The Wife [from 'The Wedding Guest']

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Title:     The Wife [from 'The Wedding Guest']
Author: T. S. Arthur [More Titles by Arthur]

ROSA LEE was dressed in her bridal garments, and as she knelt in all the bloom of her maidenly beauty, angels must have rejoiced over her; for the spirit of the maiden was in a heaven of love, and she knelt in the fulness of her joy, to pour out her gratitude to the Heavenly Father, that "seeth in secret." Yes, alone in her chamber, the young girl bowed herself for the last time, and as the thought flashed over her mind, that when next she should kneel in that consecrated place, it would not be alone, but that manly arms would bear up her drooping form, and two voices would mingle as one in the holy prayer, a gushing tenderness flooded the heart of the beautiful bride, and light as from Heaven pervaded her whole being, and she could only murmur, "Oh, how beautiful it is to love!"

But bustling steps and voices approach; and Rosa hears one step that sends at thrill to her heart. In the next moment, the maiden, with the rosy glow of love upon her cheek, and the heaven-light yet beaming in her eyes, stood face to face with her lover. Her eyes met his, in that calm, confiding look of an unbounded affection, and, as her hand rested on his arm, strength seemed to flow into her from him, and she looked serene and placid as pure water, that reflects the moonbeams of heaven; and yet, her smiles came and went like these same waters when the ripples sparkle in the glad sunshine.

The bridal party moved forward to the festive hall, where sympathizing friends were gathered to greet them, as a married pair, and the heart of Rosa opened to the holy marriage ceremony with a sense of heavenly rapture.

To her it was as a new and beautiful revelation, when she heard the oft-repeated words, "In the beginning created He them male and female." Ah, yes. It was beautiful to realize that she was created for her beloved Paul, and that in all the vast peopled universe of God, there was not another being so adapted to him as she was.

Ah, this was the beautiful marriage joy, that earth so seldom witnesses. These were of "those whom God hath joined together." And Paul Cleves felt it in his inmost soul, as he turned towards his congratulating friends with his delicate and beautiful bride leaning upon his arm.

Ah, how he watched every vibration of her feelings! suddenly she had become the pulse of his own soul. As a maiden, he had loved her with a wondrous tenderness and devotion. But now, as a wife! There was at once a new and quite different relation established between them.

Paul was so filled with this new perception of blessedness, that he would fain have left the gay company, that he might pour out the beautiful thought that possessed him, to gladden the heart of Rosa; and when he looked his wish to her, she smiled, and whispered to him, "Eternity is ours, and we are not to live for ourselves alone." And here was a new mystery to him. She was revealed to him as another self, with power to read his every thought. And yet it was it better self, for she prompted him to disinterested acts; and away went the glad Paul to shower his attentions upon all those to whom life came not so joyously. And an aged grandmother, and a palsied aunt, almost feared that the handsome bridegroom had forgotten his fair bride, in his warm and kindly interest for them.

Happy Paul! he had found an angel clothed in flesh and blood, who was for ever to stand between him and his old hard, selfish nature. Something of this thought passed through his mind, as his eye glanced over the crowd in search of his beloved and beautiful one. But she, on the other side, was quite near. He felt her soft presence, and as he turned he caught the light of her loving smile.

Yes, she appreciated his self-sacrifice, and as he gazed upon her, his delighted mind and satisfied heart felt a delicious sense of the coming joy of the eternal future.

And the gay bridal passed away, but its light and its joy seemed to overflow all the coming days. And Paul Cleves at length found himself in that reality of which he had so often dreamed, and for which he had so passionately yearned. Yes, he was in his own quiet home, with Rosa by his side.

Months had passed; he had settled into the routine of his business, and she in that of her domestic life; and now it was evening. Paul had come to his home from the labours of the day, with a beautiful hope in his heart; for to him his _home_ was the open door of Heaven. He carried into it no hard, selfish thought, but entered it with the certainty of blessedness, and peace, and love.

Rosa's heart was in her eyes, when it was time for Paul to come. How carefully she foresaw his every want! And when she had prepared everything that her active love could suggest to promote his pleasure and comfort, then she took her place at the window to watch for his coming. This evening watch was a beautiful time to the young wife, for she said "Now, will I think of God, who made for me a being to love." And at this time, it was always as if the great sun of Heaven shone upon her.

