goods; in stocks and bills; in mortgages, bonds 
 and money securities. And now, that he no 
 longer cared for these things, what came in to 
 take their places and hold his restless thoughts ? 
 
 "Visit Europe," suggested another friend, who 
 saw the growing discontent of Mr. Fanshaw. 
 
 This was conned over. A year in London, 
 Paris, Florence and Rome looked promising. 
 He went, and enjoyed to the degree a man of his 
 education and habits of life is capable of enjoy 
 ing; but found the annoyances incident to tra 
 veling abroad in excess of the pleasure. So he 
 came home, to find home drearier than when he 
 went away. There was a time when Mr. Fan 
 shaw enjoyed the daily newspaper; but then he 
 took a lively interest in cotton and grain, and the 
 prioi of leading stocks. Political affairs had also 
 a certain attraction; for the political world was in
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE. 187 
 
 close connection with the business world. He 
 moved about, too, among live men, all on the 
 alert, like himself, and ambition, as well as inte 
 rest, kept him posted in common affairs, so as to 
 stand their equals. But now he had ruled him 
 self out of the current movements of the day, and 
 gradually losing the " run of things," lost the old 
 desire for his newspaper no, we err not the old 
 desire, but the old enjoyment. The newspaper 
 was resorted to as before, with a certain pleasura 
 ble anticipation ; but rarely did its columns yield 
 the honey he would find. Dry and unprofitable 
 all. Daily the sheet was thrown aside in disap 
 pointment. 
 
 Out of the live current, Mr. Fanshaw was 
 moving in a small, sluggish eddy, round and 
 round. Vitality was departing every day. Mind 
 was growing weaker through an impotent ex 
 haustion of itself; and as it grew weaker he grew 
 unhappier. Plainly, Mr. Fanshaw had made a 
 mistake in retiring from business. So one ven 
 tured to say.
 
 188 TUB SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 " I know that," was his answer. " I didn t 
 understand myself." 
 
 " Go into business again," was suggested. 
 
 But Mr. Fanshaw shook his head, answering, 
 " No ; I am out of the current, and have not the 
 boldness to venture in again. Nearly three years 
 of idleness have reduced the old vigor of mind. 
 I feel that T should be unequal to the require 
 ments. A business life, as the M r orld goes now, 
 is a different thing from floating with the tide. 
 There is no success but for those who strain 
 every muscle pulling against the stream." 
 
 And this was the simple truth. Ease, idleness, 
 and loss of mental vigor through sluggishness of 
 mind, had robbed Mr. Fanshaw of strength to 
 such a degree that he dared not venture again out 
 upon the waters where he had once held his place 
 among the boldest and most vigorous. 
 
 Two years more of a fruitless life, and then, 
 without warning, down from a summer sky fell a 
 desolating storm, sweeping from hundreds and 
 thousands, all over the land, the gathered wealth
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE. 189 
 
 of years. While it raged, a bolt struck the fair 
 edifice which Mr. Fanshaw had builded, and it 
 fell in hopeless ruin to the ground. Of all its 
 goodly stones, scarcely one remained unbroken ot 
 in its place. 
 
 Stunned at first; then appalled by the disaster; 
 and then quickened into a fearful sense of his 
 helplessness and hopelessness, Mr. Fanshaw s first 
 state of mind was one of bitter complaints. He 
 called this misfortune a hard and cruel dispensa 
 tion ; and when a wiser one. than himself drew 
 near, and sought to lift his thoughts into a purer 
 atmosphere, where he could see stars shining in 
 the midnight sky, he rejected his offered words 
 of instruction, and called God cruel and unjust. 
 
 "Nay, my friend, say not so," was answered. 
 " God is good, and just, and wise. Out of this 
 darkness, he will, in his own good time, I trust, 
 bring you into marvelous light. His ways are 
 not as our ways, but they lead upwards ; he sees 
 not as we see; but in his purposes are eternal feli 
 city. I think that he has work for you yet in this
 
 190 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 world, Mr. Fanshaw ; work that only your hands 
 can aright perform." 
 
 But Mr. Fanshaw rejected the proposition. 
 Worldly wealth had been the greatest good in his 
 eyes. Through long years he had toiled for it 
 with an unabating ardor. And now, it was 
 swept from his grasp. 
 
 It so happened that, a few days afterwards, 
 Mr. Fanshaw was in the house of this wiser 
 friend, to whom in remembrance of warm expres 
 sion of interest and sympathy, he had come again, 
 moved by the bitterness of a state that began 
 searching about for relief. While they sat talk 
 ing, a child was engaged in building a toy castle. 
 He had blocks of all sizes and shapes, adapted to 
 his purpose, and steadily rose wall and buttress, 
 tower and battlement, growing under his hand in 
 symmetry, fitness and beauty, into what seemed 
 in his eyes, like a very creation of his will, until 
 the goodly edifice was completed. 
 
