Edward Burton

Life is like a kaleidoscope: every turn brings new forms, colors, and combinations. A slight movement of the rudder turns the vessel into another course, and at length into a different port; so a paltry choice or circumstance, in itself the merest trifle, alters, colors, and determines the whole destiny. Several personal careers in which we are interested were entirely changed by the experiences of the summer under review. The choice of that particular vacation-plan was the outcome of a whole chain of trivial occurrences, in which, if even the weakest link had been severed, several lives would have been turned into different channels. Each would then have appeared in a different tableau, with other and different accessories, foreground and perspective. That turn of the kaleidoscope which had defined the present combination was a happy and eventful one. Under its influence, days at Bar Harbor sped rapidly away. The length of time is more relative than absolute. It is not merely so many days of twenty-four hours each, but rather how those hours are filled, that makes them long or short. The number of impressions, pleasant or otherwise, determine the conscious length of time.

The month of August, in the early part of which the events of the last few chapters took place, was drawing to a close. The intervening time had been passed in excursions, drives, walks, sails, dinners, and receptions, and mystic cords of attraction and affection had been growing and strengthening, as they entangled and held this or that one in their silken meshes. There were indefinable purposes and cross-purposes, designs and counter-designs, in various stages of development—some rapidly maturing, others hardly begun.

Bar Harbor has one never-failing resource in what is known as the Shore-Walk. Rarely on the whole Atlantic coast can there be found a mile of footpath which contains so many attractive and unique features. In its windings, the lover of nature can find almost every desirable feature, and the sloping velvety lawns and beautiful cottages furnish enough of art for a pleasing combination. When longer excursions become tiresome, this resort right at hand is always refreshing. Thither repair scholars, with text-book in hand; business men, with daily paper; maidens, with the latest novel; and there are found lovers, in pairs for sweet converse; clergymen for inspiration; tired people for rest; nurses and children for freedom and air; all for that substantial help which comes from communion with nature.

When jaded and worn with the multitudinous details of life, which is made artificial by our strained and highly organized civilization, mankind turn face to face with nature for refreshment, as instinctively as an infant seeks the maternal font. As may be inferred, the Shore-Walk was a favorite resort for our coterie. Singly, in pairs, in groups, they might be seen almost any pleasant day, occupying the cosey nooks, the shady moss-covered seats and clean-washed rocks, which abound along that delightful pathway.

So many chance meetings!

Perhaps Miss Jenness would start out for a “constitutional.” Van Roden would happen to feel the need of exercise about the same hour. If she sat down to read a book, or look out upon the “Porcupines,” he would almost rise up out of the ground, and quietly put in an appearance. Similar coincidences often happened with the others. Chance—poor innocent thing—had all these happenings thrust upon her.

Helen Bonbright often frequented this pathway and its quiet nooks by herself, to enjoy delightful reading or meditation, or for silent communion with trees, rocks, and sea. Hers was a mystical nature. When alone, she was not really alone. She had such a keen spiritual consciousness, that nature to her was but an external symbol of the operations of the loving, all-pervading Spirit whose presence thrilled her soul. The world and its beauties were but the printed page upon which she read the love and perfection of the All-Embracer, the All-Sustainer, the Immanent God.

One day, while Helen was sitting on one of the great rocks at whose base the waves were chanting a soft melody, Tapley chanced that way and joined her. It was a beautiful morning, and the ripples of the bay glistened in the golden sunlight, and the softened outline of the hills on the opposite shore was aglow with a bright halo.

“Good-morning, Miss Bonbright,” said Tapley, as he approached. “You are out in good time to make the most of this charming day. Pardon me if I interrupt your meditations.”

She bade him welcome, and motioned him to a seat beside her. In her manner, there was neither coquettishness on the one hand, nor false delicacy on the other, but only transparency, naturalness. Her morning walk had given a glow to her features, such as any artist would despair of catching, and the charmed atmosphere of purity and grace which surrounded her gave Tapley a sensation of being on hallowed ground. He took no especial note of her external beauty, but how could he help loving such a beautiful soul? Tapley was an idealist. Here was “realism” of the most idealistic quality.

“You were much occupied as I approached,” he observed. “May I share in the benefit of your deductions?”

“I am quite free from abstract logic this morning, Mr. Tapley. I was only indulging in a little retrospection. Occasionally I think such an exercise quite profitable. I have been contrasting some of the early impressions and beliefs which I have left behind, with those of my present consciousness.”

“In what department have you been making a review, Miss Bonbright?”

