Observations placeholder
Ludlow, Fitz Hugh - The beauty of heaven
Identifier
005975
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
......... If heaven be like that, the stake and the rack are worth while to bear on the way to it!
A description of the experience
The Hasheesh Eater – Fitz Hugh Ludlow
When at length I dared to look out from my lurking place, my sight chanced to fall upon the vapoury banks which skirted the gleaming western horizon. In mercy, my vision was here changed to one of peace. As if to heal the pangs of my spirit, I saw, flowing down to me through a rift in the clouds, a silvery river of unutterable balm. Unknown trees drooped, prodigal of wondrous fruit and odours over its enamelled margin; and rare beings floated, with their beaming girdles streaming on the breeze, above the crystal waters, or stooped to drink of them along the edge; and the hasheesh voice whispered me ‘The River of the Water of Life’. If heaven be like that, the stake and the rack are worth while to bear on the way to it!