The Mansion
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Henry van Dyke >> The Mansion
But to-night all these plans came back to him with dust upon
them.
They were dry and crumbling like forsaken habitations. The son
upon whom his complacent ambition had rested had turned his back
upon
the mansion of his father's hopes. The break might not be final;
and in any event there would be much to live for; the fortunes of
the family would be secure. But the zest of it all would be gone
if
John Weightman had to give up the assurance of perpetuating his
name
and his principles in his son. It was a bitter disappointment,
and he felt that he had not deserved it.
He rose from the chair and paced the room with leaden feet.
For the first time in his life his age was visibly upon him.
His head was heavy and hot, and the thoughts that rolled in it
were confused and depressing. Could it be that he had made a
mistake
in the principles of his existence? There was no argument in
what Harold had said--it was almost childish--and yet
it had shaken the elder man more deeply than he cared to show.
It held a silent attack which touched him more than open
criticism.
Suppose the end of his life were nearer than he thought--the end
must come some time--what if it were now? Had he not
founded his house upon a rock? Had he not kept the Commandments?
Was he not, "touching the law, blameless"? And beyond this,
even if there were some faults in his character--and all men are
sinners--
yet he surely believed in the saving doctrines of religion--the
forgiveness
of sins, the resurrection of the body, the life everlasting.
Yes, that was the true source of comfort, after all. He would
read a bit
in the Bible, as he did every night, and go to bed and to sleep.
He went back to his chair at the library table. A strange weight
of
weariness rested upon him, but he opened the book at a familiar
place,
and his eyes fell upon the verse at the bottom of the page.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth."
That had been the text of the sermon a few weeks before.
Sleepily, heavily, he tried to fix his mind upon it and recall
it.
What was it that Doctor Snodgrass had said? Ah, yes--that it was
a mistake to pause here in reading the verse. We must read on
without
a pause--Lay not up treasures upon earth where moth and rust do
corrupt
and where thieves break through and steal--that was the true
doctrine.
We may have treasures upon earth, but they must not be put into
unsafe places, but into safe places. A most comforting doctrine!
He had always followed it. Moths and rust and thieves had done
no harm
to his investments.
John Weightman's drooping eyes turned to the next verse,
at the top of the second column.
"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."
Now what had the Doctor said about that? How was it to
be understood--in what sense--treasures--in heaven?
The book seemed to float away from him. The light vanished.
He wondered dimly if this could be Death, coming so suddenly, so
quietly,
so irresistibly. He struggled for a moment to hold himself up,
and then sank slowly forward upon the table. His head rested
upon
his folded hands. He slipped into the unknown.
How long afterward conscious life returned to him he did not
know.
The blank might have been an hour or a century. He knew only
that
omething had happened in the interval. What is was he could not
tell.
He found great difficulty in catching the thread of his identity
again.
He felt that he was himself; but the trouble was to make his
connections,
to verify and place himself, to know who and where he was.
At last it grew clear. John Weightman was sitting on a stone,
not far from a road in a strange land.
The road was not a formal highway, fenced and graded. It was
more like
a great travel-trace, worn by thousands of feet passing across
the open country in the same direction. Down in the valley,
into which he could look, the road seemed to form itself
gradually out of
many minor paths; little footways coming across the meadows,
winding tracks following along beside the streams, faintly marked
trails
emerging from the woodlands. But on the hillside the threads
were more
firmly woven into one clear band of travel, though there were
still
a few dim paths joining it here and there, as if persons had been
climbing up the hill by other ways and had turned at last to seek
the road.
From the edge of the hill, where John Weightman sat, he could see
the travelers, in little groups or larger companies, gathering
from
time to time by the different paths, and making the ascent.
They were all clothed in white, and the form of their garments
was
strange to him; it was like some old picture. They passed him,
group after group, talking quietly together or singing; not
moving
in haste, but with a certain air of eagerness and joy as if they
were
glad to be on their way to an appointed place. They did not stay
to
speak to him, but they looked at him often and spoke to one
another
as they looked; and now and then one of them would smile and
beckon him a friendly greeting, so that he felt they would like
him
to be with them.
