It was not long before the watchful eye of the mother observed a little
change creeping over the boy--a little more impatience with Lenichen, a
little more variableness of temper, sometimes dancing exultingly home
as if he were scarcely treading the common earth, sometimes returning
with a depression which made the simple work and pleasures of the home
seem dull and wearisome.
So it went on until the joyful Easter-tide was drawing near. On Palm
Sunday there was to be a procession of the children.
As the mother was smoothing out the golden locks which fell like
sunbeams on the white vestments, she said: "It is a bright day for thee
and me, my son. I shall feel as if we were all in the dear old
Jerusalem itself, and my darling had gathered his palms on Olivet
itself, and the very eyes of the blessed Lord himself were on thee, and
His ears listening to thee crying out thy hosannas, and His dear voice
speaking of thee and through thee, 'Suffer the little children to come
unto me.'"
But Gottlieb looked grave and rather troubled.
"So few seem thinking just of His listening," he said, doubtfully.
"There are the choir-master and the dean and chapter, and the other
choristers, and the Cistercians, and the mothers of the other
choristers, who wish them to sing best."
She took his hand. "So there were in that old Jerusalem," she said.
"The Pharisees, who wanted to stop the children's singing, and even the
dear Disciples, who often thought they might be troublesome to the
Master. But the little ones sang for Him, and He knew, and was pleased.
And that is all we have to think of now."
He kissed her, and went away with a lightened brow.
Many of the neighbors came in that afternoon to congratulate Magdalis
on her boy--his face, his voice, his gentle ways.
"And then he sings with such feeling," said one. "One sees it is in his
heart."
But in the evening Gottlieb came home very sad and desponding. For some
time he said nothing, and then, with a brave effort to restrain his
tears, he murmured:
"Oh, mother! I am afraid it will soon be over. I heard one of the
priests say he thought they had a new chorister at the Cistercians
whose voice is as good as mine. So that the archduchess may not like
our choir best, after all."
The mother said nothing for a moment, and then she said:
"Whose praise and love will the boy at the Cistercian convent sing,
Gottlieb, if he has such a lovely voice?"
"God's!--the dear Heavenly Father and the Savior!" he said, reverently.
"And you, my own? Will another little voice on earth prevent His
hearing you? Do the thousands of thousands always singing to Him above
prevent His hearing you? And what would the world do if the only voice
worth listening to were thine? It cannot be heard beyond one church, or
one street. And the good Lord has ten thousand churches, and cities
full of people who want to hear."
"But thou, mother! Thou and Lenichen, and the bread!"
"It was the raven that brought the bread," she said, smiling; "and thou
art not even a raven,--only a little child to pick up the bread the
raven brought."
He sat silent a few minutes, and then the terrible cloud of self and
pride dropped off from his heart like a death-shroud, and he threw
himself into her arms.
"Oh, mother, I see it all!" he said. "I am free again. I have only to
sing to the blessed Lord of all, quite sure He listens, to Him alone,
and to all else as just a little one of the all He loves."
And after the evening meal, and a game with Lenichen, the boy crept out
to the cathedral to say his prayers in one of the little chapels, and
to thank God.
He knelt in the Lady chapel before the image of the infant Christ on
the mother's knees.
And as he knelt there, it came into his heart that all the next Week
was Passion week, "the still week," and would be silent; and the tears
filled his eyes to remember how little he had enjoyed singing that day.
"How glad the little children of Jerusalem must have been," he thought,
"that they sang to Jesus when they could. I suppose they never could
again; for the next Friday He was dead. Oh, suppose He never let me
sing to Him again!"
[Illustration: "'LOOK AT ME,' THE OLD MAN SAID."]
And tears and repressed sobs came fast at the thought, and he murmured
aloud, thinking no one was near:
"Dear Savior, only let me sing once more here in church to you, and I
will think of no one but you; not of the boys who laugh at me, nor the
people who praise me, nor the Cistercians, nor the archduchess, nor
even the dear choir-master, but only of you, of you, and perhaps of
mother and Lenichen. I could not help that, and you would not mind it.
You and they love me so much more than any one, and I love you really
so much more than all besides. Only believe it, and try me once more."
As he finished, in his earnestness, the child spoke quite loud, and
from a dark corner in the shadow of a pillar suddenly arose a very old
man in a black monk's robe, with snow-white hair, and drew close to
him, and laid his hand on his shoulder and said:
"Fear not, my son. I have a message for thee."
At first, Gottlieb was much frightened, and then, when he heard the
kind, tremulous old voice, and saw the lovely, tender smile on the
wrinkled, pallid old face, he thought God must really have sent him an
angel at last, though certainly not because he was good.
"Look around on these lofty arches, and clustered columns, and the long
aisles, and the shrines of saints, and the carved wreaths of flowers
and fruits, and the glorious altar! Are these wonderful to thee?
Couldst thou have thought of them, or built them?"
"I could as easily have made the stars, or the forests!" said the
child.
"Then look at me," the old man said, with a gentle smile on his
venerable face, "a poor worn-out old man, whom no one knows. This
beautiful house was in my heart before a stone of it was reared. God
put it in my heart. I planned it all. I remember this place a heap of
poor cottages as small as thine, and now it is a glorious house of
God. And I was what they called the master-builder. Yet no man knows
me, or says, 'Look at him!' They look at the cathedral, God's house;
and that makes me glad in my inmost soul. I prayed that I might be
nothing, and all the glory be His; and He has granted my prayer. And I
am as little and as free in this house which I built as in His own
forests, or under His own stars; for it is His only, as they are His.
And I am nothing but His own little child, as thou art. And He has my
hand and thine in His, and will not let us go."
The child looked up, nearly certain now that it must be an angel. To
have lived longer than the cathedral seemed like living when the
morning stars were made, and all the angels shouted for joy.
"Then God will let me sing here next Easter!" he said, looking
confidingly in the old man's face.
"Thou shalt sing, and I shall see, and I shall hear thee, but thou wilt
not hear or see me!" said the old man, taking both the dimpled hands in
one of his. "And the blessed Lord will listen, as to the little
children in Jerusalem of old. And we shall be His dear, happy children
for evermore."
Gottlieb went home and told his mother. And they both agreed, that if
not an angel, the old man was as good as an angel, and was certainly a
messenger of God.
To have been the master-builder of the cathedral of which it was
Magdalis's glory and pride that her husband had carved a few of the
stones!
The master-builder of the cathedral, yet finding his joy and glory in
being a little child of God!