第17章 PART THE FIRST(13)

move your compassion,let our miserable For ever!pierce to your core.Oh,ye mountains and valleys,why do ye wait for us,why do ye keep us so long,why do ye bear with us,why do ye not bury us from the lamentable sight?Oh,sufferings of that world and sufferings of this world,how very different ye are!Oh,time present,how blinding,how deceiving thou art,that we should not have foreseen this in the bright days of our youth,which we wasted so luxuriously,which will never more return!Oh,that we had but one little hour of all those vanished years!Yet this is denied by God's justice,and without any hope for us,ever must be denied.Oh,suffering,and distress,and misery,in this forgotten land,where we must be separated from all that is dear,without solace or hope,for ever and ever!Nothing else would we desire than that if there was a millstone as broad as the whole earth,and in circumference so large that it everywhere touched the heavens,and that if there came a little bird every hundred thousand years,and took from the stone as much as the tenth part of a grain of millet,so as in ten hundred thousand years to peck away from the stone as much as an entire grain of millet;we unfortunates would desire nothing more than that,when the stone came to an end,our torments too might terminate;and yet even this cannot be.Behold,such is the song of woe which succeeds the joys of this world.

The Servant.--Oh,Thou severe Judge,how terrified are the depths of my heart,how powerless sinks my soul beneath the load of sorrow and compassion for those unhappy spirits!Who is there in the world that hears this,and is so insane as not to tremble at such fearful distress?Oh,Thou,my only love,forsake me not!Oh,Thou,my only chosen consolation,do not thus separate from me!Sooner than be thus separated from Thee,my only love,for ever and ever (I will say nothing of the rest),oh,misery of misery!I would prefer to be tormented a thousand times a day.When I but think of such a separation,my heart for anguish is like to break.Yes,tender Father!do with me here what Thou wilt,Thou hast my free consent,but,oh,deliver me from this woeful separation,for I could by no means endure it.

Eternal Wisdom.--Cast away thy fear.That which is united in time remains undivided in eternity.

The Servant.--Oh,Lord,would that all men heard this,who still consume their days so foolishly,so that they might become wise,and might reform their lives,before these things should overtake them.Oh,ye senseless,obdurate men!how long will ye protract your foolishness,sinful lives?Be converted to God,and shield yourselves against this wretched misery,and lamentation of eternal woe.

CHAPTER XII.On The Immeasurable Joys of Heaven Eternal Wisdom.

--Now lift up thy eyes and see where thou dost belong.

Thou dost belong to the Fatherland of the celestial paradise.Thou art here as a stranger guest,a miserable pilgrim;therefore,as a pilgrim hastens back to his home where his dear friends expect him,and wait for him with great longing,so shouldst thou desire to hasten back to thy fatherland,where all will be glad to see thee,where all long so ardently for thy joyous presence,that they may greet thee tenderly,and unite thee to their blessed society for ever.And didst thou but know how they thirst after thee,how they desire that thou shouldst combat devoutly in suffering,and behave chivalrously in all adversity,even such as they have overcome,and how they now with great sweetness remember the cruel years through which they once passed,truly,all suffering would only be the easier to thee,for,the more bitterly thou shalt have suffered,the more honourably wilt thou be received.Oh,then,how pleasant will honour be,what joy will then pervade thy heart and mind when thy soul shall be so honourably praised,commended,and extolled by Me before My Father and all the heavenly host,because she has suffered so much,and fought against and overcome so much in this scene of temporal strife,in whose fullness of reward many a one who has never known affliction will have no participation.How brightly will not then the crown shine that here below is gained with such bitterness!How exquisitely beautiful will not the wounds and marks glitter,which here below are received from My love!So welcome wilt thou be made in thy fatherland,that the greatest stranger to thee of all its countless hosts will love thee more ardently and faithfully than any father or mother ever loved the child of their bosom in this scene of time.

The Servant.--O Lord,through Thy goodness,dare I hope that Thou wilt tell me yet more about my fatherland,so that I may long for it all the more,and may suffer every affliction the more cheerfully?Yes,my Lord,what manner of place is my fatherland?Or what do people do there?Or are there very many people there?Or do they really know so well what takes place with us on earth as Thy words declare?

Eternal Wisdom.--Now,then,ascend thou on high with Me.I will carry thee thither in spirit,and will give thee,after a rude similitude,a distant glimpse into the future.Behold,above the ninth heaven,which is incalculably more than a hundred thousand times larger than the entire earth,there is another heaven which is called Coelum Empyreum,the fiery heaven,so called,not from its being of fire,but from its immeasurably transparent brightness,which is immovable and unchangeable in its nature;

and this is the glorious court in which the heavenly hosts dwell,where the morning star with the rest praises Me,and all the children of God rejoice.