stretching out her hands as if for pardon. He smiled at her, consoling
her: and then his face changed and grew very grave.
‘Little sister,’ he said, ‘you have come not to see happiness but pain.
We want no explanation of the joy, for that flows freely from the heart
of the Father and all is clear between us and Him; but that which you
desire to know is why trouble should be. Therefore you must think of Him
and be strong, for here is what will rend your heart.’
The little Pilgrim was seized once more with mortal fear. ‘O friend,’
she cried, ‘I have done with pain. Must I go and see others suffering
and do nothing for them?’
‘If anything comes into your heart to do or say, it will be well for
them,’ the Sage replied: and he took her by the hand and led her into a
house she knew. She began to know them all now as her vision became
accustomed to the atmosphere of the earth. She perceived that the sun
was shining though it had appeared so dim, and that it was a clear
summer morning, very early, with still the colours of the dawn in the
east. When she went indoors at first she saw nothing, for the room was
darkened, the windows all closed, and a miserable watch light only
burning. In the bed there lay a child whom she knew. She knew them
all--the mother at the bedside, the father near the door, even the nurse
who was flitting about disturbing the silence. Her heart gave a great
throb when she recognised them all, and though she had been glad for the
first moment to think that she had come just in time to give welcome to
a little brother stepping out of earth into the better country, a shadow
of trouble and pain enveloped her when she saw the others and remembered
and knew. For he was their beloved child--on all the earth there was
nothing they held so dear; they would have given up their home and all
they possessed, and become poor and homeless and wanderers, with joy, if
God, as they said, would have but spared their child. She saw into
their hearts and read all this there, and knowing them she knew it
without even that insight. Everything they would have given up and
rejoiced, if but they might have kept him. And there he lay, and was
about to die. The little Pilgrim forgot all but the pity of it, and
their hearts that were breaking, and the vacant place that was soon to
be. She cried out aloud upon the Father with a great cry. She forgot
that it was a grief to Him in His great glory to refuse.
There came no reply: but the room grew light as with a reflection out of
heaven, and the child in the bed, who had been moving restlessly in the
weariness of ending life, turned his head towards her, and his eyes
opened wide and he saw her where she stood. He cried out, ‘Look! mother,
mother!’ The mother, who was on her knees by the bedside, lifted her
head and cried, ‘What is it, what is it, O my darling?’ and the father,
who had turned away his face not to see the child die, came nearer to
the bed, hoping they knew not what. Their faces were paler than the face
of the dying, upon which there was light; but no light came to them out
of the hidden heaven. ‘Look! she has come for me,’ he said; but his
voice was so weak they could not hear him, nor take any comfort. At this
the little Pilgrim put out her arms to him, forgetting in her joy the
poor people who were mourning, and cried out, ‘Oh, but I must go with
him. I must take him home!’ For this was her own work, and she thought
of her wonderings and her questions no more.
Some one touched her on the shoulder and she looked round, and behind
her was a great company of the dear children from the better country,
whom the Father had sent, and not her--lest he should grieve for those
he had left behind--to come for the child and show him the way. She
paused for a moment, scarcely willing to give him up: but then her
companion touched her and pointed to the other side. Ah, that was
different! The mother lay by the side of the bed, her face turned only
to the little white body which her child had dropped from him as he came
out of his sickness--her eyes wild with misery, without tears; her
feverish mouth open, but no cry in it. The sword of the angel had gone
through and through her. She did not even writhe upon it, but lay
motionless, cut down, dumb with anguish. The father had turned round
again and leant his head upon the wall. All was over! All over! The love
and the hope of a dozen lovely years, the little sweet companion, the
daily joy, the future trust--all--over--as if a child had never been
born. Then there rose in the stillness a great and exceeding bitter cry,
‘God!’ that was all, pealing up to heaven, to the Father, whom they
could not see in their anguish, accusing Him, reproaching Him who had
done it. Was He their enemy that He had done it? No man was ever so
wicked, ever so cruel, but he would have spared them their boy--taken
everything and spared them their boy; but God, God! The little Pilgrim
stood by and wept. She could do nothing but weep, weep, her heart aching
with the pity and the anguish. How were they to be told that it was not
God, but the Father--that God was only His common name, His name in law,
and that He was the Father. This was all she could think of; she had not
a word to say. And the boy had shaken his little bright soul out of the
sickness and the weakness with such a look of delight! He knew in a
moment? but they--oh when, when would they know?