And now, Paul passes the bridge, to which Rosa's eye can but just reach. And--is it not wonderful?--Paul's figure is distinguished, even if there be many others, in the dim twilight, crossing that bridge. Ah! how well she knows his figure; to her it is the very form of her love. She sees her whole thoughts and desires embodied in him. And now, he passes the corner of a projecting building, which for a time partially conceals him from her sight.

And how her delight increases as he approaches; the nearer he comes, the more her heart opens to the Divine sun of Heaven. She feels as if she could draw its radiations down upon him. She waits at the window to catch his first glad look of recognition, then she flies to the door, and no sooner is it opened and closed again, than Paul clasps her to his heart, and presses upon her warm lips such kisses as can join heart to heart.

The evening meal being over, then Paul turns to his peculiar delight--to listening to Rosa's thoughts and feelings. All day, he hears of worldly things; but with Rosa he hears of heavenly things. Her heart feeds upon his thoughts, and assimilates them into new and graceful forms of feminine beauty, and Paul sits and listens, full of love and wonder, to his own thoughts, reproduced by the vivid perceptive powers of his wife. For instance, this morning Paul was reading in the Bible, as he always does to Rosa, before he leaves for his business, and he paused on the words, "then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, and full of years, and was gathered to his people;" and he remarked that in this verse there was a most striking affirmation of a future existence; for that Abraham being gathered to "his people," must imply that these people yet lived, or why should mention be made of that fact? And now, in this beautiful evening hour, when Paul asked Rosa what she had been thinking of all day, behold she had a whole Heaven-world to open before him. With her arms clasped around his neck, and her clear, bright eyes looking into his, she answered--

"Oh, Paul, I have been so happy 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 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 of gratitude for the beautiful gift of your thoughts to me,--I realize so fully that you are a 'help meet for me.'"

Happy Rosa! She gazed into Paul's eyes, and caressed him with her soft touches, and said--

"Oh, Paul, Paul! when I look at you, and think that some day you will be an angel of Heaven, and that I will see your glorious, spirit-beauty, my heart is so happy; for then I can feel, dear Paul, that our love stretches far away beyond this world and this life; and if I love you so much here, what will it be when I see you in the beautiful heavenly light?"

Paul smiled.

"Your fancy is dreaming of what I will be; and can you not dream for me of how bright and beautiful my Rosa will be in that heavenly light?"

"Ah, yes," said Rosa, "that too is pleasant, for I love to be beautiful, dear Paul, for your sake; and today I was thinking of how happy I should make you--not I, but the Lord will make you happy, dear Paul, through me; and is not that a beautiful thought--that it is God loving us through each other?"

How holy love grew at once to Paul! though at first he did not see this beautiful truth as clearly as did Rosa. But she went on, in her loving way, and very soon she raised him into that inner sunshine in which she dwelt, and then he saw it all clearly, for she said--

"You know, dear Paul, that we read in the Bible that 'God is a sun, and that He is the fountain of life,' and thus all life flows from Him into us, just as in the tiny flowers upon the earth comes the warm living ray of the material sun, developing in them beautiful colours and odours--so the life-ray from God fills us with warm affections. We are but dead forms--the power and the life is in Him, and if we were cut off from Him, how could we love each other?"

Paul was convinced, and did not fail to make Rosa realize the Heaven-derived life and power that was in him. And as they kneeled together in their evening devotions, and Paul clasped his wife in his arms, how clearly he felt the influence of that Divine sun upon his soul, filling it with a gushing, yearning tenderness for his beloved and beautiful one; and how fervently he prayed that the light might grow in her, and through her descend to him! Beautiful are the prayers of such loving hearts, for the inner door of their existence then opens, and the great King of Glory enters in, and they are in the Lord, and the Lord is in them.

Yes, Paul had found a wife--not an external type or shadow of one to mock and vex his soul with an unsatisfactory pretence, but a most blessed and eternal reality. He was married not only in the sight of men, but before God and the angels. And the heart of Rosa responded to his mind as truly and unfailingly as his heart beat to the breath of his lungs. She was as his inner life, and he felt himself strong to guard and protect her as he would his own existence. She had become one with him, and henceforth there was no separate existence for these two.

