CHAPTER I.

E-text prepared by Peter Vachuska, Chuck Greif, Josephine Paolucci, and

the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

THE RAVENS AND THE ANGELS:

With Other Stories and Parables.

by

MRS. RUNDLE CHARLES

Author of

"The Schoenberg-Cotta Family," &c. &c.

London:

T. Nelson and Sons, Paternoster Row.

Edinburgh; and New York.

1894

All Rights Reserved.

Contents.

THE RAVENS AND THE ANGELS, 7

ECCE HOMO, 33

THE COTTAGE BY THE CATHEDRAL, 59

THE UNKNOWN ARCHITECT OF THE MINSTER, 69

ONLY THE CRYPT, 74

THE SEPULCHRE AND THE SHRINE, 80

THE CATHEDRAL CHIMES, 91

THE RUINED TEMPLE, 98

THE CLOCK-BELL AND THE ALARM-BELL, 106

THE BLACK SHIP, 109

THE ISLAND AND THE MAIN LAND, 125

THE JEWEL OF THE ORDER OF THE KING'S OWN, 137

THE ACORN, 148

PASSAGES FROM THE LIFE OF A FERN, 153

THORNS AND SPINES, 158

PARABLES IN HOUSEHOLD THINGS, 161

"THINGS USING US," 166

SUNSHINE, DAYLIGHT, AND THE ROCK, 170

WANDERERS AND PILGRIMS, 172

THE ARK AND THE FORTRESS, 175

THE THREE DREAMS, 178

THOU AND I, 183

WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL, 187

THE SONG WITHOUT WORDS, 192

_The Ravens and the Angels._

A STORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

I.

In those old days, in that old city, they called the Cathedral--and they

thought it--the house of God. The Cathedral was the Father's house for

all, and therefore it was loved and honoured, and enriched with lavish

treasures of wealth and work, beyond any other father's house.

The Cathedral was the Father's house, and therefore close to its gates

might nestle the poor dwellings of the poor,--too poor to find a shelter

anywhere besides; because the central life and joy of the house of God

was the suffering, self-sacrificing Son of Man; and dearer to Him, now

and for ever, as when He was on earth, was the feeblest and most fallen

human creature He had redeemed than the most glorious heavenly

constellation of the universe He had made.

And so it happened that when Berthold, the stone-carver, died, Magdalis,

his young wife, and her two children, then scarcely more than babes,

Gottlieb and little Lenichen, were suffered to make their home in the

little wooden shed which had once sheltered a hermit, and which nestled

into the recess close to the great western gate of the Minster.

Thus, while, inside, from the lofty aisles pealed forth, night and day,

the anthems of the choir, close outside, night and day, rose also, even

more surely, to God, the sighs of a sorrowful woman and the cries of

little children whom all her toil could hardly supply with bread.

Because, He hears the feeblest wail of want, though it comes not from a

dove or even from a harmless sparrow, but a young raven. And He does

_not_ heed the sweetest anthem of the fullest choir, if it is a mere

pomp of sound. Because, while the best love of His meanest creatures is

precious to Him, the second-best of His loftiest creatures is

intolerable to Him. He heeds the shining of the drops of dew and the

rustling of the blades of grass. But from creatures who can love He

cannot accept the mere outside offering of creatures which can only make

a pleasant sound.

All this, or such as this, the young mother Magdalis taught her babes as

they could bear it.

For they needed such lessons.

The troubles of the world pressed on them very early, in the shape

little children can understand--little hands and feet nipped with frost,

hunger and darkness and cold.

Not that the citizens of that city were hypocrites, singing the praises

of God, whilst they let His dear Lazaruses vainly crave at their gates

for their crumbs. But Magdalis was very tender and timid, and a little

proud; proud not for herself, but for her husband and his babes. And she

was also feeble in health. She was an orphan herself, and she had

married, against the will of her kindred in a far-off city, the young

stone-carver, whose genius they did not appreciate, whose labour and

skill had made life so rich and bright to his family while he lived, and

whose early death had left them all so desolate.

For his dear sake, she would not complain. For herself it had been

easier to die, and for his sake she would not bring the shame of beggary

on his babes. Better for them to enter into this life maimed of

strength, she thought, by meagre food, than tainted with the taint of

beggary.

Rather, she thought, would their father himself have seen them go hungry

to bed than deserve that the fingers of other children should be pointed

scornfully at them as "the little beggars by the church door," the door

of the church in which she gloried to think there were stones of his

carving.

So she toiled on, carving for sale little devotional symbols--crosses,

and reliquaries, and lilies, and lambs--with the skill she had learnt

from him, and teaching the little ones, as best she could, to love and

work and suffer. Only teaching them, perhaps, not quite enough to

_hope_. For the lamp of hope burnt low in her own heart, and therefore

her patience, not being enough the patience of hope, lacked something of

sweetness. It never broke downward into murmurs, but it too seldom

soared upward into praise.

So it happened that one frosty night, about Christmas-tide, little

Gottlieb lay awake, very hungry, on the ledge of the wall, covered with

straw, which served him for a bed.

It had once been the hermit's bed. And very narrow Gottlieb thought it

must have been for the hermit, for more than once he had been in peril

of falling over the side, in his restless tossings. He supposed the

hermit was too good to be restless, or perhaps too good for the dear

angels to think it good for him to be hungry, as they evidently did

think it good for Gottlieb and Lenichen, or they would be not good

angels at all, to let them hunger so often, not even as kind as the

ravens which took the bread to Elijah when they were told. For the dear

Heavenly Father had certainly told the angels always to take care of

little children.

The more Gottlieb lay awake and tossed and thought, the further off the

angels seemed.

For, all the time, under the pillow lay one precious crust of bread, the

last in the house until his mother should buy the loaf to-morrow.

He had saved it from his supper in an impulse of generous pity for his

little sister, who so often awoke, crying with hunger, and woke his poor

mother, and would not let her go to sleep again.

He had thought how sweet it would be, when Lenichen awoke the next

morning, to appear suddenly, as the angels do, at the side of the bed

where she lay beside her mother, and say,--

"Dear Lenichen! see, God has sent you this bit of bread as a Christmas

gift."

For the next day was Christmas Eve.

This little plan made Gottlieb so happy that at first it felt as good to

him as eating the bread.

But the happy thought, unhappily, did not long content the hungry animal

part of him, which craved, in spite of him, to be filled; and, as the

night went on, he was sorely tempted to eat the precious crust--his very

own crust--himself.

"Perhaps it was ambitious of me, after all," he said to himself, "to

want to seem like a blessed angel, a messenger of God, to Lenichen.

Perhaps, too, it would not be true. Because, after all, it would not be

exactly God who sent the crust, but only me."

And with the suggestion, the little hands which had often involuntarily

felt for the crust, brought it to the hungry little mouth.

But at that moment it opportunely happened that his mother made a little

moan in her sleep, which half awakened Lenichen, who murmured, sleepily,

"Little mother, mother, bread!"

Whereupon, Gottlieb blushed at his own ungenerous intention, and

resolutely pushed back the crust under the pillow. And then he thought

it must certainly have been the devil who had tempted him to eat, and he

tried to pray.

He prayed the "Our Father" quite through, kneeling up softly in bed, and

lingering fondly, but not very hopefully, on the "Give us our daily

bread."

And then again he fell into rather melancholy reflections how very

often he had prayed that same prayer and had been hungry, and into

distracting speculations how the daily bread could come, until at last

he ventured to add this bit of his own to his prayers,--

"Dear, holy Lord Jesus, you were once a little child, and know what it

feels like. If Lenichen and I are not good enough for you to send us

bread by the blessed angels, do send us some by the poor ravens. We

would not mind at all, if they came from you, and were _your_ ravens,

and brought us real bread. And if it is wrong to ask, please not to be

displeased, because I am such a little child, and I don't know better,

and I want to go to sleep!"

Then Gottlieb lay down again, and turned his face to the wall, where he

knew the picture of the Infant Jesus was, and forgot his troubles and

fell asleep.

The next morning he was awaked, as so often, by Lenichen's little bleat;

and he rose triumphantly, and took his crust to her bedside.

Lenichen greeted him with a wistful little smile, and put up her face

for a kiss; but her reception of the crust was somewhat disappointing.

She wailed a little because it was "hard and dry;" and when Gottlieb

moistened it with a few drops of water, she took it too much, he felt,

as a mere common meal, a thing of course, and her natural right.

He had expected that, in some way, the hungry hours it had cost him

would have been kneaded into it, and would have made it a kind of

heavenly manna for her.

To him it had meant hunger, and heroism, and sleepless hours of

endurance. It seemed strange that to Lenichen it should seem nothing

more than a hard, dry, common crust.

But to the mother it was much more.

She understood all; and, because she understood so much, she said

little.

She only smiled, and said he looked more than ever like his father; and

as he sat musing rather sadly while she was dressing, and Lenichen had

fallen asleep again, she pointed to the little peaceful sleeping face,

the flaxen hair curling over the dimpled arm, and she said,--

"That is thy thanks--just that the little one is happy. The dear

Heavenly Father cares more, I think, for such thanks than for any other;

just to see the flowers grow, just to hear the birds sing to their

nestlings, just to see His creatures good and happy, because of His

gifts. Those are about the best thanks for Him, and for us."

But Gottlieb looked up inquiringly.

"Yet He likes us to say 'Thank you,' too? Did you not say all the Church

services, all the beautiful cathedral itself, is just the people's

'Thank you' to God? Are we not going to church just to say 'Thank you,'

to-day?"

"Yes, darling," she said. "But the 'Thank you' we _mean_ to say is worth

little unless it is just the blossom and fragrance of the love and

content always in the heart. God cares infinitely for our loving Him,

and loves us to thank Him if we do. He does not care at all for the

thanks without the love, or without the content."

And as she spoke these words, Mother Magdalis was preaching a little

sermon to herself also, which made her eyes moisten and shine.

So she took courage, and contrived to persuade the children and herself

that the bread-and-water breakfast that Christmas-Eve morning had

something quite festive about it.

And when they had finished with a grace which Gottlieb sang, and

Lenichen lisped after him, she told him to take the little sister on his

knee and sing through his songs and hymns, while she arrayed herself in

the few remnants of holiday dress left her.

And as she cleaned and arranged the tiny room, her heart was lighter

than it had been for a long time.

"I ought to be happy," she said to herself, "with music enough in my

little nest to fill a church."

When Gottlieb had finished his songs, and was beginning them over again,

there was a knock at the door, and the face of old Hans the dwarf

appeared at the door, as he half opened it.

"A good Christmas to thee and thy babes, Mother Magdalis! Thy son is

born indeed with a golden spoon in his mouth," croaked old Hans in his

hoarse, guttural voice.

The words grated on Magdalis. Crooked Hans's jokes were apt to be

as crooked as his temper and his poor limbs, and to give much

dissatisfaction, hitting on just the sore points no one wanted to be

touched.

She felt tempted to answer sharply, but the sweet Christmas music had

got into her heart, and she only said, with tears starting to her

eyes,--

"If he was, neighbour, all the gold was lost and buried long ago."

"Not a bit of it!" rejoined Hans. "Didn't I hear the gold ring this very

instant? The lad has gold in his mouth, I say! Give him to me, and you

shall see it before night."

She looked up reproachfully, the tears fairly falling at what she

thought such a cruel mockery from Hans, who knew her poverty, and had

never had from her or hers the rough words he was too much used to from

every one.

"The golden days are over for me," was all she said.

"Nay! They have yet to begin," he replied. "Your Berthold left more

debtors than you know, Frau Magdalis. And old Hans is one of them. And

Hans never forgets a debt, black or white. Let the lad come with me, I

say. I know the choir-master at the Cathedral. And I know he wants a

fine high treble just such as thy Gottlieb's, and will give anything for

it. For if he does not find one, the Cistercians at the new convent will

draw away all the people, and we shall have no money for the new organ.

They have a young Italian, who sings like an angel, there; and the

young archduchess is an Italian, and is wild about music, and lavishes

her gifts wherever she finds it good."

Magdalis looked perplexed and troubled.

"To sell the child's voice seems like selling part of himself,

neighbour," she said at length; "and to sell God's praises seems like

selling one's own soul."

"Well, well! Those are thy proud burgher notions," said Hans, a little

nettled. "If the Heavenly Father pleases to give thee and the little

ones a few crumbs for singing His matins and evensong, it is no more

than He does for the robins, or, for that matter, for the very ravens,

such as me, that croak to Him with the best voice they have."

At these words, Gottlieb, who had been listening very attentively,

gently set little Lenichen down, and, drawing close to Hans, put his

little hand confidingly in his.

"I will go with neighbour Hans, mother!" he said, decisively. "The dear

Lord Himself has sent him."

"Thou speakest like a prophet," said the mother, smiling tenderly at his

oracular manner, "a prophet and a king in one. Hast thou had a vision?

Is thy will indeed the law of the land?"

"Yes, mother," he said, colouring, "the dear Lord Jesus has made it

quite plain. I asked Him, if we were not good enough for Him to send us

an angel, to send us one of His ravens, and He has sent us Hans!"

Hans laughed, but not the grim, hoarse laugh which was habitual to him,

and which people compared to the croaking of a raven; it was a hearty,

open laugh, like a child's, and he said,--

"Let God's raven lead thee, then, my lad, and the mother shall see if we

don't bring back the bread and meat."

"I did not ask for meat," said Gottlieb, gravely, "only for bread."

"The good God is wont to give more than we either desire or deserve,"

croaked Hans, "when He sets about giving at all."

II.

There was no time to be lost.

The services of the day would soon begin, and Hans had set his heart on

Gottlieb's singing that very day in the Cathedral.

The choir-master's eyes sparkled as he listened to the boy; but he was

an austere man, and would not utter a word to make the child think

himself of value.

"Not bad raw material," he said, "but very raw. I suppose thou hast

never before sung a note to any one who understood music?"

"Only for the mother and the little sister," the child replied in a low,

humble tone, beginning to fear the raven would bring no bread after all,

"and sometimes in the Litanies and the processions."

"Sing no more for babes and nurses, and still less among the beggars in

the street-processions," pronounced the master, severely. "It strains

and vulgarizes the tone. And, with training, I don't know but that,

after all, we might make something of thee--in time, in time."

Gottlieb's anxiety mastered his timidity, and he ventured to say,--

"Gracious lord! if it is a long time, how can we all wait? I thought it

would be to-day! The mother wants the bread to-day."

Something in the child's earnest face touched the master, and he said,

more gently,--

"I did not say you might not _begin_ to-day. You must begin this hour,

this moment. Too much time has been lost already."

And at once he set about the first lesson, scolding and growling about

the child setting his teeth like a dog, and mincing his words like a

fine lady, till poor Gottlieb's hopes more than once sank very low.

But, at the end of a quarter of an hour's practice, the artist in the

choir-master entirely overcame the diplomatist.

He behaved like a madman. He took the child in his arms and hugged him,

like a friendly bear; he set him on the table and made him sing one

phrase again and again, walking round and round him, and rubbing his

hands and laughing with delight; and, finally, he seized him and bore

him in triumph to the kitchen, and said to his housekeeper,--

"Ursula, bring out the finest goose and the best preserves and puddings

you have. We must feast the whole choir, and, may be, the Dean and

Chapter. The archduke and the young archduchess will be here at Easter.

But we shall be ready for them. Those beggarly Cistercians haven't a

chance. The lad has the voice of an angel, and the ear--the ear--well,

an ear as good as my own."

"The child may well have the voice of an angel," scolded old Ursula, "he

is like to be among the angels soon enough!"

For the hope, and the fear, and the joy had quite overcome the child,

enfeebled as he was by meagre fare; his lips were quite pale, and his

cheeks.

Moreover, the last order of the choir-master had not been quite

re-assuring to him. The fat goose and the puddings were good, indeed;

but he would have preferred his mother and Lenichen being feasted in his

honour, rather than the choir and the chapter.

And besides, though little more than seven years old, he was too much of

a boy quite to enjoy his position on the master's shoulder. He felt it

too babyish to be altogether honourable to the protector of Lenichen and

incipient bread-winner of the family. And, therefore, he was relieved

when he found himself once more safely on the ground.

But when Ursula set before him a huge plate of bread and meat, his manly

composure all but gave way. It was more of an approach to a feast than

any meal he had ever participated in, and he was nearly choked with

repressed tears of gratitude.

It was so evident _now_ that Hans was altogether an orthodox and

accredited raven!

At first, as the child sat mute and wondering before the repast, with a

beautiful look of joy and prayer in his blue eyes, Ursula thought he was

saying his grace, and respected his devotion. But as the moments passed

on, and still he did not attempt to eat, she became impatient.

"There is a time for everything," she murmured, at length. "That will do

for thy grace! Now quick to the food! Thou canst finish the grace, if

thou wilt, in music, in the church by-and-by."

But then the child took courage, and said,--

"The ravens--that is, the good God--surely do not mean all this for me.

Dear, gracious lady, let me run with the plate to the mother and

Lenichen; and I will be back again in two minutes, and sing all day, if

the master likes."

Ursula was much moved at the child's filial love, and also at his

politeness.

"The little one has discrimination," she said to herself. "One can see

he is of a good stock. He recognizes that I am no peasant, but the

daughter of a good burgher house."

And, in spite of the remonstrances of her master, she insisted on giving

the lad his way.

"I will accompany him, myself," said she.

And, without further delay or parley, she walked off, under the very

eyes of the master, with the boy, and also with a considerable portion

of his own dinner, in addition to the plate she had already set before

Gottlieb.

* * * * *

A very joyful and miraculous intervention it seemed to Mother Magdalis

when Gottlieb re-entered the hermit's cell, under the stately convoy of

the choir-master's housekeeper, and with food enough to feed the frugal

little household for a week.

The two women greeted each other ceremoniously and courteously, as

became two German housewives of good burgher stock.

"The little lad has manners worthy of a burgomaster," said Ursula. "We

shall see him with the gold chain and the fur robes yet, and his mother

a proud woman."

With which somewhat worldly benediction, she left the little family to

themselves, conjuring Gottlieb to return in less than an hour, for the

master was not always as manageable as this morning.

And when they were alone, Gottlieb was not ashamed to hide his tears on

his mother's heart.

"See, darling mother!" he said, "the dear Saviour did send the raven!

Perhaps, one day, He will make us good enough for Him to send the

angels."

Then the simple family all knelt down and thanked God from their hearts,

and Gottlieb added one especial bit of his own of praise and prayer for

his kind Hans, of whom, on account of his grim face and rough voice, he

had stood in some dread.

"Forgive me, dear Lord Jesus," he said, "that I did not know how good he

was!"

And when they had eaten their hasty Christmas feast, and the mother was

smoothing his hair and making the best of his poor garments, Gottlieb

said, looking up gravely in her face,--

"Who knows, mother, if Hans is only a raven now, that the good God may

not make him, his very self, the angel?"

"Perhaps God _is_ making Hans into the angel even now," replied the

mother.

And she remembered for a long time the angelic look of love and devotion

in the child's eyes.

For she knew very well the Cathedral choir was no angelic host.

She knew she was not welcoming her boy that morning to a haven, but

launching him on a voyage of many perils. But she knew, also, that it is

only by such perils, and through such voyages, that men, that saints,

are made.

III.

The next day Gottlieb began his training among the other choristers.

It was not easy.

The choir-master showed his appreciation of his rare treasure by

straining every nerve to make it as perfect as possible; and therefore

he found more fault with Gottlieb than with any one else.

The other boys might, he could not but observe, sing carelessly enough,

if the general harmony were but good; but every note of his seemed as if

it were a solo which the master's ear never missed, and not the

slightest mistake was allowed to pass.

The other choristers understood very well what this meant, and some of

them were not a little jealous of the new favourite, as they called him.

But to little Gottlieb it seemed hard and strange. He was always

straining to do his very best, and yet he never seemed to satisfy. The

better he did, the better the master wanted him to do, until he grew

almost hopeless.

He would not, for the world, complain to his mother; but on the third

evening she observed that he looked very sad and weary, and seemed

scarcely to have spirits to play with Lenichen.

She knew it is of little use to ask little children what ails them,

because so often their trouble is that they do not know. Some little

delicate string within is jarred, and they know nothing of it, and think

the whole world is out of tune. So she quietly put Lenichen to bed, and

after the boy had said his prayers as usual at her knee, she laid her

hand on his head, and caressingly stroked his fair curls, and then she

lifted up his face to hers and kissed the little troubled brow and

quivering lips.

"Dear little golden mouth!" she said, fondly, "that earns bread, and

sleep, for the little sister and for me! I heard the sweet notes to-day,

and I thanked God. And I felt as if the dear father was hearing them

too, even through the songs in heaven."

The child's heart was opened, the quivering lips broke into a sob, and

the face was hidden on her knee.

"It will not be for long, mother!" he said. "The master has found fault

with me more than ever to-day. He made me sing passage after passage

over and over, until some of the boys were quite angry, and said,

afterwards, they wished I and my voice were with the old hermit who

houses us. Yet he never seemed pleased. He did not even say it was any

better."

"But he never gave thee up, darling!" she said.

"No; he only told me to come early, alone, to-morrow, and he would give

me a lesson by myself, and perhaps I should learn better."

A twinkle of joy danced in her eyes, dimmed with so many tears.

"Silly child!" she said fondly, "as silly as thy poor mother herself!

The master only takes trouble, and chastens and rebukes, because he

thinks it is worth while; because thou art trying, and learning, and art

doing a little better day by day. He knows what thy best can be, and

will never be content with anything but thy very best."

"Is it that, mother? Is it indeed that?" said the boy, looking up with a

sudden dawning of hope.

And a sweet dawn of promise met him in his mother's eyes as she

answered,--

"It is even that, my own, for thee and for me!"

IV.

With a glad heart, Gottlieb dressed the next morning before Lenichen was

awake, and was off to the choir-master for his lesson alone.

The new hope had inspired him, and he sang that morning to the content

even of the master, as he knew, not by his praise, but by his summoning

Ursula from the kitchen to listen, unable to resist his desire for the

sympathy of a larger audience.

Ursula was not exactly musical, nor was she demonstrative, but she

showed her satisfaction by appropriating her share of the success.

"_I_ knew what was wanting!" she said significantly. "The birds and the

blessed angels may sing on crumbs or on the waters of Paradise; but

goose and pudding are a great help to the Alleluias here below."

"The archduchess will be enraptured, and the Cistercians will be

furious!" said the choir-master, equally pleased at both prospects.

But this Gottlieb did not hear, for he had availed himself of the first

free moment to run home and tell his mother how things had improved.

After that, Gottlieb had no more trouble about the master. The old man's

severity became comprehensible and dear to him, and a loving liberty and

confidence came into his bearing toward him, which went to the heart of

the childless old man, so that dearer than the praise of the

archduchess, or even the discomfiture of the Cistercians, became to him

the success and welfare of the child.

But then, unknown to himself, the poor boy entered on a new chapter of

temptations.

The other boys, observing the choir-master's love for him, grew jealous,

and called him sometimes "the master's little angel," and sometimes

"the little beggar of the hermitage," or "Dwarf Hans's darling."

He was too brave and manly a little fellow to tell his mother all these

little annoyances. He would not for the world have spoiled her joy in

her little "Chrysostom," her golden-mouthed laddie. But once they

followed him to her door, and she heard them herself. The rude words

smote her to the heart, but she only said,--

"Thou art not ashamed of the hermit's house, nor of being old Hans's

darling?"

"I hope, never!" said the child with a little hesitation. "God sent him

to us, and I love him. But it _would_ be nice if dear Hans sometimes

washed his face!"

Magdalis smiled, and hit on a plan for bringing this about. With some

difficulty she persuaded the old man to take his dinner every Sunday and

holiday with them, and she always set an ewer of water--and a towel,

relic of her old burgher life--by him, before the meal.

"We were a kind of Pharisees in our home," she said, "and except we

washed our hands, never ate bread."

Hans growled a little, but he took the hint, for her sake and the boy's,

and gradually found the practice so pleasant on its own account, that

the washing of his hands and face became a daily process.

On his patron saint's day (St. John, February 8), Mother Magdalis went a

step further, and presented him with a clean suit of clothes, very

humble but neat and sound, of her own making out of old hoards. Not for

holidays only, she said, but that he might change his clothes every day,

after work, as her Berthold used.

"Dainty burgher ways," Hans called them, but he submitted, and Gottlieb

was greatly comforted, and thought his old friend a long way advanced in

his transformation into an angel.

So, between the sweetness of the boy's temper and of the dear mother's

love which folded him close, the bitter was turned into sweet within

him.

But Ursula, who heard the mocking of the boys with indignation, was not

so wise in her consolations.

"Wicked, envious little devils!" said she. "Never thou heed them, my

lamb! They would be glad enough, any of them, to be the master's angel,

or Dwarf Hans's darling, for that matter, if they could. It is nothing

but mean envy and spite, my little prince, my little wonder; never thou

heed them!"

And then the enemy crept unperceived into the child's heart.

Was he indeed a little prince and a wonder, on his platform of gifts and

goodness? And were all those naughty boys far below him, in another

sphere, hating him as the little devils in the mystery-plays seemed to

hate and torment the saints?

Had the "raven" been sent to him, after all, as to the prophet of old,

not only because he was hungry and pitied by God, but because he was

good and a favourite of God?

It seemed clear he was something quite out of the common. He seemed the

favourite of every one, except those few envious, wicked boys.

The great ladies of the city entreated for him to come and sing at their

feasts. And all their guests stopped in the midst of their eager talk to

listen to him, and they gave him sweetmeats and praised him to the

skies; and they offered him wine from their silver flagons, and when he

refused it, as his mother had desired him, they praised him more than

ever; and once the host himself, the burgomaster, emptied the silver

flagon of the wine he had refused, and told him to take it home to his

mother and tell her she had a child whose dutifulness was worth more

than all the silver in the city.

But when he told his mother this, instead of looking delighted, as he

expected, she looked grave, and almost severe, and said,--

"You only did your duty, my boy. It would have been a sin and a shame to

have done otherwise. And, of course, you would not for the world."

"Certainly I would not, mother," he said.

But he felt a little chilled. Did his mother think it was always so easy

for boys to do their duty? and that every one did it?

Other people seemed to think it a very uncommon and noble thing to do

one's duty. And what, indeed, could the blessed saints do more?

So the slow poison of praise crept into the boy's heart. And while he

thought his life was being filled with light, unknown to him the shadows

were deepening,--the one shadow which eclipses the sun, the terrible

shadow of self.

For he could not but be conscious how, even in the cathedral, a kind of

hush and silence fell around when he began to sing.

And instead of the blessed presence of God filling the holy place, and

his singing in it, as of old, like a happy little bird in the sunshine,

his own sweet voice seemed to fill the place, rising and falling like a

tide up and down the aisles, leaping to the vaulted roof like a fountain

of joy, and dropping into the hearts of the multitude like dew from

heaven.

And as he went out, in his little white robe, with the choir, he felt

the eyes of the people on him, and he heard a murmur of praise, and now

and then words such as "That is little Gottlieb, the son of the widow

Magdalis. She may well be proud of him. He has the voice and the face of

an angel."

And then, in contrast, outside in the street, from the other boys, "See

how puffed up the little prince is! He cannot look at any one lower than

the bishop or the burgomaster!"

