INTRODUCTORY

I

WE are they "who only stand and wait," but we wait to do our Master's bidding; and while we wait we tell experiences of our new condition,and often we are sent to cheer the hearts of others who have not yet come hither. If we are militant in no earthly sense, but rather ministrant, yet in our world celestial we speak of earth as a field of battle, in which many valiant spirits are sore wounded; and if we go to bind up their wounds, and cheer them for new contests, we say that we, who dwell in the realms of perfect peace, have been to engage in conflict,-when we have not been in the fight, unless to help those who are wounded. It is much, indeed, like what we used to call the Red Cross League or Commission service; in which many of us were wont to serve, before we crossed the silver stream, that divides our old abode from the new.

I cannot, in telling those stories, refer to any story-teller by his heavenly name, which cannot

be translated into the language of the earth; nor does any one wish to be called by his earthly name, unless by domestic friends at their coming. Their old names, they say, were connected with much that was displeasing to God; and they are no longer pleased with them. Even those whose names are prefixed by "Saint," upon the earth, or who were known as "Church" Fathers, or "pillars" in the Church, are now so sensitive about many things that they ought to have been ashamed of on the earth, that they do not like to be reminded of their old names, so tarnished in their own eyes. And authors once of some repute do not care to be reminded of their old names, once famous among people whose spiritual ideals are formed on imperfect models.

Unless in rare instances, I can best designate the story-tellers by their earthly employments or conditions, of which every one is proud; since all are now content with their individual lots before coming here. In the light, which we now dwell in, we can see that what we were and what we aimed for in our former estate was ordered by Divine Love; and now we never quarrel in our hearts with the infinite love of God, or distrust his care of us, whether in days present or past. Indeed, all our burdens are gone, and we feel happiest of all that we have now definitely laid aside the work of attempting to govern

the universe, which we once sought to do,-at least so far as concerned our place in it; and this is the reason why we say now, I was a shoemaker, and I wear a golden hammer for my badge,-I never cheated at shoemaking, and I am proud of my old occupation. Or one says, I used to do domestic work, and make clean corners for women who could not well do it for themselves; and now I wear a golden broom for my badge, and I am proud of it. I was never an eye-servant. I lived as seeing Him who is Invisible.

And so, all through the category of earthly service, there is no one but takes pride in what he did, since he did it as unto God. Even the princes and kings of the earth are not ashamed of having had honor among men; although they do not wear coronets or any insignia of royalty here; this is because they have heard that unrepentant kings in their spiritual realms make much ado about their rank. Such royal personages as are here, commonly wear badges taken from some person they helped in their earthly condition. A Prince of Poland now knows that the one great act of his Polish life, was when he befriended a miner; and he wears a golden pick upon his breast.

I cannot in these tales say what relates to myself. I am a new-comer, and have not recovered

from the furor scribendi, from which I suffered when upon the earth. I have written what I have heard; but have reflected so little upon my own story, that I am not ready to tell it to my wise comrades. They would laugh at my self-conceit; which, however, I am losing every day.

The first tale is that of a poet, who once lived on a beautiful island amid stormy seas.

II

Sitting upon the greensward, at our twilight fire, upon the banks of a rill running into the River of Life, it was hard for us to recall the circumstances of the earth, so far as to make vivid the scenes he depicted. It was like calling up the imagery of a dream :

"The nightingale sings sweetest, when it urgeth its breast with a thorn:' at least, so I used to hear when I was a child. But whether it be so, I do not know. My poetic license, taken out in the time of King Alfred, did not require me to observe the facts in natural history, and I never did, till I came to this country. And as for nightingales, I have studiously avoided them here, since the first one I heard seemed to mock me for the so-called poem I once made in Kent upon the nightingale, in which I grossly misrepresented the facts as to the habits of the bird.