Beautiful...

[Sister Alvear]

A Dream By T. Dewitt Talmidge

"One night, lying on my couch when tired, my children all around me in full romp and hilarity and laughter, half awake and half asleep, I dreamed this dream: I was in a country. It was not Persia, although more than oriental luxuries crowned the cities. It was not in the tropics, although more than the tropical fruitfulness filled the gardens. It was not in Italy, although more than Italian softness filled the air.
I wandered around looking for thorns and nettles, but I found that they did not grow there; I saw the sun rise, and watched for it to set, but it did not. I saw people in holiday attire, and I said, "when will they put off all this, and put on workman's garb, and again delve in the mine and swelter at the forge?" But they never put off the holiday attire.
Had I wandered in the suburbs of the city to find the place where they dead sleep, and I looked along the line of hills, where they dead might most blissfully sleep, and I saw towers and castles, but not a mausoleum or a monument or white slab could be seen. And I went to the chapel of the great town, and I said: "Where do the poor worship, and where are the benches on which they sit?" And they answered me, "We have no poor in this country." I then wandered out to find the hovels of the destitute, and I found mansions of amber, ivory, and gold; but not a tear could I see, not a sigh could I hear; and I was bewildered.
I sat down under the branches of a great tree, and I said, "Where am I and whence comes all this scene?" And then out among the leaves and up the flowery paths and across the shifting streams there came a beautiful group thronging about me, and I saw them come I thought I knew their step, and as they shouted, I thought I knew their voices, but they were gloriously arrayed in apparel such as I had never witnessed, that I bowed as stranger to stranger. But when they again clapped their hands and shouted, "Welcome! Welcome"" the mystery all vanished.
I found that time had gone and eternity had come, and we were all together again in our new home Heaven. And I looked around, and I said, "Are we all here?" And the voices of many generations responded, "All here!" And while tears of gladness were raining down our cheeks, and the branches of Lebanon Cedars were clapping their hands, and the towers of the great city were chiming their welcome, we all together began to leap, shout, and sing, "Home, home, home, home!" T. Dewitt Talmidge.