Miss Weston returned to her friends, and Dawn took up the thread of her life, which was every day extending and winding into new scenes of darkness and light. But a voice within her, told her that one day all the darkness would become light. She trusted that voice, for it was speaking unto her every day, and growing each hour into deeper recognition. What avails the love of our friends, if it be but for a few earthly days or years? What is the love of a mother to her child, without an eternity for its manifestation? “Whatever has lived upon earth still lives.”
The mother, forced from her new-born child, sorrows over the physical separation. It is natural; but what power does she not possess to live and breathe into its spiritual unfolding. Silent, but subtle, like nature's most potent forces, her spirit descends into its being, and there dwells, molding it every hour into a higher form of life. Truth is at the basis of all theories, and, though man builds many a superstructure in accordance with his own fancy, he can in no way affect this truth. It is a natural law of the universe, that love should linger and remain after the habiliments of flesh are withdrawn. No one lives who has not felt, at times, the presence of the unseen; and it seems strange that there can be one so limited in thought and understanding as to say there is nought beyond the narrow limit of physical life to hold communion with our souls? Happy the man who opens the doors of his spirit wide for angel visitors. Happy the heart which knows by its own beating, when they come and go, for,
“It is a faith sublime and sure,
That ever round our head
Are hovering on noiseless wing,
The spirits of the dead.”
It has been said that nothing is more difficult than to demonstrate a self-evident truth. To those who feel and know of this guardianship of friends, gone beyond, this affiliation of soul with soul, language is powerless to transmit the conviction. It must be felt and experienced, not reasoned into the mind, because it is a component of the soul, a legitimate portion of its life.
“I must go, and remain away a long time,” said Dawn to her father, one morning, after they had just finished reading a letter from Florence.
“And why, may I ask?”
“Because we are replete with the same kind of life; our minds are set to the same strain, and exhaust each other. I can be more to myself and others, if I go, you will enter mother's sphere more completely in my absence, and thus shall we both be refreshed and strengthened.”
“I feel the truth of your words, and I am glad to know that your philosophy of life so fully accords with my own.”
“We have a superabundance of one quality of life in our home, and a change is absolutely requisite for our mental as well as for our physical well-being. Absence from it, separation between us, a going out into new atmospheres, a social mingling with persons we do not daily come in contact with, will produce the most beneficial results. This is what every family at times needs. One great objection I have to our marriage system is, that as society is now constittuted, it allows no freedom to the individual. The two are so exclusively together that they lose knowledge of themselves. They suffer physically and intellectually. On the other hand, if more freedom existed, if their lives took a broader scope, each would know each more perfectly, and absorb from others that vigor which would develop a natural growth of their own. For my part, I can never submit to the existing rules of married life.”
“The analogies of the natural world to human life are good, for the rocky shore symbolizes the highest power of the human soul, which is endurance rather than action. To most persons such characters seem vapid and sentimental, lacking force and tone, and generally unfitted for the enterprises of the world. And yet there are forces in man beside the grappling and hammering manifestations of the day. There is a greater mastery in control, than in the exercise of power. An angry man may evince more energy than he who keeps calm in the heat of provocation, but the latter is the man of most power. In the common circumstances of life we must act, and act lawfully; but to bear and suffer is alone the test of virtue, for there come hours of pain and mental anguish when all action is vain, when motion of limb and mind is powerless; then do we learn
“How sublime it is To suffer and be strong.”
“Then do we learn the great lesson that there is no quality more needed in our life than endurance. There is so much which occurs outside the circle of our own free will, accidents both mental and physical.”
“And yet we feel there can be no accident.”
“Nothing in the highest analysis which can be termed such, for all things are either in divine order, or under human responsibility, which latter power is too limited. What we term accidents are parts of, and belong to, the general plan, and when these occur, they serve to inspire us with endurance, which is no minor virtue-it is achievement-and bears its impress on the face. These thoughts are those of another, who has so well expressed them, that I have given them to you in his own language.”
“I shall profit by your words, dear father. I shall need much of that heavenly quality which is so little appreciated, and apt to be mistaken for lack of force.”