“My past and present theology, and their differences, was the topic which occupied my mind. I have been reviewing my early impressions of the nature of the Deity, and our relations to Him, and noting the change in my views. My recent conversations with Mr. Burton and yourself have given me additional light, although I had made much progress before.”

“I had also a peculiar youthful experience,” responded Tapley. “I have told you of my present status, but nothing of my early beliefs. Why may we not compare notes? Please delineate some of your early impressions, so that I may see how they correspond with my own.”

“Some of them were so grotesque,” replied Helen, “that it seems almost irreverent to express them; but yet they were real to me. I used to think of God as an immense person in human form, seated on a throne located in some distant part of the universe. On the right of the throne, and on a lower seat, sat the Christ, much smaller in size, and with benignity and mercy in his look. Around the throne were troops of angels, worshipping in long white robes. God wore a crown upon his head, and, with solemn and awful majesty in his appearance, looked down with stern and terrible severity upon the deeds of men. On account of Adam’s sin, we were under His displeasure and curse. Christ pleaded with Him in our behalf, and, by consenting to suffer, partially placated His wrath towards us. I was a sensitive child, and such a view cast a shadow upon my whole life. I feared God with a slavish fear. I wanted to love Him, but how was it possible as He was presented? I became morbid because I found it impossible to do that which I felt was my solemn duty. My life was dwarfed, and I was deprived of all that was normal, joyful, and harmonious, on account of the nightmare that was upon me. Things were not much improved when I came into the church and subscribed to its regular statements of doctrine, and was formally enrolled among its members. I sought with prayers and bitter tears to become reconciled to God, but my nature would but feebly respond to the God that had been delineated to me. Religion was gloomy, austere, and unattractive. I wanted to be religious, and had but little love for the world, in its lower sense; but I was in impenetrable gloom. My health suffered, and not until I came into a new and broader recognition of truth, did I find that wholeness which fills every desire, and heals and harmonizes soul and body.”

She paused and looked up to Tapley as if waiting for his narrative.

“My experience corresponds to a remarkable degree,” said he. “My early impressions of God were somewhat as He is represented by the ‘old masters.’ A form like that of a man, of vast size, with round cheeks covered with beard, of stern and relentless mien, sitting in an armed chair and surveying the world from afar. I gathered that there was an irreconcilable difference of nature between God and Christ, and that the former was the more powerful. My sense of justice was shocked by what appeared to be a bargain, or a compromise, to the effect that Christ should suffer, and that His agony should appease the demands of the Superior Person of the Trinity. These conceptions now seem almost too irreverent to express, but they were a terrible reality to me then. They were childish impressions, but when somewhat refined they have furnished the warp and woof of much of the world’s theology. That childish conception roughly outlines what theologians have discussed, poets have sung, and what has been formulated into creeds and ‘standards.’

“But the saddest part of all is, that from such unlovable and materialistic ideas men’s minds have reacted, and through their influence infidels, sceptics, and materialists have been multiplied by the thousand. When the soul revolts from such a picture of God as was drawn by Jonathan Edwards, in his famous sermon ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,’ it is inclined to plunge into the depths of atheism. The spirit of dogmatism so long prevailed, that men outlined with great positiveness the opinions, feelings, parts, and passions of the Deity. The outline was so sharp, and the form so distinct, that it amounted to an idolatrous concept. Young says,—

‘A God alone can comprehend a God.’

“The anthropomorphous God is the result of a presumptuous and materialistic view of the Divine nature.

‘Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.’

“How refreshing to turn from material assumptions, which shock a sensitive youthful nature, to a few clear-cut definitions of God found in Holy Writ: First, ‘God is Love;’ second, ‘God is Spirit’ (not a spirit, as incorrectly translated); third, ‘In Him we live and move and have our being.’

“Towards such a God the human heart warms and thrills. It is drawn towards Him as naturally as a flower turns towards the sun. The law that love begets love is deeply implanted in man’s nature. The whole spirit of revelation teaches that ‘Our Father’ is not a person like unto us, with parts and passions, localized, limited and changeable, but He is One, filling immensity: All-Love, All-Life, All-Spirit, All in All. With such a God, religion becomes divinely natural, not special or supernatural. The Spirit is the living and universal Christ to guide us into all truth. In the din of the world, the ‘still small voice’ is unheard, and men are inclined to turn either to material ‘husks,’ or to an external and creedal religion which has lost a consciousness of the Spirit as an ever-present, practical, every-day force.

“It cannot be denied that ceremonial religion and the letter, though not the spirit, of the Bible, to some extent, have come in between God and the soul. Incidentals are magnified until they divert attention from the goal to be sought.