So, between the chorus of praise and the other chorus of mockery, it was

no wonder that poor Gottlieb felt like a being far removed from the

common herd. And, necessarily, any one of the flock of Christ who feels

that, cannot be happy, because if we are far away from the common flock,

we cannot be near the Good Shepherd, who always keeps close to the

feeblest, and seeks those that go astray.

V.

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 he would dance exultingly

home as if he were scarcely treading the common earth, sometimes he

would return 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 neighbours 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 Saviour!" 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 as he remembered 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!"

And tears and repressed sobs came fast at the thought, and he murmured

aloud, thinking no one was near,--

"Dear Saviour, 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 sang together, and all the sons of God 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!

VI.

The "silent week" that followed was a solemn time to the mother and the

boy.

Every day, whatever time could be spared from the practice with the

choir, and from helping in the little house and with his mother's

wood-carving, or from playing with Lenichen in the fields, Gottlieb

spent in the silent Cathedral, draped as it was in funereal black for

the Sacred Life given up to God for man.

"How glad," he thought again and again, "the little children of

Jerusalem must have been that they sang when they could to the blessed

Jesus! They little knew how soon the kind hands that blessed them would

be stretched on the cross, and the kind voice that would not let their

singing be stopped would be moaning 'I thirst.'"

But he felt that he, Gottlieb, ought to have known; and if ever he was

allowed to sing his Hosannas in the choir again, it would feel like the

face of the blessed Lord himself smiling on him, and His voice saying,

"Suffer this little one to come unto Me. I have forgiven him."

He hoped also to see the master-builder again; but nevermore did the

slight, aged form appear in the sunshine of the stained windows, or in

the shadows of the arches he had planned.

And so the still Passion week wore on.

Until once more the joy-bells pealed out on the blessed Easter morning.

The city was full of festivals. The rich were in their richest holiday

raiment, and few of the poor were so poor as not to have some sign of

festivity in their humble dress and on their frugal tables.

Mother Magdalis was surprised by finding at her bedside a new dress such

as befitted a good burgher's daughter, sent secretly the night before

from Ursula by Hans and Gottlieb, with a pair of enchanting new crimson

shoes for little Lenichen, which all but over-balanced the little maiden

altogether with the new sense of possessing something which must be a

wonder and a delight to all beholders.

The archduke and the beautiful Italian archduchess had arrived the night

before, and were to go in stately procession to the Cathedral. And

Gottlieb was to sing in the choir, and afterwards, on the Monday, to

sing an Easter greeting for the archduchess at the banquet in the great

town-hall.

The mother's heart trembled with some anxiety for the child.

But the boy's was only trembling with the great longing to be allowed to

sing once more his Hosannas to the blessed Saviour, among the children.

It was given him.

At first the eager voice trembled for joy, in the verse he had to sing

alone, and the choir-master's brows were knitted with anxiety. But it

cleared and steadied in a moment, and soared with a fulness and freedom

none had ever heard in it before, filling the arches of the Cathedral

and the hearts of all.

And the beautiful archduchess bent over to see the child, and her soft,

dark eyes were fixed on his face, as he sang, until they filled with

tears; and, afterwards, she asked who the mother of that little angel

was.

But the child's eyes were fixed on nothing earthly, and his heart was

listening for another voice--the Voice all who listen for it shall

surely hear.

And it said in the heart of the child, that day, "Suffer the little one

to come unto Me. Go in peace. Thy sins are forgiven."

A happy, sacred evening they spent that Easter in the hermit's cell, the

mother and the two children, the boy singing his best for the little

nest, as before for the King of kings.

Still, a little anxiety lingered in the mother's heart about the pomp of

the next day.

But she need not have feared.

When the archduchess had asked for the mother of the little chorister

with the heavenly voice, the choir-master had told her what touched her

much about the widowed Magdalis and her two children; and old Ursula and

the master between them contrived that Mother Magdalis should be at the

banquet, hidden behind the tapestry.

And when Gottlieb, robed in white, with blue feathery wings, to

represent a little angel, came close to the great lady, and sang her the

Easter greeting, she bent down and folded him in her arms, and kissed

him.

And then once more she asked for his mother, and, to Gottlieb's surprise

and her own, the mother was led forward, and knelt before the

archduchess.

Then the beautiful lady beamed on the mother and the child, and, taking

a chain and jewel from her neck, she clasped it round the boy's neck,

and said, in musical German with a foreign accent,--

"Remember, this is not so much a gift, as a token and sign that I will

not forget thee and thy mother, and that I look to see thee and hear

thee again, and to be thy friend."

And as she smiled on him, the whole banqueting-hall--indeed, the whole

world--seemed illuminated to the child.

And he said to his mother as they went home,--

"Mother, surely God has sent us an angel at last. But, even for the

angels, we will never forget His dear ravens. Won't old Hans be glad?"

And the mother was glad; for she knew that God who giveth grace to the

lowly had indeed blessed the lad, because all his gifts and honours were

transformed, as always in the lowly heart, not into pride, but into

love.

But when the boy ran eagerly to find old Hans, to show him the jewel

and tell him of the princely promises, Hans was nowhere to be found; not

in the hermit's house, where he was to have met them and shared their

little festive meal, nor at his own stall, nor in the hut in which he

slept.

Gottlieb's heart began to sink.

Never had his dear old friend failed to share in any joy of theirs

before.

At length, as he was lingering about the old man's little hut,

wondering, a sad, silent company came bearing slowly and tenderly a

heavy burden, which at last they laid on Hans's poor straw pallet.

It was poor Hans himself, bruised and crushed and wounded in his

struggles to press through the crowd to see his darling, his poor

crooked limbs broken and unable to move any more.

But the face was untouched; and when they had laid him on the couch, and

the languid eyes opened and rested on the beloved face of the child

bending over him bathed in tears, a light came over the poor rugged

features, and shone in the dark, hollow eyes, such as nothing on earth

can give--a wonderful light of great, unutterable love, as they gazed

into the eyes of the child, and then, looking upward, seemed to open on

a vision none else could see.

"Jesus! Saviour! I can do no more. Take care of him, Thou thyself,

Jesus, Lord!"

He said no more--no prayer for himself, only for the child.

Then the eyes grew dim, the head sank back, and with one sigh he

breathed his soul away to God.

And such an awe came over the boy that he ceased to weep.

He could only follow the happy soul up to God, and say voicelessly in

his heart,--

"Dear Lord Jesus! I understand at last! The raven was the angel. And

Thou hast let me see him for one moment as he is, as he is now with

Thee, as he will be evermore!"

_Ecce homo_

A STORY OF THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND.

I.

"_Apparebit repentina dies magna Domini._"[1] Again and again the words

of the old Latin hymn echoed through the aisles of the Minster.

It was the dusk of a short winter's day in the year of our Lord One

Thousand.

The shadowed spaces were filled with a vast crowd; all the city had

gathered together to hear the stranger monk. He had come into the city

yesterday, and was to leave to-morrow.

It was reported that he came from an island beyond the seas, of an

ancient race, rich in saints when the Teutons were still wild heathen

tribes; from the borders of the sea without a shore.

All was mystery about him. He flitted through the land like a wandering

voice, a voice crying in the wilderness. No man knew certainly whence he

came or whither he went. He came not so much to teach or to preach, as

to utter a great "cry," and be gone.

It was the old cry, that the generations of men are as the crops of

grass, mown down surely by the mower; and the glory of man as the flower

of the grass, scattered before the mowing-time by any passing wind.

But the old cry would scarcely have gathered the people together and

riveted them in breathless, awe-struck attention as this voice gathered

and fixed them.

To the old cry was added a new cry, "an exceeding great and bitter cry."

"The mowers are at hand, the harvest is come. It may not be to-day or

to-morrow. But _this year_ it will be.

"It is the Saturday night of the ages.

"The world is doomed.

"The thousand years have run their course at last. The long-suffering of

God has an end.

"You may sow your fields this spring.

"You may possibly reap the seed you sow this autumn.

"But you will never see another spring.

"You will never reap another harvest.

"'_Apparebit repentina._' Suddenly and so soon!

"You may keep one more Easter.

"But before the next the graves will have been opened. The resurrection

to endless woe or joy will have come.

"You may even possibly keep one more Christmas. But it will be the last.

It must be all but the last day of the world, for before its octave has

dawned '_apparebit repentina_.'

"He will have come. Not as a babe smiling on His mother's knee, not as

the lowly Saviour to the manger, to live, and teach, and heal, and

suffer, and die.

"As the Judge, to punish, to reward, to avenge.

"And before Him all the world will be gathered, all the ages, and all

the nations.

"But not in one band; in two bands. Divided for ever into two flocks.

Not Teuton and Latin, not rich and poor, not noble and slave, not clergy

and laity, not learned and ignorant; but wicked and good, just and

unjust, merciful and unmerciful, those who love God and men, and those

who love only themselves.

"And the division exists now.

"'_Apparebit repentina_,' His fan in His hand; the winnowing fan. What

does the fan do? It only stirs the air; it stirs the wind of God. It

does not make the wheat wheat, or the chaff chaff. It only divides them;

the wheat into the garner, the chaff _away_.

"Away _whither_?

"It does not make wheat wheat, or tares tares.

"The wheat to the barn; the tares whither? In bundles to be burned.

"This year, this year, in His heavens, or in His fires.

"And what will be burned in His fires? Your gold? your houses? your

harvests? Nay, earthly fires can do that.

"You, you yourselves: in His fires.

"'_Apparebit repentina_.'

"Suddenly, and this year.

"At early dawn, at dead of night, in the hush of the summer morn, in

twilight such as this? We know not. The day and the hour knoweth no man.

"But this year; suddenly, as the lightning which comes before the

thunder.

"As the thief on the slumbering household, as the tramp of the foe on

the slumbering army.

"If ye will, if ye can, sleep on still!

"But listen! already is there no rumble of the far-off storm? no faint

far-off murmur of His footsteps?

"When the thunder-peal comes, it will be too late to warn. The

_lightning will have come first_, shrivelling the earth like a heap of

dry grass, and heaven like a roll of old parchments, leaving you alone

with your Judge; all the world there, and each one as much alone with

Him as if no one else were there, seen through, searched through,

scorched through with one gleam of the eyes that are as a flame of fire.

"Before you the Judge, behind you the flames. The Judge so terrible

that the wicked will rush backward from Him into the fire rather than

meet those eyes again, those eyes which are as a flame of fire searching

and burning through and through.

"And what do they search? _You_, for sin. What will they burn? You,

_with_ your sin, if you will not give up the sin."

And then he laid bare sin after sin--avarice, evil-speaking, wrongs

wrought, wrongs unforgiven, injustice, envy, unmercifulness, pride,

selfishness in all its disguises--until heart after heart felt itself

seen through and laid bare.

Then turning and pointing to the great Crucifix above them he said,--

"Not one of you, not one of us but has helped to weave that crown, to

drive in those nails, to pierce that heart.

"Repent, for He is at hand.

"'_Apparebit repentina._' Suddenly and so soon."

And then suddenly the penetrating voice ceased, and there was a great

hush, broken now and then by a sob, as, high above them, catching the

last rays of the wintry sun, the sacred bowed Head, and the outstretched

hands, rose lifted up on high.

And when the hush began to break up again into separate movement, and

the voice which had bound the multitude into unity had ceased for some

minutes, and one and another turned their eyes again towards the pulpit,

it was empty.

And none in that city ever saw the face of the preacher or heard his

voice again.

Like a voice crying in the wilderness, he vanished again into the

wilderness, and was heard no more.

But from the voices of the choir, begun it was scarcely known how, broke

forth in a long wail the hymn--

"Apparebit repentina dies magna Domini."

When the last notes of the solemn chant had died away, and once more

left a silence in the vast church, the multitude still kept together. A

common instinct of unity seemed to have come on them, as on a besieged

city, or on a ship in a storm.

Not to one, here and there, uncertainly, as death came; but to all!

Suddenly, and this year, the one great event was to come, which was to

unite them all and to divide them all for ever!

Not that this message and this terror were altogether new to them. Long

it had been floating in the air that the distracted world was not to

last beyond the thousand years.

The probability had long loomed vaguely before them; and now this

stranger came and proclaimed, with assured conviction, the certainty.

They waited and waited on, as if listening for the first peal of the

Last Trump; but no sound broke the stillness. The dusk silently died

into the dark, the last rays faded from the Crucifix to which the monk

had pointed, and then slowly the congregation began to creep away to

their homes.

Out of the silent church under the solemn silent vault of stars; each

household again beneath its own roof, yet all still under that great

roof of heaven from which at any moment might burst the final fires.

The city roofs, great and little for the time had become the shadows,

and the upper light shone terribly through.

There was little talking on the way home through the streets, none of

that eager bubbling up of pent-up thoughts which marks the dispersing of

a great listening throng. The mighty common expectation which united

all, sent each back into his own life with great searchings of heart.

For the day at hand was to be a Judgment Day. The day of the great

gathering was also to be the day of the great dividing.

II.

Two fellow-students, Hermann and Gottfried, went back to the Abbey

School together.

And when they reached their cells, Hermann flung his books into a corner

and cried, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity; vain instruments of vain

learning, farewell! Of what use is it to climb a few steps higher than

our fellow-men, if all are to be levelled again at the bar of God so

soon?"

But Gottfried knelt at the little window of his cell, and looked up at

the stars and said, "O Thou Holy and Beautiful, it has been a joy to

brush off a few grains of the dust which hid Thy works. What will it be

to see Thee as Thou art?"

* * * * *

Old Gammer Truedchen, whose stall was close to the Minster door, crept

silently into her chamber that night; for her stall of beads and cakes

was a wasp's nest of malicious gossip where all dark surmises and evil

reports naturally gathered, sure of something to feed on and something

to sting. And she felt somewhat pricked in conscience; for the preacher

had spoken of "the measure wherewith we mete being measured to us

again," and of evil-speaking _in itself_, whether false or true, being

sure to be severely judged in that day. She did not quite see the

justice of it: if people were to be punished for their evil deeds, why

was she to be punished for foreseeing and antedating the verdict?

Nevertheless, if that was, as the monk said, the rule of the Supreme

Court, it might be as well to take care. And, moreover, one might

sometimes make mistakes. She must admit to herself that possibly she had

been a little too hasty and hard about that poor orphan-girl whose

character had afterwards been cleared, but not soon enough to satisfy

her lover, who had believed the evil report, and gone and died in the

wars, and left her to die of a broken heart at home. She had only

repeated what others hinted, but no one was infallible, not even the

whole town, which might, perhaps, be one reason why the giving sentence

beforehand was objected to. And it certainly might be as well to be

careful, if one's words, even one's whispers, were to be brought up

against one in public on that day, and before another year.

* * * * *

Master Gregory, the exchanger, went home to his chests of treasure; and

on his way he passed the widowed daughter of his old master the

goldsmith, looking pinched and poor as usual, with a racking cough,

leading her two frail, half-starved children. They were neatly clothed,

as always, in their patched garments; and she greeted him with her

wonted gentle friendliness, expecting nothing from him.

But his heart smote him.

"Perhaps I did make rather a hard bargain when her husband died," he

said; "and her father certainly had been good to me. It is true she

should not have married as she did, and I have left her more than she

lost in my will. But if this monk is right, wills and testaments will

not henceforth count for much in the reckoning of that Day. I might as

well, perhaps, do something for her at once."

And that night, as he counted over his gold and parchments (for in those

days misers had more visual delight in their possessions than they have

now), the parchments seemed to shrivel in the light of the fire which

was to consume the very heavens as a scroll, and instead of the pleasant

ring of gold, the dry rustle of dead leaves was in his ears.

But the poor widowed mother he had passed went home lightened in heart,

with her children. And when she had given them their scanty supper, and

folded them to sleep, she knelt beside them, and her thankful tears fell

on the thin little hands over which she wept.

"Thank God!" she murmured, "at last I may long to go to my beloved; for

we shall go _together_, we three, his babes and I; and he will see his

prayers answered, and will know I did my best for them, and did not

hasten away to him too soon, for all the longing to go."

* * * * *

And even the prattling voice of little Hilda, the child of Blind Bruno,

the basketmaker, was hushed as she led her father through the streets,

instead of the faithful dog Keeper, who was growing old. She only clung

to her father's hand closer than usual.

Bruno also was very silent.

Margarethe, the mother, met them, as always, on the threshold; for Bruno

liked no other hands but those which had tended him so faithfully for

twenty years to welcome him, and unloose his cloak, and settle him at

the table or by the hearth. He could not see how thin the hands had

grown, and how worn the face was. The feeble fingers seemed to gather

strength always to do anything for him; and if sometimes he thought they

failed a little, the soft clear voice had always its old tones to cheer

him, and he had always words of tender greeting for her.

But to-night he scarcely seemed to heed even his wife. He leant his head

on his clasped hands for a long time, and said nothing until old Keeper

came, as was his wont, and rubbed his shaggy head against the master's

knees, and little Hilda's hands, for a welcome.

At this, Hilda's composure gave way altogether, and she burst into tears

and sobbed.

"Oh, Keeper, you don't know, and we can't tell you!"

Then Bruno roused himself, and the great cry of the preacher burst from

his lips.

"'_Apparebit repentina_,'" he said; "suddenly it will come, and this

year."

And slowly and solemnly he repeated what they had heard.

A strange joy came over the mother's face as he spoke.

She was lifting up her heart to God and saying,--

"I thank Thee. At last I can long with all my heart to come to Thee. For

we shall not be parted. And I shall not be leaving those Thou gavest me

to keep."

Bruno went on.

"The Judge!" he murmured, "the Avenger, to avenge all wrongs at last!"

And there was a flash of fierce joy on his face, such as might have

gleamed in the eyes of his heathen forefathers, dying in the slaughter

of their foes.

But as she saw it, the quiet delight faded from the mother's face, and

she said tenderly,--

"Our little wrongs, beloved, what will they seem when we see the

nail-prints on His hands and feet?"

"They will not seem little to Him!" replied Bruno sternly.

It was an old controversy between them, and the only one. She had long

ceased to carry on her side of it in any way but in silent prayer.

For the wrong was great, and the doing of it as fresh in her memory as

ever;--the day when her husband's kinsman, Baron Ivo, had entered their

castle and treacherously massacred all who would not acknowledge him to

be the rightful lord; had bound Baron Bruno to a pillar, and had him

blinded, and then had turned them out with their helpless babe into the

frost and snow of the winter night, to wander whither they would, or

die.

Many weary months they had roamed up and down through the land, seeking

redress, until the babe had died. But the enemy was strong, and it was

an age when right could only be held by might. And though many pitied,

none ventured to take up the blinded Baron's cause. And so at last they

crept back to the old city, and found a dwelling beside a brook in the

forest, not far from the city gate, yet in a secret place, where no one

need see them. And Bruno made baskets from the osiers, and she sold

them.

And the poor sightless eyes were healed, but not the heart.

Again and again she had begun to hope the bitter yearning for vengeance

would be softened. Sometimes when his voice faltered as they said the

Lord's Prayer; sometimes when his hand quivered in hers as they knelt

together by the great cross before the hermit's cave; and especially

when, their little Hilda was born, the child of their poverty, the

sunbeam of their dark days.

But always, when she had dared to speak of forgiveness, the old wound

seemed to bleed afresh. And now she felt the old fever was burning in

his heart as fiercely as ever.

Once more that night she pleaded voicelessly with the compassionate

Lord.

"Thou knowest, O merciful One," she said in the depths of her heart, "it

is not his blindness he cannot forgive; it is our poverty and the

child's. It is not his wrong he would have avenged; it is ours. If there

is hatred in his heart, love is beneath the hate, Thou knowest. Forgive,

oh, forgive him! even if he cannot quite forgive."

And then, in her tearful prayers, she pleaded the day when Baron Ivo

himself had come to their hut, pursued by some of the many who had been

turned into beggars, or robbers, by his high-handed tyranny; when, not

seeing Bruno, Bruno had recognized him by his voice, and, nevertheless,

had spared him, and suffered her to hide him from his pursuers, and

suffered the child Hilda to quench his thirst with fresh water from the

spring.

"He could have, avenged himself then," she pleaded. "And, instead, he

saved. Is not that forgiving? Will not that cup of cold water be

remembered by Thee?"

Yet her heart was tossed by anxiety and doubt. Could it be forgiving to

wish evil? And could the unforgiving be forgiven?

That night Bruno also lay awake, and he answered her thoughts, and said

reproachfully to her,--

"Wilt thou, even thou, be hard on me? Forgiveness is Divine; but

vengeance also is Divine. The Judge is just, or we could not trust Him.

If it were a slave, if it were a dog that had been so wronged, must I

not rejoice the wrong-doer should be punished?"

"Thou art wiser than I, my beloved," she said. "I have no wisdom but His

face and His words. '_Father, forgive them_,' He said; and with Him

forgiveness meant Paradise to the forgiven. Else where were we?"

And they said no more.

* * * * *

And that night, in the castle of Baron Ivo, the hall was lighted and the

tables were spread for a great feast. The lights flashed from the castle

steep, from many windows, over the forest and the city.

And a feast in Baron Ivo's castle meant a revel; cowed slaves hurrying

about at the master's bidding; guests, many of them scarcely less cowed,

making forced mirth at his pleasure.

To ears that could hear there was always heaviness in the laughter at

Ivo's feasts. The moans from the dungeons below rose across it all.

But on this night the mirth jarred like a cracked bell; and ere they

rose, the seneschal ventured timidly to ask the Baron if he might accept

the ransom offered by the young wife of the latest captive. "Otherwise,"

he said, "death might be beforehand. And if--if, indeed, the Great Day

was so near, and the reckoning was to come so soon!"

Baron Ivo rose with a curse, and strode off to his chamber in the tower

which looked over the forest, with the dungeons at its base.

But no sleep came to him that night. He seemed to hear a long

procession of heavy steps slowly tramping up the turret-stair from the

dungeons to his chamber. Too often, indeed, had the wails of tortured

captives come up that way.

But as he lay tossing on his bed, all the rest seemed to grow faint and

far-off in comparison with one face which had haunted him often

before;--a kinsman's face, with sightless eyes, which riveted his own on

them, and with groping, imploring hands, which he had once ruthlessly

bound. He would have given the world for one glance of those eyes, and

one forgiving clasp of those blindly groping hands.

"So long ago!" he moaned; "so long ago! And never further off! And now

perhaps I shall soon see him close, too late to atone. There to face the

horror which has stung me to crime after crime! For, having committed

this, I had to do the rest, to ward off vengeance, to secure what had

been so hardly won. That first was crime; the rest were self-defence,

the fruit of mortal fear--of fear, and yet also of love, all so terribly

entangled, love to the child my wife left to my care when she died.

_She_ knew nothing of that terrible past, and loved and trusted me. But

the child for whom I would shed my blood, for whom belike I have given

my soul, does she know? Does she love or trust me? Pure and soft as a

white dove, yet those tender eyes search and scorch me through and

through. Is there no repentance, no reparation possible? And that Day

they say coming so soon! Reparation! how can such a wrong be repaired?

Probably they are all long since under the ground, he and the young wife

who stood so unflinchingly by him, and the babe. For if it were possible

to restore him the castle, what of the sight, and the ruined life? It is

not possible; no, it is not possible! That blind beggar in the

forest-hut could _not_ have been Bruno! And if he were to instal that

beggar's family in the castle, what reparation were that?"

He had risen, and was looking down on the forest, and a little gleaming

light caught his eye, and strangely smote his heart. It seemed to come

from where that beggar's hut was. Even yet, after all, _might_ it be

possible to atone?

But on the other side, in the next turret of the castle, a light shone

from the window of his young daughter, his only child.

"Give _her_ inheritance up to them? Never!" he moaned. And once more the

strong will rose and barred the door of repentance which might have been

a door of hope.

But in that turret-chamber of Baron Ivo's daughter, and in the little

hut in the forest, the lamp of prayer never went out.

In the turret the child Beatrix knelt at her window and said,--

"O gentle Jesus! I cannot but be glad, altogether glad at Thy coming. If

I ought to be afraid also, forgive me. But my mother, before she died,

told me Thou wert so gracious and so kind! And Thy face and Thy voice

always seem to me most like hers; and the faces and voices around me

here are harsh and rough, so that I cannot help longing and longing to

see and hear Thine. Thine and my mother's; but even most Thy own,

because of that wonderful love of Thy dying for us. If it were not for

my father! Every one seems in such terror of him; and there was the

piercing wail that day in the dungeon which he could not explain! To me

he is always tender, and yet I find it so hard to return his fondness as

I would. Something in his eyes seems by turns to scorch and to freeze

me. But if he is not ready for Thee, wait, O patient Saviour! wait, and

make him ready! and let that look there can be in his eyes for me, be

there for others and for Thee! Belike I ought to fear Thy coming, Holy

and Mighty One, for myself, but I cannot. And yet I cannot say the 'Veni

cito,' Come quickly, lest it should be too soon for _him_. If he has

done wrong to any man, teach, oh, teach him to make it up before Thou

shalt come!"

And in the little hut the mother Margarethe still pleaded,--

"Holy forgiving Lord Christ! it is not the wrong to himself, it is the

wrong to me and the children he finds it so hard to forgive. And even

Thou, dost Thou forgive cruel unrepented wrong to Thy beloved? Thou who

didst say of Thy sufferers of old, 'Why persecutest thou _Me_?' And

Thou, when Thou forgivest, makest Thy foes Thy friends. Thou forgivest

because thou lovest, and because Thou knowest the most pitiable misery

is not being wronged, but doing wrong, and because Thy forgiveness melts

the hearts of the forgiven. By the touch of Thy love move my husband to

forgive, and let his forgiveness like Thine save the forgiven. I am a

sinful woman, and yet I cannot dread Thy coming. Saviour of sinners,

only for _him_! Wait, oh, wait till he is ready; make him ready, and

then come, oh, come!"

Meantime little Hilda could not sleep all that night, and at last she

could bear her lonely thoughts no longer, and crept out of her little

bed to her mother's side; and finding her awake, she whispered,--

"Oh, mother, what shall we do to-morrow? Will it ever be worth while to

do anything any more but go to church and pray?"

"We may be sure the good God will not forget to feed His sparrows

to-morrow, darling," the mother replied; "and He certainly would not

have us forget our hens and chickens. And if the King Himself were to

come to-morrow, what would He wish thee to be doing but just the little

task He sets thee every day: lighting the fire, and getting thy father's

breakfast, and helping mother, day by day, on to the last, the Great

Day."

"But, oh! mother," the little one resumed with a tremulous voice, "what

will it be like, that Great Day? I saw the Kaiser come into the city

with the horsemen and the trumpets, and the crowd I thought would have

crushed father and me, and broken down the bridge on which we stood.

Will it be like that? Only, the horsemen great angels in the clouds, and

the trumpets thunders, and the whole earth trembling and shaking as the

bridge trembled beneath that rushing crowd, and everything falling to

pieces? Will it be like the great fire when half the street was burned

down--only, instead of half the street, all the world? fire, and nowhere

to flee to? What will that dreadful Day be like?"

"My darling, I know not. No one knows. But the great question for us all

is not, what will the _Day_ be like? but what is the Judge like?"

"And, oh! mother, how are we to know that?"

"Think of the dear Babe in the manger," she said; "think of the patient

Sufferer on the cross; think of the gracious One in the picture taking

the little child in His arms; think of the story of His watching the

poor widow giving her half farthings, and being pleased with her."

