# Aleriel/Part 2/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
WELCOME HOME.
I FINISHED the first prayer that for ages, perchance, had arisen from that dead world, and then I set my ether car homewards, and plunged out again into vast and boundless space, not to earth, but to our bright world.
At length, when some time had elapsed, such as men would count by weeks or months, our glorious world opened to my view, with its soft tints, and white, misty clouds, lighted by the sun's blaze,—and, here and there, the long ridges or the lofty peaks of the mountains.
As I drew nearer it, thoughts of home gathered around me. "Why had I left a world so lovely and so happy to dwell, even for a while, on one so fallen and so sad as earth is, or so utterly dead as its lifeless satellite,—the twin homes of sin and death? Yet, on the other hand, I had succeeded in my enterprise, and entirely so. I had visited ​earth, I had seen all its beauties and its sorrows; I had mixed with men, and been undetected by them; I had added immensely, not merely to my own, but to my fellow-creatures' field of knowledge. Now they would be able to classify and criticise my information, and by it advance in their grasp of the knowledge of creation."
Such thoughts passed through my mind as I directed my vessel through space to my own city, near the great Southern Ocean. Then I turned on the gravitating power, and dashed, at the speed of a cannon-ball, towards the glorious and brilliant globe before me. Down, down I rushed, till the sea of vapour was close under my feet. It reminded me then of the scene I more than once had lingered over in the Alps. The white sea of mist stretched before me, with here and there, like islands in a lake, a few of the glittering mountains of our South Polar continent. "After all, the solar system is really akin," I said to myself. "Surely our world is like to the earth, its sister in space."
Down, down I rushed. The clouds were round me, one sea of white mist; and then I had dashed through the veil, and our glorious, our lovely world, the "queen of beauty" in the ​solar system, opened to my view. There all was just as I had left it. There were the tall mountain-cliffs, huger far than the Himalayas, piercing up through the clouds into space; there were the soft, tinted forests, and the grey ocean, and the vast gardens of every delicate and tender hue. "How could I leave such a world to be on the earth, with all its misery and sadness?" I cried. "And yet the earth has its beauty, its loveliness. The gaily-coloured islands of the tropics, the green summer verdure of England, the virgin forests of America, have their beauties; for God has made all things good, even on earth." So thought I as I sped on my way. There was our city, with its many hundred towers and hanging gardens, and its thousand fantastic roofs. It was my home! Home, even if poor, on earth is beloved; but who would not be proud of such a home, seeing its grandeur now, as, for a year or more, I had only looked on earthly cities? Some had reminded me feebly of my fair home; for instance, Prague, with its mingled eastern and western architecture, and Edinburgh, and, in some sense, Paris.
I made first for the overhanging mountain, and there rested my car on a ledge, and ​then, leaving it there in a quiet spot, flew over the city. As in duty bound, I made first for the temple of my ward (for we have seven wards and seven great temples in our city). Its lovely towers looked vast indeed by contrast with anything I had seen on earth, and when I flew through the great circular door (like a rose window in the western gable), how glorious it appeared! I had of late seen Cologne Cathedral and St. Peter's at Rome, and York and Durham. How poor they all seemed in comparison with the church of our ward! There are three things in which we have an immeasurable advantage over men. We have immortality, for the powers of death have been conquered in us for ages, and so we need not waste our powers in the struggle how to live. We have had perfect peace, without a possibility of war, for thousands of years. We have a devotion to offer the vast resources in our power to the service of religion. So the poorest church of the smallest and most insignificant city in our world is grander than the finest cathedral or palace upon earth. Our powers are immeasurably vaster than those of man. Yet you might do much if you had no war, and were to concentrate your powers on the arts of peace.
