The Wedding Guest | Page 6

delight in the possession of these written thoughts. And Rosa, drawing a paper from her pocket, leans her cheek upon his head, and reads:--
"'Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, and full of years, and was gathered to his people.' How beautiful is this verse of the holy Word of God! It seems to open to us a glimpse of Heaven.
"After death, we are told, that he was 'gathered to his people.' What a blessed rest and enjoyment comes over us, even in this world, when we find ourselves with 'our people!'
"When congenial spirits meet, all strife and contention ceases; and how each hastens to give to the other of the fulness of his thought and feeling! Such moments in our life are as if Heaven had come down to us, and fleeting and transient as the moment may be, its memory lives with us as a heavenly light, fed from above; and when we realize a continued existence of the harmony of thought and feeling of an ever-flowing communication of pure sentiments, of kindly affections, and of that delight in perceiving good and truth in others, which makes them one with us,--then we have a glimpse of that Heaven to which Abraham ascended, and in which he was 'gathered to his people.'
"I love to read this verse, and imagine what the angels would think if they could hear the words as I read them. And, truly, although angels do not hear through our gross material atmosphere, can they not see the image of what we read in our minds? It is beautiful to think that they can; and it is pleasant to conceive how an angelic, perfectly spiritual mind would understand these words, 'And Abraham gave up the ghost.' The angels would see that the spirit of Abraham had laid off that gross material covering, which was not the real man--only the appearance of a man. To angels, this body, which appears to us so tangible, must be but the ghost of a reality, for to them the spirit is the reality.
"With us, in this outer existence, the laying off of the body is death, that symbol of annihilation; it is as if our life ceased, because we no longer grasp coarse material nature. But with the angels, the laying off of the body is birth; it is the beginning of a beautiful, new existence. The spirit then moves and acts in a spiritual world of light and beauty. It no longer moves dimly in that dark, material world which is as but a lifeless, ghostly counterpart of the living, eternal spirit-world.
"Thus, it seems to me, the angels would understand the words 'And Abraham gave up the ghost.' And the words which follow would have for them a far different signification than to us. For with us 'old age' presents the idea of the gradual wasting away and deterioration of the powers of the body it is the shadow from the darkened future, foretelling the end of life. But angels see the spirit advancing from one state of wisdom to another, and to grow old in Heaven must be altogether different from growing old on earth; and we can only conceive of a spirit as growing for ever more active, intelligent, and beautiful, from the heavenly wisdom and love in which it develops. Imagine an angel, who has lived a thousand years in Heaven; his faculties must have all this time been perfecting and expanding in new powers and activities; whereas, on earth, the material body, in 'threescore years and ten,' becomes so cumbrous and heavy, so disorganized and worn out, that the spiritual body can no longer act in it; hence 'an old man, full of years,' appears to the angels as one whose spirit has passed through so many changes of state; consequently has thought and loved so much that it has increased in activity, life, and power, and thus spiritual progression must be onward to an eternal youth.
"Does it not thrill the soul with the joy of a beautiful hope to imagine Abraham, or any loving spirit, as rising from the material to the spiritual world, 'full of years,' or states of wisdom and love, for ever to grow young among his 'own people?'
"What to Abraham, now, were all of those flocks, and herds, and men servants, and maid servants, that had made his earthly riches? They were nothing more to him, in his new heavenly life, than that ghost of a, body 'he gave up.' The only riches he could carry with him were his spiritual riches--his powers of thinking and feeling. All of his outer life was given to him to develop these powers. All of his natural surroundings were as a body to his natural thoughts and