"Will the Judge be the same as that, mother?"

"The very same. Not what _it_ will be like, not what the Day will be

like--what He is like matters to us, and what pleases Him."

III.

On the next morning Baron Ivo woke from a heavy sleep, and shook his

night thoughts of his wronged kinsman angrily from him.

The stir of life was in the castle; his labourers going out to his

fields, his woodmen to his forests, his men-at-arms jesting as they

brightened their weapons, whilst one in a full bass voice carolled out

half unconsciously a phrase of the very hymn which had appalled them all

the night before, "_Apparebit repentina_;" but it sounded dream-like, as

the voice of an owl by day. Baron Ivo stood once more on the solid

ground of possession. If the Great Day were to come this very year, it

was only a little sooner than they had feared; and to-day was _here_,

and had to be _lived_. Let the morrow take care of the things of itself!

One thing, indeed, he did. To give up the castle and atone to his

kinsman was indeed a wild fancy; but he would accept the ransom of that

latest captive and set him free. And, although the ransom was in itself

a robbery, it might have been larger; and so he congratulated himself on

having done a good deed.

* * * * *

And in the forest-hut blind Bruno awoke the next morning, and as he went

towards the city with his baskets, an armed band dashed past him with

the clatter of arms and spurs: and he heard his kinsman's voice in harsh

tones of command, and the old bitterness was deep in his heart, as he

said to himself, "'_Apparebit repentina._' All wrongs shall be avenged

at last. Better to suffer and be avenged, than to be in Paradise and see

that villain smile there too, his sins forgotten and unpunished."

* * * * *

The next morning, when the miser awoke and found all in the familiar

room as usual--the great iron chests solid as ever, his housekeeper

Griselda's voice as sharp as ever when she called him--he wondered a

little at his own panic the night before.

"My master's daughter made a foolish marriage, poor thing!" he said to

himself, "and I am not bound to repair other people's mistakes; and if I

had yielded her a little more from what her father left, she would

probably only have wasted it. It is after all safer in my keeping than

in hers. And if the monk was right, and she does not come in for the

reversion I have secured in my will, that is not my fault; we are not to

know the times and the seasons. However, there is certainly a good deal

about feeding the hungry. I will tell Griselda to boil down those mutton

bones that were left yesterday into broth for the poor woman; she had a

cough."

But when he came down to breakfast, Griselda laughed scornfully at the

suggestion, and said she had given the bones to the dog; and Griselda

being the one being in the world who represented public opinion to him,

and of whom he was afraid, because her scornful honesty was essential to

him, the master's widowed daughter went without the broth. But Gaffer

Gregory trusted the intention would go to his credit. He, indeed, went

himself to market, intending to get a larger joint, so as to have some

to spare; but mutton was dear that week, so he waited till the next

market day. It was not likely the End would come before that.

Habit was stronger than terror. The market day close at hand still

preponderated over any day even a year off.

* * * * *

Gammer Truedchen had hardly been seated an hour at her stall, the next

morning, when one of her cronies came with a whisper that the

Burgomaster's young wife had been seen, quite late one night that week,

in one of the lowest lanes of the city, shrouded close in her hood, and

evidently not at all wishing to be recognized.

Truedchen had a twinge about evil-speaking, and the monk's warning; but

after all, as she said to her crony, if somebody did not look after the

morals of the place, what would become of them? The Burgomaster's young

wife was fair as a lily, and had the reputation of a saint, although

"she had always had her doubts, for those were just the dangerous

people, who must be watched, and must not be suffered to impose on

others. And besides, it might be well to teach men like the Burgomaster

to choose their brides in their own town, and not go roaming to strange

cities to bring home young women of whose family no one knew anything."

And so an evil rumour was hatched no one knew how, and a buzz of

malignant murmurs began to gather around the sweet unconscious young

stranger; and when, a month afterwards, the same old crony who had

brought the whisper, came to tell Gammer Truedchen that the Burgomaster's

wife had been visiting a poor sick fellow-townswoman of her own that

evening, and did not wish her husband to know because of his fear of

infection for her, the one evil whisper had hatched a swarm which no

contradiction of Gammer Truedchen's could silence.

* * * * *

And the next morning the student who had thrown away his books gathered

them together again, and was intent on his work; for next week there was

to be a great competition for prizes, and the prizes and praises were

precious, and nearer than the Judgment. Where the heart is, the treasure

will be also.

But the student Gottfried, who had rejoiced in science as a revealing of

God, had arisen first, and was below in the infirmary helping the lay

brothers to nurse the sick. For there had been a pestilence in the city,

and the beds were full, and he thought, "_After_ that Day, O Master,

there will be time to learn of Thy works; but there is little time left

to minister to Thee and Thy sick. The time of service is short; I will

_wait_ to _know_!"

And even as he served, he learned many things. Love deepened the

capacity for knowledge. The hours in the intervals of work were more

fruitful than the whole day had been before.

IV.

So the months passed on, and old habits regained their force. The miser

collected the treasure he loved; Gammer Truedchen's stall still gathered

to it the evil reports she welcomed; the student won the honours he

toiled for, and toiled for more; the baron delayed his reparation; blind

Bruno nursed the bitter sense of his wrongs.

Terror could not break the chains of habit. The dread of a Day could not

change the heart.

But all the time mother Margarethe's prayers went up from the hut in the

forest, and the maiden Beatrix's from the turret in the castle.

And little Hilda sought in her heart on all sides for the answer to the

question, not what will the Day be like? but what is the Judge like, and

what pleases Him now?

So it went on until the Holy Week; and then on Good Friday old

Christopher the hermit came from his solitude in the pine forest to

preach to the people.

It seemed to little Hilda he had come on purpose to answer the question

of her heart.

To him, in his solitude among the rocks and the pines, all days were

alike filled with the majesty and the joy of the presence of God, and

with the great pity for the sins and needs of men.

People came to him from cities and villages all around for counsel and

comfort; for to him all human troubles and wants were sacred.

Sometimes the poor mothers left their little children with him while

they went to toil in the fields, and he taught the little ones the

alphabet, and the story of Bethlehem.

Sometimes veteran warriors sought him, and worn-out statesmen, and

perplexed students, and broken-hearted women, or successful men of the

world who had won its prizes and found them dust. And he taught these

also _their_ alphabet, the Our Father, and the Cross.

And now he came to speak in the great Minster, as much alone with each

hearer as when each sought him in the forest-cell; as much alone with

God as when they all left him in the silence of the forest.

His words were simple and quiet.

"_Ecce Homo_," he began. "Behold the Man!"

Then after a pause he continued, "_Apparebit repentina_," and the words

rang on the hearts of many like a knell of broken resolves made when

they had heard them last.

"_What_ will appear suddenly? And _Who_?

"Is it the Day you are dreading, or the Judge?

"Is it the sentence, or Him who will award it?

"Is it the Day, men and women of the world, which is to turn all your

glory into dust? Is it the Day, beloved, which is to turn all your

sorrow into joy?

"Of the Day I can tell you little.

"Of the Man I know a little, and will tell you what I know."

Then for a few minutes he took up another strain, and pictured the

rending rocks, the trembling earth, the terror-stricken multitude, the

shaking of all that seems most solid, the vanishing of all that seems

most permanent.

His words recalled the terrors of the wandering monk, and when he paused

for a minute the hush of awe-stricken expectation lay once more on all

the throng.

But, as they gazed, hushed in terror, the tones which had been echoing

through the aisles like the wail of wild winds, like the hollow

vibrations of thunder among the hills or of the waves in a sea-cave,

changed to tender human appeal.

He spoke of the Babe on the mother's knee; of the Child listening and

learning in the Temple; of the hands that touched the leper; of the lips

that spoke peace to the penitent sinner; of the pity, the justice, and

the patience. And then, turning to the Crucifix, he said, "Beloved, if

we wish, we may know Him better than we know those who dwell by our own

hearths.

"If all the records of that holy life, of its gracious words and mighty

deeds, could be blotted out and lost, I think we might know Him as we

know no heart on earth only from His words as He hung _there_. His

words, and His silence. Seven last words in three hours of silence.

"Listen! the voice is low, the voice which is to rend the tombs. And

yet, though you may fail to hear the gathering of the storm that is

coming, no heart that listens shall fail to catch the murmurs of those

dying lips.

"For the murderers not yet repenting, '_Father, forgive them_.' To the

Blessed Mother, '_Behold thy son_.' To the beloved disciple, '_Behold

thy mother_,'--binding His faithful ones to each other.

"To the poor tortured penitent thief, '_To-day thou shalt be with me in

paradise_.'

"Son of Mary, He cares tenderly for her in the languor of death, and in

the agonies of redemption.

"Son of God, He gives paradise from the cross.

"To you who love, to you who repent, thus He speaks, '_Paradise_,'

'_Behold thy mother, and thy son_.' But to you who have _not_ loved, who

have _not_ repented, still '_Father, forgive_.'

"Look, listen! it is this voice which will award our sentence. Can we

doubt what pleases Him? Beloved, He is love; always; then, and now, and

at that Day.

"Nothing pleases Him but holy love; nothing is like Him but love;

nothing separates from Him but the death of love. What He will be

hereafter, He is now.

"Is there no wrong you can forgive now before it is too late?

"No wrong you can repair now?

"No need you can supply now? No sorrow you can soften?

"It is not yet too late.

"I speak no more. Listen to Him.

"I say to you now, not, look forward to the Day, but _Ecce Homo--Behold

the Man!_"

* * * * *

And that night blind Bruno knelt beside his wife Margarethe in the

forest-hut, and said, "Beloved, let us say the Lord's Prayer together. I

can say it from my heart at last," and gentle tears flowed from his

sightless eyes as he murmured, "Forgive, as we forgive."

And in the little turret-chamber of the castle the Baron came and stood

beside his daughter's bed, his hands clasped in agony.

"Child," he said, "I come to make thee homeless and a beggar, and to

make thee hate me."

And he confessed the whole dark story to her, and told her how he meant

to restore the lost inheritance and divest themselves of all.

Then she rose and fell on his breast, and said, "Father, you make me

richer than ever I could have been, and you make me love you as I never

could before. We will go through the world together, thou and I, until

we find the injured kinsman, and restore him all."

And the next morning, before any in the castle were awake, the Baron

went with his daughter down the turret-stairs, and through a postern

gate, down the steep, and through the forest to the hermit's hut.

And the Baron knelt and wept like a child at the hermit's feet.

His was a long shrift. Crimes about which there could be no

self-deception, a life of high-handed wrong. The first wrong which won

him his kinsman's heritage had placed him almost inevitably among the

beasts of prey, and made his dwelling a den of rapine. Yet, happily for

him, he had preserved unsoiled the belief in a just and avenging God.

Sullenly, hopelessly, he had pursued his track of violence; but he had

never been able to falsify to himself this vision of the Just One, or to

hope to appease Him by any payment or fine, save the one he thought it

hopeless to attempt, the reversal of his wrong-doings and leading a just

life.

And now on the Face he had believed irrevocably set against him, for the

first time he had seen the yearning of forgiving pity, not only for the

wronged, but for _him_, the criminal.

A ray of hope, a beam of holy Almighty love dawned on the long polar

night of his soul, and the ice began to melt. And in the light of that

hope he dared to stand face to face with his sins.

But the long array rising before him from his own lips, reflected in the

compassionate sternness of the hermit's eyes, seemed to crush him to the

dust; and when he came out from that terrible hour, he seemed to his

young daughter to have shrunk into a feeble old man.

She drew close to him and laid her hand in his; but as they moved away,

it seemed to her as if it were no longer he who sustained her, but she

who sustained him.

"The holy man has given thee counsel, father," she said tenderly.

"He bids me call all our people together, at once," he said, "and

confess to them my sin, and bid them proclaim my intention of

restitution. That," he said, "is at once the truest penance, and the

surest way to find the means of restitution."

"I will be beside thee, father," she said. "All thy burdens are mine."

"Nay," he said, with a sob in his voice, "it is _thee_ I cannot bear to

degrade."

"Nay," she said, "we _are_ one in the depths together, now, and that

will be the first bitter step on our joyful upward way."

But as they returned, it chanced that they lost the path and found

themselves before the threshold of blind Bruno's hut.

And for the first time since his sorrow, the wronged man's heart was so

light with the joy of forgiving that he was singing as he wove his

baskets, chanting half-unconsciously the hymn "_Apparebit repentina_."

And the tones of the voice seemed familiar to Baron Ivo, and he paused

and looked, and saw the upturned sightless face with the new peace on

it, and recognized his wronged kinsman.

He strode up to him and knelt at his side, and said in a low voice

half-stifled with shame and grief, "Bruno, you are avenged at last; I

can never forgive myself. Can _you_ forgive?" And after a brief pause

from the quivering lips came the pardon,--

"_I forgave you last night_, thank God."

They said no more.

But on the morrow Baron Ivo gathered the whole of his retainers

together, and as many of the townsmen as could come, and leading his

kinsman, with his wife and child, to the chair of state in the great

hall of the castle, he knelt before him and made confession of his

wrong. And then, by his command (his last as their lord), his retainers

took from him arms, and helmet, and sword, and coat of mail, and left

him in rough woollen garments such as his serfs wore, girded with a

rope; humbled and degraded, as he well knew, before no sympathetic

eyes--for, large as the assembly was, there were few in it who had not

against him some memory of rapine and wrong, and through the hall there

was a murmur of execrations.

But the true Baron rose and said, "Let no man reproach him. ONE has

atoned for him, and for me, and for all. Let no man reproach him, or

pity me. For since I have seen that forgiving Face, I am content to be

blind to all beside. _Ecce Homo._ Forgive, as He forgave."

And the hermit lifted the cross on high, and took one hand of the

penitent, while his daughter held the other in both hers, and together

they went forth through the hushed crowd, out of the castle-gates, into

the forest-hut to dwell there alone.

* * * * *

And the miser went home from the hermit's sermon once more a stricken

man--stricken before by terror to the conscience, but now smitten by

love to the heart.

Once more he turned to his coffers. And the gold, which terror for a

night had turned into dead leaves, seemed transmuted into coin of the

Kingdom; for, once more, the thought of the goldsmith's widowed daughter

and her children came to his heart. And this time he made no excuses,

and no delays, but hurrying out alone with eager haste, he searched out

the three destitute ones in their poor chamber in the roof, and took

them home to his house, and fed and clothed them, and made himself their

servant. And so the spell of death passed from his treasures, and they

became living grain.

* * * * *

And even to Gammer Truedchen, the power of forgiving love, the might of

the thorn-crowned Face, slowly penetrated. She could not banish from her

heart the tenderness of that gracious countenance. The words, "For envy

they delivered Him, for _envy_," stung her to the heart, and dimly and

slowly she grew to feel herself among those who had accused Him. And His

face seemed to haunt her, with a look in it that recalled the pale

saddened countenance of the Burgomaster's young wife: for lately she

could not help seeing that the lady's fair bright face had grown grave

and white; the shadow of calumny lay heavy on the young life alone in

the strange city.

So it went on, until one day Gammer Truedchen was seized with sudden

illness, and nothing would content her, as she lay tossing on her bed,

but to see again that saddened face whose memory so haunted her.

Willingly the lady came, and the old woman told her all, and the lady

would not leave her until she had nursed her into health again.

And from that time the stall by the Minster door ceased to be a nest of

stinging rumours, and instead, the children came to her, and the

suffering, and a quiet glow fell at eventide on her heart.

* * * * *

And so the new year dawned familiarly on all. But the Great Day dawned

not yet on the world; only on one, under Gaffer Gregory's roof, the

morning of new life had suddenly arisen.

The long struggle with want and toil had worn out the delicate frame of

the goldsmith's widowed daughter, and on the new year's morning the worn

and patient face lay motionless on the pillow with an unutterable peace

stamped on it from the soul which had learned the full meaning of the

words, "Behold the Man."

* * * * *

Still, on earth, remained the shadow of the irreparable wrongs; not on

those who had suffered, but on those who had wrought them.

Bruno's sightless eyes had indeed opened on a vision of peace beside

which all earthly light is dark. But from Ivo, who came and did faithful

service to him in his castle, the vision of his crime could never depart

on this side the grave.

To the Burgomaster's wife the calumny proved but as a purifying fire,

making her fair with a more heavenly beauty than before. But to Gammer

Truedchen the harvest of the evil words she had sown was ever returning.

And in the miser's house and heart the blank of the worn-out life he

might have saved lay heavy; while the blessed spirit thus set free was

resting with Him she had so faithfully loved in the Paradise of God.

On the wrong-doers fell indeed healing dews of forgiveness.

But the brows of the sufferers were glorious with the likeness of the

thorn-crowned Lord, and with His own crown of forgiving love.

But to all these forgiven and forgiving, the cry, "_Apparebit

repentina_," the Day shall appear, had become glad tidings of great joy,

because to the heart of each had come, as the command of love and the

inspiration of life, "_Ecce Homo_," Behold the Man!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Suddenly to all appearing the great Day of God shall come."

_The Cottage by the Cathedral._

Close under the walls of the Cathedral, nestling against one of its

buttresses, leant the Cottage in which the little crippled Marie lived.

Time and weather had stained and shaped the rude timbers of which it was

built, and tender mosses had woven their fine tapestries over its roof,

so that it seemed as little out of harmony with the stately building

which looked down on it and sheltered it, as the mosses and lichens on

its own stones.

For all the grandeur of the Cathedral being the grandeur of a house of

God, only made it, like the everlasting hills themselves, "the hills of

God," so much the more the shelter and refuge of the smallest of His

creatures.

Moreover, the Cathedral, for the very reason that it was a house of God,

being also a home and refuge for men, having also been designed, arch by

arch, by loving human thought, and raised, stone by stone, by lowly

human hands, had necessarily a twofold kindred: allying it, on the one

side, with the great temple of the Creator's own building, vaulted with

its infinite depths of starry worlds; and on the other side, with the

lowliest dwelling in which human creatures toil and suffer. Indeed, its

kindred with the cottage was closer than with the stars, because He who

was adored in it became, for our sakes, Himself the greatest Sufferer;

who, while He had made the stars, was made Man, and Himself lived in a

very lowly cottage once for thirty years.

All this little Marie felt, as she lay hour by hour alone on her pallet;

felt, not thought, for the roots of true thoughts in after-life lie deep

in the feelings of the child's heart, which the child cannot utter even

to itself, and which some lips indeed are never opened in this life to

utter to any one: a silence not of much moment, since this is the world

for learning rather than for uttering, and many of our most eloquent

utterances here would seem but as babes' lispings there; while many lips

which have but lisping or stammering speech here, will be opened in very

glorious singing there.

For are not reverence and love the highest religious lessons of

childhood; and indeed of all this life, which is but a childhood? a

reverent uplooking sense of Love and Power unbounded, above, yet very

near us, such as happy children learn from a holy mother's looks and

tones; and little motherless Marie received, in some measure, from the

Cathedral, interpreting to her, with its music and its beauty, the Our

Father and the Apostles' Creed which she had learned from her dying

mother's lips, when too little to understand anything but the sounds.

Marie was very much alone. Her father was a water-carrier, and was

bearing water all day to the thirsty people in the hot streets of the

city, or taking it to their homes. He had to leave quite early to draw

the water fresh from the spring in the cool of the morning. And one of

Marie's two great wishes was that one day she might go with him to the

fountain, and drink the water fresh from the spring. Every morning he

used to place all the things he thought his little girl would need

within her reach; a little white wheaten loaf, a cup of milk, a jug of

water, and, when he had had a prosperous day, some fresh fruit.

Marie thought her father's calling a very high and beautiful one,

although she knew it was not considered glorious in the city, nor one

that would make his name known and honoured. But that she thought little

of; for her father had often told her no one in the city knew the name

of the Architect of the Cathedral; and if his name had faded away from

the memories of men who counted his work the chief glory of their city,

it was plain, Marie thought, that the records of the city must be very

imperfect and very little worth caring about, and that, probably, there

were better records kept somewhere else on quite a different plan.

Water-carrying, besides not being a glorious calling in that city, was

not a lucrative one; so that, in order to eke out the daily bread, Marie

had learned to plait straw for fruit baskets. Agatha, the old woman who

sold fruit by the Cathedral porch, bought them of her; and in return

did, not without many grumblings, all the little household work Marie

would have done with such deft fingers and such a glad heart, had she

been able.

Sometimes, moreover, especially on a rainy day, Mark, Agatha's little

orphan grandson, would spend his play-hours with Marie, and she would

mend his poor ragged clothes as well as she could, and make him

wonderful little toy-baskets of straw lined with orange-peel, and balls

of rags; and in return he would sing her little songs, and the

multiplication-table, and sometimes hymns about Paradise, and the Living

Fountains, and the Temple and the Singers there.

This was Marie's visible world; her father and the Cottage, Agatha and

her fruit-stall, and little Mark, and the Cathedral.

To interpret it, she had the Our Father and the Apostles' Creed. Or

rather, she had them to interpret each other; His invisible things being

understood by the things that are seen, and our visible things by the

things that are not seen.

As to how this interpretation went on, I could say more another time. My

story now is simply of the Cottage and the Cathedral.

From the window by which Marie's bed lay, she could see Agatha's

fruit-stall, and the Cathedral. By propping herself up she could command

the fruit-stall, and see a great deal of the world, though not in its

highest circles. By leaning back as far as she could in one corner, she

could see to the top of the Cathedral tower, with its wonderful crown of

fretted stone; common stone sculptured by man's heart and hands into a

beauty greater than that of any diadem of gems.

Marie liked to think how each stone in that beautiful crown, which

glowed above her in the sunsets and sunrises, and at night was itself

crowned with stars, had been once a common gray stone like the fallen

ones which lay on the ground outside, useless and shapeless.

Of these stones Marie did not like to think. She hoped none of them had

ever been in that glorious crown. She did not think it anything but a

glory for any stone to be made the lowest stone in the uttermost

buttress of the Cathedral. Indeed, the greatest glory, perhaps, for any

stone was to be a hidden stone; altogether hidden, deep beneath the

earth, from human eyes. For such were the very foundation and corner

stones themselves, on which, as on the Unknown Architect, the whole

visible glory rested. But to be a fallen stone, chipped, and marred, and

useless, and crumbling into dust, when it might have been a

resting-place for sunbeams, and for birds to sing welcomes to the

sunbeams from, was a thought which made Marie very sad, and gave a

tremulous depth to her tones when she prayed, "_Lead us not into

temptation_," or tenderly coaxed little Mark not to render railings for

his grandmother's railings, or to use the rough words which he learned

in the streets.

The painted windows of the Cathedral were rather a distress and

perplexity to Marie. Sometimes, it was true, the upper panes glittered a

little in the noontide sunbeams; but, for the most part, they looked

dark and confused. If they had not been painted, she sometimes wistfully

thought, she might have caught glimpses of the glories inside. But

then, of course, they were painted for the people inside, not for those

without.

If she could only once creep Inside to see and to listen!

That was the great longing of her life.

If only once she could feel the great roof bending over her, and the

walls embracing her; if, instead of straining to catch some clear melody

which she might sing over in her heart, out of the dim labyrinth of

those sweet and solemn sounds which reached her where she lay; if she

could only once be among them, hearing the music, knowing the words,

making melody in her heart among the worshippers! Marie thought she

could live happy for the rest of her life on the remembrance; on the

remembrance and the great Hope it would light up.

She did not speak of this longing. She lived, poor little one, with so

keen a sense that her life was necessarily a burden on every one around

her, partly awakened by Agatha's very unconcealed complainings, and much

more by her father's weary looks when he came home at night with his

water-jars and his few hard-earned pence and sat down to his scanty

meal, that she could never bear by look or word to express a wish for

anything that was not absolutely needed or freely offered.

All the more, because she knew so well that the father's love (which was

mother's and father's love to her, and so interpreted to her the Our

Father) would hold any burden light and any sacrifice possible to gain

the motherless child a pleasure or an alleviation of suffering.

So the longing lay deep hidden in her heart, but never came from her

lips, until, one autumn when she seemed to grow brighter than usual, and

a flush came on her pale face sometimes towards evening, one morning her

father, looking fondly at her, said,--

"Child! by Christmas, who knows but we might have thee singing the

Christmas hymns inside the Cathedral!"

Then her whole face was lit up as he had never seen it shine before,

with the streaming out of the long-hidden hope; and drawing his face

down to her, she stroked it as she had been wont when a very little

child, and kissed him, and said,--

"Oh, father, do you think God will give me the joy of going Inside?"

"Why not, darling?" he answered cheerily; "nothing is too good for Him

to give; and what was the Cathedral built for, but for such as thee to

sing His praises inside?"

Yet, even as he spoke, there was something in the light of the wistful

eyes, and in the touch of the feeble feverish hands, that made his

accents falter.

Christmas Eve came. All night the snows fell. In the morning the sun

shone, but the air was keen and cold, and little Marie knew there was no

going Inside for her that day. But she thanked God for making the

outside so beautiful, just as if the angels of the winds had been all

night decorating every ledge and angle and quaint familiar bit of

carving, and all the fretwork of the stone crown, with alabaster and

crystal, or some heavenly blending of glories impossible in earthly

material.

As her father left her for the service, he looked fondly back, and

said,--

"At Easter, darling; inside at Easter!"

But there was no ring of hope in his tones, cheerful as he tried to make

the words; and when he had left her, and the soft dim music floated in

broken cadences to her on her solitary little bed, for once the child

felt not merely alone but lonely, and a few hot, rare tears fell through

her thin fingers as she pressed them on her face.

But she was not alone. And as she lay quietly weeping, sacred words came

into her heart, borne on the sacred music, like the scent of violets on

the winds in spring.

"_Thy will be done on earth._"

She said it, she wept it, she wept it to her Father in heaven. And

softly, as from the other side of the choir, came back, as from above,

the glorious antiphon--

"_As it is in heaven._"

The sob of submission came back, as it so often does, in a song of

praise, from the land where the Amens are transfigured into the

Hallelujahs.

"_As it is in heaven._"

"It will be all Easter there," she thought. "I shall be Inside there at

last!"

When her father came back, and looked anxiously at his darling as he

entered the door, her smile met him like a song of victory and welcome.

"At Easter, darling! Inside the Cathedral at Easter!"

"Yes, father," she said; "one Easter I shall be Inside."

But the hidden fount of joy, from which the smile came, he did not know.

She would not tell him, because to him, at first, she knew it must be a

bitter well of tears.

Slowly she faded away.

The Cathedral, her great stone Poem, her Paradise, rose before her, and

spoke to her, day and night.

But with new readings.

For she had learned that this whole visible world, with its earth and

its heavens, its cities and its cathedrals, this whole transitory life,

is but as the little timber Cottage nestling against the everlasting

walls of the Temple whose builder and maker is God.

Day by day old Agatha grumbled over her household work, yet day by day

more tenderness began to mingle with her complainings.

Day by day little Mark came, attracted irresistibly, he knew not how, by

the gentle voice, although the feeble fingers could mend or make for him

no more. And unconsciously he unlearned the rough lessons of the

streets, and learned a loving reverence from the dying child.

And day by day the father laid the little white loaf, and the milk, and

the water-jug by his darling's bed, only showing his anxiety by never

missing any day now to bring some little gift of fruit to add to it,

were his labour prosperous or not, taking it from his own scanty meal.