Presently she sat outside in the soft breathing airs and little morning
breezes, and dried her aching eyes. And the Sage who was her companion
soothed her with kind words. ‘I said you would feel the thorns as you
passed,’ he said. ‘We cannot be free of them, we who are of mankind.’
‘But oh,’ she cried amid her tears, ‘why--why? The air of the earth is
in my eyes, I cannot see. Oh what pain it is, what misery! Was it
because they loved him too much, and that he drew their hearts away?’
The Sage only shook his head at her, smiling. ‘Can one love too much?’
he said.
‘O brother, it is very hard to live and to see another---- I am confused
in my mind,’ said the little Pilgrim, putting her hand to her eyes. ‘The
tears of those that weep have got into my soul. To live and see another
die--that was what I was saying; but the child lives like you and me.
Tell me, for I am confused in my mind.’
‘Listen!’ said the Sage; and when she listened she heard the sound of
the children going back with a great murmur and ringing of pleasant
voices like silver bells in the air, and among them the voice of the
child asking a thousand questions, calling them by their names. The two
pilgrims listened and laughed to each other for love at the sound of the
children. ‘Is it for the little brother that you are troubled?’ the Sage
said in her ear.
Then she was ashamed, and turned from the joyful sounds that were
ascending ever higher and higher, to the little house that stood below
with all its windows closed upon the light. It was wrapped in darkness
though the sun was shining, the windows closed as if they never would
open more, and the people within turning their faces to the wall,
covering their eyes that they might not see the light of day. ‘O
miserable day!’ they were saying, ‘O dark hour!--O life that will never
smile again!’ She sat between earth and heaven, her eyes smiling, but
her mouth beginning to quiver once more. ‘Is it to raise their thoughts
and their hearts?’ she said.
‘Little sister,’ said he, ‘when the Father speaks to you, it is not for
me nor for another that He speaks. And what He says to you is----’
‘Ah,’ said the little Pilgrim with joy, ‘it is for myself, myself alone!
As if I were a great angel; as if I were a saint. It drops into my heart
like the dew. It is what I need, not for you though I love you, but for
me only. It is my secret between me and Him.’
Her companion bowed his head. ‘It is so. And thus has He spoken to the
little child. But what He said or why He said it, is not for you or me
to know. It is His secret; it is between the little one and his Father.
Who can interfere between these two? Many and many are there born on
earth whose work and whose life are ordained elsewhere; for there is no
way of entrance into the race of man which is the nature of the Lord,
but by the gates of birth: and the work which the Father has to do is so
great and manifold that there are multitudes who do but pass through
those gates to ascend to their work elsewhere. But the Father alone
knows whom He has chosen. It is between the child and Him. It is their
secret; it is as you have said.’
The little Pilgrim was silent for a moment, but then turned her head
from the bright shining of the skies and the voices of the children
which floated farther and farther off, and looked at the house in which
there was sorrow and despair. She pointed towards it, and looked at him
who was her instructor and had come to show her how these things were.
‘They are to blame,’ he said, ‘but none will blame them. The little life
is hard. The Father, though He is very near, seems far off: and
sometimes even His word is as a dream. It is to them as if they had
lost their child. Can you not remember?--that was what we said. We have
lost----’
Then the little Pilgrim musing began to smile, but wept again as she
thought of the father and the mother. ‘If we were to go,’ she said,
‘hand in hand, you and I, and tell them that the Father had need of him:
that it was not for the little life but for the great and beautiful
world above that the child was born; and that he had got great promotion
and was gone with the princes and the angels according as was ordained?
