XXIII. The Vision

“I knew such a man (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell: God knoweth). How that he was caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable words.”

St. Paul, Cor. xii. 3-4.

Seated in an easy chair in the little white room which Miss Carter has had prepared for me, I live again the strained hours through which I have just passed—the crisis which marks a new era in my life.

In imagination I follow the wake of two vessels furrowing their way through the dark waters of the Gulf lit only by the scintillant stars. They carry away with them the two potent forces which have battled for my soul.

On the luxuriously fitted yacht, all the pleasures of the senses, the delights of material life, enchanting voyages to far-off wonder-filled lands as caprice or fancy dictate, lands where the fruits of forbidden love, envenomed, but, ah, so sweet, might have been gathered, appeasing for a time at least my passionate craving for love, for art and beauty! On board, Allan alone, sad, but resigned, thinking of me, perhaps, at this very instant, his thoughts meeting mine in love and tenderness as each moment increases the distances between us.

On the other, a huge ocean liner—fitting symbol of duty, cleaving inflexibly the narrow track, regardless of wind and wave—the white-robed, stately figure who had stood before me at the parting of the ways! She, too, is being borne away to raise before other troubled souls the beacon of Hope, the desire of the Immaterial. I am conscious of an infrangible bond—a bond of the spirit—linking me with her for ever. She will sustain me in moments of weakness and despair, in the mean and sordid monotony of the days to come. Under her influence I shall see shining ever more clearly the Light of the Ideal, the star whose glimmer I can feebly descry on the sombre horizon of my future.

Half musing thus, wearied and shaken with the emotions of the preceding days, weakened by sleeplessness and fasting, for I have been unable to swallow anything but a few drops of milk, I sink into a sort of physical unconsciousness. My spirit, partly freed from its envelope of flesh, becomes suddenly sensitive to vivid and intense life. Vague, sweet harmonies float around me, luminous waves vibrate in the ambient ether. Soon they seem to condense, unite and compose a mystic scene, visible to the eyes of my spirit.

Through the quivering ether there glimmers palely, opalesquely, the interior of a cell well-known to me. Before a Crucifix the Missionary of the lepers is kneeling. I can follow the movement of his pallid lips as they frame a fervent prayer.

The faint light clinging around him shows dimly the ravages of the dread disease. Ethereal flames issue from the Stigmata, the feet, hands and pierced side of the Saviour. They surround the young priest as with an aureole.

From the heart of the Crucified flows another radiant beam, soft, roseate, brilliant, streaming forth and rising like an immense jet of Love.

Enraptured, I gaze upon this unearthly light. Borne along by the great Force-current emanating from the God-Man I see ascend all the Disciples of the Divine Master of the Occident, martyrs, apostles, mystics filled with the Divine Madness, all the myriad throngs of Christianity.

Then I perceive around me faint flashes and turbid flames still glowing with the reeking passions of earth. They envelop Allan and me. Our two souls are linked and form but one. The flames lick and whirl around us. Brighter, more scintillant and dazzling, they ascend purified in glowing spirals. Sparks and flashes and flames group, meet, fuse, and unite in seven rays of living, pulsating Light. Sound mingles with colour in the Grand Diapason. The seven resplendent notes of the Mystic Gamut respond to the seven colours and chant sonorously the Name Ineffable. The whirling spiral mass of light and sound carries us upward, upward, still upward....

The vibrations increase in intensity. The great columns of fire unite to form the Divine Triangle. The Mystic Seven has merged into the Three—the Trinity of Life, Love and Wisdom. The glowing, flashing, three-faceted flame irradiates the Heavens, the Worlds, the whole Universe.

Form, colour and sound commingle, and, glowing and vibrating, the Flame resolves into the Absolute, the Eternal.... The Three have become the One.

What matter now the sufferings of my life, the monotony of thankless work, the dreary waiting for a happiness which may never be realised! In a moment of ineffable ecstasy I have placed my lips to the Divine chalice. I know, O my Allan, that one day we shall be united in the bosom of the God of Wisdom, of Beauty, and of Love.

THE END.

B. R. Gowan & Co., Printers, Melbourne.