And little Marie dared not remonstrate or refuse; she knew the memory of

those little sacrifices would be so precious.

Beyond this tacit understanding, the two did not confess to each other

by word or look that both knew what was at hand.

Only one morning, as he was leaving home, she said to him in a faint

voice, but with a bright smile, "Father, I think God has given you

beautiful work to do--to carry water to those who thirst. Is it not just

what His only Son, our Lord, is doing always for us? He does not stand

at the fountain; He brings the water home, does He not? home to every

one of us, to our very hearts."

Then she added,--

"Father, you will come back early. I think our Lord is coming to take me

to the Fountains of Waters. We shall drink together one morning, father,

fresh from the spring. I think I am going Inside at last."

He did not leave her again.

Days of suffering came.

But before Easter she had exchanged the little Cottage for the

Cathedral. The child had entered in, and was joining in the songs of the

Temple, which is the Father's house, wherein are many mansions.

And Agatha said,--

"We have had a saint with us, a saint of God,--and I did not know it!"

But she grew gentler and kinder. The Cottage where the gentle child had

lived and died had grown as sacred as the Cathedral, and a hush of

reverence was on it which seemed to make harsh words impossible where

she had suffered and entered into rest.

Little Mark said, "My friend is gone." But when he said the Our Father

she had taught him, he understood a little what a heaven it must be

where all the voices were as gentle as Marie's, and all the hearts as

true and kind.

The father said nothing, except to God.

"Our Father which art in heaven," he said, "mine and hers, Thou gavest

me a saint of Thine to be an angel in my home. I thank Thee I knew it

while she was here with me; not first now that she is Inside, at home

with Thee."

But a glory came down on his lowly work from her memory, her words, and

the sense he had of her immortal life, until he too should be called to

the Living Fountains, to hear once more the dear familiar voice, then

long at home in the Hallelujahs, but sure never to forget the tones of

welcome it had on earth for him.

* * * * *

"Sic hat ihren Sprung gethan. Ach wollt' Gott dass ich den Sprung gethan

haette. Ich wollt' mich nicht sehr herwieder sehnen."--MARTIN LUTHER

_(Watchwords for the Warfare of Life_, p. 304).

Say not they sank to rest,

As a wave when its force is spent,

As a weary child on its mother's breast,

So it seemed; but not thus they went.

Not thus it seemed to those

Who watch by our side alway,

And through the calm of the last repose

See the dawn of the endless day.

As a stream the frosts enchain,

By the touch of Spring set free,

Vocal and strong bounds forth again,

Springs forth to meet the sea;

As a bird of some sunny land,

Caged in the darkness long,

Freed by the touch of a friendly hand,

Springs into light and song.

We are the feeble, and bound

In fetters of night and frost;

Winged, but chained to the ground,

In fevered slumbers tost.

The dying, the dead are we;

The living, the living are they;

Ever living, from death set free,

To praise thee, Lord, this day.

Say not they sank to rest,

As a wounded bird on the sod;--

As a waking child to its mother's breast,

They sprang to life and to God!

_The Unknown Architect of the Minster._

A LEGEND, NOT OF COLOGNE.

In the days when Gothic architecture was still a vital force in the

world, ever spontaneously renewing itself in varied forms, nourishing

itself with all the life around it, enriching itself with all the

changes of the times and seasons, and giving them forth in new and

ever-varying forms of growth and beauty, as living things do, the

Architect of the Minster lived.

Day by day, and night by night, the beautiful thought grew in his heart

and brain. For, as with the Kingdom of God itself, so more or less with

all the works of the Kingdom, is it not "as if a man should cast seed

into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed

should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how"?

All the beauty of all he saw and heard in the City and in the fields

grew into it, the wonder and the joyousness of his childhood, the

aspirations of his youth, the power of his manhood,--all the joys and

sorrows of his life, its sacred memories, and its more sacred hopes.

When, he went through the streets of the City near at hand, the happy

faces of little children, the patient toil of working-men and women, the

furrows on the faces of the aged who could toil no more, all were sacred

to him, and inspiring; for all said: "You are building a home for us, a

home for each, where children's voices shall soar in praise, and the

toil-worn find rest in the sacred shadow, and the aged a foretaste of

the rest to which they are drawing near. A home for all, which, like the

Great Home that abideth, shall unite, not separate."

When he wandered over the undulating reaches of solitary moorland near

the city, or through the shades of forest and copse, or listened to the

little rills trickling from their gravelly sources through the sedges of

the marshy hollows, not a golden arrow of sunshine that shot through the

trees, nor a curve of sedge or grass in the quiet places, but sowed some

germ of beauty in his brain.

The sweep of the great River round meadow and tower, the rush of the

current which linked it with the heart of the land, and the ebb and flow

of the tides which bound it to the heart of the changing sea; the day,

with its revelations of earth, and its awakening of eyes to see and

work; the night, with its revelations of heaven, and its awakening of

souls to see and pray; the steadfast arch of starry sky, which was no

roof, but an unveiling of the Infinite; the changing gleams of cloud and

sunshine, clothing the earth with her robe of light and tears; the

intervening brief glows of dawn and sunset, when earth and sky held

festival with blaze of colour and burst of choral song;--all these sank

deep into his spirit, to live again in the pillars of his forest aisles,

and the arch of the aspiring roof, which, like the starry roof of heaven

itself, was not to shut the adoring heart in and down, but to lift it up

and up for ever.

So the Minster grew--grew as human works do grow, by patient mechanical

toil of brain and hand elaborating the original inspiration, by accurate

measurement, by rigid faithfulness to law, by lowly learning from God's

work, by patient study of man's needs. Curve by curve, line by line,

stone on stone, till the vision of the poet's heart grew into a vision

of beauty for the refreshment of the hearts of all men.

* * * * *

But the Architect did not live, on earth, to see his thought grow into

sight.

On a pallet, in a cell of the monastery, he lay, smitten with fever.

And while the thought of his brain was growing into solid stone on the

sunny earth outside his cell, the solid earth itself was passing away,

like a dream, from him.

It was Easter Eve. In the deepest dusk before the dawn, in the silence

of his cell, a stirring and shadowing of something unholy seemed to

darken and disturb the air.

Unloving voices answered each other in hoarse whispers, like a hot, dry

wind through the crisp and shrivelled sedges of a dried-up watercourse.

"Ha!" laughed the voices; "he thinks he has been working for

immortality. But we know better. A century hence, not a creature will

remember his name, any more than they remember or care who planted the

first tree in the forests around the city.

"He dreams of the gratitude of men; and centuries after he has mouldered

into dust, the generations of the dust-born will be gazing up with

stupid wonder at the thing he built, and pouring out their prayers and

praises to the stone roof which rises above his dust and theirs,

fancying their words pierce through, instead of falling back like the

echoes. But we know better.

"Among all the names glorified there, no mention will be made of his. He

fancies his name is written in stone, and in men's hearts. It is written

in dust, and in men's breath. 'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher,

all is Vanity.'"

A faint ray of gray light crept in through the window of the cell, and

the mocking voices died away among the chill morning winds.

But the Architect lay on his bed in a rapture of gratitude and content.

"Father," he said in his heart, "can this be true? Shall this thing for

which I have thought and toiled indeed grow up into a holy place,

wherein men shall adore Thee for centuries after I am gone--even Thee?

Shall this offering of mine be indeed so accepted on Thine altar? First

me, and then it?--Wilt Thou indeed accept both altogether thus? Wilt

Thou indeed let me be altogether hidden in this thing I have thought, in

it and in Thee?"

Then from all the churches of the city rang forth the Easter bells.

And through the victorious peal of the Resurrection music, through the

slow dawning of the newly-risen light, through the chirping and

carolling of the waking birds, there came to the patient sufferer

voices, and white visions of glory--white so as no fuller on earth can

white them.

And the voices spoke thus into his heart:--

"Thine offering is altogether accepted. Thou and it. Thy work shall live

on earth, faithfully fulfilled according to the thought of thine heart.

Thy name shall be written in Heaven, in the Temple not made with hands.

"Thy work shall live where thou no longer art, to help men for ages, to

be bread to the eater and seed to the sower of the generations to come.

Thy name shall live where thou shalt be; among the great multitude which

no man can number, yet each one of which is graven on One divine and

human Heart.

"For ages to come, whilst thou art blessed and at rest, men and women,

still toiling and struggling on this earth, and children, shall praise

God in this beautiful place of thy building, with such praise as

toiling, sinning, repenting, human creatures can give.

"The voice of the great River shall be heard no more beside it, for the

ebb and flow of the great tide of human life which shall surge round it

on every side.

"Day after day the sunbeams, ever new, shall come and go across its

pillars, like a harp touched by an invisible hand, or be caught in its

delicate traceries and entrapped down into the shadows.

"Easter after Easter, the Resurrection hymns of victory, ever new, shall

echo from its vaulted roofs.

"Generation after generation shall worship there, and pass away, and

rest beneath its shade.

"But thy name shall not be written there.

"Not there, among the dying and the sinning. Above; among the living and

the holy. In the Book of Life. On the heart of the Holiest. For ever and

for ever. Art thou content?"

Softly the light and music died away into heaven.

And the sufferer sighed.

"Content! Are the archangels content before the throne? Father,

Redeemer, hast Thou indeed accepted my work thus? My offering and

me--even me?"

And softly the humble and blessed spirit died away into the eternal

light, into the hands of God, and was satisfied.

_Only the Crypt.[2]_

We are entering the Beautiful Temple of God, said the children, a

brother and a sister, as they passed reverently under the arched doorway

for the first time.

But the roof was low, and the light faint. A feeling of chill and

depression crept over them.

The weight of the vaulted stone roof seemed to crush the spirit. Through

the small, narrow windows, with their diamond panes, the sunbeams crept

in thin silver threads, and soon seemed to grow dim in the damps that

came up from below, or to lose their way among the massive pillars of

the low arched aisles.

"Can this be the Cathedral?" whispered the brother to the sister; "the

glorious House of God our fathers told us of, and we have dreamt of?"

"They said it was the Cathedral," said the sister; "therefore it must

have glories. We may not doubt the Builder, or Him to whom it is built.

Let us rather doubt ourselves. Our eyes will grow used to the light, and

then we shall learn its beauty. Our mother used to say the eyes of

little children had to get used to the light before they could

understand this world."

"Used to the _darkness_!" murmured the boy.

At that moment a patient sunbeam made its way in through one of the

larger windows and lit up patches of the pillars, falling at last in a

golden glory on a brazen cross with an inscription round it, inlaid in

the slab at the base of one of the pillars.

The children knelt down to read the letters. They were a tender record

of the sorrow of parents for the loss of a child.

And as they examined further they found that every stone beneath their

feet bore some similar memorial words.

"Can we be right?" said the boy with a shudder. "I thought we were

coming to a house of worship. We seem to have come into a house of

graves."

They sat down sad and perplexed on the base of one of the pillars.

As they sat there silent, hand in hand, the sound of soft music, happy,

and of an overpowering sweetness, came to them they could not tell

whence, faint, and yet not, it seemed, far off, more as if there were

some barrier between them and it. It seemed around, above, everywhere;

yet the ear could fix on no point to trace it to that they might follow

it.

Soon it ceased. But then the strains were taken up by voices nearer at

hand. This second music had not the delicious perfectness of the first.

Individual voices could be distinctly heard, not blended into a perfect

whole; and some of these were harsh, some were shrill, some tremulous

and broken as if with tears, some too low with fear, some too high as if

from eagerness to be heard; yet the tones were those of reverent

worship, and something of the joy of the first music broke through them

often, like the sunbeams through the dim, chill air.

"We will go near and try to join," said the children. As they went

towards the sound they saw some lamps which had hitherto been hidden

from them by the pillars. These lit up the forms of a kneeling company

of worshippers.

The children came near, and knelt in adoration beside them. In the

worship their hearts took wing and rose into the light, and for a time

they forgot the chill and the gloom.

Yet, even as they knelt, they saw that the little company was not

abiding. There was a continual movement and change in it. The voices

changed. The sweetest and best trained were continually breaking off, in

obedience to some summons the children could not hear; and others who,

like themselves, had all their music to learn, were coming in their

place.

An awe and trembling came again over the children; and the brother

whispered,--

"Can we be right? Can this be the Cathedral? No one seems to stay!

Whither can they go?"

And the sister answered in a soft whisper,--

"We will wait to see. Can they be going to the _other music_?"

Scarcely had the words died from her lips when a maiden who had been

kneeling close beside them, from whose liquid voice and clear reverent

utterance the children had been learning the words of the song, and from

whose pale radiant face they had been drinking in its joyful meaning,

suddenly ceased her singing, and looking up for a moment with an earnest

listening gaze, she seemed to hear some welcome irresistible call, for

she said,--

"For me? Can it be indeed for _me_?" And softly touching the children's

forehead with a touch that seemed to them a blessing, she murmured, "You

will be called too, by-and-by." Then noiselessly she rose and glided

away through the shadow of the arches towards the east, and up a flight

of steps the children had not observed before.

They followed her with eager, anxious gaze, and for a moment, ere she

glided out of sight, there was the streaming of a flood of golden

sunshine down the gloom, from an open door, and once more the sound of

that perfect music they had heard at first.

At that moment there was a pause in the service, and a silver-haired old

man came to the children and bid them welcome.

"You look sad and bewildered, my children," he said.

"Oh, father! tell us what it means," they whispered. "Can we be in the

right place? We thought we were coming to a place of light and of

heavenly singing, full of rejoicing worshippers who delighted to stay

there. But this seems a place of gloom and of graves. Here the

worshippers are a little broken band, and even these do not stay. All is

changing and imperfect. What does it mean?"

The old man smiled. "Where do you think you are?" he said.

"In the Cathedral," they answered. "Are we not in the Cathedral?"

"You are, and you are not!" he said. "This is part of the Cathedral. But

it is only the Crypt. The Church cemetery and the Cathedral school. The

choir children are trained here. But the true Cathedral is above; and,

of necessity, when the choristers are trained, they are called up to

join the services there."

When the children heard this they understood it all.

Thankfully they went to learn their part in the Psalm with the choir

children.

And knowing the Crypt to be only a crypt, its gloom was wonderfully

brightened to them. Its stray sunbeams grew clear and golden, now that

they were understood to be only earnests of the golden day above. Its

broken hymns grew tenfold sweeter, now that they were felt to be but the

learning of the anthems to be sung above.

Precious was every hard lesson of the singing, precious every thin

silver thread of the light, for they were the foretaste or the

preparation of the moment when the door of the true Temple should open,

and the shadows flee away.

BURIED WITH CHRIST.

Moans of sharpest agony,

Faintly moaning ceaselessly,

"Earth is all one grave to me!"

Greenest fields but churchyard turf,

Sunniest seas but deadly surf;

Purest skies one vaulted tomb,

Death in all homes most at home.

Moans of sharpest agony!

Back from far they came to me,

Echoed from the crystal sea,

As a chant of victory;

From the sea's translucent verge

Back in triumph pealed the dirge:--

"Earth is all one grave to thee?

What besides could earth now be,

Since He died upon the tree,

Since He died on earth for thee?

Since beneath it He lay, dim,

Cold and still each tortured limb,

Buried are His own with Him,

Yet the dirge is all a hymn.

Wouldst thou take the crypt's chill damps,

And its few sepulchral lamps,

For His temple spaces high,

For His depths of starry sky?

Wouldest thou? Not so would they

Who one moment breathe His day,

Who for one brief moment's space

Have the vision of His face.

Earth has light for earth's great strife,--

Where He liveth, there is Life.

"Earth is all one grave to thee?

Yet lift up thine eyes and see!

For the stone is rolled away,

And He standeth there to-day;

Patiently by thee will stay

Till thy heart 'Rabboni' say!

(He will not forget the clay,

Thine, nor theirs, by night or day.)

That 'Rabboni!' faint through fears,

Sobbed in agony of tears,--

That alone thy heart can clear

Those far-off Amens to hear,

That alone can tune thy heart

In those songs to take her part.

"Then thy cry of agony:

'Earth is all one grave to me,'

Echoing shall come back to thee

In a chant of victory,

Echoed from the crystal sea,

From the living victors free,

Ransomed everlastingly."

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Partly suggested by a passage in Longfellow's "Hyperion."

_The Sepulchre and the Shrine._

"Why seek ye the living among the dead?"

The great torrent of the First Crusade had been sweeping for weeks

through the valley of the Danube. Along that "highway of nations" tribe

after tribe had poured westward, leaving its deposit in castle and

village, on dominant height and in sheltered hollow. And now the rush of

men swept back eastward: no slowly advancing tide of emigration, but a

wild torrent of enthusiasm, which would leave behind it nothing but

graves and the bones of unburied thousands. And yet in that death were

seeds of life.

Week after week the Lady of the Tannenburg had seen from the terrace of

her castle the bands of peasants pass on their way,--men and women and

little children, with the red-cross on the shoulder,--to the Tomb of

Christ, to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the infidel. Multitudes almost

entirely composed of the poor: no plumed helmets or richly caparisoned

war-horses. The red-cross, of common stuff, was fastened on the poor

garments of the peasants. The only chariots were the rough cart drawn by

oxen taken from the plough, carrying the mothers and the little ones,

who were too feeble to walk.

Of geography they knew little more than the children, who cried out as

each town came in sight, "Is that Jerusalem?" The patient oxen would

suffice to carry them and theirs, they thought, to the Master's Grave!

The rich had loans to effect, lands to sell, affairs to arrange,

stewards and agents to appoint, before they could commence the perilous

journey with a fitting escort. Moreover, to them the Holy Land contained

something more than the Sepulchre of Christ. It contained rich Moslem

cities to be plundered, fertile lands to be possessed, fair provinces to

be reigned over. To the poor it contained only the Master's Grave. And

He who leadeth the blind by a way that they know not, led the people

then as now.

The rich, for the most part, came back impoverished. The poor, for the

most part, never came back at all: but from their graves sprang the

first-fruits of freedom for Europe. The religious enthusiasm for which

they died had begun the emancipation of their class. From chattels,

attached to the soil like its crops and its stones, they had become men.

The Master's Grave was theirs to die for, as much as it was their

lords'; the Master's will was theirs to live for, as much as for the

noblest.

Day by day the Lady of the Tannenburg had watched the pilgrim-bands

passing slowly in irregular groups through the broad valley beneath her.

Night by night she had seen the camp-fires gleaming through the

pine-woods, and heard the "_Dieu le veut_" echo from crag to crag. Often

she had sent her only child, young Rudolf, with a band of retainers,

bearing bread and meat from her stores, fruit from her orchards, and

wine from her vineyards, to be distributed among the pilgrims. And night

by night, as the hosts passed by, they knew the Lady's castle by the one

steadfast light from one arched window, which never failed to shed its

faint glow over the castle wall.

It was well known among them that scarcely a year before, her husband,

Sir Rudolf of the Tannenburg, had died. It was said that he had been on

the eve of joining the Crusade; and many a vow was made to the young

Rudolf that his father's name should be faithfully remembered at the

Holy Sepulchre. The boy knew that the tears which came into his mother's

eyes when he told her of those vows were tears that heal. But at last

one evening, as he rose from his prayer at her knee, he looked up into

her face, while a sudden light broke over his, and said,--

"Mother, are not all the people going to the same Holy Grave?"

"The same? Surely, my son," she said, bowing her head reverently. "The

Grave of Christ, our Lord."

"We have our own holy grave, mother!" he replied--"thou and I. But have

we no share in this Grave of Christ?"

"Surely; their Lord is ours," she said; "and His Holy Sepulchre is ours,

in common with all Christendom."

"Then, mother! mother!" he exclaimed, gazing full into her eyes, "let us

also go to the Grave, to weep there, with all His Christendom. Let us do

what my father meant to do. Who will remember his name as we would

there?"

For a few moments she made no reply. The casement stood open, although

it was winter, and through the stillness of the frosty air echoed once

more the solemn, "_Dieu le veut_."

"Out of the mouth of the babes who are Thine, out of the mouth of Thy

poor, O Christ, Thou speakest. I listen--I obey. God wills it.--My boy,"

she said quietly, pressing him to her heart, "God has surely spoken by

thee. My heart speaks by thee. We will go."

She sat beside the child till he slept, till the long lashes shaded the

flushed cheek, and the half-open lips and the small clenched hand seemed

to tell of some boyish dream of conflict with the infidel.

Kneeling beside her sleeping child, she made her first vow in the

presence of all that made life living to her.

And then she went down to keep solitary vigil in the castle-chapel; to

kindle those sepulchral lamps which were seen far across the valley,

which she never suffered any hands but her own to trim or feed.

Her own room was bare and austere as any monastic cell. All her precious

things were lavished on the mortuary chapel, which was her

treasure-chamber, the resting-place she longed to share, the threshold

of the Father's house. On the steps of that memorial altar, which was a

tomb, and there only in the world, she felt at home.

The light of the flickering lamps, contending with the steadfast, silent

moonbeams, wrought strange magical contrasts of glow and gloom on silver

shrine, and polished marble pavement, and jewelled paten, and chalice,

and gold-embroidered drapery; and beyond, on the rich Gothic sculpture,

here and there relieving the shadows of the arched aisle.

And kneeling there once more, she renewed the vow, in the presence of

what made life death to her, and death as the threshold of life.

"_Dieu le veut_," she said, pressing her forehead on the cold marble. "O

Christ, I take the cross on me, for me and for him. Accept it for both,

and shelter us both with Thine."

* * * * *

It was early spring.

Forth through the green Danube valley they went,--the mother and her

son, Snorro the old castellan, and Gunhilda the nurse, with other

faithful old servants of the house.

At night they slept under a tent, or in any lowly hut they could find.

In the morning they awoke with no stately walls between them and Nature.

To the boy, the journey amongst the forests and by the streams was one

perpetual holiday.

And on the mother also soft dews of healing began to fall, from sunsets

and sunrises, and the opening of leaves, and the songs of birds, and

the life of all the humble happy creatures.

But most of all from this, that she had stepped down from the cold

height of her solitary sorrow, and went forth as one bearing the common

burden of humanity.

"We are going to the Holy Grave that belongs to us all!" she said to

herself. "We go with Thy poor, Thou who wast poor Thyself! We go to Thy

sepulchre, mortal, mourning human creatures, for Thou also wast mortal

once. Thou also _hast died and hast been buried_!"

Thus, in stooping lowly, nearer her fellow-men, she grew nearer Him who

stooped lowest of all.

"The whole earth is a sepulchre," she said; "for it was Thine! Not our

beloved only; Thou also hast lain in the grave! When we and our beloved

lie down in ours, it will be but where Thou hast lain before."

Meanwhile, all the time the earth was bearing her lowly witness to the

resurrection in opening buds and nestling birds, and all the renewal of

the spring. Yet the Lady thought only, "My love is dead. My Lord has

died."

But one twilight, as they walked together in the sombre shadows of a

pine-forest, the boy said to her,--

"Mother, I heard strange talk last night by the camp-fires. Old Snorro

was talking to Gunhilda, and he said he could not make out all this

wandering to the Sepulchre in the Morning Land. His mother, he said,

used to tell him how, when they lived far away by the Northern Seas, the

young men and maidens mourned for the death of Balder the Good and

Beautiful, the sun-god, until one day a stranger priest came, with the

Cross, from the south, and told them to mourn no longer for the slain

god, for he brought them tidings of One good, and strong, and beautiful,

the Light of all the worlds, who had wrestled with death and had _not_

been overcome, but had broken through the grave and risen in immortal

life to give life to men. If indeed He lived, Snorro said, why did all

the people run away from the places He set them in, to His grave, where

He was not, instead of praying to Him, and trying to please Him in the

heaven where He is? And Gunhilda said Snorro must not talk of things he

did not understand; that it was a good and holy work to wrest the Holy

Grave from the infidel; the priest said so, and the Pope said so; and

how should he know who had only been a Christian at all for two

generations? Old Snorro did not seem satisfied. He said he only wanted

to understand. And she said he ought not to want to understand; that was

like Eve, and like the devil, and was the beginning of all wickedness.

And so they were whispering on when I fell asleep.

"Mother, what did old Snorro mean?"

She took his hand, and they walked on some little time in silence.

"Was old Snorro quite wrong, mother?" the boy said at length.

"Not quite, my son," she said. "I think not altogether wrong. Our Lord

is surely living. Nevertheless, it is surely right that we should

reverence the Holy Grave, and seek to wrest it from the unbeliever."

But that night she had a strange dream. She thought the ancient spirits,

with legends of whom her Northern land was full, were all awake,

careering through the forest like winds, flickering like the flames of

the dying camp-fires, flitting to and fro like shadows; water-spirits

from the forest-pools, dwarfs from the mountains, gnomes from under the

hills. And some were laughing, some were sighing; but all kept saying to

each other,--

"It is the old funeral procession we remember so long ago; it is the

old, old wail. The children of men are mourning once more their Good and

their Beautiful slain, and buried, and lost. Once more they find their

best and dearest in a grave. For a little while we thought the

death-wail was interrupted, swallowed up in the New Song of Life and

Victory. But it has come back. Balder the Beautiful, the Light of

heaven, is slain. This new Light of Life, this new Hope of the children

of men, is also slain. It is the old funeral train, and the old

death-wail. We--the earth-born, spirits of the waters and the forests

and the hills--live on, and send our echoes on from age to age.

They--the heaven-born--die, and mourn, and pay vain worship to their

dead. Once more the religion of the children of men is a pilgrimage to a

grave."

All that day the wondering doubt of old Snorro the Norseman, and the

moans and whispers of that strange dream, sent wild, bewildering echoes

through the Lady's heart.

And that evening it chanced that the encampment lay amidst the ruins of

some deserted dwellings on the outskirts of a walled city.

The Lady could not sleep; and as she lay awake in the silence, broken

only now and then by the howling of wolves from the forest, and the

baying of watch-dogs from the city, every now and then a low faint

moaning fell on her ear, as if from a little distance.

At first she thought it was but some of those strange moanings which the

winds make at night among the woods. She listened more intently, until

she became sure that faint articulate sounds mingled with the moans,

which she knew could only come from a human voice.

Softly she arose, and glided to where the sound seemed to be.

And there, in the angle of one of the charred and shattered walls, she

found a young maiden stretched helplessly on a heap of dry leaves.

At the gentle tones of the Lady's voice, the maiden's eyes languidly

opened.

After a time she consented to take a little food and wine from the

Lady's hands: and then slowly she told how she was of the hated and

hunted Hebrew race, and had lived with her people in this the Jewish

Quarter, outside the city walls, until, two nights ago, a wild band of

Crusaders had fallen on them at midnight, had set fire to their

dwellings, and killed all who could not flee, calling them Infidels and

Enemies of Christ; while she herself, long laid on a sick-bed, unable to

move, had been strangely overlooked, and left there to die alone.

Many days the Lady sat beside her, and tenderly soothed and served her,

refusing to abandon this destitute sufferer, even to pursue the way of

the Holy Cross.

"For," she said, "I would not have Him say to me in that day, 'I was

sick and a stranger, and ye visited Me not.'"

Thus the company of Crusaders went on their way; and the Lady and her

son, with their retainers, were left by themselves among the ruined

dwellings between the city and the forest.

At first the sick girl seemed to revive with the tender care lavished on

her; and her heart opened freely to the motherly heart that had thus

taken her to itself.

