The Wedding Guest | Page 7

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 feelings, in
which they might grow to the full stature of a man, that he might
become 'full of years,' or states.
"And thus to us is given a natural world; and its duties and ties are all
important, for within the natural thought and feeling the spiritual
thought and feeling grows, as does the soul in its material body. And
like as the soul ever feels within itself a separate existence, higher, and
above that of its material organization, so also does the spiritual
thought and feeling realize itself in its world of natural thoughts and
affections; it sighs to be gathered to its 'own people,' even while it loves
its natural ties. And, now and then, it has beautiful glimpses of the
consociation of spirits according to spiritual affinities.
"The love of the spirit, thus warmed into life, should descend into its
natural ties. Uncongenial brothers and sisters are often thrown together
and bound by the most indissoluble natural ties. We should cultivate
these natural affections and family ties as types of the beautiful
spiritual consociations of Heaven.

"Our spirit must grow in the constant exercise of natural affections, or
we can have no capacity for the spiritual. If in this world we live
morose, ungenial lives, crushing down the budding affections, and the
active thoughts springing from them, can we ever be angels? No,
assuredly not; for the angels are like the Heavenly Father, in whose
light of love they live. They delight to do good to every created being,
whether good or evil. They would not, and could not recognise an evil
person as a congenial spirit, but for the sake of awakening in him some
spark of a beautiful love, a disinterested thought and affection; they
would crown his whole life with loving kindness and tender
compassion. A true, heavenly angel could be happy in the effort to do
good to the most fallen human spirit; and should not we imitate them,
that we may be as one of them, one in thought and feeling with them?
"To love!--love with our every power of being--is the only eternal
reality. From love springs thought; and thought and affection are the
flesh and blood of the spirit. The spirit grows upon what it feeds, as
does the body upon its material food; and to stint the spirit of its food is
a sad detriment to our after-life.
"A perception of the heavenly life should arouse us to a power of
loving every human being that we come in contact with, and make us
realize that to love and serve is the happiness of angels, and the
principle which conjoins men and angels to God."
When the last word was breathed, as it were, in a soft, holy brightness,
from Rosa's lips, Paul sealed them with a kiss. How much he had
learned from the perception of a mind that was so wholly gentle and
feminine, that its substance seemed all of love; of a love that received
the impression only of heavenly things!--while he, with all of his
brilliant talents and masculine understanding, felt that his contact was
with this hard outer world of material facts and realities; and that
oftentimes the very density of the atmosphere in which his mind dwelt
obscured and clouded the delicate moral perceptions of his being.
But Rosa saw above him, and revealed to him those beautiful inner
truths that were to give form and character to his outer life. Yes; Paul
had uncongenial brothers and sisters, and his more refined tastes and
pursuits would have led him away from them. But Rosa, with her
womanly tact, and grace, and lovingness, led him out from the mists of
selfishness into the halo of a more genial and beautiful light, and he felt

his heart grow warm with an inexpressible love.
"Ah, Rosa," he said, "there comes over me a new and more beautiful
perception of the holy marriage relation; and, like another Adam, I
realize that an Eve is created for me from my own breast. My thought
grows so living in you, Rosa,--this morning, so unconsciously, was
taken from me but a dry rib, and now God grants to me this beautiful
Eve! Ah, Rosa, my heart is so full