And why should they mourn? Let us go and tell them----’
He shook his head. ‘They could not see us; they would not know us; we
should be to them as dreams. If they do not take comfort from our Lord,
how could they take comfort from you and me? We could not bring them
back their child. They want their child, not only to know that all is
well with him,--for they know that all is well with him,--but what they
want is their child. They are to blame, but who shall blame them? Not
any one that is born of woman. How can we tell them what is the Father’s
secret and the child’s?’
‘And yet we could tell them why it must be so?’ said the little Pilgrim.
‘For they prayed and besought the Lord. O brother, I have no
understanding. For the Lord said, “Ask, and it shall be given you”; and
they asked: yet they are refused.’
‘Little sister, the Father must judge between His children: and he must
first be heard who is most concerned. While they were praying, the
Father and the child talked together and said what we know not: but this
we know that his heart was satisfied with that which was said to him.
Must not the Father do what is best for the child He loves, whatever the
other children may say? Nay, did not our own fathers do this on earth,
and we submitted to them: how much more He who sees all?’
The little Pilgrim stole softly from his side when he had done speaking
and went back into the darkened house, and saw the mother where she sat
weeping and refusing to be comforted, in her sorrow perceiving not
heaven nor any consolation, nor understanding that her child had gone
joyfully to his Father and her Father, as his soul had required, and as
the Lord had willed. Yet though she had not joy but only anguish in her
faith, and though her eyes were darkened that she could not see, yet the
woman ceased not to call upon God, God, and to hold by Him who had
smitten her. And the father of the child had gone into his chamber and
shut the door, and sat dumb, opening not his mouth, thinking upon his
delightsome boy, and how they had walked together and talked together,
and should do so again nevermore. And in their hearts they reproached
their God, the giver of all, and accused the Lord to His face, as if He
had deceived them: yet clung to Him still, weeping and upbraiding, and
would not let Him go. The little Pilgrim wept too, and said many things
to them which they could not hear. But when she saw that though they
were in darkness and misery God was in all their thoughts, she bethought
herself suddenly of what the poet had said in the celestial city, and of
the songs he sang, which were a wonder to the Angels and Powers, of the
little life and the sorrowful earth, where men endured all things, yet
overcame by the name of the Lord. When this came into her mind she rose
up again softly with a sacred awe, and wept not, but did them reverence;
for without any light or guidance in their anguish they yet wavered not,
died not, but endured, and in the end would overcome. It seemed to her
that she saw the great beautiful angels looking on, the great souls that
are called to love and to serve, but not to suffer like the little
brethren of the earth; and that among the princes of heaven there was
reverence and awe, and even envy of those who thus had their garments
bathed in blood, and suffered loss and pain and misery, yet never
abandoned their life and the work that had been given them to do.
As she came forth again comforted, she found the Sage standing with his
face lifted to heaven, smiling still at the sound, though faint and
distant, of the children all calling to each other and shouting together
as they reached the gate. ‘Oh hush,’ she said, ‘let not the mother hear
them! for it will make her heart more bitter to think she can never hear
again her child’s voice.’
‘But it is her child’s voice,’ he said: then very gently, ‘They are to
blame: but no one will be found to blame them either in earth or
heaven.’
The earth pilgrims went far after this, yet more softly than when they
first left their beautiful country: for then the little Pilgrim had
been glad, believing that as all had been made clear to her in her own
life, so that all that concerned the life of man should be made clear;
but this was more hard and encompassed with pain and darkness, as that
which is in the doing is always more hard to understand than that which
is accomplished. And she learned now what she had not understood, though
her companion warned her, how sharp are those thorns of earth that
pierce the wayfarer’s foot, and that those who come back cannot help but
suffer because of love and fellow-feeling. And she learned that though
she could smile and give thanks to the Father in the recollection of her
own griefs that were past, yet those that are present are too poignant,
and to look upon others in their hour of darkness makes His ways more
hard to comprehend than even when the sorrow is your own.