"It is very strange," she would say; "what does it all mean? He whom you

worship was one of our people. A good man of your people told me once He

loved our race; and forgave even those who were most cruel to Him; and

wept over our sorrows, which He foresaw; and forbade any to think He did

not love us. Such a lovely portrait the good man drew of your Christ, I

thought if I had lived on earth when He did, I must have been a

Christian. But His Christians hate our race, and never forgive, and hunt

us to death."

"Not all," the Lady said tenderly. "It is He who bade me minister to

you."

"If you are like Him, and all Christians were like you," the maiden

said, "I might be a Christian even now. But all is so strange!" she went

on. "Our people say your Christ is dead, and was buried long ago. But

your Book says He rose again, and lives evermore. Yet all His Christians

seem to think He has left nothing so precious behind, belonging to Him,

as His grave. But if indeed He lay in it only those three days, what was

it more than a sick-bed, from which one rises to new health and

strength? It is strange. If He lives, has He left you nothing more

precious than a grave?"

"Surely He lives!" the Lady said; "and I think He has left us much more

precious and dearer to Him than His grave. Poor child," she said, her

whole face radiant with the thought, "I think _you_ are dearer, dearer

to Him than His Holy Sepulchre. For you may be His living shrine. He

said once in a parable, '_In that ye do it to one of the least of these,

ye do it unto Me_.'"

A heavenly light shone from the dark Oriental eyes of the dying girl.

"Did He say so?" she said. "Then your Christ was indeed different from

those who call themselves by His name."

And soon afterwards she resumed,--

"Lady, it may be that I shall see Him soon--see your Christ. It may be I

shall find He is our Christ. It may be I shall find He was born my

Saviour also, and that He will receive even me among His brethren. It

may be He will be pleased with what you have done for me."

And soon afterwards the large wistful eyes grew languid, and were closed

in death.

* * * * *

The morning broke over the pine-tops, and over the towers of the city,

and on the Lady watching beside her sleeping boy, and on the Jewish

maiden sleeping the sleep of death.

And with the morning broke peals of bells from every tower in the city,

and every lonely chapel scattered through the far-off glades of the

forest.

Easter Bells.

The Passion Week had come and passed, unheeded, whilst the Lady sat and

watched through her agony with the dying girl.

And now the Easter burst on her with a glad surprise, as if it had been

the first; as if the tidings of Resurrection had now first burst on her

from heaven.

_The Lord has risen indeed._

It was true. His Sepulchre was empty. But heaven and earth were full of

Him, and of His glory.

* * * * *

"Mother," said her boy, when they rose from their morning prayer

together, "what do all these joy-bells mean? Is it a king's marriage, or

a great victory? Can it be that they have rescued the Holy Sepulchre

from the infidel at last?"

"They are indeed ringing for a Great Victory," she replied; "the

greatest ever won. It is Easter Day, my son. This day our Lord left His

grave for ever, and rose victorious over death, and opened the gate of

everlasting life to all believers."

And still the bells pealed joyfully on, from the villages on the plains

and hill-sides, from the rocky castled heights, from the depths of the

forest--

"Io! revixit,

Sicuti dixit,

Pius illaesus,

Funere Jesus!"

Then, looking on the motionless form stretched in the shroud beside her,

the echo of her own words came back to her,--

"The Lord is risen indeed, and liveth for evermore. Dearer than His

empty grave to Him is every sufferer such as this. His Sepulchre is

empty; suffering men and women are His shrine, where we may meet

Himself."

* * * * *

And retracing her steps to her castle, beside it she built a hospice for

the sick and the forsaken, from which she suffered none, Greek or Latin,

Jew or Gentile, to be repelled--the only claim she admitted being need

of succour.

And in thus ministering to His poor, she found indeed, in the depths of

her own heart, that He was risen, living for evermore, and present every

hour.

Through His Sepulchre, the grave of her beloved and her own had become

to her but as an encampment for the night beside the Great Captain's, on

the Battle-field.

In His life she learned that they also lived; and in living unto Him,

once more she found she was living with them.

_The Cathedral Chimes._

A LEGEND.

In a city whose history dates from the ages of silvery bells and stately

buildings, there stood, and stands now for aught I know, a cathedral,

rich in all the endless fancies of Gothic art. Inside, it was solemn

with shade, and gorgeous with light which came in through the elaborate

tracery of the stained windows, many-coloured, and broken as the

sunbeams through a tropical forest. Outside, fretted pinnacles and

carved bell-towers sprang upward, grand yet fairy-like, as if stone

towers rose as easily and naturally towards heaven as oaks and pines.

But the chief glory of this cathedral was its bells. They were the pride

of the city, and the great attraction to strangers. Their history formed

an important part of the civic chronicles.

A lady of a royal house had given them as a thank-offering for her

lord's safe return from the Crusades. All her silver-plate and

ornaments, with spoils of Saracens from the recovered Holy Land, had

been poured into the mould when they were made, so that from their birth

all tender and sacred memories had been fused into their very essence,

and their first tones echoed far-off times and lands. A bishop who

afterwards suffered martyrdom in the hands of African Moslems had

blessed them. Their first peal had sounded in honour of a great

victory. They had summoned the people through ages of conflict to defend

their liberties. They had blended their life with the life of every

home,--in family joys and family sorrows, at wedding, christening, and

funeral. They had made Sundays and holidays glad with their joyous

voices. And last, but not least, by aid of an elaborate mechanism of

hammers, ropes, and pulleys, they had for centuries celebrated the

departure of every hour with a chorale, and every half-hour with a

strain like the versicle of a chant, and every quarter of an hour with a

little sprinkle of sweet sound.

Imagine, then, the dismay of the citizens, when, one Monday morning,

eight o'clock came, and no sound issued from the cathedral; half-past

eight, silence; nine, not a note of warning! Their wonder was increased

when the usual peal rung out, clear and full as ever, for the morning

service, and by mid-day the whole city was in a commotion. It was plain

something must be wrong with the machinery of the chimes.

Immediately the most skilful mechanics of the town, clock-makers, and

bell-founders, with the men of science, and the whole corporation, in a

state-procession, mounted the clock-tower. "We will soon set it right,"

they said to the agitated crowd as they entered the belfry-door. The

ropes of the machinery were tested,--all were sound; not a flaw in the

hammers; not a clog in the wheels; not a crack in the silvery metal.

Microscopes were employed, conjectures were hazarded, experiments of all

kinds were tried, but not a ray of light was thrown on the perplexity.

The clever hands, and the wise heads, and the will of the authorities

were all baffled; and the procession reappeared to the assembled

multitudes with very crestfallen looks.

That afternoon little work was done in the workshops, few lessons were

learned in the schools, all the routine of household habits was

interrupted; and when it grew dark the Great Square was filled with

people who were afraid to separate and go to bed without the sanction

of the cathedral chimes. Many foreboded some terrible disaster to the

city, and some thought the end of the world was come!

But when it was dark a sound very weird and strange, yet with a music

like the old familiar tones, came from the church-tower, as it rose dim

and grand against the starry sky. It was a voice, not human, yet with a

strange likeness to a human voice, silvery as a stream, thrilling as a

battle-trumpet, familiar to each listener as his own,--like the blended

voices of a spirit and a bell.

"We have borne it too long," said the bell-voice. "We were set here on

high for other purposes than men have put us to. Is not this a

cathedral, a sanctuary, and a shrine, sacred with the dust of martyrs,

and dedicated to the service of Heaven? Were not we christened like

immortals? Were not we consecrated like priests? The touch of holy hands

is on us, and shall we be debased to secular uses? Set apart like sacred

ministers in a sacred dwelling, shall we be required to mingle in the

common circumstances of your daily life? Raised on high to be near the

heavens we serve, shall our saintly voices serve to tell you when to eat

and sleep? We have borne it too long. We will still serve Heaven, and

summon you on Sundays and Holydays. We will call you to the solemn

services of the Church. We will, if necessary, sound a triumphant peal

on days of national thanksgiving, in remembrance of the Victory which

first awoke us into music. We will even condescend to ring at your

weddings--because marriage is a sacrament--and at your baptisms. We will

toll solemnly when your spirits pass from earth, and when your bodies

are laid in the churchyard we have seen slowly raised with the dust of

your dying generations. But henceforth expect us not to do work which

your commonest house-clocks can do as well. Let your eight-day

clocks--your gilded time-pieces--call you to work and eat, and rest. We

are sacred things, set solemnly apart from all secular uses. Our

business is with Eternity, and the Church, and Heaven. Call on us no

more to commune with the things of the world, and earth, and time. We

are your cathedral bells, but we will be your household clock-chimes no

longer."

Then the voice died away on the night air. For a few minutes there was

silence, but soon it was broken by sobs and lamentations, and all the

people lifted up their voice as one man, and wept.

The house-father said, "Shall we never more hear your voices calling us

to morning and evening prayer? Whenever you told us it was the hour, the

mother came from her work, and the children from their play, and

together we knelt a united family, and committed each other to God."

And the mother said, "Your voices are blended with every happy household

time. Sweet bells! will you mingle with our family joys no more? In the

morning you wakened us to begin another busy day, and the sun's beams

and your voices came together to call us to serve God in our lowly

calling; and both, we thought, came to us from Heaven; and both, we

thought, were meek and lowly, and ready to minister to us in our daily

lives, because both were sent from Him who came among us once, not to be

ministered unto, but to minister; and both, we thought, had caught

something of the light of the eyes which wept at Bethany, and of the

tones of the voice which spoke at Cana and at Nain. At mid-day you told

me it was time to send the dinner to my husband and my elder sons. At

six your voice was welcome to us all, because we knew the father's step

would soon be on the threshold. At eight you reminded me it was time to

lay the little ones to rest, and many a time have you brought happy and

holy thoughts to me in those psalms you sang to me whilst I hushed my

babes to sleep; and all my every-day life seemed to be more linked with

sacred things, and to become, as it were, a part of the service of God,

because it moved to the music of your voices. And again at night your

tones were welcome, as in the morning, when they told us the day's work

was over, and, wearied, we lay down to peaceful rest; for through the

night we knew your sacred voices would sound to Heaven above our

sleeping city, like the voices of the angels, who rest not day nor

night, saying, Holy, holy, holy. Sweet bells! will you never chime for

us again?"

And the children said, in their clear, sweet, ringing voices, "Dear

chimes! do not cease to play to us. You wake us to the happy day, you

set us free from school, and send us home laughing and dancing for joy;

you call our fathers home to us, at night you sing us to sleep, and your

voices are blended with our mothers' in our happy dreams. Sweet chimes!

you sang so many years to our fathers and mothers; and our grandfathers

remember you when they were little children like us. Dear chimes! sing

to us still."

And from the sick-chamber which looked into the cathedral square, where

the windows were darkened all day, and sand was strewn before the door,

that the din of the passing wheels might jar less roughly on the aching

head within, came a low and plaintive voice:--"Sweet bells! your

commonest tones are sacred to me. You are my church music,--the only

church music I can ever hear. When I hear you chime the hour on Sundays

and on the festivals, I feel myself among the multitude within your

sacred walls; and your voice seems to bear their songs of praise to me,

and I am no more alone, but one of the worshippers. But at night it is I

prize you most. All through the hours of darkness, so often sleepless to

me, your voice is the voice of a friend, familiar as my mother's, yet

solemn as the chants of the choir. It helps me to measure off the hours

of pain, and say, 'Thank God, an hour less of night, and an hour nearer

morning.' And how often, when my suffering is great, you have come with

the old psalm-tune, and every tone has brought its word to me, and

spoken to me as if direct from God, and filled my heart with trust and

peace! Your least sprinkles of sweet sound are precious to me. I fancy

they are like the waters of time falling musically from stone to stone

on their way to the great sea. I feel they are as the echoes of the

footsteps of Him who is drawing nearer and nearer to me; and they draw

my heart nearer to Him. Sweet bells! your commonest tones are sacred;

for what is the World but that which becomes the Church when it learns

how God has loved it, and turns from self to Him? and what is Earth but

the floor of Heaven, which heavenly feet once trod? and what is Time but

the little fragment of Eternity in which we live on earth? Sweet bells!

make not my sleepless night lonely and silent, but sing to me, sing to

us all, as of old. Make all our life sacred by linking every fragment of

our life to God."

But still no responsive sound came from the cathedral tower, and the

people waited on in the silence and the darkness. At last a young

priest, an Augustinian friar, ventured a bold suggestion:--"Are not the

devils proud, and the angels lowly? Did the angel think it beneath him

to say to Elijah, 'Arise, and eat'? Did Gabriel hesitate to descend from

the presence of God to bear to an aged priest the tidings of the birth

of a child? Did that other angel deem it secular to say to Peter the

apostle, 'Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals, and cast thy garment

about thee,' before he led him over the stony streets through the cold

night air? And should our cathedral bells scorn to bid us 'rise and

eat,' or to chime at our births, or to summon us to 'gird and clothe'

ourselves for every day's work? Brethren, proud thoughts, and scorn of

daily service, and voices which call our every-day life common and

unclean, are not from Heaven. The bells are possessed by a proud and

evil spirit. Let us exorcise them."

The suggestion at first startled the people as daring, and irreverent

to the church bells, but in their despair they at length agreed to try

it. A solemn procession of priests and holy men and women mounted the

cathedral tower, and, in ancient formulas, with prayer and incense, and

the music of holy hymns, they exorcised the fiend.

Then at once a tide of pent-up music flowed from the liberated bells!

They conscientiously rang out all at once every hour and half-hour they

had omitted, and then meekly and steadily resumed their wonted chimes,

and continued them ever afterwards, like voices of happy and lowly

angels calling men to wake and pray, to "rise and eat," to pray and

rest; cheering the workman to his daily labour, and welcoming him from

it; chanting to the mother as she lulled her babe; and in the

sick-chamber soothing the lonely hours with melodious sound, and waking

in the lonely heart sweet echoes of the psalms of praise.

Here the Legend ended. I heard, however, afterwards that the young

priest, the Augustinian friar, lived to spread Glad Tidings through the

city, but that he was at last burned in the cathedral square for

preaching to men what he had said about the church bells. Yet in the

flames, it was said, he looked up to the cathedral tower, and sang the

words of a psalm of praise the old bells were chiming, till his voice

was silenced in death. And ever since the chimes have taken up his

message, and chant to those who will listen, hour by hour.

"Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the

glory of God."

_The Ruined Temple._

The Temple was in ruins, and the Priestess sat, a captive in chains,

among its broken and scattered fragments. It had been a temple of the

most ancient form, open to the sky, beautiful beyond any temple upon

earth, beautiful and sacred; and some remnants of its beauty hung about

it still--fragments of exquisite carvings and broken shafts of graceful

columns. But everything was shattered and out of place: the window

tracery shivered in a thousand fragments and strewn on the ground,

columns prostrate, sacred vessels lying rusted among the weeds, the pure

spring which had gushed from beneath the altar choked up and dry, and

instruments of sacred music mute and broken on the ground.

On the walls in some places were the traces of violence, but it was

remarkable that they seemed to have been assaulted only from within.

Indeed, the temple had been a fortress, so impregnably situated and

built that except from within not one stone could ever have been

displaced.

This was, in fact, the saddest part of its history. The temple had been

desecrated before it had been ruined, and in its ruin it was a temple

still, but, alas! no longer sacred to Him in whose honour it had been

reared. Many senseless or loathsome idol-images were carved on the

walls, strangely contrasting, in their shapelessness or deformity, with

the symmetry of every fragment of the original structure. On the broken

altar in the centre stood an image of the Priestess herself. This was

the earliest idol which had entered there, and with the entrance of this

the ruin had begun. The Enemy who had, with subtle flatteries,

introduced this idol had ever since had access to the temple, and step

by step the Priestess had sunk beneath his power. He had led her into

wild orgies, in which she herself had defaced the delicate tracery and

torn down the walls; and when she awoke from the frenzy and wept, as

sometimes she would, he silenced her tears with blows or with mocking

threats of the vengeance of Him to whom the temple had been consecrated.

Sometimes, however, she woke to a moment's full consciousness of the

desolation around her, and then she would wail and lament until he

seemed to fear some unseen Friend would hear; and at such seasons he

grew more gentle, and renewed the old persuasions and flatteries by

which he had misled her at first. He would even encourage her at times,

when all other methods failed, to try and collect the scattered stones,

and repair the breaches in the shattered walls, and restring the broken

harp; for he knew well her puny efforts must fail, and that no hands but

those of the Builder could ever restore the ruin she had wrought. So,

after a few faint endeavours, she, as he expected, would give up in

despair, and sit cowering hopelessly on the ground, afraid of him,

afraid of Him whose priestess she was, afraid of her own voice.

In such bitter hours he would again grow bold, and mock her with the

memory of the past, until the spirit of indignant resistance seemed

roused within her, when, once more softening his tone, he would point

her with flattering words to her own image on the broken altar. He would

show her the beauty still lingering in its marred and weather-worn

features, and help her to decorate it with gay colours and tinsel

ornaments, placing in her hands the golden censer, with the sweet

incense which had been made in happier days for far other uses; and she

would wave the fragrant compound before the idol image of herself. But

with the pure spices which made it sweet, the Enemy had mixed a narcotic

poison, and as she languidly swung the censer to and fro, her brain

would become intoxicated with the voluptuous sweetness, until in a dream

of vain delight, she would fall asleep, and forget all her miseries; and

ever, as she slept, he would rivet faster the chain which, unperceived

by her, was being bound around her, every year making her range of

action narrower and her movements less free.

Wild beasts, also, made their lair in the desolate temple-chambers,

prowling in and out where formerly meek and heavenly beings had

ministered, and making the shattered walls echo with their loud howls

and sullen roarings, where once had sounded strains of pure and joyous

music.

Thus day by day the ruin spread, and the desolation and desecration

became more complete.

But it happened one spring that two little singing-birds came back from

the sunny clime where they had wintered, and began building their nest

above the ancient altar. There was something in the spring-time which

often brought tears to the eyes of the fallen Priestess, she scarcely

knew why. The world seemed then like one happy temple full of thankful

songs; and as, day by day, the sun repaired the ruins of winter, and the

choral services of the woods took a fuller tone, on her heart there fell

the mournful sense of the ruins around her, which no spring-tide could

restore. Yet something of a softer feeling, a melancholy which breathed

of hope, stole over her, as she watched those two happy birds building

their nest, and warbling as they worked.

At last the nest was finished, the happy mother-bird sat on her eggs,

and the pair had much leisure for confidential conversation.

"How desolate this place is," said the mother-bird.

"And it was once so beautiful," replied her mate.

"Why is it not rebuilt?" she asked.

"None can rebuild but the Hand that built," was the mysterious reply.

"But would not the Architect come if asked? He is so good. Was it not He

who taught us to build our nest; and I am sure nothing can be better

done than that."

"That is the difficulty," was the reply. "The Priestess does not know He

is so good, and is afraid to utter His name. If she only called Him, He

would come."

"Is He near enough?"

"He is always near."

"Are you sure?" said the mother-bird. "What can we do to help her?"

"I do not know," replied the mate, "except it is to sing His praise.

Perhaps she may listen, and understand one day how good He is."

So all the spring the little happy creatures chirped and sang, until the

nestlings were fledged, and the whole family flew away.

But their songs had penetrated deep into the Priestess' heart. And one

night, when the Enemy was absent, and the wild beasts prowling far away,

she threw herself on the earth before her desecrated altar, and lamented

and wept. But for the first time her lamentations, instead of solitary,

hopeless wailings, echoing back from the ruined walls, became a broken

cry for help.

"Thou, if Thou art indeed so good--if Thou art indeed near, come and

help me," she sobbed; "repair my ruins, and save me."

And for the first time, as she wept and implored, she felt the weight of

her fetters binding hand and foot; and, clasping her chained hands, she

cried more earnestly, "Come and set me free!"

And before the day dawned a voice came softly through the silence--

"I will come."

But with the morning light how bitter was the sight which burst on her

aching eyes! All, indeed, had been as desolate long before; but she had

never seen it as she saw it now:--Noisome beasts, which prowled

fearlessly around her; skulls and ghastly skeletons of their murdered

prey strewn about; on the ground the broken, rusted harp; on her hands

the heavy chain; and, worse than all, the door she had opened to the

Enemy ever open, and inviting his approach!

Too surely he came. He mocked her hope until it appeared baseless as a

dream; and nothing seemed real but the ruin to which he scornfully

directed her gaze, and the chain which now, for the first time without

concealment, he held up triumphantly, dragging her by it to every corner

of the polluted and ruined temple, to show her how complete and hopeless

the ruin was. Then drawing the links tighter than before, so that they

galled and wounded her wrists, he led her to the image of herself, which

he had adorned, and painted, and so often flattered. He dragged off the

tinsel ornaments, and effaced the delusive colouring, and left her, at

last, face to face with the defaced and broken idol, saying,--

"This is the worship you yourself have chosen. Pursue it still. There is

no other for you."

She could not bear to gaze on it; and as he went she fell prostrate on

the altar steps, and hid her face on the stones. Yet still, though with

but a feeble hope, she sobbed out--

"If Thou art good--if Thou canst help me, come--oh, come, and set me

free!"

Weariness at last brought sleep; and in her dreams she saw a lovely

vision of the temple as it once had been. White columns gleamed, sweet

and solemn music sounded, and she herself ministered in white robes at

the altar, before a Radiant Form, on which she could scarcely for a

moment gaze.

The awaking from this dream to the desolation around her was more

terrible than all she had felt before. It must have bereft her of

reason, but for the echo of three cheering words which seemed to have

awakened her--"_I will come._"

The next day, with the light of that radiant vision on her heart, she

dragged her fettered limbs to the altar, and strove with her feeble and

trembling hands to tear that marred image from the shrine. But in vain.

It was too firmly embedded there; and she could only turn her face from

it, and weep, and cry for help. And before the next morning's dawn help

came. In the night a heavenly visitant descended; and with human words,

in a language she had not spoken for years, but every word of which

melted her heart like the accents of her mother-tongue, He touched her

chains, and they fell off; He spoke, and the wild beasts fled, howling;

He touched her broken harp, and it was restrung and tuned; He touched

the dry and choked-up channel of the sacred spring, and it welled forth

pure and fresh from beneath the altar; He touched the idol on the

shrine, and it fell, and in its stead shone that wondrous Radiance which

she had seen in her dream; then He poured on her head the fragrant oil

of consecration, and clothed her in a white vestal priestly garment, and

placed the restrung harp in her hand, and rose again to heaven.

At first her joy knew no measure. She gazed on the sacred shrine, and in

the glory above it at times she perceived the lineaments of the form of

Him who had done all this for her. She touched her harp, and the sweet

strings responded as if they knew her hand; she sang holy songs in that

old, long-forgotten, yet familiar tongue, so heavenly and happy that the

wild beasts would not venture near, and the morning birds were silent to

listen. She bathed in the newly-opened fountain and drank of it; and as

she drank, her strength and her youth came back.

For a time her joy was without cloud or measure; but as the daylight

returned, the desolation of the ruined temple struck sadly on her

heart. It was, indeed, a sacred place once more, and she its consecrated

Priestess; but was this ruin never to be repaired?

She began to cleanse the sacred vessels and to sweep the earth of all

the refuse and dry bones which had been gathered there; and then, with

her renewed strength, she set herself to collect the broken fragments of

the columns, and tried to piece together the shattered tracery and the

delicate carvings of flower and foliage. But it was in vain. She could

indeed bring the shattered fragments together, and see what they had

been, but she could not join them, or replace one prostrate shaft or

capital; and as she sat down mournfully before her shrine, tears dimmed

her eyes, so that she could scarcely see the Radiance there, and,

falling on her harp-strings, would have rusted them and marred their

sweetness; whilst in the silence a voice, too long and bitterly

familiar, was heard at the door. Turning round, she perceived the form

of the Enemy there, whilst behind him glared fierce and hungry eyes; and

in her terror the harp almost fell from her hands.

But she threw herself on her knees before the altar, pressed the harp

convulsively to her heart, and cried, "Will these ruins never be

repaired, these doors never closed against my enemy and Thine?" The

pressure of her trembling fingers drew forth some plaintive strains,

like the wind on Aeolian strings; but low and plaintive as they were, the

Enemy disappeared, and the wild beasts fled howling from them. Then she

began to perceive the power of her harp, and drew from it a song of joy

and triumph; and as she still gazed on the radiant shrine a veil seemed

to be withdrawn from it; and she perceived that it was a window, so that

the light streamed through it, not from it. Wondering she gazed, until,

penetrating further and further through the light, she saw in the depths

of heaven a Temple like her own, only perfect, glorious beyond

comparison, and full--full of worshippers robed and singing like

herself, and full of that wondrous radiance which streamed from the

heavenly form she had seen. She laid her harp upon the shrine, and to

her surprise the strings began to quiver of their own accord! An

electric current united them to the harps in the heavenly temple, and

they vibrated in exquisite harmonies the echo of the harmonies above.

And with the heavenly strains came a voice divine and human, mighty as

the sound of many waters, yet soft and near as a whisper in her ear:--

"Here all ruins are repaired: the Enemy cannot enter here, but here thou

shalt dwell for ever."

And softly floated down these other words:--

"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were

dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands,

eternal in the heavens."

_The Clock-Bell and the Alarm-Bell._

"We have lived a long time here together," said the ponderous Alarm-bell

to the little brisk bell in the clock-tower of the Orphan-house, "and a

useful life yours has been! I have watched carefully, and never once

during these hundred years that we have stood side by side have you

failed to tell the hours and half-hours by day and night. I have plenty

of leisure for thought; but it would be beyond my powers to calculate

how often your voice has been heard in the service of man. I observe,

too, how much attention is paid you by all, and with how much

well-deserved respect you are regarded. Nothing is done in house or

field without your sanction. At your early call this little busy hive

begins to stir in the morning. At your mid-day invitation the boys

gather from the fields where they have been working, and the girls from

the laundries and work-rooms, to the noonday meal. At your evening

summons the doors are closed at night, and not a sound is heard

afterwards in house or field until your steady voice wakens our little

world again. Yours is, indeed, a useful, honoured life; but as for me,

who can tell what I was made for? Since I was placed here first, a

hundred years ago, lifted up with enormous trouble and labour, and

safely roofed in my belfry, not a creature has heard my voice, or been

the better for my existence. I might as well have been lying still a

lump of unsmelted ore in the depths of the mines. I feel so stiff and

rusty, that I sometimes question if they could move me if they tried.

For you, daily, hourly usefulness! for me, a hundred years of silence!

And who can say how many more? I do not complain; but our destinies are

very different. It must be wonderfully happy to be so useful, and to be

looked on by every one with such attention and regard. Of course, I

could not expect to be as serviceable as you--I, with my cumbrous,

ponderous mass of heavy metal, and you, hung so lightly, so graceful in

your shape, so brisk in all your movements, so cheery and pleasant in

your voice. But I should like to be of some use once in my life, even if

it were only to know for what purpose I was made, and set on high."

"Wait!" said the Clock-bell; "there must be some work for you. It would

have taken a hundred such as I am to make one like you. Think of the

trouble there must have been in getting a mould large enough for

you,--of the labour it was to raise you so high. You must be set there

for some end, although we do not yet know what. Wait!" said the

Clock-bell cheerily, and struck nine.

Then there was a sound from within the house, as of many childish voices

singing an evening hymn. A few minutes after, all was still, and ten

o'clock echoed over the silent fields to the sleeping city near at hand.

