It was not very long after the children learned to look away from earth
to the blest abode beyond the skies, when Lolly began to droop and grow
weak and listless; and, although her parents and Maddie thought it was
but a trifling illness, she herself felt that her Father was about to
call her home. She was not afraid to die; and, when she grew so languid
that her little feet lost the power to take her to the Sunday-school,
Miss Mason and Alice and the kind minister came often to talk to her of
her approaching joy.
There was one beautiful little story that the minister used to tell her
over and over again, she liked it so much. I do not know whether he made
it, or whether he got it from some book; but I want to tell it to you,
for I like it as well as Lolly did. It is this:--"There was a bright,
beautiful butterfly that was about to die. She had laid her eggs on a
cabbage-leaf in the garden; and, as she thought of her children, she said
to a caterpillar that was crawling upon the leaf, 'I am going to die. I
feel my strength fast failing, and I want you to take care of my little
ones.'
"The caterpillar promised, and the butterfly folded her wings and
breathed her last.
"Then the caterpillar did not know what to do. She wanted some
instruction with regard to her charge: so she thought she would ask a
lark, that went soaring up into the blue sky. At first the lark was
silent, and plumed his wings and went up--up--up, as if to gather wisdom
for his answer; and then he came, singing, down and said,--
"'I'll tell you something about your charge; but you won't believe me.
These young butterflies that you look for will become caterpillars.'
"'Poh! poh!' said the old caterpillar. 'I don't believe a word of it.'
"'No; I told you you wouldn't. And what do you suppose they will live
upon?' said the lark.
"'Why, the dew and the sweet honey from the flowers, to be sure,' replied
the caterpillar. 'That is what all butterflies live on.'
"'They won't, indeed,' said the lark. 'They will eat cabbage-leaves.'
And he went soaring away again into the clear heavens.
"Presently, back he came and said to the caterpillar,--
"'I'll tell you something stranger still about yourself. You'll be a
beautiful butterfly.'
"The caterpillar laughed at the idea; but, as she turned around and saw
the eggs upon the leaf all hatched into little crawling caterpillars, she
was forced to believe what the lark had said concerning herself; and she
went about as happy as could be, telling everybody what a glorious change
would come to her after she had folded herself in her close chrysalis."
The minister told Lolly that this caterpillar in the chrysalis was like
us worms of the dust when lying in the narrow grave enshrouded in our
death-robes; and that, like as the caterpillar bursts his darksome bonds
and soars away upon butterfly pinions, so shall we come forth from the
tomb on the resurrection day, and with angel-wings mount upward to the
world of light and peace. Then he read a few verses to her from that
beautiful account of the rising from the dead, in the fifteenth chapter
of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.
Lolly would lie upon her sick-bed and fasten her earnest eyes upon him as
he read and as he spoke so sweetly to her of the other life; and then she
would look away through the open window to the heavens above, and seem to
see the face of her Father, who was drawing her slowly to himself.