“An eminent Christian lady has well observed,—

“‘Let the church make more of the spiritualities of its faith, less of its history; more of its meaning, less of its doctrine; more of its union with God, less of its rules; more of its life, less of its scholasticism; and come back to a practical recognition of the Holy Spirit, which will, if followed, guide us into all truth.’”

The conversation continued for an hour or two on account of the interest felt by both in metaphysical and spiritual topics.

“I am glad to hear you express your views so fully,” said Helen, “and thank you very much for the light you have given me. How an enlarged view of God, as being our life and dwelling-place, smoothes out the trial and inharmony of life, when compared with former impressions. How sweet to dwell in the thought that ‘in Him we live, and move, and have our being.’ I am glad that there is progress in the church, and that it is slowly breaking away from the extreme dogmatism of the seventeenth century.”

“Yes,” replied Tapley, “we are now in a transition state. When the average human mind becomes imbued with a ruling consciousness that God is Love, that He is our Life, that He is not a distant, but an ever-present God, then sin, selfishness, and even bodily infirmity, which hold the world in bondage, will be overcome. Fénelon observes that,—

“‘The realization of God’s presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation.’”

“A beautiful and true sentiment,” said Helen.

“Yes,” replied Tapley, “and there is another consideration of great importance. Man’s concept of God is his working model or ideal, hence the importance of a correct appreciation of Him. Men become what they mentally dwell upon. The vindictive man worships a vindictive God. Such a worship is as truly idolatrous as homage paid to a graven image. Every man, even if he be an avowed atheist, unconsciously has some supreme ideal after which he is striving, and such an aspiration amounts to worship. By a vast number, material advantage is regarded as the supremest good, and therefore most to be sought. Idolatry is the great and comprehensive sin. A material or distorted conception of God is responsible for much of the world’s woe. If men recognized their life as in God, instead of conceiving it to be self-centred and dependent upon external conditions, how naturally they would turn to Him for additional vitality and refreshment. As it is, for spiritual nourishment, they depend upon systems, creeds, ordinances, sacraments, rules, external morality, and sectarian loyalty. For physical restoration and vitality, their reliance is upon rules, systems, drugs, and dead matter in its multiform combinations.

“The link that binds us directly to God, while not really broken, has been practically severed in human consciousness, and institutions and material forces have been enthroned and set up between God and the soul. God is everywhere, but we cannot see him face to face, because we have involved ourselves in the dust of material externalism. The light and warmth of the great Central Sun is obstructed by clouds of our own raising.”

While this conversation was in progress, Burton started out for his favorite stroll along the Shore-Walk. As he came near to the place where Tapley and Helen Bonbright were seated, he was thunderstruck to observe that they were in close proximity, with her hand apparently in his, and engaged in earnest conversation. They were sitting upon a large rock a few rods from the path, looking towards the sea, with faces steadfastly inclined to each other. While he plainly observed them, they had no knowledge of his presence. They were so absorbed in each other, or in the subject they were discussing, that there was little probability of their turning so as to become aware of his approach. He quickly passed on until he reached a spot where there was a friendly interposition of trees and bushes, and sat down upon a mossy knoll to collect his wandering thoughts. Edward Burton was not more than human. The sight which he had just witnessed at first gave him the sensation of being stunned, and then he made an effort to calm himself and seek a solution of the mystery. But little more than three weeks had passed since he first met Helen Bonbright, and during that time he had scarcely stopped to analyze his feelings. For the first time, he now realized that her image had been constantly before him since their first meeting. They had been interested in the same subjects, and had thought the same thoughts. He had been having a beautiful dream, and was now jostled and rudely awakened. For a few moments the pangs of jealousy tortured and tore his soul, and a deadly hand-to-hand conflict was waged within him. His heart throbbed, his lips and features became bloodless, and beads of perspiration oozed from his forehead. For fully fifteen minutes he sat with his face buried in his hands, utterly oblivious of the world around. Then he arose and stamped his foot, as if to crush something under it. The victory was won. He turned and, with a quiet smile and placid features, folded his arms and looked out upon the peaceful shining bay. He had become as calm as the unruffled, mirror-like water before him.

“Tapley, my dear friend,” said he, talking to himself, in audible tones, “I congratulate you! I love you, and you are almost my spiritual father! I have a glimpse, even now, of an ideal condition, when an all-embracing and spiritual love will submerge all lower forms of affection, even as the ocean absorbs and envelopes its tributaries.”

He turned, and slowly retraced his steps. The pair remained, and were as deeply engrossed as before.

As he made his way along the path, the shimmer of the waves was not dimmed; the glow of the sunlight was warm and bright, and the face of nature never seemed more smiling to him than when he came to the end of the Shore-Walk.