 The friend called Mr. Fanshaw s attention to 
 the child, and they observed, with interest, the
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE. 
 
 entire cheerful absorption of his mind in what lie 
 was doing, each well-considered piece going into 
 its place to the murmur of a song that issued in a 
 continuous flow from his lips. 
 
 " Pie is building as men build," said the 
 friend, "happy in his work. The mental ac 
 tivity required, gives an exhilarant tone to his 
 feelings, and he sings as he toils." 
 
 At last, the castle was completed, and the child 
 stood and surveyed it, now looking from one 
 point of view, and now from another, and now 
 walking round and round. 
 
 " Observe," said the friend ; " he is silent now. 
 No music is floating through his lips. The work 
 is done, and he is beholding it with satisfaction ; 
 but is he as happy in contemplating his work as 
 he was in doing it ?" 
 
 After a few minutes, the child ceased inspecting 
 his castle from all sides, and going to a sofa, threw 
 himself thereon with a sigh that went audibly 
 through the room. There he lay, for some time, 
 listlessly, but with his eyes upon his finished
 
 192 THE SEEN AND TUB UNSEEN. 
 
 work. Then he manifested signs of restlessness, 
 got up and walked around his goodly edifice 
 again sighed, and went to the farther end of the 
 room then came back, and renewed the inspec 
 tion. But he did not sing any more. 
 
 " Do you understand the case ?" asked the 
 friend. 
 
 Mr. Fanshaw had a dawning perception of its 
 meaning; yet answered with the shake of the 
 head. 
 
 " The child s experiences are the man s in mini 
 ature. He is growing restless for a lack of em 
 ployment. Most earnestly his thought went into 
 the construction of that castle, and he looked to 
 the beautiful form he was creating, as something 
 in which he would find happiness. But, the 
 building is completed, and he is not happy. His 
 mind has fallen away from its strain ; the Avarmth 
 of friction is felt no longer ; thought is dull, and 
 he has a foretaste of that aching void in the heart, 
 of which so few men understand the meaning, or 
 for which so few who experience it ever find the
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE. 193 
 
 cure. Now, let me throw down his castle, and 
 see what the result will be." 
 
 " Oh, no, no," answered Mr. Fanshaw, inter 
 posing ; " that would be cruel." 
 
 " Cruel only on the outside, but with a sweet 
 nut of kindness in the centre," was the almost 
 tenderly spoken answer, for it was the father who 
 said this ; and rising, he moved past the toy build 
 ing, touching it as if by accident. A crash, and 
 the blocks lay a mass of shapeless ruins on the 
 floor. With the crash, rang out a cry of pain, 
 and the child, who had worked through a whole 
 hour to erect this goodly castle, flung himself in 
 grief across a chair. His sobs and tears went to 
 the heart of Mr. Fanshaw, and he said, aside, to 
 his friend 
 
 " That was not well done." 
 
 "We shall see," was the answer. 
 
 A few minutes passed in a silence only broken 
 by the child s sorrow. 
 
 " My son." The father spoke in tenderness, 
 yet firmly. There came no answer. 
 
 17 * N
 
 194 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 " Come to me, Alfred." 
 
 The boy came, slowly, great drops glistening 
 on his eyelashes, and wetting his cheeks. 
 
 " That was a fine castle, my son." 
 
 The child answered with a sob. He saw, yet, 
 only the ruins. 
 
 "A beautiful castle," added the father, "and 
 you builded it." 
 
 Out of the ruins began to arise, in the child s 
 mind, the fair creation which he had wrought 
 only a little while before. His quivering lip 
 grew firmer, a glimmer of light shone through 
 his tears. 
 
 "And you can build it again. Be a brave, 
 strong boy. Clear away the ruins, as we do after 
 a fire, and set the foundations once more." 
 
 Only a word or two beyond these were needed. 
 The child was soon at his castle-building again, 
 all absorbed in the work; and soon the low music 
 of his happy heart came murmuring through his 
 lips. 
 
 "There was a sweet nut within that bitter
 
 A LESSON IN LIFE. 195 
 
 husk, Mr. Fanshaw," said the friend; "and if 
 you will take a lesson from a child, and go to 
 building again, you will find a sweet nut in your 
 misfortune also." 
 
 And doubtless he found the rich and juicy ker 
 nel, for in a little while afterwards, under the 
 spur of necessity, he was out in the busy world, 
 and at work, trying to build once more.
 