While she mused thus there was suddenly revealed to her another sight.
They had gone far before they came to this new scene. Night had crept
over the skies all gray and dark, and the sea came in with a whisper
which sounded to some like the hush of peace, and to some like the voice
of sorrow and moaning, and to some was but the monotony of endless
recurrence, in which was no soul. The skies were dark overhead, but
opened with a clear shining of light which had no colour, towards the
west, for the sun had long gone down and it was night. The two
travellers perceived a woman who came out of a house all lit with lamps
and firelight, and took the lonely path towards the sea. And the little
Pilgrim knew her as she had known the father and mother in the darkened
house, and would have joined her with a cry of pleasure: but she
remembered that the friend could not see her or hear her, being wrapped
still in the mortal body, and in a close enveloping mantle of thoughts
and cares. The Sage made her a sign to follow, and these two tender
companions accompanied her who saw them not, walking darkling by the
silent way. The heart of the woman was heavy in her breast; it was so
sore by reason of trouble, and for all the bitter wounds of the past,
and all the fears that beset her life to come, that she walked, not
weeping because of being beyond tears, but as it were bleeding, her
thoughts being in her little way like those of His upon whose brow there
once stood drops as it were of blood; and out of her heart there came a
moaning which was without words. If words had been possible, they would
have been as His also, who said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.’ For those who had wounded her were those whom in all
the world she loved most dear: and the quivering of anguish was in her
as she walked, seeking the darkness and the silence, and to hide
herself, if that might be, from her own thoughts. She went along the
lonely path with the stinging of her wounds so keen and sharp that all
her body and soul were as one pain. Greater grief hath no man than
this, to be slain and tortured by those whom he loves. When her soul
could speak, this was what it said: ‘Father, forgive them. Father, save
them.’ She had no strength for more.
This the heavenly pilgrims saw, for they stood by her as in their own
country, where every thought is clear, and saw her heart. But as they
followed her and looked into her soul--with their hearts, which were
human too, wrung at the sight of hers in its anguish--there suddenly
became visible before them a strange sight such as they had never seen
before. It was like the rising of the sun, but it was not the sun.
Suddenly into the heart upon which they looked there came a great
silence and calm. There was nothing said that even they could hear, nor
done that they could see; but for a moment the throbbing was stilled,
and the anguish calmed, and there came a great peace. The woman in whom
this wonder was wrought was astonished, as they were. She gave a low cry
in the darkness for wonder that the pain had gone from her in an
instant, in the twinkling of an eye. There was no promise made to her
that her prayer would be granted, and no new light given to guide her
for the time to come. But her pain was taken away. She stood hushed and
lifted her eyes, and the gray of the sea, and the low cloud that was
like a canopy above, and the lightening of colourless light towards the
west, entered with their great quiet into her heart. ‘Is this the peace
that passeth all understanding?’ she said to herself, confused with the
sudden calm. In all her life it had never so happened to her before--to
be healed of her grievous wounds, yet without cause; and while no change
was wrought, yet to be put to rest.
‘It is our Brother,’ said the little Pilgrim, shedding tears of joy. ‘It
is the secret of the Lord,’ said the Sage; but not even they had seen
Him passing by.
They walked with her softly in the silence, in the sound of the sea,
till the wonder in her was hushed like the pain, and talked with her
though she knew it not. For very soon questions arose in her heart. ‘And
oh,’ she said, ‘is this the Lord’s reply?’ with thankfulness and awe;
but because she was human, and knew so little, and was full of
impatience, ‘Oh, and is this _all_?’ was what she next said, ‘I asked
for _them_, and Thou hast given to _me_----’ then the voice of her
heart grew louder, and she cried, with the sound of the pain coming
back, ‘I ask one thing, and Thou givest another. I asked no blessing for
me. I asked for them, my Lord, my God! Give it to them--to them!’ with
disappointment rising in her heart.