“May you grow in all the Christian graces, and be life and light to yourself and others, always remembering that your light is none the less for lighting another's torch.”
“I shall go to-day to G—. Will you drive there, yourself alone?”
“I will.”
An hour later they were on their way to a quiet village, a few miles from the Wyman's, where lived a friend of Dawn and her father, with whom she would stay a few days. The ride was delightful, and their communion so close and deep, that when they parted, it seemed as though they had never realized before, their need of each other. This feeling of tenderness brought them nearer in soul, if that were possible. It was like moonlight to the earth, mellowing and softening all lines and angles.
“Dearest father, did I ever love you before?” said Dawn, throwing herself on his breast, at parting.
“If you had not been working yourself so many years into my heart, you could not touch its very centre as you do now,” he said, wiping the moisture from his eyes, and folding her more tenderly to himself. “Partings are but closest approaches, drawings of the heart-strings, which tell how strong the cords are which bind us to each other.” The door of the friend's house was thrown open just at this point of his remarks, and a welcome face smiled on Dawn, who sprung from her seat beside her father, into the arms of her friend.
“Take good care of her, and send her home when you are weary,” said her father, and turned his face homeward, but lingered long in spirit in the atmosphere of his child.
As he wound his way slowly up the long, shady avenue, that led to his home, another love came to his bosom, and transfused his being with a different, but equally uplifting life. A moment more, and he held that other love close to his heart, the woman whom he had chosen to brighten his days and share his happiness.
“It seems as though Dawn had returned with you,” she said, as she received his loving caress.
“She is with me, and never so near as now. Heaven grant I may not make her an idol,” he said, fervently, and then, almost regretting his words, he gazed tenderly into the eyes of his wife.
“You would find me no iconoclast,” she said, “for I, too, love her with my whole heart, and am jealous at times of all that takes her from us. Yet she must go; day must go, for we need the change which night brings.”
“True,” answered Hugh, “no mortal could live continually in such concentrated happiness as I enjoy in the companionship of my child.” He looked into the face of her who sat beside him, and saw in its every feature love, true love for him and his own, and he thanked God for the blessings of his life, laid his head on that true woman's breast, and wept tears of joy.
It was twilight when they rose from their speechless communion, and each felt how much more blessed is the silence of those we love, than the words of one whose being is not in harmony with our own.
It was a relief to Dawn to drop out of her intense sphere into the easy, contented, every-day life of her friend. They were not alike in temperament or thought. It was that difference which drew them together, and made it agreeable for them to associate at times. Such association brought rest to Dawn, and life to her friend. There was little or no soul-affiliation, consequently no exhaustion. It was the giving out of one quality, and the receiving of another entirely different, instead of the union of two of the same kind, hence there was not the reaction of nervous expenditure, which two ever feel, who perfectly blend, after a period of enjoyment. How wise is that provision which has thrown opposites into our life, that we may not be too rapidly consumed. For pure joy is to the soul what fire is to material objects, brilliant, but consuming.
“I am going to have some company to-night, charming people most of them. I think you will enjoy them, Dawn; at least I hope so,” remarked Mrs. Austin, rocking leisurely in her sewing chair.
“No doubt I shall.” She was not called upon to tell how she should enjoy them. Amused she might be, but enjoyment, as Dawn understood it, was out of the question with such a class as came that evening, and to each of whom Mrs. Austin seemed very proud to introduce her friend.
Among the guests was one who attracted the particular attention of Dawn, not from grace of person or mind, although he had them, but from some interior cause. He was tall, and rather elegant in appearance, a kind of external beauty which draws most women, and wins admirers in every circle.
At a glance Dawn perceived that although mentally brilliant, he had not the spiritual and moral compliment. By his side stood a woman of the world, whom Dawn at once knew to be his wife, and on her, she felt that involuntarily her look was steadily, almost immovably fixed.