 196 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 AN HOUR WITH MYSELF. 
 
 " T DON T think you know yourself, Mr. Self- 
 
 *- complacency." 
 
 I had been speaking, a little boastfully, of my 
 good qualities ; particularly of my disinterested 
 ness and integrity, when the individual with 
 whom I was conversing, threw that wet blanket 
 over me. 
 
 "Not know myself?" so I said to myself, 
 after parting, a little coldly, with my plain-spoken 
 friend, "that s a good joke! If I, Mr. Self-com 
 placency, don t know myself, pray who does know 
 me ? Certainly, not you, Mr. Freespeech !" 
 
 I was piqued at Mr. Freespeech, and could not 
 get over his remark, which involved a great deal 
 that was not very flattering to my self-esteem. It 
 annoyed me like a mote in the eye.
 
 AN HOUR WITH MYSELF. 197 
 
 "Not know myself?" I kept repeating the 
 words, every now and then, all day ; and when I 
 sat down alone in my room at night, they came in 
 to disturb the hours that usually passed with me 
 in calm self-satisfaction. 
 
 "Not know myself?" What did he mean by 
 that? I saw by his eye and voice, that he was 
 in earnest. Somebody has been talking about 
 me, and putting wrong constructions on my acts, 
 and Mr. Freespeech has been more ready to be 
 lieve evil than good. He d better examine into 
 his own quality ; and I ll say so to him the next 
 time we meet. 
 
 But I couldn t ease my mind by thoughts of 
 this character. My self-esteem was wounded. 
 
 "Not know myself?" I repeated for the hun 
 dredth time. "What did I say to Mr. Freespeech 
 that led him to make so uncharitable a remark ? 
 Why, that in voting for Mr. Cleveland, I only 
 looked to the public good, as I hoped I would 
 always look in everything, and did look. I con 
 sidered, and still consider him the best man for 
 
 17
 
 198 THE SEEN AND T II K UN S KEN. 
 
 the place. He wanted to elect Mr. Grant ; but 
 I don t like Grant. He is capable enough no 
 doubt ; but our views differ widely in many par 
 ticulars." 
 
 And here came in the questions, as if I were 
 talking with another, who asked 
 
 "Why don t you like Mr. Grant? Why do 
 you prefer Mr. Cleveland ?" 
 
 I went down into myself to get an answer to 
 these queries, and after groping about for some 
 time, came up, feeling a little more uncomfortable 
 than when I went down. Why? What had I 
 discovered ? Just this : the impression that, as 
 President of the Bank, Mr. Cleveland would be 
 far more likely to favor my interests than Mr. 
 Grant; and here was the reason why I preferred 
 him above the other, and had voted for him at 
 the meeting of stockholders. 
 
 "Very disinterested, indeed, Mr. Self-compla 
 cency !" said I, two warm spots glowing on my 
 cheeks. I felt them, as if lighted candles were 
 held near my face. "I wonder if Mr. Free-
 
 AN HOUR WITH MYSELF. 199 
 
 speech really suspected this? The two warm 
 spots burned. 
 
 It seemed very probable, so clearly did the 
 truth stand out before me. I tried to cover it 
 up, to hide the mean fact; but it stood there, 
 looking at me with a sinister leer. So this was 
 my disinterestedness ; this my regard for the pub 
 lic good? There had been some very favorable 
 testimony on the side of Mr. Grant; and Mr. 
 Freespeech had strongly urged his fitness for the 
 place, on the ground of his known inflexible cha 
 racter. " Make him President," he said, " and 
 there will be no partial administration of affairs ; 
 no individual preference on discount days; no 
 leaning towards personal friends." Now, I, Mr. 
 Self-complacency, standing in occasional need of 
 bank facilities, and having experienced many un 
 comfortable disappointments on discount days, 
 had, away back in my thought or purpose, the 
 desire to secure an interested friend near the 
 source of bank favors. So I had voted for Mr. 
 Cleveland.
 
 200 THE SEEN AND THK UNSEEN. 
 
 " I must own up in this case," said I, feeling 
 something like a culprit. "The real motive is 
 plain enough now, but it was removed so far 
 away out of sight that I didn t suspect its exist 
 ence. And I don t believe Mr. Freespeech saw 
 it. How could he? It was nothing but spleen, 
 on his part, growing out of disappointment. And 
 his language and manner had so sweeping a signi 
 fication, as if I \vere the most selfish man in the 
 world ; as if I never acted from purely disinte 
 rested motives ! He forgets how I refused to 
 take advantage of his ignorance in regard to the 
 price of an article, by which I might have gained 
 an advantage over him of several hundred dol 
 lars." 
 