So serenely and lovingly flowed their life in its interior light and beauty, that cares and anxieties seemed scarce to touch their states. True, these came to them in the guise of those calamities and disappointments, that so often sweep as the destructive tornado over the lower lives of the earth-loving children of men. But as their affections were spiritual, they were not wounded by the earth-sorrows. Their treasures were laid up _above_, where "moth and rust doth not corrupt." Paul realized this when he saw Rosa hold her dead baby in her arms and smile through her tears. And yet this was her "little Paul" that she loved with such an intense delight and devotion; because in him, all the day long, she saw that wonderful life of God manifested in such a heavenly innocence and purity, as in a tiny image of her own Paul. Yet, when the spirit of the child was gone, she adorned the clay form in which it had dwelt, with such loving care, and laid it in its little coffin, that her hand might serve it to the very last, and then turned and rested her head in the bosom of her husband as a wounded bird in its downy nest.

Paul's love seemed to lift her to the Heaven to which her baby had gone; and when, after a few days, she urged him to leave her and go to his office where his duties called him, Paul feared that she would feel lonely, and would fain have stayed beside her. But she said--

"No, dear Paul; I shall never be alone again; the spirit of the child will be with me: it is so beautiful to have loved him on earth, for now I can love him in Heaven." And so Paul left her, not as one in a dark land of sorrow, but floating in a world of light and love. And how eagerly he hastened back to his gentle, stricken dove, and folded her to his heart, as though he would shield her from all sorrow! But he scarce found a sorrow; she was all light and joy, and said--

"Oh, Paul, I am so happy, for I have been thinking all day how happy the angels must be to have my little Paul with them! It seemed to me that I could see them adorning him with heavenly garments, and I could see his happy smile; and I was glad that he was no longer oppressed by his weak, earthly body. Yes, he is now a blessed angel in Heaven, and is it not beautiful, dear Paul, that we have given an angel to Heaven?"

Thus was the earth-sorrow turned to a heavenly joy. And though other children were born to Paul and Rosa, yet their chief delight in them was, that they were to be angels in Heaven. How often Rosa said, "Paul, they are the children of the Lord--not ours; only we have the loving work to teach them for Heaven."

Through Rosa, Paul realized this beautiful truth, and earnestly strove to impart truth to the tender and impressible minds of his children; he presented it to them in the most beautiful and attractive forms. But it was Rosa that made them love it and live in it; it was the teachings of the father that fell like "golden grains" in the earth of their minds; but it was the gentle, never-ceasing culture of the mother, that caused it to spring up into the sunshine of Heaven, and bear the fruit of kind and loving actions. When Paul saw this, he felt himself a man in the true sense of the word; one, who could perform the highest uses in life, without being clogged and thwarted by the want of concert in action by his partner in life. Thus it is that a harmony of thought and feeling produces a harmony in action.

And how elevated and noble became all the ends of Paul's life! It was Rosa that elevated and refined them, and directed them Heavenward. It was beautiful to see how she could draw down the light of Heaven into all the outer life. Everything on earth seemed to her but the symbol of something in Heaven. And when Paul once gave her money, she thanked him with such a grateful warmth of affection, that he laughingly asked her, if she loved money, that she was so grateful for it. She answered, "Yes, Paul; I love your money, because you have worked for it; and when you give it to me, it seems to our outer life what truth is to our inner life. If you gave me no truth, I could not adorn your inner life with love; and if you gave me no money, I could not adorn your outer life with good. I could not alone attain either money or truth. I should be very poor, dear Paul, both spiritually and naturally, without you. But you, as a husband, bring me truth and money. With the first I call the angels around you; with the second I call earthly friends around you; and thus, both your inner and outer life are made glad and warm and genial."

And Paul knew this; for his home was beautiful,--a feminine taste and tact reigned through it, and Rosa's diffusive charity made him the centre of a circle to whom he dispensed not only earthly goods, but the noble thoughts of his large understanding. And Paul realized that while he guided all things by his wisdom, given to him of God, Rosa was as the motive power to his existence. Her influence pervaded his every thought and feeling, and while it made his life upon earth so full and perfect, it allied him to Heaven; and thus he held her in his house and heart as the Holy of holies.

Happy is the earth if it have one pair of such married ones, for through such, the Spirit and life of God descend upon the earth, and bind it to Heaven. But blessed, yea most blessed will be the earth when it has many such, for then the heavenly sunshine will flood the whole earth with its light and glory, and the Lord, who is the centre and source of this glorious Sun, will see His image reflected, in its mercy and tender beauty, in the lives of the dwellers upon earth, even as it now is seen by Him in those of the dwellers in Heaven, and thus will the "kingdom of God" come upon earth "as it is in Heaven."

[The end]
T S Arthur's short story: The Wife

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