There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed
each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the
long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and
receding
across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of
aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high
horizon,
and stood outlined for a moment, a tiny cloud of whiteness
against
the tender blue, before it vanished over the hill.
For a long time he sat there watching and wondering. It was
a very different world from that in which his mansion on the
Avenue
was built; and it looked strange to him, but most real--as real
as
anything he had ever seen. Presently he felt a strong desire
to know what country it was and where the people were going.
He had a faint premonition of what it must be, but he wished to
be sure.
So he rose from the stone where he was sitting, and came down
through
the short grass and the lavender flowers, toward a passing group
of people.
One of them turned to meet him, and held out his hand. It was an
old man,
under whose white beard and brows John Weightman thought he saw
a suggestion of the face of the village doctor who had cared for
him
years ago, when he was a boy in the country.
"Welcome," said the old man. "Will you come with us?"
"Where are you going?"
"To the heavenly city, to see our mansions there."
"And who are these with you?"
"Strangers to me, until a little while ago; I know them better
now.
But you I have known for a long time, John Weightman. Don't you
remember
your old doctor?"
"Yes," he cried--"yes; your voice has not changed at all.
I'm glad indeed to see you, Doctor McLean, especially now.
All this seems very strange to me, almost oppressive.
I wonder if--but may I go with you, do you suppose?"
"Surely," answered the doctor, with his familiar smile; "it will
do you good. And you also must have a mansion in the city
waiting
for you--a fine one, too--are you not looking forward to it?"
"Yes," replied the other, hesitating a moment; "yes--I believe
it must be so, although I had not expected to see it so soon.
But I will go with you, and we can talk by the way."
The two men quickly caught up with the other people, and all went
forward
together along the road. The doctor had little to tell of his
experience,
for it had been a plain, hard life, uneventfully spent for
others,
and the story of the village was very simple. John Weightman's
adventures
and triumphs would have made a far richer, more imposing history,
full of contacts with the great events and personages of the
time.
But somehow or other he did not care to speak much about it,
walking on that wide heavenly moorland, under that tranquil,
sunless arch of blue, in that free air of perfect peace, where
the light
was diffused without a shadow, as if the spirit of life in all
things
were luminous.
There was only one person besides the doctor in that little
company whom
John Weightman had known before--an old bookkeeper who had spent
his life
over a desk, carefully keeping accounts--a rusty, dull little
man,
patient and narrow, whose wife had been in the insane asylum for
twenty years and whose only child was a crippled daughter, for
whose
comfort and happiness he had toiled and sacrificed himself
without stint.
It was a surprise to find him here, as care-free and joyful as
the rest.
The lives of others in the company were revealed in brief
glimpses
as they talked together--a mother, early widowed, who had kept
her little flock of children together and labored through hard
and heavy
years to bring them up in purity and knowledge--a Sister of
Charity
who had devoted herself to the nursing of poor folk who were
being
eaten to death by cancer--a schoolmaster whose heart and life
had been poured into his quiet work of training boys for a clean
and
thoughtful manhood--a medical missionary who had given up
a brilliant career in science to take the charge of a hospital in
darkest Africa--a beautiful woman with silver hair who had
resigned her dreams of love and marriage to care for an invalid
father,
and after his death had made her life a long, steady search for
ways of
doing kindnesses to others--a poet who had walked among the
crowded
tenements of the great city, bringing cheer and comfort not only
by
his songs, but by his wise and patient works of practical aid--a
paralyzed
woman who had lain for thirty years upon her bed, helpless but
not hopeless, succeeding by a miracle of courage in her single
aim,
never to complain, but always to impart a bit of joy and peace to
every one who came near her. All these, and other persons like
them,
people of little consideration in the world, but now seemingly
all full of
great contentment and an inward gladness that made their steps
light,
were in the company that passed along the road, talking together
of
things past and things to come, and singing now and then with
clear voices from which the veil of age and sorrow was lifted.