 This thought restored, in a measure, my good 
 opinion of myself; but only for a little while. I 
 took another plunge down amid the more hidden 
 things of my mind, and saw that I had not been 
 influenced in this act by any regard for my neigh 
 bor s good whatever that his interest had not 
 been in all my thoughts ; but only the desire to
 
 AN HOUR WITH MYSELF. 201 
 
 gain for myself a good reputation, which I con 
 sidered of more value than the few hundred dol 
 lars I would make in a transaction, that a day or 
 two would expose as a bit of sharp practice in 
 trade. I could even recall the processes of 
 thought by which I was influenced at the time. 
 How I had pictured to myself the way he would 
 talk about me among certain persons, with whom, 
 above all things, I wished to stand well; the con 
 tempt they would feel for me, and even the pecu 
 niary injury I might sustain. While on the other 
 hand, the refusal, on my part, to accept an advan 
 tage over my neighbor s ignorance and I was 
 careful to let Mr. Freespeech understand all 
 about the matter would be told to my honor 
 and benefit. 
 
 I actually covered my face with my hands, 
 when close self-examination gave me this picture, 
 and said, "For shame, Mr. Self-complacency!" 
 
 Again I went down amid the secret places of 
 my heart, and looked steadily at the thoughts 
 and purposes which were hidden away there from
 
 202 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 casual observation. I was liberal, taking my 
 means into consideration, in regard to public and 
 private charities ; and made, yearly, a handsome 
 contribution for the support of the church to 
 which I belonged. The thought of this liberality 
 had always been a pleasant thing to me ; and it 
 was one of my habits to contrast my generous de 
 votion of the means which God had placed in my 
 hand, with the selfish withholdings apparent in 
 others. 
 
 And in all this, I now saw the stain of a mean 
 and almost hypocritical self-seeking. Had I 
 looked to the good of my neighbor, or only to a 
 good reputation for myself? Had I desired the 
 peace of a good conscience, or only the approval 
 of man? With a singular clearness of vision 1 
 saw myself, as to interior motives, and I could 
 not find a single one of these motives that was 
 not all clouded and disfigured by selfishness, 
 pride, and a spirit of vain self-glory. I gave to 
 the church. Why? In order that the gospel 
 might be preached for the salvation of souls!
 
 AN HOUR WITH MYSELF. 203 
 
 This, I had often made bold to say, was the rea 
 son why I gave. But I could not find, in my 
 heart, any genuine love of either saints or sinners ; 
 certainly not enough to induce me to give two 
 hundred dollars a year for their safety or salva 
 tion. I m at the confessional, reader, and shall 
 make a clean breast of it. No I could find love 
 of self, taking on multiform shapes; but not a 
 genuine love of anything or anybody out of my 
 self. 
 
 "Rather humiliating this, Mr. Self-compla 
 cency," said I. 
 
 " Yes, it is humiliating," I answered to myself. 
 " Very humilitating." 
 
 I gave, always, to public charities when called 
 upon, and made a merit of this in my own 
 thoughts. I considered myself a truly benevo 
 lent man. Now, as I groped amid the springs 
 of action, I could find scarcely the feeblest senti 
 ment of pity for suffering humanity ; but the de 
 sire to stand well, as a kind-hearted and generous
 
 204 THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. 
 
 man, in the eyes of other people, was strong and 
 active. 
 
 " Is there no good in me," I exclaimed, with a 
 low, creeping shudder, starting to my feet, and 
 beginning to walk the floor of my room. 
 
 " There is none good but one. That is God." 
 
 I remembered the words of our Saviour ; and 
 they came to me, now, with a fulness of meaning 
 never comprehended before. I had read them, 
 and heard them read in the great congregation of 
 worshipers, hundreds of times. And yet, for all 
 this, I, Mr. Self-complacency, thought myself a 
 very good kind of man, and far better than the 
 common run of people. Indeed, I was in the 
 habit of contrasting myself with other men, and 
 taking the conclusion in my own favor ; when it 
 was not at all improbable that the chief difference 
 between us was that I gave more heed to appear 
 ances, from a certain love of reputation, than they 
 did. 
 
 "Mr. Freespeech was right. I didn t know 
 myself; nor do I know myself now, in this new
 
 AN HOUR WITH MYSELF. 205 
 
 guise? Am I, indeed, so wanting in honor, hu 
 manity and integrity ? My cheeks burn as if in 
 the glow of a furnace !" 
 
 Take an hour with yourself, reader, and get 
 down among the concealed motives by which 
 your actions are governed, and, maybe, you will 
 not like the new aspect in which you appear, any 
 more than I like the one in which I have ap 
 peared. 
 
 18
 
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