She felt like testing the power of inner vision. It seemed to her that the woman was weighing heavily upon the man, holding him to earth rather than in any way uplifting him to heaven in his aspirations. She saw that the chain which bound them, was large, coarse, and flashed like gold. This led her to conclude that she married him for his wealth. She saw that the chain was wound around them both so tight that it was almost suffocating, and that the links that passed over the woman's heart were corroded and black.
At the instant that Dawn noticed this, some one approached the lady and asked her to seat herself at the piano. She consented, and after a great many excuses and unnecessary movements, began to play. A dark cloud took her place at the side of her husband when she left, which became greatly agitated as the music proceeded, and soon there issued from it a female form. That face Dawn had surely seen somewhere; she passed her hand over her brow and endeavored to recall the familiar features.
Like a flash it came; it was poor Margaret's face, white and glorified, but with a shade of sadness resting upon it.
Dawn's whole being quivered with emotion. She saw nothing now in the room but that form, and the earthly one beside it. The young man pressed his hand to his brow, as though in troubled thought, and moved from where he stood, shivering in every limb.
“Are you cold, Mr. Bowen?” some one inquired of him; the window was closed to shut out the chill air; but the chill which ran over his frame, no material substance could keep off, for it was caused by a spirit touching him.
“I declare, he looks as though he was frozen,” said his wife, rising from the instrument amid the usual applause, and drawing close to him, she whispered in his ear, “You look precisely as you did the day we met that hearse and one carriage. Come, it's a shame to be so abstracted.” Then, addressing Mrs. Austin, she expressed a wish to be introduced to the gentleman who came in last, and the introduction followed.
Nearer and nearer she went. She could not do otherwise, until at last Dawn stood beside Clarence Bowen, the destroyer of Margaret's earthly happiness. The face in the cloud grew brighter; hope seemed to glow from its features, as she stood there and found her way to his troubled soul, with all the native instinct and delicacy of a true woman. She talked of life and its beauties, its opportunities to do good, and of uplifting the down-fallen; still the face shone on, till it seemed to her that every person present must have seen it, as she did. Such presences are no more discernable by the multitude, than are the beautiful principles of life, which lie every day about us, but which though not seen by them, are none the less visible to the few.
A new interest glowed in the young man's face; he felt that he had met a woman divested of the usual vanities of most of her sex. His being awoke to life under the new current of earnest words which flowed in his own narrow stream of life. The waters deepened-he felt that there was something better, higher to live for, as he gazed on the glowing face before him.
During all the conversation, his thoughts kept flowing back to the green grove, and the sweet, innocent face of Margaret. There was surely nothing in the face before him to recall that likeness, yet the bitter waters of memory kept surging over him, each word reflecting the image of the wronged girl.
The face which had all the time been visible to Dawn, slowly faded away, and when the last outline had passed from her sight, she ceased talking, and left him alone with his thoughts.
Alone with those bitter reflections, heaven only might help him, for the chains that bound him to earth were many and strong.
He could not resist the impulse to ask permission to call upon Dawn some day while she remained at Mrs. Austin's, which she readily granted, and then the party broke up, with a strange murmur of voices, and rustling of silks.
“Was it not delightful? I hope you had a good time, Dawn,” was the first remark of Mrs. Austin, after the last of the company had left.
“I have enjoyed it very much,” and she answered truthfully; but little did her friend surmise in what manner.
It was a relief to be in her room alone that night, and think over the thrilling experience of the evening. And this is one of the lights the world rejects, and calls by every other name but holy. A light which reveals the inner state, and shows the needs of the human soul. It may be rejected, but it cannot be destroyed. Man may turn his back upon it, yet it shines on, though he wilfully refuses to enjoy the blessing it imparts. The testimony of one who lives in a dark, narrow lane, that the sun does not exist, would not be considered of any value. Supposing one chooses to close his eyes, and declare that it is not morning; shall those whose eyes are open accept his assertion? Alas, how true it is that many are talking thus, with closed mental vision, from the rostrum and the pulpit. Let each see for himself, and take no man's word upon any subject any farther than that word gives hope and encouragement. Each must do his own thinking, and look upon every effort of another, to limit his range of thought or debar attempt to deprive him of his liberty.
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