CHAPTER V. THE OLD CHURCH
I followed him deep into the pine-forest. Neither of us said much whileyet the sacred gloom of it closed us round. We came to larger and yetlarger trees--older, and more individual, some of them grotesque withage. Then the forest grew thinner.
"You see that hawthorn?" said my guide at length, pointing with hisbeak.
I looked where the wood melted away on the edge of an open heath.
"I see a gnarled old man, with a great white head," I answered.
"Look again," he rejoined: "it is a hawthorn."
"It seems indeed an ancient hawthorn; but this is not the season for thehawthorn to blossom!" I objected.
"The season for the hawthorn to blossom," he replied, "is when thehawthorn blossoms. That tree is in the ruins of the church on yourhome-farm. You were going to give some directions to the bailiff aboutits churchyard, were you not, the morning of the thunder?"
"I was going to tell him I wanted it turned into a wilderness ofrose-trees, and that the plough must never come within three yards ofit."
"Listen!" said the raven, seeming to hold his breath.
I listened, and heard--was it the sighing of a far-off musical wind--orthe ghost of a music that had once been glad? Or did I indeed hearanything?
"They go there still," said the raven.
"Who goes there? and where do they go?" I asked.
"Some of the people who used to pray there, go to the ruins still," hereplied. "But they will not go much longer, I think."
"What makes them go now?"
"They need help from each other to get their thinking done, and theirfeelings hatched, so they talk and sing together; and then, they say,the big thought floats out of their hearts like a great ship out of theriver at high water."
"Do they pray as well as sing?"
"No; they have found that each can best pray in his own silentheart.--Some people are always at their prayers.--Look! look! There goesone!"
He pointed right up into the air. A snow-white pigeon was mounting, withquick and yet quicker wing-flap, the unseen spiral of an ethereal stair.The sunshine flashed quivering from its wings.
"I see a pigeon!" I said.
"Of course you see a pigeon," rejoined the raven, "for there is thepigeon! I see a prayer on its way.--I wonder now what heart is thatdove's mother! Some one may have come awake in my cemetery!"
"How can a pigeon be a prayer?" I said. "I understand, of course, howit should be a fit symbol or likeness for one; but a live pigeon to comeout of a heart!"
"It MUST puzzle you! It cannot fail to do so!"
"A prayer is a thought, a thing spiritual!" I pursued.
"Very true! But if you understood any world besides your own, you wouldunderstand your own much better.--When a heart is really alive, then itis able to think live things. There is one heart all whose thoughtsare strong, happy creatures, and whose very dreams are lives. When somepray, they lift heavy thoughts from the ground, only to drop them on itagain; others send up their prayers in living shapes, this or that, thenearest likeness to each. All live things were thoughts to begin with,and are fit therefore to be used by those that think. When one says tothe great Thinker:--'Here is one of thy thoughts: I am thinking it now!'that is a prayer--a word to the big heart from one of its own littlehearts.--Look, there is another!"
This time the raven pointed his beak downward--to something at the footof a block of granite. I looked, and saw a little flower. I had neverseen one like it before, and cannot utter the feeling it woke in me byits gracious, trusting form, its colour, and its odour as of a new worldthat was yet the old. I can only say that it suggested an anemone, wasof a pale rose-hue, and had a golden heart.
"That is a prayer-flower," said the raven.
"I never saw such a flower before!" I rejoined.
"There is no other such. Not one prayer-flower is ever quite likeanother," he returned.
"How do you know it a prayer-flower?" I asked.
"By the expression of it," he answered. "More than that I cannot tellyou. If you know it, you know it; if you do not, you do not."
"Could you not teach me to know a prayer-flower when I see it?" I said.
"I could not. But if I could, what better would you be? you would notknow it of YOURSELF and ITself! Why know the name of a thing when thething itself you do not know? Whose work is it but your own to open youreyes? But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool ofyou that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise!"
But I did see that the flower was different from any flower I had everseen before; therefore I knew that I must be seeing a shadow of theprayer in it; and a great awe came over me to think of the heartlistening to the flower.