But that night there was an unusual stir in the Orphan-house. Feet were

heard rushing hither and thither; and from every window poured forth the

cry, "Fire! fire!--the Orphan-house is on fire!" And, through the

darkness, lurid smoke began to rise from an outhouse attached to the

main building. Then came another cry:--"The Alarm-bell!--ring the

Alarm-bell!" And feet were heard on the steps of the belfry-tower; and

hands began pulling vigorously at the ropes, and in a moment, for the

first time, the deep tones of the long-silent bell pealed heavily on the

midnight air. They awoke the city. In a short time fire-engines were on

the way. Streams of water played on the flames, and quenched them; and

the children and the Orphan-house were saved.

The next morning all was silent again, as if nothing had happened; the

outhouse lay in ashes, but the Orphan-house was uninjured. At eight the

Clock-bell called the children to their morning prayer; whilst the

Alarm-bell had relapsed into silence, perhaps for another century.

But the Clock-bell said, "You have done in an hour the service of a

century. Had it not been for you, I should never have struck another

hour."

And the grateful children often looked up as they passed beneath, and

said, "Had it not been for our good Alarm-bell we might all have

perished!"

So the Alarm-bell learned what it was made for, and was content to wait

another hundred years, or more, before its voice was heard again.

_The Black Ship._

They lived at the foot of the Pine Mountains, in the island of the

King's Garden, the mother, with her little son and daughter. The boy's

name was Hope, and the little girl's, May. The children loved each other

dearly, and were never separated. They never had any quarrels, because

Hope was the leader in all their expeditions and plays; and May firmly

believed that everything which Hope planned and did, was better planned

and better done than it would have been by any one else in the world--by

which May meant the island. Hope, on his side, had always a tender

consideration for little May in his schemes, such as kings should have

for their subjects. May would never have dreamed of originating any

scheme herself, or of questioning any which Hope planned. If you had

taken away May from Hope, you would have taken away his kingdom, his

army, his right hand; if you had taken away Hope from May, you would

have robbed her of her leader, her king, her head, her sun. Bereaved of

May, I think Hope would have been driven from his desolate home into the

wide world; bereaved of Hope, I am sure May would never have left her

home, but sat silent there until she pined away. But together, life was

one holiday to them; work was a keener kind of play, and every day was

too narrow for the happy occupations of which each hour was brimful.

Their cottage was at the foot of the mountains, on the sea-shore.

Indeed, every house and cottage in the island stood on the sea-shore,

because the island was so long and narrow, that, from the top of the

mountain-range which divided it, you could see the sea on both sides. If

in any place the coast widened, little creeks ran in among the hills,

and made the sea accessible from all points. The island consisted

entirely of this one mountain-range; the higher peaks sometimes tipped

with snow, with a strip of coast at their feet, sometimes narrowing to a

little shingly beach, sometimes expanding to a fertile plain, where

beautiful cities with fairy bell-towers and marble palaces gleamed like

ivory carvings amidst the palms and thick green leaves.

But Hope and May knew nothing of the island beyond the little bay they

lived in, and no one they had ever seen or heard of had scaled the

mountain-range and looked on the other side; no one, either in the

scattered fishermen's huts around them, or in the white town which

perched like a sea-bird on the crags on the opposite side of the bay.

Indeed, it was only from their mother's words that the children knew

that their country was an island; and ever since they had heard this,

the great subject of Hope's dreams, and the great object of his schemes,

had been to scale the mountains and look on the other side. But this was

quite a secret between Hope and May; the happy secret which formed the

endless interest of their long talks and rambles, but which they could

not speak of to their mother, because she was so tenderly timid about

them, and because it was to be the great surprise which one day was to

enchant her, when Hope was a man. He was to scale the mountains,

penetrate to the wondrous land on the other side, and bring thence

untold treasures and tales of marvels to May and his mother.

The children thought Hope would very soon be old enough to go; and they

had a little cave in the rocks close to the sea where they treasured up

dried fruits, and bits of iron to make tools of with which to chop away

the tangled branches in the forests, and cut steps in the glaciers which

Hope was to traverse. The lower hills the children knew well; and the

ravine which wound up far among the hills they had nearly fixed on as

the commencement of the journey.

So the days passed on with the children, rich in purposes and bright

with happy work. For they were helpful to their mother. From their

mountain expeditions they brought her fire-wood, and forest-honey, and

eggs of wild-fowl, and various sweet wild-berries, and wholesome roots.

They always noticed that their mother encouraged these mountain

expeditions, and seemed much happier when they took that direction than

when they kept by the sea.

Once Hope had said to her--

"Mother, how beautiful our country is! and I think it is so happy always

to be in sight of the sea. How dull those lands must be you tell us of,

which are so large that many people have to live out of hearing of the

waves! I could not bear to live there; it must seem so narrow and close

to be shut in on the land, with nothing beyond. But here we can never

get out of sight of the sea. May and I always find, wherever we roam

among the hills, we never lose the sea. When we wander far back from the

shore, the beautiful blue waters seem to follow us as if they loved us;

and in the inmost recesses of the mountains we always see beneath us

some glimpse of bright water in the creeks which run up among the hills,

or the rivers which come down to meet them. The sea seems to love every

corner of our country, mother, and penetrate everywhere."

A cold shudder passed over the mother's frame, and tears gathered in her

eyes.

"The sea is indeed everywhere, my children," she murmured; and then,

with a burst of irresistible emotion, she clasped them to her heart, and

added bitterly, "Happy the country which that sea cannot approach!"

May and Hope wondered greatly at her words; but there was something in

her manner which awed them into silence. For some time after that, they

often speculated together as to what her words could mean, and a vague

terror seemed to murmur in the ripple of the waves. But gradually the

impression wore off in the happy forgetfulness of childhood, and their

old schemes were resumed with the same zest as before.

One evening, however, as they were busied with their treasures in the

cave, the tide surprised them; and when they set out to return home they

found the rocky point which separated them from their cottage surrounded

with deep water. The sides of the cliff in the little cove where their

cave lay were sheer precipices of smooth rock, too steep to climb, so

that the children had to wait some hours before they could creep round

the point. Eagerly they watched the declining sun and the retreating

tide, until when the waves became only ankle-deep they bounded through

them, and in a few minutes were at the cottage door. It was not yet

dark, and the children were dancing into the cottage full of spirits at

their adventure, when they were startled at the appearance of their

mother. She was leaning, stony and motionless, with fixed eyes and

clasped hands, against the door-post, and for a moment the sight of her

darlings did not seem to rouse her. Then springing up with a cry of joy,

she strained them to her heart, covered them with kisses, laughed a wild

laugh, broken with convulsive sobs, and at last fell fainting on the

floor.

The children knelt beside her, and gradually she revived, and fell into

a sleep. But every now and then she started as if with some terrible

dream, and murmured in her sleep, "The ship--the Black Ship: not now,

not yet: take me, not them; or take us all--take us all!"

The terrified children could not sleep; and all the next day they clung

close to their mother, and scarcely spoke a word. In the evening,

however, she rallied, and tried to speak cheerfully, and account for her

alarm.

"You were late, darlings, and I knew you were by the sea--the terrible

sea."

But the children could not be comforted. They felt the weight of some

vague apprehension; they could not be tempted to leave their mother;

they crept noiselessly about, watching her movements, until at last one

night they whispered together, and resolved to take courage and ask

their mother what made her dread the sea; and then they consulted long

as to the best way of introducing the forbidden subject.

The next evening, as they sat together by the fireside, Hope began, and

forgetting all the speeches they had prepared, fixed his large eyes on

his mother's and said abruptly, "Mother, what is there terrible in the

sea?"

She paused a moment, her face grew deadly pale, and her lips trembled.

"Children, why should you wish to know? You will learn too soon, without

my telling you."

"O mother, tell us," said May. "We can bear anything from you. Do not

let any one else tell us."

A sudden thought seemed to flash across her, and she said, "Children,

you are right."

Then folding one arm around Hope as he stood by her, and taking May on

her knee, she said, "It is not the sea I dread; it is the Black Ship.

That is the terrible secret; and it is, indeed, better you should learn

it from my lips than learn it by losing me, and no one be left to tell

you how. My children," she continued, making a great effort to speak

calmly, "this is the one sorrow of our country. From time to time a

Black Ship, without sails or oars, glides silently to our shores, and

anchors there. A dark, Veiled Figure lands from it, and seizes any one

of our people whom it chooses, without violence, without a sound, but

with irresistible power, and quietly leads the victim away to the Ship,

which immediately glides away again from our coasts as swiftly and

noiselessly as it came; but no one ever sees those who are thus borne

away any more."

"Whence does the Ship come, mother?" asked Hope, after a long silence,

"and whither does it go?"

"No one knows, my child. That is the terrible thing about it. There is

no sound nor voice. The agonized cries of those who are thus bereaved

avail not to bring one word of reply from those lips, or to raise one

fold of that dark veil. If we only knew, we could bear it."

"Have you ever seen it, mother?" asked Hope, determined bravely to

plunge to the bottom of the terrible mystery, while May could only cling

round her mother's neck and cry.

"I have seen it twice," she replied, speaking low and rapidly. "We did

not always live here. Your father was rich, and a man of rank, and,

loving us most dearly, he resolved to do all in his power to keep the

terrible Form away. For this end he built that castle you have often

seen above the white tower. It is far above the sea; the rocks are

perpendicular; it is built of solid stone; the doors were of oak,

studded with iron; the windows barred with iron. No one was ever to be

permitted to cross the moat without being strictly scrutinized. The

gates were always to be closed. When it was finished he made a feast;

and after it, when the guests had left, and every bolt was drawn, we

stood at the window of the room where you slept, and looked down

triumphantly on the sea. A little sister of yours was sleeping in my

arms. Suddenly, close beneath us, in the bay at our feet, we saw moored

the Black Ship! Our eyes seemed fascinated to it, and we could not

speak. We saw the Veiled Figure descend the side, and slowly scale the

precipice beneath us, as if it had been a road made for it to tread. It

walked over the water of the castle moat, which did not seem to wet its

feet. There was no plunge or splash in the waves, no sound of footsteps

on the rock; yet, in a moment, it stood on the balcony outside our

window, and we could not stir. It passed through the iron bars. It laid

its hand on my sleeping babe. Your father's strong arm was around us

both, but before we could utter a cry, our darling had glided like a

shadow from our embrace. The bright face of our baby was hidden from us

under the folds of that impenetrable veil. We watched the terrible Form

noiselessly descend the steep, re-enter the Ship, and not until the

Black Ship was already gliding swiftly out of sight could we overcome

the terrible fascination. Then my cries of agony awoke the

household,--boats were manned in pursuit; but in vain, in vain--we felt

it was in vain. We never saw the babe again." She spoke with the languor

of a sorrow which had been overwhelmed by greater sorrows still.

"But our father?" asked Hope.

"He left the castle the next day," she answered. "We never returned to

it. He said the strong walls only mocked our helplessness; and since

then the castle has been empty. Birds build their nests in our chambers,

wild beasts make their lair in our gardens, the iron bars rust on the

open doors; and if the Veiled Figure enter again, it will find no prey."

"But where did you go?"

"We came here. Your father said he would dare the foe, and, since no

fortification could keep it out, meet it on its own ground. So he built

this cottage close to the sea, and here we have lived ever since. I was

content to remain here because I thought we might avoid seeing any one,

and keep the terrible secret from you.

"And here," she continued with the calmness of despair, "one morning we

saw the Black Ship moored, and your father went to meet it. I wept and

clung to him, to keep him back, but he said, 'It shall speak to me.'

"The Dark Form came up, a black shadow across the sunny beach. Your

father encountered it boldly, and said, 'Where is my child?'

"There was no sound in reply. For a moment there seemed to be a

struggle. I rushed towards them, but the terrible touch was on your

father's hand. There seemed no violence, no chain was on his arm--only

that paralyzing touch. He went from me silent and helpless as the babe.

"'Whither, whither?' I cried; 'only tell me where!'

"He looked back once, but he spoke to me no more. I rushed madly into

the sea, but the Ship was gone in a minute; and your voices, your baby

voices, called me back, and I came."

"Is there no help, mother?" said Hope at last. "Has no one ever tried?

If I were but a man! Oh, surely some help could be found?"

"So thousands have thought, tried, and asked in vain. Fleets have

scoured the seas, but none ever came on the Black Ship's track."

Hope was silenced, and the little family sat up together that night.

They did not dare to separate, even to their beds; yet before long the

children were asleep.

Sleep revived the brother and sister; and by the evening Hope's ardent

heart had found another point to rest on.

"Mother," he said, "if we could only find out whence the Black Ship

comes, we might be comforted. Perhaps it comes from a happy place. Can

no one even guess?"

"There are some who profess to know something of it," she replied; "but

your father never believed them."

"Who are they?" asked Hope.

"The amulet-makers. There is a band of men in the White Town who profess

to know something of the country from which the Black Ship comes, and

who sends it. But they talk very mysteriously, in learned words; and I

do not understand them. Your father said it was all a deception; because

some of them profess to make amulets or charms which keep the Veiled

Form away; and your little sister had one round her neck when she was

taken from us. You have each one, but I cannot trust it; and I never

could find out that the amulet-makers had anything but guesses as to

where the Ship came from; and your father said we could guess as well as

they. There is one thing," she added with a faint smile, "which gives me

more comfort than anything they ever said. When our baby was taken away

from my arms--when she felt that terrible touch--she did not seem to be

at all afraid. She looked up in my face, and then at the Veiled Form,

and stretched out her baby arms from me to it and smiled. At first, I

hated to think of that. It seemed as if some cruel charm was on her to

win even her heart from me; but often in the night, in my dreams, that

smile has come back to me, like a promise; and I have awaked,

comforted--I hardly know why."

"Perhaps they are in a happy place, mother," said little May.

And Hope said, "Mother, I am going to question the amulet-makers in the

White Town." And his mother suffered him to go.

In two days, Hope came back. But his step was spiritless and slow, and

his face very sad.

"Mother," he said, "I think my father was right. I am afraid no one

knows anything about the country from which the Black Ship comes. At

first the amulet-makers promised to tell me a great deal. Some of them

told me they believed it was a great king, an enemy of our race, who

sent the Ship; but that if we kept certain rules, and put on a certain

dress they would sell us, or give them certain treasures to throw into

the sea when the Ship appeared, they would watch for us, and make the

powers beyond the sea favourable to us. But when I came to the

question--how they knew this to be true, or if they had ever had any

message from beyond the sea, or seen any one who came thence, they grew

silent, and sometimes angry, and told me I was a presumptuous child.

There was one old man, however, who was kind to me; and he came and

spoke to me alone, and said, 'My child, be happy to-day!--to be good is

to be happy. What is beyond to-day, or beyond the sea, no one knows, or

ever can know. Go back to your mother, and live as before.' So I came,"

concluded Hope. "But it can never, never be with us again as before we

knew."

From that time the boy seemed to cease to be a child, or to take

interest in any childish schemes. He was gentle and tender as his father

would have been to his mother and to May, and seemed to take it on

himself to watch over and protect them. He never left them out of sight;

until, one day, as they came, in their ramble in search of shell-fish,

on their old cave, and looked once more at their little stores, so

joyously hoarded there, May suddenly exclaimed, "What if they should

know on the other side of the mountains!"

The thought flashed on Hope like a breath of new life; and from that day

his old schemes were resumed, but with an intensity and a purpose which

could not be quenched. He would scale the mountains, to see if any

tidings from beyond the sea had reached the land across the mountains!

His mother's consent was gained; and in a few days, spent in eager

preparations, Hope was to start.

But before those days were ended, one evening a white-haired old man

knocked at the cottage door. He was nearly exhausted with travel, his

clothes were torn, and his feet bleeding.

They led him to the fire, bathed his feet, and set food before him. But

before he would touch anything, the old man said,--

"I have tidings for you--glad tidings."

"Do you come from across the mountains?" exclaimed Hope, starting to his

feet.

The old man bowed in assent.

"I come from across the mountains, and I bring you glad tidings from

beyond the sea."

"Glad tidings!" they all exclaimed.

"Glad tidings, if you will obey them," he replied;--"if not, the saddest

you ever heard. It is not an enemy who sends the Black Ship, but a

Friend."

Not a question, scarcely a breath interrupted him and he continued, in

brief, broken sentences,--

"It is our King. Our island belongs to Him. He gave it to us. But, long

ago, our people rebelled against Him. They were seduced by a wicked

prince, His deadly enemy, and, alas! ours. They sent the King a

defiance; they defaced His statues, which were a type of all beauty;

they broke His laws, which are the unfolding of all goodness. He sent

ambassadors to reclaim them; He, who could have crushed the revolt, and

destroyed our nation with one of His armies in a day, descended from His

dignity, and stooped to entreat our deluded people to return to their

allegiance. But they treated His condescension as weakness. They defied

His ambassadors, and maltreated them, and drove them from the island. He

had warned them against the usurper, and told them the consequences of

revolting; and too surely they have been fulfilled. The Black Ship is

the penalty inflicted by our offended Monarch; but those who return to

His allegiance need not dread it."

"Some, then, have submitted to the King?" asked Hope.

"Every ambassador He sent has persuaded some to recognize the King."

"Why not all?" asked Hope. "If the King is good, and is our King, and

will receive us, why not all return?"

"The usurper seduces them still," replied the old man. "Many hate the

King's good laws; many take pride in what they call their independence;

most will not listen, or will not believe. They mock the King's

messengers, and declare that they are impostors, that their messages

are a delusion; and some even persist in declaring that there is no

King, and no country beyond the sea."

"But the Black Ship is not a delusion!" said Hope; "it must come from

some land. What proof have these ambassadors given? Have they ever been

in the land beyond the sea?"

"They gave many proofs; but I bring you better news than this. A few

years since, the King's Son came Himself. Many of us have seen and

spoken with Him. He stayed many days. He spoke words of such power, and

in tones of such tenderness, as none who heard can ever forget. We could

trace in His features the lineaments of the statues we had defaced. Some

of the worst rebels among us were melted to repentance, and fell at His

feet, and besought His pardon. I was one. He gave us not only His

pardon, but His friendship. But His enemies prevailed. Especially the

amulet-makers organized a conspiracy against Him; they feared for their

trade, and secretly prepared to drive Him from the island. He had come

alone, for He came not to compel, but to win. And He came for another

purpose, which, until He was gone, we could not comprehend. The

conspirators triumphed. One day they came in force and seized Him. Alas!

a base panic seized us who loved Him, and we fled. They bound Him with

thongs, they treated Him with the most barbarous cruelty and the basest

indignity, and drove Him to the sea. We thought a fleet and an army

would have appeared to avenge His insulted majesty and proclaim Him King

with power, or bear Him in pomp away; but to our surprise and dismay

nothing came for Him but the Black Ship, and the Dark Form bore Him from

us, as if He had been a rebel like one of us. He had told us something

of the probability of this before it happened, but we could not

comprehend what He meant. Never were days of such sorrow as those which

passed over us after His being taken from us. His enemies were in full

triumph; they mocked our Prince's claims, they insulted us, they

threatened us; but all they could say or do was nothing in comparison

with the anguish in our hearts. For what could we think? He whom we had

loved and trusted was gone, borne off in triumph by the very foe He came

to deliver us from. We hid ourselves in caves and lonely places by the

sea, and recalled to one another His precious words, and gazed out over

the sea with a vague yearning, which was scarcely hope, and yet kept us

lingering on the shore.

"On the third morning, in the gray light of early dawn, one of us saw

Him on the shore; one who had owed Him everything, and loved Him most

devotedly. She called us to come. One by one we gathered round Him. Some

of us could scarcely believe our senses for joy. But it was Himself; the

solid certainty of that unutterable joy grew stronger. And then He told

us wonders: how He suffered all this for us; had borne this indignity

and captivity in obedience to His Father's will, to set us free; had

gone in the Black Ship itself to the heart of the Enemy's country, and

alone trodden those terrible regions of lawless wickedness to which he

seeks to drag his deluded victims, and alone vanquished him there. He

stayed with us some days, and talked with us familiarly, as of old; but

how glorious His commonest words were, how overpowering His forgiving

looks, how inspiring His firm and tender tones, I can never tell. He

could not remain with us then. He said we must be His messengers, and

win back His rebels to allegiance; we must learn to be brave, to speak

and suffer for Him, and to act as men; and He promised to come again one

day with fleets and armies, and all the pomp of His Father's kingdom.

But, meantime, He said the Black Ship should never more be a terror to

any of us who loved Him; for He Himself would come in it each time. He

would be veiled, so that none could see Him but the one He came for: but

surely as the Black Ship came, instead of the Dark Form, He would come

Himself for every one of us, and bear us home to His Father's house to

abide with Him, and with Him hereafter to return."

There was a breathless silence, broken only by the mother's sobs.

She clasped her hands, and murmured,--

"Then it was He! It was surely He Himself who came and took my babe. No

wonder my darling smiled, and was willing to go."

The mother and the children that very evening received from the stranger

the medal which was worn by all those who returned to their allegiance.

It was a Black Ship, surrounded with rays of glory, and behind it the

towers of a city.

Never were a happier company than the four who gathered round the

cottage table that evening. They were too happy, and had too much to

ask, to sleep; and far into the night the questions and answers

continued, every reply of the old man's only revealing some fresh

endearing excellence in the King and the King's Son, until they longed

for the Black Ship to come and fetch them home.

"If only," said little May, "it would fetch us all at once!"

"That the King will do when He comes with His armies in the day of His

triumph. Till then, my child, this is the one only sorrow connected with

the Black Ship, for those who love the King. We go one by one, and

blessed as it is for the one who goes, it must be sad sometimes for

those who are left."

"Why do not those who go to Him ask Him to come quickly?" asked Hope.

"They do," replied the old man. "'Come quickly' is the entreaty of all

who love Him here and beyond the sea; but His time is best. And,

meantime, have we forgotten the multitudes who are still deceived by the

usurper, to whom the Black Ship is still a horrible end of all things,

and the Veiled Form the King of Terrors?"

Hope rose and stood before the old man.

"Mother," he said, "it is for this we must live. Think of the desolate

hearts in the homes around us. Think of the thousands who know not our

blessed secret in the White Town."

The old man rose and laid his hand on Hope's head.

"My King!" he said, "when wilt Thou come for me? Is not my work done?

Will not this youthful voice speak for Thee here as my quivering tones

no longer can? Wilt Thou not come? I have many dear ones with Thee; but

when Thou wilt is best."

Then he persuaded them all to lie down to rest, and he himself composed

himself quietly to sleep.

But in the night a wondrous light filled the room; a wondrous light and

fragrance. The mother woke, and the children, and they saw the old man

standing, gazing towards the door, which was open. There stood a Veiled

Form, dark to the mother's eyes as the dreaded form she knew too well;

yet its presence filled the room with the light as of a rosy dawn, and

the fragrance as of spring flowers. The old man's hair was silvery, and

his form tottering as ever; but in his face there was the beauty of

youth, and in his eyes the rapture of joy.

"Farewell, my friends," he said; "your day of joy will come like this of

mine.--Thou art come for me at last; Thou Thyself! I see Thy face, I

hear Thy voice: I come; it is Thou."

A hand was laid tenderly on his hand, and they walked away together into

the night. But as the mother and children looked after him from the

door, they saw the Black Ship; only at its prow was a star; and as it

passed away, the mother, and Hope, and May thought it left a track of

light upon the sea.

The three had henceforth enough to live and suffer for. To the lonely

fishermen's huts went May and her mother, into the White Town went Hope;

and everywhere they bore their tidings of joy. They had much to suffer,

and many mocked; and against them also the amulet-makers combined, and

would not listen. But some did listen, and believe, and love; and to

such, as to the mother, and Hope, and May, the Black Ship, instead of a

phantom of terror, became a messenger of surpassing joy.

_The Island and the Main Land._

A SEQUEL TO "THE BLACK SHIP."

On the night when the old man, the messenger of glad tidings, was borne

away, the mother and her children, turning sadly back, from watching him

depart, to the blank his going left in the cottage, found that he had

left with them a scroll. With trembling expectation they unrolled it,

and read. It contained further revelations concerning the King's ship

(they would call it the Black Ship no more), and the land to which it

bore those for whom it was sent.

The Island was not a detached land set in the midst of a lonely sea. It

was a fragment of a great Continent, broken off from the Main Land by

some convulsion, long ago. And from this Continent it was divided, not

by broad spaces of the heaving ocean, but by a mere strait, in some

places narrowed to a chasm of seething waters, in others spreading into

a calm lagoon, but everywhere, in itself, quite insignificant.

The Island lay in a land-locked Bay of the great Continent, encompassed

on all sides by its Highlands. The little hills, which its inhabitants

called mountains, were girt around by the magnificent mountain-ranges of

the Main Land. Its colonial settlements, which the dwellers in them

called cities, were commanded from the other side by the glorious cities

of the kingdom. Its islanders, who called themselves "the world," were

compassed about by the victorious ones now at home in the great true

world across the waters.

Not only had the King's Son come and reconciled the islanders to the

King; not only did He Himself come and receive each one who trusted Him

to Himself, making the Black Ship, for all such, no more a phantom of

terror, but the messenger of infinite joy; He had not withdrawn Himself

to a distance. The mountains where He dwelt rose close above the Island

where He had tarried and suffered and overcome, compassing it about on

every side. From their heights every nook of the Island was visible to

Him, every work of His faithful ones was watched. They were only

concealed by a thin but opaque veil of mist, which brooded unceasingly

over the strait. This mist was the great mystery of the Island,

absolutely impenetrable to all its inhabitants, but from the other side

altogether transparent. There were indeed moments when, to the eyes of

those who watched some best-beloved borne away from them, this mist

became translucent (though not transparent) even in the Island. But once

beyond it, once on the other side; once within it, even, on the

crossing, it was seen to be absolutely nothing.

Many a creek in the Island itself was wider and more difficult to cross

than the strait which divided it from the Main Land. Only, no one could

cross that strait at his own will, at his own time, or in his own way.

Not that the crossing was equally calm for all. Some passed over softly

across the sunlit lagoon; some in the rush of the surf boiling through

the narrow chasm. But, for all, the crossing was but a moment. And for

those who, in that moment, on this side, for the first time met the eyes

that had been watching them so long across the sea, who can utter what

the revelations of that moment were!

The hills of the Fatherland stood round about the Island. The towers of

the golden city were watch-towers; at the gates those who had entered in

were waiting in joyful expectation,--at the pearly gates, open day and

night, from which the songs of welcome had never time to die away, so

constantly were the new citizens entering there.

All through the night the mother and sister listened with rapt attention

as the brother read. Very much of the scroll contained simple every-day

directions as to what was the King's will for the daily living of His

subjects. But these, at that time, the three glanced hastily over, as

interruptions to the great revelation of the things unseen.

The lifting of the veil had given them such a longing to see it lifted

further! The Hand that had raised it had so evidently moved from within,

and from above; the veil was so evidently rent from top to bottom; the

glimpses were so manifestly glimpses of continuous depths of light, of a

full world of wonders, all fully open to the eyes of Him that had given

those glimpses, that who could say what else might be made known? Why

not more? Why not all?

