The Heavenly Twins | Page 3

Sarah Grand
a finish to their mental
range as the sky was to their visual; a useful point at which to aim their
rudimentary faculty of reverence.
But others, again, of a different order of intelligence, had passed
beyond this stage and saw in him more
of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized;
very like Jove, but unmarried. He was both beneficent and jealous, and
had to be propitiated by regular attendance at church; but further than
that he was not exacting; and therefore they ventured to take his name
in vain when they were angry, and also to call upon him for help, with
many apologies, when there was nobody else to whom they could apply;
although, so long as the current of their lives ran smoothly on, they
seldom troubled their heads about him at all.
There were deeper natures than those, however, who were not content
with this small advance, and these last had by degrees, as suited their
convenience but without perceiving it, gradually discovered in him
every attribute, good, bad, or indifferent, which they found in
themselves, thus ascribing to him a nature of a highly complex and
most extraordinarily inconsistent kind, less that of a God than of a
demon. To them he was still a great shape like a man, but a shape to be
loved as well as feared; a God of peace who patronized war; a gentle
lamb who looked on at carnage complacently; a just God who
condemned the innocent to suffer; an omnipotent God who was
powerless to make his law supreme; and they reserved to themselves
the right of constantly adding to or slightly altering this picture; but
having completed it so far, they were thoroughly well satisfied with it,
and, incongruous as it was, they managed to make it the most popular
of all the presentments, partly because, being so flexible, it could be
adjusted to every state of mind; but also because there was money in it.
Numbers of people lived by it, and made name and fame besides; and
these kept it going by damaging anybody who ventured to question its
beauty. For there is no faith that a man upholds so forcibly as the one

by which he earns his livelihood, whether it be faith in the fetish he has
helped to make, or in a particular kind of leather that sells quickest
because it wears out so fast.
In these latter days, however, it began to appear as if the supremacy of
the great masculine idea was at last being seriously threatened, for even
in Morningquest a new voice of extraordinary sweetness had already
been heard, not his, the voice of man; but theirs, the collective voice of
humanity, which declared that "He, watching," was the all-pervading
good, the great moral law, the spirit of pure love, Elohim, mistranslated
in the book of Genesis as "He" only, but signifying the union to which
all nature testifies, the male and female principles which together
created the universe, the infinite father and mother, without whom, in
perfect accord and exact equality, the best government of nations has
always been crippled and abortive.
Those who heard this final voice were they who loved the chime most
truly, and reverenced it; but they did not speak about it much: only,
when the message sounded, they listened with that full-hearted pleasure
which is the best praise and thanks. Mendelssohn must have felt it
when the melody first occurred to him, and the words had wedded
themselves to the music in his soul!
[Illustration: (musical notation); lyrics: He, watch-ing o-ver Is--ra--el,
slumbers not, nor sleeps.]
And the chime certainly had power to move the hearts of many; but it
would be hard to say when it had most power, or upon whom.
Doubtless, the majority of those who had ears to hear in the big old
fashioned city heard not, use having dulled their faculties; or if,
perchance, the music reached them it conveyed no idea to their minds,
and passed unheeded. It was but an accustomed measure, one more
added to the myriad other sounds that make up the buzz of life, and
help, like each separate note of a chord, to complete the varied murmur
which is the voice of "a whole city full."
But of course there were times when it was specially apt to strike
home--in the early morning, for instance, when the mind was fresh and

hope was strong enough to interpret the assurance into a promise of joy;
and again at noon, when fatigue was growing and the mind perceived a
sympathetic melancholy in the tones which was altogether restful; but it
was at midnight it had most power. It seemed to rise then to the last
pitch of enthusiasm, sounding triumphant, like the special
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