The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance

and the thrill of tenderness within it was as though an angel sang through tears. Never had I heard anything so divinely pure and compassi

d the Voice,-"What is all thy searching and labour worth w

or the one who thus spoke t

re is discord where there should be harmony. Love!-the one vibrant tone to which the whole universe moves in tune,-Love, the breath of God, the pulsation of His Being, the glory of His work, t

solemn Presences whose nearness I could feel but not see, and

opposed to the eternal Harmony. It has chosen for its keynote Hate,-not Love! Each nation envies or despises the other,-each man struggles against his fellow-man and grudges his neighbour every small advantage,-and more than all, each Creed curses the other, blasphemously calling upon God to verify and fulfil the curse! Hate, not Love!-t

hy,"-I murmured to myself, for I did not suppose anyone could or would hear me-"why should we and our world perish?

hin invisible walls. Then all at once this density of atmosphere was struck asunder by a dazzling light as of cloven wings, but I could see no a

aw and Order support it. Obey and ye shall live: disobey and ye shall die! There is no other ruling than this out o

ds involuntarily. My e

eakness and unwisdom! How can the world be

ng, quivering radiance, flashing a

ve of Self? If it seeks the first, all things in heaven and earth shall be added

d my weeping eyes with both hands and knelt before t

Wouldst thou have Eternal Life? Then find the secret in Eternal Love!-'Love, which can mo

But I could see nothing save that all-penetrating li

lanets with a thought!-it wakes all beauty, all delight with a smile!-it lives not only now, but for ever, in a heaven of pure joy where every thousand years is but one summer day

or me or for some other listener, for I could not now feel s

of Life,"-went on the

loves greatly lives gre

ing. Give all thy heart

r without Love thou may

and never

embled a close and brilliant network of rainbow tints intermingled with purest gold. It was as if millions of lines had been drawn with exquisite fineness and precision so as to cause intersection or 'reciprocal meeting' at given points of calculation, and these changed into various dazzling forms too brilliant for even my drea

nterference which through weakness or fear they have themselves permitted. But the tangle is for ever unravelled by Time,-the parted threads are brought together again in the eternal weaving of Spirit and Matter. No power, human or divine, can entirely separate the li

broken rainbows. Wave after wave swept forward and broke in bright amethystine spray close to me where I knelt, and as I watched this moving mass of radiant colour in absorbed fascination, one wave, brilliant as the flush of a sum

One love from all the million loves of men and women-one, but enough for Eternity! How long the rose has awaited its flowering,-how long the love has awaited

ld the rose against my brea

re of beauty and delight, why are thy people so blind! O that their eyes were lifted unto Heaven!-their hearts to

y speech

id, half whispering

peratively-"There is no death! For God is

, moved by a su

al Joy. Change there is,-change there must be to higher forms and higher planes,-but Life

ssed its velvet petals. As I did this a swift and dazzling radiance poured shower-like through the air, and again I heard mys

ht thee sorrowing for many centuries! Turn not aside again, neither by thine own will nor by the will of others, lest old errors prevail! Pass fr

er yet masterful touch which I had no hesitation in obeying. Step by step I moved with a strange sense of happy reliance on my unseen companion-darkness or distance had no terrors for me. And as I Went onward with my hand held firmly in that close yet gentle grasp, my thoughts became as it were suddenly cleared into a heaven of comprehension-I looked back upon years of work spread out like an arid desert uncheered by any spring of sweet water-and I saw all that my life h

if it were blooming near me-a fragrance so fine that nothing could describe its subtly pervading odour. Every word spoken by the Voice of my dream was vividly impressed on my brain, and more vivid still was the recollection of the hand that had clasped mine and led me out of sleep to waking. I was conscious of its warmth yet,-and I was troubled, even while I was soothed, by the memory of the lingering caress with which it had been at last withdrawn. And I wondered as I lay for a few moments in my bed inert, and thinking of all that had chanced to me in the night, whether the long earnest patience of my soul, ever turned as it had been for years towards the attainment of a love higher than all earthly attraction, was now about to be recompensed? I knew, and had always known, that whatsoever we strongly