(Continued from page 125.)
Her life seemed to be the same in sleep. Often at midnight, by the light
of the moon shining in upon her little bed beside theirs, her parents
leant over her face, diviner in dreams, and wept as she wept, her lips
all the while murmuring, in broken sentences of prayer, the name of Him
who died for us all. But plenteous as were his penitential
tears--penitential, in the holy humbleness of her stainless spirit, over
thoughts that had never left a dimming breath on its purity, yet that
seemed, in those strange visitings, to be haunting her as the shadows of
sins--soon were they all dried up in the lustre of her returning smiles!
Waking, her voice in the kirk was the sweetest among many sweet, as all
the young singers, and she the youngest far, sat together by themselves,
and within the congregational music of the psalm, uplifted a silvery
strain that sounded like the very spirit of the whole, even like angelic
harmony blent with a mortal song. But sleeping, still more sweetly sang
the "Holy Child;" and then, too, in some diviner inspiration than ever
was granted to it while awake, her soul composed its own hymns, and set
the simple scriptural words to its own mysterious music--the tunes she
loved best gliding into one another, without once ever marring the
melody, with pathetic touches interposed never heard before, and never
more, to be renewed! For each dream had its own breathing, and
many-visioned did then seem to be the sinless creature's sleep!
The love that was borne for her, all over the hill-region and beyond its
circling clouds, was almost such as mortal creatures might be thought to
feel for some existence that had visibly come from heaven! Yet all who
looked on her saw that she, like themselves, was mortal; and many an eye
was wet, the heart wist not why, to hear such wisdom falling from her
lips; for dimly did it prognosticate, that as short as bright would be
her walk from the cradle to the grave. And thus for the "Holy Child" was
their love elevated by awe, and saddened by pity--and as by herself she
passed pensively by their dwellings, the same eyes that smiled on her
presence, on her disappearance wept!
Not in vain for others--and for herself, oh! what great gain!--for these
few years on earth, did that pure spirit ponder on the word of God!
Other children became pious from their delight in her piety---for she
was simple as the simplest among them all, and walked with them hand in
hand, nor spurned companionship with any one that was good. But all grew
good by being with her---and parents had but to whisper her name--and in
a moment the passionate sob was hushed---the lowering brow lighted--and
the household in peace. Older hearts owned the power of the piety, so
far surpassing their thoughts; and time-hardened sinners, it is said,
when looking and listening to the "Holy Child," knew the errors of their
ways, and returned to the right path, as at a voice from heaven.
Bright was her seventh summer--the brightest, so the aged said, that had
ever, in man's memory, shone over Scotland. One long, still, sunny, blue
day followed another; and in the rainless weather, though the dews kept
green the hills, the song of the streams was low. But paler and paler,
in sunlight and moonlight, became the sweet face that had been always
pale; and the voice that had been always something mournful, breathed
lower and sadder still from the too perfect whiteness of her breast. No
need--no fear---to tell her thai she was about to die! Sweet whispers
had sung it to her in her sleep, and waking she knew it in the look of
the piteous skies. But she spoke not to her parents of death more than
she had often done--and never of her own. Only she seemed to love them
with a more exceeding love--and was readier, even sometimes when no one
was speaking, with a few drops of tears. Sometimes she disappeared--nor,
when sought for, was found in the woods about the hut. And one day that
mystery was cleared; for a shepherd saw her sitting by herself on a
grassy mound in a nook of the small, solitary kirkyard, miles off among
the hills, so lost in reading the Bible, that shadow or sound of his
feet awoke her not; and, ignorant of his presence, she knelt down and
prayed--for awhile weeping bitterly--but soon comforted by a heavenly
calm--that her sins might be forgiven her!
One Sabbath evening, soon after, as she was sitting beside her parents,
at the door of their hut, looking first for a long while on their faces,
and then for a long while on the sky, though it was not yet the stated
hour of worship, she suddenly knelt down, and leaning on their knees,
with hands clasped more fervently than her wont, she broke forth into
tremulous singing of that hymn, which from her lips they now never heard
without unendurable tears.
"The hour of my departure's come,
I hear the voice that calls me home;
At last, O Lord! let trouble cease,
And let thy servant die in peace."
They carried her fainting to her little bed, and uttered not a word to
one another till she revived. The shock was sudden, but not unexpected,
and they knew now that the hand of death was upon her, although her eyes
soon became brighter and brighter, they thought, than they had ever been
before. But forehead, cheeks, lips, neck, and breast, were, all as
white, and, to the quivering hands that touched them, almost as cold, as
snow. Ineffable was the bliss in those radiant eyes; but the breath of
words was frozen, and that hymn was almost her last farewell. Some few
words she spake, and named the hour and day she wished to be buried.
Her lips could then just faintly return the kiss, and no more--a film
came over the now dim blue of her eyes--the father listened for her
breath--and then the mother took his place, and leaned her ear to the
unbreathing mouth, long deluding herself with its lifelike smile; but
a sudden darkness in the room, and a sudden stillness--most dreadful
both--convinced their unbelieving hearts at last--that it was death!
All the parish, it may be said, attended her funeral--for none staid
away from the kirk that Sabbath--though many a voice was unable to join
in the psalm. The little grave was soon filled up, and you hardly knew
that the turf had been disturbed beneath which she lay. The afternoon
service consisted but of a prayer--for he who ministered, had loved her
with love unspeakable--and, though an old grey-haired man, all the time
he prayed he wept. In the sobbing kirk her parents were sitting, but no
one looked at them--and when the congregation rose to go, there they
remained sitting--and an hour afterwards, came out again into the open
air--and parting with their pastor at the gate, walked away to their
hut, overshadowed with the blessing of a thousand prayers!
And did her parents, soon after she was buried, die of broken hearts,
or pine away disconsolately to their graves?--Think not that they, who
were Christians indeed, could be guilty of such ingratitude. "The Lord
giveth, and the Lord taketh away--blessed be the name of the Lord!" were
the first words they had spoken by that bedside; during many, many long
years of weal or woe, duly every morning and night, these same blessed
words did they utter when on their knees together in prayer--and many
a thousand times besides, when they were apart, she in her silent hut,
and he on the hill--neither of them unhappy in their solitude, though
never again, perhaps, was his countenance so cheerful as of yore--and
though often suddenly amidst mirth or sunshine, her eyes were seen
to overflow! Happy had they been--as we mortal beings ever can be
happy--during many pleasant years of wedded life before she had been
born. And happy were they--on to the verge of old age--after she had
here ceased to be! Their Bible had indeed been an idle book--the Bible
that belonged to "the Holy Child,"--and idle all their kirk-goings with
"the Holy Child," through the Sabbath-calm--had those intermediate seven
years not left a power of bliss behind them triumphant over death and
the grave!
_Blackwood's Magazine._
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