John Weightman joined in some of the songs--which were familiar
to him
from their use in the church--at first with a touch of
hesitation,
and then more confidently. For as they went on his sense of
strangeness and fear at his new experience diminished, and his
thoughts
began to take on their habitual assurance and complacency. Were
not these
people going to the Celestial City? And was not he in his right
place
among them? He had always looked forward to this journey.
If they were sure, each one, of finding a mansion there, could
not he be
far more sure? His life had been more fruitful than theirs.
He had been a leader, a founder of new enterprises, a pillar of
Church and State, a prince of the House of Israel. Ten talents
had been
given him, and he had made them twenty. His reward would be
proportionate.
He was glad that his companions were going to find fit dwellings
prepared for them; but he thought also with a certain pleasure of
the surprise that some of them would feel when they saw
his appointed mansion.
So they came to the summit of the moorland and looked over into
the world beyond. It was a vast, green plain, softly rounded
like
a shallow vase, and circled with hills of amethyst. A broad,
shining river flowed through it, and many silver threads of water
were woven across the green; and there were borders of tall trees
on the banks of the river, and orchards full of roses abloom
along
the little streams, and in the midst of all stood the city,
white and wonderful and radiant.
When the travelers saw it they were filled with awe and joy.
They passed over the little streams and among the orchards
quickly and silently, as if they feared to speak lest the city
should vanish.
The wall of the city was very low, a child could see over it,
for it was made only of precious stones, which are never large.
The gate of the city was not like a gate a all, for it was not
barred with iron or wood, but only a single pearl, softly
gleaming,
marked the place where the wall ended and the entrance lay open.
A person stood there whose face was bright and grave, and whose
robe
was like the flower of the lily, not a woven fabric, but a living
texture.
"Come in," he said to the company of travelers; "you are at
your journey's end, and your mansions are ready for you."
John Weightman hesitated, for he was troubled by a doubt.
Suppose that he was not really, like his companions, at his
journey's end,
but only transported for a little while out of the regular course
of
his life into this mysterious experience? Suppose that, after
all,
he had not really passed through the door of death, like these
others,
but only through the door of dreams, and was walking in a vision,
a living man among the blessed dead. Would it be right for him
to go
with them into the heavenly city? Would it not be a deception,
a desecration, a deep and unforgivable offense? The strange,
confusing question had no reason in it, as he very well knew;
for if he was dreaming, then it was all a dream; but if his
companions
were real, then he also was with them in reality, and if they had
died
then he must have died too. Yet he could not rid his mind of
the sense that there was a difference between them and him,
and it made him afraid to go on. But, as he paused and turned,
the Keeper of the Gate looked straight and deep into his eyes,
and beckoned to him. Then he knew that it was not only right but
necessary that he should enter.
They passed from street to street among fair and spacious
dwellings,
set in amaranthine gardens, and adorned with an infinitely varied
beauty of
divine simplicity. The mansions differed in size, in shape, in
charm:
each one seemed to have its own personal look of loveliness;
yet all were alike in fitness to their place, in harmony with one
another,
in the addition which each made to the singular and tranquil
splendor of
the city.
As the little company came, one by one, to the mansions which
were
prepared for them, and their Guide beckoned to the happy
inhabitant
to enter in and take possession, there was a soft murmur of joy,
half wonder and half recognition; as if the new and immortal
dwelling
were crowned with the beauty of surprise, lovelier and nobler
than
all the dreams of it had been; and yet also as if it were touched
with
the beauty of the familiar, the remembered, the long-loved.
One after another the travelers were led to their own mansions,
and went in gladly; and from within, through the open doorways
came sweet voices of welcome, and low laughter, and song.
