Page:God and His Book.djvu/164

154 not to inquire, or not curst with the Tantalus cup of ever inquiring in vain! Embrace your demonstrations, and they are shadows, and all your proofs are visions.

In spite of the shadows and the visions, I rest my fate upon a dream which is not all a dream. I am a soldier far from home. The helm is on my head and the spear in my hand. I feel that I have left somewhere where time is eternal or where time is unknown. Drilled by an unseen baton, I fight under an invisible banner—now with gladiators in the arena, now with snakes in the fen; and the voice of the leader that commands me is a voice inaudible to mortal ear. Somewhere in the realm I have left there is a home with a snow-white door-step, and over the door the red and white roses link and twine and breathe the fragrance of love. On that door-step and under these roses stands my young wife, with my babe in her arms. Down the valley rolls the thunder of the drum, up the hill rises the bugle's silver clang: "Gird on your sword and away!" I obey the summons and depart. I kiss my wife, my plume mingling with the roses; the babe cries, frightened by the jangling of my spurs. Down the lane I ride, hedged round by the spears, overshadowed by the banners. There is a turn in the lane: I wheel round and kiss my hand in a long adieu. My wife's eyes are following me, tearful and loving. I wave my plumed helmet to her in farewell; and, in response, she holds aloft in her hands her babe and mine. The turn in the lane is made—and all is lost.

But I will return. Brief on this earth are the bivouac, the march, and the battle. Something stronger than Death and strong as God has told me I will return. When the solemn fir strikes his roots into my grave and the rank hemlock through the decayed coffin boards has absorbed my blood, I shall have returned to that home where my babe was held aloft among the roses, and where my wife sobbed "Farewell!" I fear not misery nor dread extinction. One injury at least has been answered. The tears of the mourner gleam in the rainbow of Hope. The perfume of unseen lilies streams forever through the gate of the grave.