The Wedding Guest | Page 6

all day. Do you remember what you
told me about Abraham being gathered to 'his people' this morning?
Well, I have been thinking about it, with such a delight in the thought
of those living people, to whom we will be gathered after death. You
left me with a beautiful thought, dear Paul, and it seemed as if the
angels gathered around me, and told me so many more things, that I
have written all my thoughts down."
"Where are they?" said Paul, feeling such a 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