At last there was no one left with the Guide but the two old
friends,
Doctor McLean and John Weightman. They were standing in front of
one of the largest and fairest of the houses, whose garden glowed
softly
with radiant flowers. The Guide laid his hand upon the doctor's
shoulder.
"This is for you," he said. "Go in; there is no more pain here,
no more death, nor sorrow, nor tears; for your old enemies are
all conquered. But all the good that you have done for others,
all the help that you have given, all the comfort that you have
brought,
all the strength and love that you have bestowed upon the
suffering,
are here; for we have built them all into this mansion for you."
The good man's face was lighted with a still joy. He clasped his
old friend's hand closely, and whispered: "How wonderful it is!
Go on, you will come to your mansion next, it is not far away,
and we shall see each other again soon, very soon."
So he went through the garden, and into the music within.
The Keeper of the Gate turned to John Weightman with level,
quiet,
searching eyes. Then he asked, gravely:
"Where do you wish me to lead you now?"
"To see my own mansion," answered the man, with half-concealed
excitement.
"Is there not one here for me? You may not let me enter it yet,
perhaps,
for I must confess to you that I am only--"
"I know," said the Keeper of the Gate--"I know it all.
You are John Weightman."
"Yes," said the man, more firmly than he had spoken at first,
for it gratified him that his name was known. "Yes, I am John
Weightman,
Senior Warden of St. Petronius' Church. I wish very much to see
my mansion here, if only for a moment. I believe that you have
one for me.
Will you take me to it?"
The Keeper of the Gate drew a little book from the breast of his
robe
and turned over the pages.
"Certainly," he said, with a curious look at the man, "your name
is here;
and you shall see your mansion if you will follow me."
It seemed as if they must have walked miles and miles, through
the
vast city, passing street after street of houses larger and
smaller,
of gardens richer and poorer, but all full of beauty and delight.
They came into a kind of suburb, where there were many small
cottages,
with plots of flowers, very lowly, but bright and fragrant.
Finally they reached an open field, bare and lonely-looking.
There were two or three little bushes in it, without flowers,
and the grass was sparse and thin. In the center of the field
was a tiny hut, hardly big enough for a shepherd's shelter.
It looked as if it had been built of discarded things, scraps and
fragments of other buildings, put together with care and pains,
by some one who had tried to make the most of cast-off material.
There was something pitiful and shamefaced about the hut.
It shrank and drooped and faded in its barren field, and seemed
to
cling only by sufferance to the edge of the splendid city.
"This," said the Keeper of the Gate, standing still and speaking
with
a low, distinct voice--"this is your mansion, John Weightman."
An almost intolerable shock of grieved wonder and indignation
choked the man for a moment so that he could not say a word.
Then he turned his face away from the poor little hut
and began to remonstrate eagerly with his companion.
"Surely, sir," he stammered, "you must be in error about this.
There is something wrong--some other John Weightman--a confusion
of names--the book must be mistaken."
"There is no mistake," said the Keeper of the Gate, very calmly;
"here is your name, the record of your title and your possessions
in this place."
"But how could such a house be prepared for me," cried the man,
with a resentful tremor in his voice--"for me, after my
long and faithful service? Is this a suitable mansion for
one so well known and devoted? Why is it so pitifully small and
mean?
Why have you not built it large and fair, like the others?"
"That is all the material you sent us."
"What!"
"We have used all the material that you sent us," repeated the
Keeper of the Gate.
"Now I know that you are mistaken," cried the man, with growing
earnestness, "for all my life long I have been doing things that
must have supplied you with material. Have you not heard that
I have built a school-house; the wing of a hospital; two--yes,
three--small churches, and the greater part of a large one,
the spire of St. Petro--"
The Keeper of the Gate lifted his hand.
"Wait," he said; "we know all these things. They were not ill
done.
But they were all marked and used as foundation for the name and
mansion of
John Weightman in the world. Did you not plan them for that?"
