ew
everything was changed. The cabin was not real. Only I was real--and
Pierre. My soul--was it my soul?--went out of the cabin, and swept
across Lone Mountain to the sea, and over the sea and back again. She
saw the great earth swing in space. She knew there are many worlds
beside. She felt an awe of the vastness of things, and she began to be
healed. Then she came back to me, and I took her in, like a dove with
dew upon her wings, and she comforted me. Me? Was it she who went, or
I? What is she? I do not know. But I was comforted. Then, as I lay
there, vision after vision began to throng upon me, and the cabin walls
lifted up, and let me see the world. And I looked upon the great
balances wherein we are held, and millions of souls, uncounted souls,
in myriads, like little points of light, fleeing home to God. That was
it--God. That was what I had sinned and suffered for, to know Him. I
saw the souls going toward Him, and an ineffable delight took hold on
me because I felt that I was going, too; not my body, not even the Me
that stayed in the cabin, though every impulse of me was tending fast
that way. I knew a flower's feeling when its fragrance meets the sun.
This was love; and immediately I understood everything that it was
necessary for me to understand. I comprehended His perfect well-wishing
toward us. I knew one blood ran from His heart through ours. I knew how
small a thing it is to say "_I_ suffer." I? What is I? A mote in the
whole, an aching nerve in one great plexus. And the whole will some day
be nourished, and we shall be healed. I do not know whether I can
believe this when I read it by day; but the cabin is thronged
with--radiances. I have not learned what to call them, but they are
infinitely beautiful, patient, strong, and they uphold me. I cannot
think they suffer with me; their wisdom is too great. But they crowd
about me silently, forbearingly, divinely. They are incarnate love. I
stretch out my hands to them. While they stay, I am almost happy. I do
not see them, yet they shed a lustre and the soul perceives it. I have
learned--what have I learned? Obedience. I must not strive nor cry. I
must serve. What? I do not know. But I must serve, even in the dark and
enchained. I am content to grope, with my eyes bandaged. Content? No,
this is joy. I have tasted God. I drink no other spring.

I have read this over. It is all wrong, all poor and pale; I have told
nothing. Yet the visions--they are in my sou