And as they read and listened, marvellous gleams came. Every now and

then the curtain of mist seemed to rise. Fold behind fold the mountain

landscape of the Better Country deepened beyond them; depth above depth

they saw into its heavens of light. In a rapture of awe they seemed to

stand on the threshold of the opening door of a Temple, as if at last

all were about to become clear. But almost in the same instant the mist

was there again, and the glorious vision vanished.

Marvellous, it seemed, to learn so much, compared with the blank before,

and yet so little compared with what might have been revealed. So that

first night of revelations passed, and the morning dawned. The three

laid down the scroll and went out to the beach before the cottage.

How wonderfully everything had changed to them since the previous

night!

As they had read and listened in eager expectation through the night,

every now and then a disappointment had crept over them that so much

should be left untold; but now as they stepped out over the familiar

threshold on the familiar beach, for the first time they understood how

much had been revealed, and how marvellously everything was transfigured

to them. The world had grown so infinitely larger; the island so

infinitely less!

The island, which had been their world, seemed to have shrunk and

shrivelled to a mere rocky peak, where some shipwrecked company had

found a transient refuge, and where they were merely awaiting the vessel

which was to take them thence.

As the dawn flushed over what they had been used to call mountains, the

vision of the glorious mountain-ranges beyond and above them seemed to

dwarf them into sand-banks. When the dawn grew into practical day, and

the busy hum of labour and traffic came from the White Town across the

creek, and eager voices began to resound along the shore, the three

looked at one another with smiles that said, "Why make they this ado?"

And when, with much pomp and circumstance, the attendants of one of the

Town authorities escorted him with trumpets and banners past the

Cottage, and all the dwellers in the neighbouring cottages made

obeisance as they passed, and eagerly gazed after the pageant,--to the

three whose eyes were opened it seemed like some game of little children

playing at being kings and princes.

At first, on the discovery of the true proportion between the Island and

the Main Land, everything was swallowed up in the sense of that

proportion; or rather, of that tremendous disproportion. The Island

dwindled to a mere speck. It was as if they had fallen asleep on what

they believed to be terra firma, and wakened up on a raft with nothing

but a few planks between them and the fathomless depths on every side.

For one thing, both from the old man's words and from the scroll, was

absolutely clear.

Everywhere, everywhere, above that brooding mist, on high, commanding

all they did, were towering at that moment the Everlasting Hills.

Somewhere, somewhere, behind that impenetrable veil (impenetrable only

to eyes on this side of it), were flashing the towers of the Golden

City, were standing open the pearly gates, were echoing in the tones of

dear familiar voices, the welcomes which never die away along those

happy shores, as the echoes of the partings never die from these.

Somewhere, not afar off, the eyes of the Deliverer and the King were

watching them.

And no one in that region knew of it but those three, standing together

alone by the cottage threshold.

Every one, indeed, knew of the Black Ship. That was but too obvious to

all. But who entertains longer than can be helped the thought of an

inevitable misery?

Once transmute this fact of sorrow into a revelation of joy, and surely

every one would delight to keep it in view.

In the first fervent joy of the discovery of that great Continent of

life lying close around them unseen, nothing seemed worth doing but

either to tell every one of it, or themselves to watch if perchance some

glimpses of it might be vouchsafed to their own eager gaze.

Hope chose the first part of the work. The mother and the maiden the

second.

With a pilgrim's wallet hastily filled with such provision as was ready,

and with his staff in his hand, Hope went joyously forth, while the

mother and sister followed him with their eyes until he waved a farewell

to them from the edge of a cliff and they turned back to the cottage.

Months passed by ere they met again. Meantime the mother and sister kept

ceaseless watch by the shore. Every night they lingered, longing that

the veil of daylight, whose withdrawing revealed to them the stars, and

all the hidden world of night, might enable them to pierce that other

veil which hid a world always there, and so much nearer, and so much

more their own.

Every morning they rose with the earliest dawn, hoping that the morning

winds might rend some little rift in the curtain of mist, and give if

but one glimpse of the everlasting hills which were so surely rising at

that very hour crowned with sunlight above. When a tempest swept across

the sea they rejoiced; for in the scroll there were strange hints of a

day when all at once, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole intervening

volume of mist should be broken up and swept aside, and through the

glorious break should come, not one dark, mysterious, solitary ship, for

one solitary emigrant, but the whole array of the King's armies, and at

their head the Prince, the Deliverer, and with Him all the beloved who

had gone before to Him.

And who could say which thunders and lightnings might be the heralds of

that liberating storm?

Nor did the mother and daughter remain always alone. The fire of that

joy was one that could not burn in any heart without shining, and many a

mourner gathered around the cottage threshold to listen to their tidings

and to share their vigils. Together they looked towards the Fatherland.

And as they gazed, their longings broke into song.

"Come," they sang, in low chants. "Come, O King! why tarriest Thou? Thou

hast suffered and overcome! Thou hast won us back, and Thou wilt take us

Home. Since we have heard of Thee, what can we do but long for Thee?

Since we have learned of our home, what do we here any longer? Since we

know where our beloved are gone, how can we bear this exile any more?

Exiles on this broken fragment of thy Land, which is ours,--why dost

Thou keep us here? All beautiful sights and sounds, henceforth, to us

are but faint echoes of our home-music; and but fill us with

home-sickness. The mountains of our home stand round about us, and we

know it. How can we rest longer on these shores of exile? Exile is for

those whose hearts are estranged from Thee. Our hearts are won back to

Thee, Deliverer and King. When wilt Thou come for us and take us Home?"

Thus, gradually the songs which had begun as songs of triumph fell into

a minor, and became songs of exile. The restlessness of unsatisfied

longing crept over the joy of discovery. Many abandoned the common round

of life. Tents arose on the hill-sides, whose inmates, forsaking the

Island treasures which had become to them such baubles, and the pursuit

of those Island ambitions which had become to them so childish, lived

only to gaze towards that mountain-range of their home which was

encircling them unseen, and to watch for the breaking of the mist.

These the mother and sister might have joined, but for their waiting for

the brother's return.

At last, in the twilight of a winter's evening, he came back, weary and

worn.

The three sat together once more around the cottage hearth. A chill of

unconfessed disappointment brooded over them all, like the mist itself

which brooded around their Island; and they sat silent.

Weary and worn the mother and sister had expected to see him, footsore

with travel, with cheeks hollow with scanty food, and perchance a form

wasted by hard usage; for should the servant be greater than his lord?

But in his eyes there was a look of unrest and despondency that scarcely

fitted a messenger of glad tidings.

"My son," said the mother at length, laying her hand on the hand with

which he had covered his brow, "we could not hope that _all_ would

welcome the great news. All did not listen even to Him!"

"It is not that," he answered, "that disquiets me. I want to be sure we

are doing what He meant. Hundreds have listened. In some cities whole

streets are unpeopled by the news I brought; workmen have left the

workshops, judges the judgment-seat, merchants their bales, women their

homes.

"'Why toil any more,' they say, 'for the low ambitions of this mere peak

of rock? Why heap up its cockle-shells of wealth? Around us is the

Continent, the Main Land of our true life; before us is our Home. For

the moment we are poised here, like birds of passage on a sea-girt rock;

what is there to do but to take a moment's rest, or a moment's

refreshment, and plume our wings for flight?'

"Thus, where my message was believed, cities have been unpeopled, homes

have been broken up, every-day pursuits have grown aimless and insipid,

and have been abandoned, until some, not of the scoffers, but of the

soberer sort, have said,--

"If your tidings are true, let them be true. The hour will come which

discovers them to all. We will go on our quiet way, and find them true

when our hour comes. And, we trow, the King, if he come, will be as well

pleased to find us at our work as you at your watching."

"Mother," concluded the son, "I feel as if we had made some mistake; as

if there must be more to learn. And I have come home to search and see."

Then once more, as on that first night of the old man's departure, Hope

unrolled the scroll he had left behind, and the three sat into the night

and drank in the enlightening words.

And now they learned the second half of the tidings. The passages over

which, in the first joy of the discovery of the New World, they had

passed hastily as mere trite and familiar truths, now shone out on them

as the very directions they needed.

They learned how for thirty years the King's Son had lived quietly in

the Island, doing its ordinary work, before for those three years He

went about proclaiming why He came.

Of those precious years which He had sojourned among them, tenfold more

time had been spent in doing what every man must do, than in doing what

He seemed to have come especially to do.

In the word He had left to guide His own, tenfold more space was given

to directions how to do His will in this land of exile than to revealing

the glories of the abiding Home.

From the Everlasting Hills, and the Golden City, and the many mansions,

the veil was lifted but for rare glimpses. On every step of the daily

path shone for those who sought it a full daylight, in which no one need

go astray.

Thus once more as they read, the Island, which had dwindled to a peak of

sea-washed rock, expanded into a beauty and significance greater than

ever.

For the Island was not merely a fragment broken off from the Continent.

It was an integral part of the Kingdom. The laws of the Royal City were

its laws. The lowliest right work of its inhabitants was the King's

work.

And when morning dawned, and they went out once more on the shore

together, the very beach under their feet seemed to have grown a sacred

place; the very drawing of water from the old familiar spring a royal

service.

They had learned, not only the _proportion_ between the Island and the

Main Land, which made the Island dwindle to a fragment of rock, but the

_connection_, which made it wide and grand, as the entrance to a

boundless world. Only in itself, disconnected from the Kingdom to which

it belonged, was it narrow and poor. Only its ambitions limited to

itself, only its treasures, so used as to be left behind in it, were

really worthless. Its paths, so broken and bounded in themselves, were

infinite, as each the beginning of the radius of an infinite circle.

Its hills, so low when compared with the mountain-ranges of the Main

Land, were infused with a new inward glory like the light enshrined in

gems, when looked at as but the lower slopes of those Everlasting Hills.

The lowliest loving works, done faithfully on His Island, were as much

done under the King's eye as the loftiest in His palace chambers; and

they might be done as much to His praise.

The service of the King on the Island and on the Main Land was indeed

all one, though done in very different degrees of perfection, and on

very different levels.

Not only in gazing towards their lofty Dwelling Place, but in following

their lowly footsteps, were they drawing nearer those who had gone

before.

The best waiting was obeying; the best Island lessons were not so much

learning the wonders of that higher world, as learning the obedience

which makes it the glorious, harmonious world it is.

And many a time, thenceforth, as the mother and her children went about

their daily tasks, rendering such services as they could to all around,

gleams of wonderful light which they had watched for in vain, and

strains of inimitable music which all their listening had not caught,

surprised them along their every-day paths. Every day, and all day long,

the presence of the mountains of the Main Land brooded over them.

And one day, also by their every-day paths, the Messenger Ship will

surprise them with its summons to the Land of welcome. The step into it

will be but one of their every-day steps on the King's errands. But what

the step out of it will be, who can utter?

For the Everlasting Hills do indeed stand round about the Island; and

the gates of the Golden City are open towards it night and day, and the

mist which veils the Glorious Land is altogether transparent on the

other side.

RISEN WITH CHRIST.

Not alone the victors free,

Standing by the crystal sea,

Sing the song of victory,

"Risen are Thine own with Thee,"--

We may chant it; even we.

One our life with those above,

One our service, one our love.

Not at death that life begins,

Though a fuller strength it wins;

Freed from all that cramps its might,

Freed from all that bounds its flight,

Freed from all that dims its light.

We upon these lower slopes,

Dim with fears and fitful hopes;

They upon the eternal heights,

Glorious in undying lights,

Radiant in the cloudless Sun;

Yet their life and ours is one.

E'en on us their Sun hath shone,

And for us their Day begun.

And the lowly paths we tread

Are the same where they were led;

Very sacred grown and sweet,

Printed by immortal feet;

Trodden once, long years before,

By His feet whom they adore.

And each service kind and true,

Which to any here we do,

Linked in one immortal chain,

Makes their service live again;

Draws us to the service nigh

Which they render now on high:

For the highest heavens above

Nothing higher know than love.

Hidden are our best with Thee,

Hidden too our life must be;

Since e'en Thou, our Life and Light,

Hidden art from mortal sight:

Yet for us has Life begun,

E'en on us their day hath shone,

Still with theirs our life is one.

_The Jewel of the Order of the King's Own._

Once, on the sea-shore, in a land a long way off, I met an old man

dressed as a galley-slave, and toiling at convicts' work, with a heavy

chain around one of his arms; but his face and bearing were stamped with

the truest nobility. I felt sure he must be a victim of some political

cabal, and not a criminal; for not a trace of crime or remorse debased

that calm brow, and those clear, honest eyes. This might not have struck

me as remarkable, since such unmerited sufferings were but too common in

that country. What arrested my attention was the expression of unfeigned

and lofty joy which irradiated his aged countenance.

In the interval of noonday rest allowed him, as well as the other

convicts, I sat down beside him and entered into conversation with him.

I found he was an old soldier; and at length I was encouraged by his

frankness to inquire the cause of the strange contrast between his

expression and his circumstances.

The veteran lifted his cap, and said mysteriously, "The King shall enjoy

His own again. The spring will come, and with it the violets."

The thought struck me that some harmless and happy insanity had risen,

like a soft mist, to veil from him his miserable lot; and following his

train of thought, I said, "You wait for a king, and hope cheers you. Yet

you must have waited long; and hope deferred maketh the heart sick."

"The uncertainty of hope," he replied, "often makes the heart sick with

fear of disappointment; but my hope is sure, and every day of delay

certainly brings me nearer to it. Every night, as I look out from my

convict's cell over the sea, before I lie down to sleep, I think that

before to-morrow the white sails of His fleet may stud the blue

waters--for He will not return alone; and when morning dawns gray across

the bare horizon, I am not cast down, because I know the morning we wait

for will surely come at last."

"But," I said reverently, and half hesitating to disturb his happy

dream, "when that morning dawns will you still be here?"

"Here or _there_," he answered solemnly. "Either with the few who look

for Him here, or with the countless multitudes who will accompany Him

thence."

Knowing how such legends of the return of exiled princes linger in the

hearts of a nation, and wondering whether the old man spoke from the

delusion of his own peculiar madness or of a tradition current among his

people, I said, "Your words are strange to me. Tell me the history."

"After the great battle," the old soldier replied, a smile bright as a

child's, yet tender as tears, lighting up his whole countenance,--"after

the last great battle the King, the true King, our own King, has never

been seen publicly in our country. They wounded Him, and left Him for

dead on the field--they had wounded His heart to the core. Traitors were

amongst them; it was not only an open enemy that did Him this dishonour.

But they were mistaken; He is not dead. We who loved Him know. We bore

Him secretly from the field. He lingered a few days amongst us after His

wounds had healed, in disguise; but although His royal state was hidden

for a time, we who knew His voice could tell Him blindfold from a

million; and since He left us, His faithful adherents, who before His

departure could be counted by tens, have increased to thousands."

"An unusual fortune," I remarked, "for a cause whose last effort seems

generally to have been considered a defeat, and whose leader has

apparently abandoned it."

"There are many reasons," said the old man, "why it should be so; and

among the chief of these is this one. When our Prince left us, He gave

to each of His adherents a precious gift as a token of His love, and a

sign by which we may know each other."

As he spoke he drew aside his poor garment, and on his breast there

sparkled a gem more brilliant than any star or decoration I had ever

seen!

"This is the star of the King's Own Order," he said; and as I looked at

it a wonderful transformation seemed to have taken place in the old

man's dress. His poor convict's garb seemed metamorphosed into the

richest robes, such as princes wore in that southern land, of the

costliest materials, and all of a glistening white, at once royal and

bridal, whilst his chain glittered like a jewelled bracelet. The veteran

smiled at my surprise, and unclasping his jewel, bound it on his brow.

Instantly the same magical change passed over his face. Noble as it was

before, his countenance now shone as if it had been the face of an

angel. Every trace of care and age was effaced; the eyes shone under the

calm, unfurrowed brow with the sparkle of early youth, and nothing was

left to indicate age but a depth in the glance and a history in the

expression, which youth cannot have.

"But," I said, "surely your enemies must seek to rob you of such a

treasure?"

"Try," he replied, "if you can take it from me."

I endeavoured gently to detach the jewel from his brow, but my fingers

had scarcely touched it when it sprang up like glittering drops from a

fountain, and was gone, yet leaving the glory on the old man's face.

He smiled, and observed quietly, "Our jewel no man taketh from us."

Then again unclasping the fillet which had bound it round his brow, the

magic gem reappeared in his hand.

It was mid-day, and the usual fare of the convicts was brought to

him--scanty and coarse fare, with bad water. He humbly and thankfully

partook of the poor food, but poured out the contents of the cup on the

ground.

"The water of this land is bad," he said. "The people render it

palatable by mixing it with a fiery stimulant, which, alas! only

increases their thirst, so that they ever thirst again. But we do not

need this."

Then gently laying his finger on the gem, it expanded, like a lily-bell

in the sun, into a crystal vase, and in it bubbled up a miniature

fountain of pure, sparkling water.

"In us a well of water springing up," he murmured, as if to himself, as

he drank and was refreshed; and touching the vase again, it folded up,

like a convolvulus going to sleep when the sun sets.

I wondered he had not had the courtesy to offer me a draught. He read my

thoughts, and said, "This water is untransferable. Each of us must have

his own jewel."

"Then," I replied, "if your Prince left those jewels to you at His

departure, and has not returned since, how can His followers have

increased, if this token is essential to them, and, indeed, as you

intimated, an inducement to many to enlist under His banner?"

"It is free to all, and yet a secret," he replied. "Whenever any one

desires to enlist in our Prince's service, he must repair alone, before

daybreak, to a lonely beach on our shores, and wait there for what the

King will send. There, when the sun rises--not always the first morning,

or the second, or the third, but always at last--his first rays gleam on

a new jewel, exactly like the others, sparkling among the shells and

pebbles. The young soldier takes it up, presses it to his lips, murmurs

the name written on it, binds it on his heart, and it is his own, and

he is the King's for ever. None ever saw it come, though some fancy they

have seen a streak of light on the sea when it first appears, as of the

track of an illumination out on the waters."

"What name is engraved on it?" I asked.

"The King's name," he replied, bowing his head reverently.

"May I see it?" I said.

"You could not," he replied gravely. "None of us can read that name,

except on our own jewels."

I was silent for a moment. He continued,--

"But I have a greater wonder yet to tell you of our jewel--the greatest

wonder of all; and this you must take at my word. The light and glory of

this gem is entirely reflected from a jewel of the same kind, but

infinitely more glorious, which sparkles on the King's own heart. When I

raise this gem to my eyes, and look through it," he added, in a tone

which thrilled with the deepest emotion, raising it at the same time

like a telescope to his eyes, "this country vanishes from me altogether,

and I see wonders."

"What do you see?" I asked, half trembling.

"I see the King in His beauty," he replied. "I see the land which is

very far off. I see a city which has no need of the sun. I see a palace

where His servants serve Him. I see a throne which is as jasper, and,

above it, a rainbow like an emerald; and, above all I see, I see Him,

with the jewel on His heart: but His jewel is no mere gem, no

reflection--it is a star, it is light itself; and in its glory the city,

the palace, and the throne, and the happy faces of His servants round

Him, glow and shine."

And as he spoke, I looked at the old man's jewel, and his countenance

itself grew so glorious, that I could not gaze any longer, but cast down

my dazzled eyes, and was silent. At length, after a pause of some

moments, my eagerness to hear more constrained me to resume the

conversation; and when I looked up, the jewel was again hidden in the

old man's breast, his appearance had taken its soberer beauty, and the

presence of that marvellous treasure was only betrayed by the strange

calm and peace which had first attracted me in the veteran's face.

"But," I asked, "if such a possession indeed is yours, the wonder now

seems to me to be, how the King's enemies can have a follower left. Have

your opponents any similar guerdon to offer?"

"Similar things," he replied, "they at one time often tried to make, but

the same they could never have; and even to imitate the outside beauty

of it they found so difficult, that the soberest men of the party have,

for the most part, given it up in despair, and say it is all a cheat."

"But why, at least, does not each one try for himself," I asked, "and

see if it is true or not?"

"There are many reasons," he replied sorrowfully, "which keep the land

from returning nationally to its allegiance. The usurper is still in

power, and gives away the offices of state as he pleases; bonds and

imprisonment often await us, as you see is the case with me; and many

prefer the possession of lands and houses, or even less, to the

reversion of a city, and the service of a Prince they have never seen."

"I understand," I replied.

"Besides," he added, "there are strict rules binding our order. The

people of the usurper do each what is right in his own eyes; but we are

subject to our Prince's laws, which, though most blessed to those who

keep them, seem to those who are outside, and live lawlessly, severe and

strict. We are subject to our Prince, and to one another for His sake;

and only those who have proved the joy of that subjection and service

know how much happier it is than the tyranny of their lawlessness and

self-will."

"What are those counterfeit jewels you alluded to?" I asked.

"They are of various construction," he replied. "Some try to imitate one

quality of our jewel, and some another. Some of the court jewellers of

the usurper make a paste or tinsel jewel, which, when the sun shines,

has a lustre a little like that of ours. The young courtiers often wear

this; but when the sun is clouded or sets, it ceases to shine: so that

even its outward resemblance is very imperfect, and it does not even

pretend to imitate the secret of the fountain or the magic glass. And,

moreover, it can be stolen or broken. Often, even in the courtly revels,

it is broken--often it is stolen or dropped; and even if it is retained,

in a few years the lustre fades away, and can never be restored. Then,"

he continued, "some make a bold effort to imitate our jewel in its form

of the crystal vase, but the crystal itself is dim; and for the living

fountain they have never been able to substitute anything but a fiery

liquid, needing constantly to be replenished, and, in reality, only

increasing the thirst it professes to still, until it becomes a burning,

consuming inward fever. But as they have never tasted of our water, the

wretched deluded ones persist in saying theirs is the true."

"And the telescope?" I inquired--"the magic glass?"

"The telescope," he replied, with a smile, which had no mockery, but

much sadness in it--"the magic-glass they have never even attempted to

imitate; and, therefore, as none can ever look through it but its

possessor, they say it is a lie and a cheat; and our persisting in

declaring what it really is, is the source of many of our sufferings.

For this we are thrown into madhouses and prisons, and led to the

scaffold and the stake."

After a brief pause, he resumed--

"The wise men and statesmen of the usurper's party now, however, for the

most part, take an entirely different method. They discourage all these

counterfeits, which they say are paying a most undeserved compliment to

us. They say our jewels are mere sham and tinsel; that the light they

shed exists only in the fancy of the spectators; that the living water

is nothing but a mirage; and that the visions we see through the

telescope are simply a lie. They affect to despise us too much to punish

us; and if they persecute us at all, it is simply by contemptuously

shutting us up in asylums as enthusiasts--harmless, unless we mislead

others. It is only a few of the most inveterate, such as myself, who may

succeed in bringing over too many to the side of our King, that they

occasionally make examples of to sober the rest. But it is all entirely

useless," he added, very joyfully; "the King's followers increase, His

cause is gaining ground, and," he added, with a subdued voice, "the King

Himself is coming."

"Is it really true," I asked, after a time, "that nothing, or no man,

can rob you of this treasure?"

"Our treasure no man taketh from us," he replied. "This He gave us, this

He left with us: not as the world giveth, gave He unto us."

"But can nothing you yourselves do, or omit to do, spoil or dim your

jewel?" I resumed.

His brow saddened.

"Alas! there and there only have our enemies any real strength against

us," he replied. "Sorrows only add to its lustre; in the loss of

everything else it only shines the brighter; hunger and thirst but prove

the unfailing nature of the fountain in the crystal vase; destitution

and darkness, dungeons and tortures, only make the bright visions of our

telescope more glorious: but we, we ourselves may indeed dim its lustre,

or, if we will, yield it up altogether."

"All this is natural and comprehensible," I said. "The dungeon must make

the jewel brighter; the drought, the unfailing spring more precious; the

narrowing of all prospects here, enhance the visions of that magic

glass; the cruelties of the usurper, endear the sight of the Prince you

serve."

"This the wisest of our enemies have found out," the old man replied.

"They find that nothing they can do harms us, but only what they can

make us do ourselves; and to this they direct their efforts."

"In what way?" I inquired.

"In many ways," he answered sadly. "The jewel, which nothing external

can dim, is sensitive to the least change in us. Any infringement of our

King's laws, or, especially, any unfaithfulness to our King, dims its

lustre at once; any drinking of those forbidden cups of intoxication

dries up the crystal fountain; any yielding to the usurper's service

blots out from our magic glass its glorious visions, and the sight of

our King in His beauty."

"Are there any other dangers?" I inquired.

"Countless dangers," he replied. "Especially three devices have been

found too successful against us. Our jewel only keeps bright with use,

and in three ways our enemies endeavour to deter us from using it. The

timid they threaten, and induce to hide it from fear: and the cowardly

concealing of our treasure inflicts on us two evils; it prevents our

winning by it fresh followers to our Prince; and in concealment the

jewel itself invariably grows dim. The young and careless they engage in

the ambitious pursuits or the gay amusements of the court, until they

forget to use the precious gem; and in ceasing to use it they

necessarily cease to shine with its light, and grow like any of the

usurper's train. And again, there are some poor, and distrusting, and

fearful ones, whom our enemies persuade that it is a daring presumption

for such as they to pretend they have had especial communication with

the King, and even at times torment them into thinking the King's own

jewel tinsel; so that, in looking and looking to see if it is a true

jewel, they forget to clasp it on their hearts, or drink the living

water, or look through the magic glass."

"That is a strange delusion," I remarked.

"Yes," he said; "but it is easily cured, if once we can persuade them

to look _through_ the jewel instead of looking at it; for then they see

the King with the jewel on His breast, and the smile in His eyes, and

their doubts melt away in floods of happy tears. This I know," he added,

"for I was once one of these. I had neglected to use my jewel; and then

an enemy, in the guise of a friend, persuaded me to question its

genuineness; but I ventured to look through it once again, and since

then I do not look at my jewel, but gaze through it to the King's heart;

and from that day my jewel has not grown dim."

"But you spoke of some who lost it altogether," I said.

"They are those," he said, solemnly, "who have deliberately yielded it

up to enter the service of the usurper; or those who, in base timidity,

have cast it away in denying our King."

"And for such can it ever be recovered?" I said.

"For one such, as disloyal as any, it was," he answered. "He went out

and wept bitterly; the King forgave him, and in time the treasure was

restored to him, and he became one of our most glorious veterans."

"How is the jewel to be recovered if lost?" I asked.

"By going to the place where first it was found," he replied. "There, on

the lonely beach, before daybreak, it must be sought, morning after

morning, until the sun's first rays reveal it once more glittering among

the shingle as at first. But the waiting is often longer than it was at

first."

"Will you wear your jewel," I asked, "when the King comes, or when you

go to join Him beyond the sea?"

"There," he replied, with an expression of rapturous joy, "we shall see

the jewel on the King's heart. There we shall have no need of the hidden

fountain, for the river of living waters flows there, bright as crystal;

and no need of the magic glass, for the King is near; but the jewel will

shine in that happy place on brow and breast for ever and ever."

And as I left the sea-shore and the old man, these words floated

through my heart, as if they were echoes of his history, or his story an

echo of them:--

"Be not ye, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance.

"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world

giveth, give I unto you."

"Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice."

"Your joy no man taketh from you."