"Yes," answered the man, confused and taken aback, "I confess
that
I thought often of them in that way. Perhaps my heart was
set upon that too much. But there are other things--my endowment
for
the college--my steady and liberal contributions to all the
established charities--my support of every respectable--"
"Wait," said the Keeper of the Gate again. "Were not all these
carefully recorded on earth where they would add to your credit?
They were not foolishly done. Verily, you have had your reward
for them.
Would you be paid twice?"
"No," cried the man, with deepening dismay, "I dare not claim
that.
I acknowledge that I considered my own interest too much. But
surely
not altogether. You have said that these things were not
foolishly done.
They accomplished some good in the world. Does not that count
for something?"
"Yes," answered he Keeper of the Gate, "it counts in the
world--where you
counted it. But it does not belong to you here. We have saved
and used
everything that you sent us. This is the mansion prepared for
you."
As he spoke, his look grew deeper and more searching, like a
flame of fire.
John Weightman could not endure it. It seemed to strip him naked
and wither him. He sank to the ground under a crushing weight of
shame,
covering his eyes with his hands and cowering face downward
upon the stones. Dimly through the trouble of his mind he felt
their
hardness and coldness.
"Tell me, then," he cried, brokenly, "since my life has been so
little worth, how came I here at all?"
"Through the mercy of the King"--the answer was like the soft
tolling of
a bell.
"And how have I earned it?" he murmured.
"It is never earned; it is only given," came the clear, low
reply.
"But how have I failed so wretchedly," he asked, "in all the
purpose of
my life? What could I have done better? What is it that counts
here?"
"Only that which is truly given," answered the bell-like voice.
Only that good which is done for the love of doing it.
Only those plans in which the welfare of others is the master
thought.
Only those labors in which the sacrifice is greater than the
reward.
Only those gifts in which the giver forgets himself."
The man lay silent. A great weakness, an unspeakable despondency
and
humiliation were upon him. But the face of the Keeper of the
Gate was
infinitely tender as he bent over him.
"Think again, John Weightman. Has there been nothing like that
in
your life?"
"Nothing," he sighed. "If there ever were such things, it must
have been
long ago--they were all crowded out--I have forgotten them."
There was an ineffable smile on the face of the Keeper of the
Gate,
and his hand made the sign of the cross over the bowed head as he
spoke gently:
"These are the things that the King never forgets; and because
there were a few of them in your life, you have a little place
here."
The sense of coldness and hardness under John Weightman's hands
grew sharper and more distinct. The feeling of bodily weariness
and
lassitude weighed upon him, but there was a calm, almost a
lightness,
in his heart as he listened to the fading vibrations of the
silvery bell-tones. The chimney clock on the mantel had just
ended
the last stroke of seven as he lifted his head from the table.
Thin, pale strips of the city morning were falling into the room
through
the narrow partings of the heavy curtains.
What was it that had happened to him? Had he been ill? Had he
died and
come to life again? Or had he only slept, and had his soul gone
visiting
in dreams? He sat for some time, motionless, not lost, but
finding himself
in thought. Then he took a narrow book from the table drawer,
wrote a check, and tore it out.
He went slowly up the stairs, knocked very softly at his son's
door,
and, hearing no answer, entered without noise. Harold was
asleep,
his bare arm thrown above his head, and his eager face relaxed in
peace.
His father looked at him a moment with strangely shining eyes,
and then tiptoed quietly to the writing-desk, found a pencil and
a sheet of paper, and wrote rapidly:
"My dear boy, here is what you asked me for; do what you like
with it,
and ask for more if you need it. If you are still thinking of
that work with Grenfell, we'll talk it over to-day after church.
I want to know your heart better; and if I have made mistakes--"
A slight noise made him turn his head. Harold was sitting up in
bed
with wide-open eyes.
"Father!" he cried, "is that you?"
"Yes, my son," answered John Weightman; "I've come back--I mean
I've come up--no, I mean come in--well, here I am,
and God give us a good Christmas together."