The little Pilgrim laid her hand upon the woman’s arm--for she was
afraid lest our Lord might be displeased, forgetting (for she was still
imperfect) that He sees all that is in the soul, and understands and
takes no offence--and said quickly, ‘Oh, be not afraid; He will save
them too. The blessing will come for them too.’
‘At His own time,’ said the Sage, ‘and in His own way.’
These thoughts rose in the woman’s soul. She did not know that they were
said to her, nor who said them, but accepted them as if they had come
from her own thoughts. For she said to herself, ‘This is what is meant
by the answer of prayer. It is not what we ask; yet what I ask is
according to Thy will, my Lord. It is not riches, nor honours, nor
beauty, nor health, nor long life, nor anything of this world. If I have
been impatient, this is my punishment--that the Lord has thought, not of
them, but of me. But I can bear all, O my Lord! that and a thousand
times more--if Thou wilt but think of them and not of me!’
Nevertheless she returned to her home stilled and comforted; for though
her trouble returned to her and was not changed, yet for a moment it had
been lifted from her, and the peace which passeth all understanding had
entered her heart.
‘But why, then,’ said the little Pilgrim to her companion, when the
friend was gone, ‘why will not the Father give to her what she asks? for
I know what it is; it is that those whom she loves should love Him and
serve Him: and that is His will too; for He would have all love Him, He
who loves all.’
‘Little sister,’ said her companion, ‘you asked me why He did not let
the child remain upon the earth.’
‘Ah, but that is different,’ she cried; ‘oh, it is different! When you
said that the secret was between the child and the Father I knew that it
was so; for it is just that the Father should consider us first one by
one, and do for us what is best. But it is always best to serve Him: it
is best to love Him: it is best to give up all the world and cleave to
Him, and follow wherever He goes. No man can say otherwise than this,
that to follow the Lord and serve Him, that is well for all, and always
the best!’
She spoke so hotly and hastily that her companion could find no room for
reply. But he was in no haste; he waited till she had said what was in
her heart. Then he replied, ‘If it were even so; if the Father heard all
prayers, and put forth His hand and forced those who were far off to
come near----’
The little Pilgrim looked up with horror in her face, as if he had
blasphemed, and said, ‘Forced! not so--not so.’
‘Yet it must be so,’ he said, ‘if it is against their desire and will.’
‘Oh, not so--not so!’ she cried, ‘but that He should change their
hearts.’
‘Yet that too against their will,’ he said.
The little Pilgrim paused upon the way, and her heart rose against her
companion, who spoke things so hard to be received, and that seemed to
dishonour the work of the Lord. But she remembered that it could not be
so, and paused before she spoke, and looked up at him with eyes that
were full of wonder and almost of fear. ‘Then must they perish?’ she
said, ‘and must her heart break?’ and her voice sank low for pity and
sorrow. Though she was herself among the blessed, yet the thorns and
briers of the earth caught at her garments and pierced her tender feet.
‘Little sister,’ said the Sage, ‘to us who are born of the earth it is
hard to remember that the child belongs not first to the parents, nor
the husband to the wife, nor the wife to the husband, but that all are
the children of the Father. And He is just; He will not neglect the
little one because of those prayers which the father and the mother pour
forth to Him, although they cry with anguish and with tears. Nor will He
break His great law and violate the nature He has made, and compel His
own child to what it wills not and loves not. The woman is comforted in
the breaking of her heart:--but those whom she loves, are not they also
the children of the Father who loves them more than she does? And each
is to Him as if there were not another in the world. Nor is there any
other in the world: for none can come between the Father and the child.’
A smile came upon the little Pilgrim’s face, yet she trembled. ‘It is
dim before me,’ she said, ‘and I cannot see clearly. Oh, if the time
would but hasten that our Lord might come, and all struggles be ended,
and the darkness vanish away!’
‘He will come when all things are ready,’ said the Sage; and as they
went upon their way he showed her other sights, and the mysteries of the
heart of man, and the great patience of our Lord.