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“God’s ways are best,” said the Elder; “and I don’t see as we can do better than to submit with reverence to the very small part of them which He has made known to us, and to trust Him like loving and dutiful children for the rest.”

CHAPTER V. THE HILLSIDE

THE pause which naturally followed the observation of the Elder was broken abruptly by the Skipper.

“Hillo!” he cried, pointing with the glazed hat with which he had been fanning himself. “Here away in the northeast. Going down the coast for better fishing, I guess.”

“An eagle, as I live!” exclaimed the Doctor, following with his cane the direction of the Skipper’s hat. “Just see how royally he wheels upward and onward, his sail-broad wings stretched motionless, save an occasional flap to keep up his impetus! Look! the circle in which he moves grows narrower; he is a gray cloud in the sky, a point, a mere speck or dust-mote. And now he is clean swallowed up in the distance. The wise man of old did well to confess his ignorance of ‘the way of an eagle in the air.'”

“The eagle,” said Elder Staples, “seems to have been a favorite illustration of the sacred penman. ‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount upward as on the wings of an eagle.'”

“What think you of this passage?” said the Doctor. “‘As when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found; but the light air, beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted by the violent noise and motion thereof, is passed through, and therein afterward no sign of her path can be found.’

“I don’t remember the passage,” said the Elder.

“I dare say not,” quoth the Doctor. “You clergymen take it for granted that no good thing can come home from the Nazareth of the Apocrypha. But where will you find anything more beautiful and cheering than these verses in connection with that which I just cited?–‘The hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blown away by the wind; like the thin foam which is driven by the storm; like the smoke which is scattered here and there by the whirlwind; it passeth away like the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day. But the righteous live forevermore; their reward also is with the Lord, and the care of them with the Most High. Therefore shall they receive a glorious kingdom and a beautiful crown from the Lord’s hand; for with his right hand shall He cover them, and with his arm shall He protect them.'”

“That, if I mistake not, is from the Wisdom of Solomon,” said the Elder. “It is a striking passage; and there are many such in the uncanonical books.”

“Canonical or not,” answered the Doctor, “it is God’s truth, and stands in no need of the endorsement of a set of well-meaning but purblind bigots and pedants, who presumed to set metes and bounds to Divine inspiration, and decide by vote what is God’s truth and what is the Devil’s falsehood. But, speaking of eagles, I never see one of these spiteful old sea-robbers without fancying that he may be the soul of a mad Viking of the middle centuries. Depend upon it, that Italian philosopher was not far out of the way in his ingenious speculations upon the affinities and sympathies existing between certain men and certain animals, and in fancying that he saw feline or canine traits and similitudes in the countenances of his acquaintance.”

“Swedenborg tells us,” said I, “that lost human souls in the spiritual world, as seen by the angels, frequently wear the outward shapes of the lower animals,–for instance, the gross and sensual look like swine, and the cruel and obscene like foul birds of prey, such as hawks and vultures,–and that they are entirely unconscious of the metamorphosis, imagining themselves marvellous proper men,’ and are quite well satisfied with their company and condition.”