​As I entered, the service, of course, was going on: it has not ceased for ages. Four choirs of winged choristers were raising their pæans of joy and thankfulness. Night and day the song is unceasing. As I rested on the capital of a pillar and looked on the four choirs, in their robes of blue and red, green and purple, and heard the heavenly sound of many voices rolling through the lofty arches, soft and sweet and entrancing—now one choir, now another, now two combined, now all four together in one great chorus—I felt enthralled as I never felt before. "How wonderful is our world; how thankful am I to God for his love in placing me here! " So saying, I sank down gently on the pavement, and prostrated myself, adoring. None seemed to heed me, though many saw and knew me. The worship went on, and the delicious song still swept over me, and through the aisles and vaults, until the time when the thunder-signal marked the change in the course, and four other choirs, with solemn music, entered their places to continue the next watch of ceaseless adoration. Then I arose, and, going out with the choir, as I reached the garden, was met by many kindly greetings.
"Dear brother, we are glad to see you home ​and happy. Tell us of the earth," was said by many of my comrades.
"Let me go to the prince of the ward, and then I shall tell you all. I have a thousand things to say, only I know not how to begin. Only now I shall say how much I love my home, and how glad you all should be of dwelling where you are."
So saying, followed by a friendly crowd, with many loving greetings, I came to the palace of the ward. Here, in the outer court, sat our prince upon his crystal throne, ready to welcome me, for many had seen me flying over the city, but none had spoken to me till I had finished my worship of the Most High.
"Welcome, Aleriel, he said, home! God has preserved you in a long and perilous voyage, such as none, save the princes of the sun and the great spirit-messengers of the Highest, have yet taken. Welcome, tell us of your journey!"
"I have so many thoughts, I know not how to tell them. It is a sad, a sorrowful world, that 'beautiful planet of the single satellite,' our twin sister in space. There is sin there, and death, and suffering, and disease, and war. I have seen all—all—much that is sad and terrible, such as we never even think of in our happy world. And yet it is beautiful. What God has made is beautiful, and that world is ​beautiful; not quite as lovely as ours, yet very lovely sometimes, and it is larger than ours; it has greater oceans and vaster continents. It is in some way fitted for happiness, and perhaps there is a something nobler and grander in man than in us; but in his earth-life man has no hope of perfect happiness, though on earth he is often fitted for perfect happiness in another life, when the penalty of sin has been paid, and Redemption been accepted."
"We ought, Aleriel, to be thankful to the Most High that we have been placed here, and not on that beautiful planet, our sister world in creation. It seems you have seen much sorrow and evil that you never would have known of had you not ventured over the abyss of space."
At my request, the prince sent for my car from its mountain ledge. It was soon brought down to me, and placed in the palace hall. Here I opened the larger case in which I had placed the packets of my earth-curiosities.
First and chief there were closely packed some thousands of photographs of earth's chief cities, and scenes from almost every land. This alone would have given months of study. But I had other things—some earth-flowers, pressed and dried, a phial of ocean and of ​fresh water for our naturalists to study; a pocket Bible, several specimens of earth's rocks, a few coins of different states, some pieces of polished woods. No animal or even insect could have lived in the airless realms of ether through which I had passed, so all I brought was dead—dead as the meteoric stones, the sole link in matter between the earth and other systems in space. Living beings only of the highest order and the most vigorous vitality can pass from world to world and live. So nothing earthly could exist even a hundred miles away from its own orb—man is a prisoner to his world.
These curiosities excited much attention and interest. Thousands were the questions I had to answer. Everything was examined, not merely with the naked eye, but with the microscopes that most of our citizens are wont to carry with them to investigate and admire any of the beauties of nature that attract their attention. Small shreds of many of the substances were taken by our chemists for analysis, to be quite sure that the elements of matter in our sister-world would be exactly the same as we had in our planet.
At once the news spread by electricity all over our world, and strangers from many ​far-off cities came to converse with me, and to see the earth-specimens I had brought. It was, indeed, with us just as it would be with you, if any one from another planet had come to earth with curiosities belonging to that distant world; what an excitement there would be in every intelligent society, in every city, in every university, at every observatory! But, alas, what wrangling would ensue! Not so with us. All knew I spoke only the truth, and that these things were really the product of our sister- world—the earth.