_The Acorn._

"When will my training begin?" said the acorn to itself, as it unfolded

its delicately-carved cup and saucer on the branch of an old oak on the

edge of a forest. "I understand I am to be an oak one day, like my

father. All the acorns say that is what we are to be, but there

certainly seems little chance of it at present. I have been sitting here

for no one knows how many days, and I feel no change, except that I look

less pretty than I did when I was young and green, and begin to feel

rather dry, and shrivelled, and old. At this rate, I do not see much

chance of my becoming an oak, or anything else but an old, dry acorn.

When will my training begin?"

As it meditated thus, a strong breeze sighed mournfully through the

autumn woods, and shook down many brown leaves from the old oak, and

with them the acorn.

"This will hinder my progress again," thought the acorn; "for it is

evident such a downfall as this can have nothing to do with my

education. When will my training begin?"

A day or two afterwards a drove of hogs was turned into the forest, and

they began grunting and grubbing among the dead leaves for acorns. Many

of its brethren did our acorn see ruthlessly hurried into those

voracious snouts. It kept very quiet under the dead leaves to avoid a

similar fate, but it thought--"This is a sad delay. It is too plain that

being trampled on and tossed about in this way can teach no one

anything. When will my training begin?"

Meanwhile, the swine rummaged among the dead leaves, and trod them under

foot, and tossed the decaying mould hither and thither with their snouts

and feet, until one of them by accident rolled our acorn down a little

hill, where it lay buried under some stray leaves many yards from the

edge of the forest, in the outskirts of a park. There it lay unobserved

all the rest of the winter. Even this was a pleasant change after having

been tossed about and trodden under foot so long; but in its fall its

shrivelled brown skin had cracked, and the acorn thought--"This is a sad

disaster. How ever am I to grow into an oak when I am so crushed and

cracked that scarcely any one would recognize me for an acorn? When will

my training begin?"

All the winter the rain pattered on it, and sank it deeper and deeper

under the dead leaves and under the earth-clods, until all its acorn

beauty was marred and crushed out of it, and it fell asleep in the dark,

under the cold, damp earth; and the snows came and folded it in under

their white eider-down pillows. At last, the warm touch, that comes to

all sleeping nature in the spring, came softly on it, and it awoke.

"What a pity," it said, "I should have lost so much time by falling

asleep! I can scarcely make out what I am like, or where I am. What a

sad waste of time! It is clear no one can go on with his education in

sleep. When will my training begin?"

With these thoughts, it stretched out two little green things on each

side of it, which felt like wings; and tried to peep out of its hole,

and, to its delight, it succeeded, and, with a few more efforts, even

contrived to keep its head steadily above ground, and look around it.

"There is my father, the old oak," it said. "He looks quite green again.

But I am a long way off from him, and how very small and close to the

ground! When shall I begin to be like him?"

But meantime it was very happy. It felt so full of life, although so

small; and the sun shone so graciously on it, and all the showers and

dews seemed so full of kindly desires to help and nourish it; and more

and more little green leaves expanded from its sides, and more and more

little busy roots shot down into the earth; and the leaves breathed and

drank in the sunshine, and the roots were great chemists and cooks, and

concocted a perpetual feast for it out of the earth and stones. But it

thought sometimes, "This is all exceedingly pleasant, and I am very

happy; but, of course, this is not education; it is only enjoying

myself. When will my training begin?"

The next spring the early frosts had much more power over it, in its

detached, exposed situation, than over the saplings in the shelter of

the forest, and it saw the trees in the wood growing green, and tempting

the song-birds beneath their leafy tents, whilst the sap still flowed

feebly upward through its tiny cells, and its twigs and leaf-buds were

still brown and hard.

"This must be a great hindrance to me," it thought--"this, no doubt,

will retard my education considerably. What a pity I stand here so

detached and unprotected! When will my training begin?"

But in the late spring came some days of bitter east wind and black

frost, and it saw the more forward leaves in the wood turn pale and

shrivel before they unfolded, and then fall off, nipped and lifeless, to

join the old dead leaves of the past autumn, whilst its own little buds

lay safe within their hard and glossy casings, protected by one enemy

against a worse. And when the east wind and the black frosts were gone,

the little sapling shot up freely. In that summer, and the next, and the

next, it made great progress; but in the fourth autumn a great

disappointment awaited it. The owner of the park in which it grew came

by, and stood beside it, and said to his forester,--

"That sapling is worth preserving, it is so vigorous and healthy; and,

standing in this detached position, it will break the line of the wood,

and look well from my house. We will watch it, and set a fence around it

to guard it from the cattle. But it has thrown out a false leader. Take

your knife and cut this straggling shoot away, and next year, I have no

doubt, it will grow well."

Then the forester applied his knife carefully to the false leader, and

cut it off. But the sapling, not having understood the master's words,

nor observed with what care and design the knife was applied, felt

wounded to the core.

"My best and strongest shoot," it sighed to itself. "It was a cruel cut.

It will take me a long time to repair that loss. I am afraid it has lost

me at least a year. When will my training begin?"

But the next year the master's words were fulfilled.

Thus years passed on. And slowly, twig by twig, and shoot by shoot, the

sapling grew. Sunbeams expanded its leaves; rains nourished its roots;

frosts, checking its early buds, hardened its wood; winds swaying it

hither and thither, as if they were determined to level it, only rooted

it more firmly. And year by year the top grew a little higher, and the

wood a little firmer, and the trunk a little thicker, and the roots a

little deeper; but so slowly, that summer by summer it said,--

"This is very pleasant; but it is only breathing, and being happy. It

certainly cannot be the discipline which forms the great oaks. When will

my training begin?"

And autumn by autumn, as the sap flowed downward, and the buds ceased to

expand, and the branches grew leafless and dry, it thought,--

"This is a sad loss of time. Now I am falling into torpor again, and

shall make not an inch of progress for six long months. When will my

training begin?"

And winter by winter, as the winds bent it to and fro, and made its

branches creak, and threatened its very existence, and the heavy snows

sometimes broke its boughs,--

"These are sore trials. I may be thankful if I barely struggle through

them! In days like these existence is an effort, and endurance the

utmost one can attain. When will my training begin?"

And in the spring, when the frosts nipped its finest buds,--

"These little nips and checks are very annoying; but one must bear them

patiently. They are certainly hindrances; and it is disheartening, when

one does one's best, to be continually thrown back by these trifling

checks. When will my training begin?"

But, one summer day, a little girl and an old man came and seated

themselves under its shade. By this time it had seen some generations of

men, and had learned something of human language.

The old man said--"I remember, when I was a very little boy, my

grandfather telling me how, when he was young, he had marked this tree,

then a mere sapling, and pruned it of a false shoot, which would have

spoiled its beauty, and had it fenced and preserved. And now my little

grand-daughter and I sit under its shade! The fence has long since

decayed; but it is not needed. The cattle come and lie under its shadow,

as we do. It is a noble oak-tree now, and gives shelter instead of

needing it."

Then the oak rustled above them; and the old man and the child thought

it was a summer breeze stirring the branches. But in reality it was the

oak laughing to itself, as it thought,--

"Then I am really a tree! and, whilst I was wondering when my training

would begin, it has been finished, and I am an oak after all!"

_Passages from the Life of a Fern._

My life has been one of such extraordinary vicissitudes as might have

made many almost doubt their own identity. But it is only to-day that I

have learned its real purpose. To-day, for the first time, I am content.

A light has dawned on me which makes all the dark passages of my former

life clear and luminous, and unites the whole into one harmonious

picture. I will narrate a few of my adventures to you while I am full of

this happy discovery.

The first thing I can remember is being in a world over-flowing with

life in every form. It was a tropical forest. Gigantic palms rose above

me so high that I could not see their feathery crowns. From one erect

stem to another hung tangled festoons of parasites and climbing plants,

broad, rich, green leaves, which fell into stately crowns with their own

weight, enormous gorgeous flowers, delicate wreaths of intertwined

many-coloured blossoms and many-shaped foliage; so that when I looked up

I could scarcely see one point of the deep blue sky, except when a

strong wind made rifts in my fretted roof. Scarcely one ray of light

fell on me pure, but broken, and green, and tremulous, softly shaded, or

tinted like a rainbow through the flowers. The animals which lived in

our forest depths I cannot distinctly recall. I have not seen any like

them for so many thousand years. But all were gigantic, and many would

seem misshapen monsters to us now. Yet then it was quite natural, and an

every-day thing, to hear the great tree-eaters tramping each like an

army through the forest shades, cropping the tops of the highest trees,

and devouring branches as our animals crop the herbage. Trees crackled

under them like brambles. We dreaded much, we smaller creatures, to see

these approach, for they trampled down a generation of us under the

tread of their ponderous feet. There were lizards whose scales glittered

like the waves of the sea in the sunshine, each scale a massive

prismatic metallic plate. And from the lower reaches of the forest,

where the hot mist steamed up from the marshy hollows, monstrous

creatures, half fish, half forest-climbers, occasionally strayed among

us.

I cannot recall if there was music in the forest; yet I think I hear

across these countless years the dim echoes of strange voices, which

have been silenced for ages on the earth, a confusion of wild calls and

cries in the mornings and evenings,--weird bell-notes tolling through

the sultry noonday silences, and a confused whir, and buzzing, and

croaking, and whizzing, and rustling of countless smaller animals which

have perished and left no trace of their existence behind.

But the creatures which impressed the restless character on my being,

which only to-day the sun has smiled away, were some near relations of

my own. For, although I was but a little fern, many of my race were

among the lords of the forest. Their roots spread into magnificent

curved pedestals; their stems rose, decorated, and erect as the palms,

to the height of the tallest trees; and their fronds expanded into

ribbed and fretted roofs, beneath which hundreds like me could find

shade and shelter, yet every frond as delicately fringed and edged as

any of ours.

I thought--"These are my elder sisters. One day I shall grow like them."

Thus my own daily life seemed empty and shadowy to me, because of the

strong yearning that possessed me to be great like them. It did not make

me discontented or desponding, but filled me with a wild and feverish

expectation which made the present appear nothing to me. I stretched out

my little fronds, and caught every sunbeam and rain-drop I could; and

when a shower came, and the life-giving waters circulated through my

veins, I throbbed with vague desire, and thought, "Now I am to be

something."

But with all my efforts I never could grow to be anything but a little

fern! So the summer passed, and then I felt myself growing shrivelled

and old. My limbs contracted, my fronds curled up and turned dry and

brown, and in a few weeks I was scarcely visible. But the spring revived

me and my yearnings, and I grew certainly very handsome and tall for one

of my branch of our family; but still only a little fern!

The forest decayed, I know not how. The marsh extended, and instead of

the world of varied exuberant life, we lay a long time a mass of

steaming, mouldering decay. And then, through millenniums more, we

stiffened and hardened, and grew black and shapeless, and were buried in

the dark, no one can say how long, for to us, throughout those

changeless ages, there were no days and no seasons to measure time.

At last a light came to us, not the sun, but a little trembling light,

in the hand of a living creature, such as we had never seen. I know now

it was a man. Then followed a time of stir and noise and knocking about,

such as I shall never forget. We were hewn with pick-axes, and tossed

into buckets, and at last lifted into the real old sunlight we had not

seen for countless ages. The sun was the same as ever, as young and

bright, it seemed, as he had been thousands of years before; but we did

not bask long in his beams.

A period followed of darkness and cold and silence, in which all the

world seemed to have forgotten my existence, although I had been dragged

out of my native bed, and stored in this den with so much pains. But

they remembered us at last. One evening, after passing through a great

deal of commotion, I found myself in an open place, with many of my

brethren. A light like that we had first seen after our ages of darkness

in the heart of the earth was applied to us, and then the strangest

transformation passed over me. Just as the water had streamed through my

green veins in the forest of old, a new element began to course through

all my black and stony heart. That light ran through and through me,

until I became, not a receiver, but actually a giver of light. Instead

of my green fronds, delicate pencils of red and golden flame streamed

from me, until I became one glowing substance; and, in my own light, I

actually saw living faces looking thankfully at me, and human hands

stretched out to feel my warmth, just as of old I had spread my fronds

in the rays of the sun. But I was too full of my old vague longings to

enjoy or observe any of those things much; for I thought, with glowing

confidence, "Now, I am to be something great at last!"

It was the last glimmer of that vague ambition in me. My light faded, I

grew cold, and, which was worse, I fell to pieces, became mere dust, and

was wafted about by the slightest breath, so that I had the greatest

difficulty in preserving my own identity. I was even ignominiously swept

away by the very hands which had spread so gratefully in my light only a

few hours before, and tossed contemptuously out into a rubbish-heap

behind the house. But there, happily for me, I was once more in the

sunshine; and the sun and all heavenly creatures think scorn of no one.

They smiled on me, a poor heap of ashes, as if I had been a tree-fern;

and the gentle dews descended on me, as if I had been a flower; and the

birds and winds scattered seeds amongst us, until I began to feel once

more something like the stirrings of life within me. I had blended my

being with a little seed, and in the spring green tufts of life burst

out from my shrivelled heart. I grew, and spread, and drank in rain and

sunshine, until at length I waved and expanded in the summer breeze--a

little fern!

Then a bright, transforming thought flashed through me. In the tropical

forest, in the black coal-beds, on the glowing hearth, I had not been an

imperfect likeness and a vague promise of something else, but myself, in

my little degree, pleasant and serviceable; exactly the best thing it

was possible for me to be, filling up my tiny measure of service in the

world, so that the world would have been the poorer for that tiny

measure of pleasure and good without me. How happy I might have been

always if I had known this before! How happy I am to know it now!

I begin life again, but I have learned my lesson. I _am_ something; not

something great, but something I was meant to be--a little green happy

fern. At this moment I tremble with joy in the soft breezes, I thrill

with life, I drink the rain-drops; and the next moment and to-morrow

will bring each its store of work and joy for me; and I shall be the

highest thing I could wish to be--the thing I was made to be. And now I

am here near the tall trees, and among the many-coloured flowers, a

little happy, lowly fern.

_Thorns and Spines.[3]_

In a garden there once grew a beautiful, blossoming thorn. When the

spring came, for a fortnight it was always clothed with a robe of white

blossoms. They seemed at once relics of winter and promises of summer.

It was as if Winter, in departing from the earth, had left behind a

fragment of his snowy vestments; and Spring, touching them with her

magic wand, had transformed them from snow-wreaths into wreaths of snowy

blossoms. They were beautiful even in fading; and for many days after

the whiteness had gone, they glowed into a delicate pink, and strewed

the earth with silky petals when they fell. On this thorn, one spring, a

little brown leaf-bud formed, at the foot of a green twig, the cradle of

the green twigs of the next spring. But it happened that, as this brown

leaf-bud watched the beauty of the flowers, it grew discontented with

its destiny.

"Why am not I a flower-bud?" it murmured, inside its little brown

casing. "That would be worth living for!--to fill the air with delicate

fragrance, to be sung to by the birds, to be gathered by human hands as

a treasure; or even to live unnoticed by any one, but only to be a

flower!--a beautiful, fragrant creature, with a coat of many colours,

and a crown of golden stamens, and with promise in its heart;--that

would be worth living for! But to be a leaf-bud,--a brown, dark, hard

leaf-bud!--it would be better to die at once."

And a discontented shiver ran through its veins; and all that summer it

never cared to drink in sun or rain, but sat and shivered, and

shrivelled on its stem, while all around it meek and happy buds were

growing strong and full of life, nourished by the same rain and

sunshine. And in the spring, when the white shower of snowy flowers came

again on the thorn-tree, and the other leaf-buds had expanded into green

twigs, waving and whispering in the breeze, with each a new bud at its

feet, the envious and discontented bud had shrivelled and narrowed

itself into a thorn, which pierced the hand of the child, as it reached

up to gather the spray of fair white blossom.

* * * * *

In a field near this garden there grew a green shrub which at the top

expanded into luxuriant branches, giving shade at mid-day to man and

beast. But from the lower branches, instead of broad green leaves, grew

long sharp spines. One summer day, these spines said to each other, in

their short and broken speech, for they could not wave and rustle in the

wind like the leaves,--

"We are not worthy to live on the same tree with the beautiful forest

leaves which wave in the fresh air above us. We can make no refreshing

sound as they do; we give no shade as they do to any creature; and we

only prick any one that tries to touch us. But it is very pleasant to us

to be allowed to grow from the same trunk as they; and it is very kind

of the sweet leaves to sing to us as if we belonged to them, and not to

be ashamed of us. We are certainly most happily situated; so far beyond

what we have any right to expect!"

But all the leaves rustled in a joyous chorus, and said, "You are our

elder sisters, meek and useful spines! If it had not been for you, we

should never have come into life at all, and man and beast would have

had no shade from us. The hungry cattle would have eaten us before we

unfolded, and our parent-tree would never have grown to what it is, had

it not been for you, our faithful and patient guardians. If you had

rebelled against the gracious hand that moulds us all, and which

prevented your expanding into leaves, we should all have perished

together long ago. We owe our life to you!" murmured the leaves.

And the rough spines quivered through all their faithful hearts at the

words of the leaves.

Then the master passed by, and he said: "Well done, my faithful spines!

you have done your work, and guarded my treasures well. But for you my

trees would have had no leaves, and my fields no shade."

And the spines wondered, and rejoiced greatly; for they had never

thought that, in meekly and contentedly bearing their rough lot, and

being what they were meant to be, they were serving the master, and

doing such good work for others.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Thorns are abortive leaf-buds. Spines are the lower leaves of plants

metamorphosed into bristles, to guard the young tree from the attacks of

cattle. This little parable was suggested by a passage in "Modern

Painters."

_Parables in Household Things._

The sick girl lay in her shaded room, in the street of a great city, and

thought, "If I could only leave this prison of mine, and look at the

beautiful world, I know I should grow happier and holier with every

breath I drew. The thorny buds on the brown branches in spring would

give me promise of resurrection; every butterfly would tell me of life

through death; every flower would lift my heart to Him who cares for our

little pleasures; every bubbling spring would murmur to me of the living

water; every corn-field and garden would repeat the sacred parables. But

here I can see nothing of God's making but the sky, and that is too high

and far. I want some steps to take my feeble thoughts gently up to

heaven. But around me are only manufactured things, which speak to me

only of earth, and time, and man."

She leant back listlessly on her couch. Twilight came over the room, the

glowing coals stirred quietly as they burned away, and then it seemed as

if an angel's hand touched her ears and opened them, for the dark and

silent room became full of soft and soothing harmonies. All the mute and

inanimate things about her found voices and spoke comfort to her heart.

Together they said,--"It is true we are only manufactured things; but do

not despise us for that! We came originally, as much as you yourself, or

the flowers, and the trees, and the sunbeams, from one Divine Hand. It

is only that we have been trained and moulded by human hands to be what

we are. And just so are you; God creates you, but life moulds you. Your

trial and your training come like ours, mostly through human hands,

although you are destined for higher places and more blessed services.

Listen to us, for we have messages for you, each one of us."

Then the stones from the wall said,--"We come from the mountains far

away, from the sides of the craggy hills. Fire and water worked on us

for ages, but only made us crags. Human hands have made us into a

dwelling where the children of your immortal race are born, and suffer,

and rejoice, and find rest and shelter, and learn the lessons set them

by our Maker and yours. But we have passed through much to fit us for

this. Gunpowder has rent our very heart; pick-axes have cleaved and

broken us, it seemed to us often without design or meaning, as we lay

misshapen stones in the quarry; but gradually we were cut into blocks,

and some of us were chiselled with finer instruments to a sharper edge.

But we are complete now, and are in our places, and are of service. You

are in the quarry still, and not complete, and therefore to you, as once

to us, much is inexplicable. But you are destined for a higher building,

and one day you will be placed in it by hands not human; a living stone

in a heavenly temple."

Then the glass water-beaker said,--"I was hard flint and waste sand on

the desolate sea-shore once; but human hands gathered me, and fused me

in furnaces heated seven times, and took me out to let me cool, and cast

me in again, and shaped and cut me, till at last I carry your water from

the spring, and am pressed with many a thankful glance to your parched

lips. I am complete. But you, when you have passed through your fires,

will be a vessel of living water in a better hand, and bear many a

draught of refreshment to weary and thirsty hearts."

"I also have been in many furnaces," said the china flower-vase. "The

colours you so often admire in me have been burnt in slowly, stage by

stage, every fresh colour requiring a fresh fusing in the furnace. But

you, when your trial is over, shall carry flowers of Paradise and leaves

from the tree of life for the healing of the nations."

"And I," said the clock, "am scarcely an individual being. I am a little

world in myself--a wondrous combination of mechanism. Each of my wheels

and springs, with my unwearied pendulum, has its own history of fires,

and blows, and ruthless instruments. None of us could form the slightest

idea, as we lay dismembered in our various workshops, what we were

designed for. Only in combination with every other part, has any part of

us any meaning. You are not a little world like me, but a fragment of a

great world. When all that belong to you are gathered together, you will

understand it all as we do now. And your voice will mark with joyous

music the flight of blessed ages, which only lead to others more and

more blessed throughout eternity."

"And I," said the bronze pastil-burner, "came from ages of darkness in

the depths of the earth. Human hands brought me to the light, moulded

and sculptured me, and set me here to burn sweet perfumes, and diffuse

fragrance around me. But you will be an incense-bearer in a Temple

by-and-by, and from you shall stream a fragrance of love and praise

acceptable to God."

"The quarries were my birth-place also," said the alabaster night-lamp;

"but you shall be a light-bearer, when your training is complete, of a

light which is life, and which has no need of night, like my dim flame,

to make it visible."

"I," sang the guitar, with the wooden frame and metallic strings, "am a

twofold being. I lived and waved in the forest once; and then the

woodman's axe was laid on me, and I fell--I fell, and the life departed

from me; and from a living, life-bearing tree, I became mere inanimate

timber. More blows, more tearing with saws, more sharp cutting with

knife and chisel, and I became melodious again, simply from being united

with these metallic strings, which never had life, but lay silent in

mines, till the hand of man woke them into music. And thus together we

respond to your gentle touch, and soothe for you many a lonely hour.

Life from death, music through fires of trial: this is also your

destiny. Hereafter every nerve of your tried and perfected being shall

respond to the slightest touch of the Hand you love, filling heaven with

happy music."

"As for me," said the pages of the hymn-book, "my discipline has,

perhaps, been the severest of all. Once rustling in the flax-field,

rejoicing in the dews and sunshine, I was torn, racked, twisted, and

woven by many iron hands into linen. Then, for a time, treated

carefully, decorated and treasured, and washed and perfumed, I was

afterwards thrown scornfully away. Yet, even in that low estate, I found

comfort. Even as a rag I bound up the wounds of suffering soldiers in a

military hospital. But I was to sink lower yet. I was thrown into a

mill, and pounded, crushed, and torn, till I was a mere shapeless pulp.

Yet from those depths my true life began. Process after process

succeeded, till here, at last, I am to speak to you undying words of

hope and love. And you also, one day, shall shine forth a living

epistle, proclaiming to angels and to men for ever and for ever such

words as speak to you from my pages now!"

The sick girl smiled, and was comforted. "Yet," she said, "the fires are

fierce, the blows are heavy, the trial is long. The end is, indeed, well

worth them all; but sometimes the end seems distant."

"Yes," responded the hymn-book; "my history resembles yours in one happy

feature more than that of any of us besides. For even in your days of

training you are of service. You may clothe cold limbs, and bind up many

wounds even now, as I did when I was a poor linen-rag. And, more than

that, even now, in your time of trial, the ministries you are destined

for at last may be begun. Even now you may be a living epistle, a book

wherein many may read lessons of hope and patience, and sing praises, as

they look on you, as you do when you look on me."

"Yes," responded the stones; "even now you are a living stone. The

temple you are to form is building even now."

And the pastil-burner:--"Even now your prayers and praises may rise like

sweet incense."

And the water-glass:--"Many a draught of living water may you carry,

even now, in the dry and thirsty land, to hearts that need it."

And the night-lamp:--"Even now in the night, thou, child of the day,

sheddest light around thee--a little light, it may be, in a narrow

circle, yet though, thou mayest not know it, cheering and guiding not a

few, even now."

And the guitar:--"Many a strain of thankful song has come from the

depths of your heart, even now, in these your days of trial, to blend

with my harmonies, and to soar to regions which my poor metallic music

can never reach!"

And all the mute things sang together--"We are complete, and rejoice to

serve you, vessels meet for your using. One day you also shall be

perfected, a vessel meet for the Master's use. And then He will take you

into His house, unto the temple which is a home, and your home for ever.

Like us, when you are perfected, you shall serve; but, unlike us, even

whilst you are being perfected, you may serve!"

Then the sufferer turned over the leaves of another Book, and saw how

the Master had written His parables, not in streams and corn-fields, and

birds and flowers, and fruitful earth, and starry sky alone, but in

common household things, and common human ties. And henceforth, not

nature only, but every-day cares, and duties, and relationships, and all

things around her, became for her illuminated with the lessons of His

love.

"_Things Using Us._"

It was my first visit from a home full of children, and not too full of

Things, to a house where there were no children, and where the Things

were in the greatest abundance and the completest preservation. Gardens

and hot-houses without a broken stem; flowers evidently never gathered

except by strictly authorized hands. Rooms studded fearlessly with

ornaments from all ends of the earth and all kingdoms of nature; stuffed

birds in domed glass sepulchres, wonderful to me, and unlife-like as the

Tomb cities of Egypt; delicate fragile porcelain, and exquisite

statuettes, evidently needing no protection from little investigating

fingers; carpets needing no protection from little stirring feet.

Gradually there settled down on me an awe-stricken sense of being

perpetually watched with anxious solicitude, and of having to walk

mentally, morally, and corporeally quite upright in the middle of all

clear spaces, so as not to interfere with any of the sacred Things

wherewith I was surrounded; until, finally, came the retiring to rest on

an ancient damask-curtained bed, in a stately, solemn chamber, with a

heavy consciousness of being like an insignificant, and, at the same

time, rather dangerous fly in a world constructed with no reference to

flies,--a crushing conviction of _having_ nothing, and consequently

_being_ nothing in a universe of Things,--a mingled feeling of

responsibility and insignificance culminating in a depressed

apprehension of accountability to the lords and possessors of this

universe of possessions, who thus graciously suffered an extraneous atom

endowed with a perilous power of motion to enter it.

All this came to a climax when the housekeeper, who had herself, in some

dim traditional past, watched over the slumbers of children now

developed into the guardians of similar shrines, "tucked me up" and left

me alone with the Things.

Ah, the mockery of that "tucking up" in the vast spaces of a bed which

reckoned its chronology by centuries! She might as well have talked of

"tucking up" a mouse under the dome of St. Paul's.

Visions of a cozy crib at home, flanked by sundry other cribs and

cradles, and soothed by a dim murmur of nurses' voices through the

half-open door, came tenderly over me, with a wonder how it looked that

evening to the two loving faces which bent over it every night. But the

very thought of those faces broke the icy spell which had been freezing

me, and seemed to fold me up to sleep.

Then, all at once, from all corners of the antique room, came the

strangest chucklings and gurglings of half-suppressed laughter; and the

fire in the vast old chimney began to make the most uncouth caperings

and flickerings, as if it were dancing to some wild elfish music.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the little Dresden china Cupids around the

toilet-glass (and that they should laugh might not seem so strange); but

the solemn old bed itself chuckled a fat "Ho! ho! ho!" until its heavy

draperies shook again; the very tongs held its sides for laughing; and

the little modern poker, which did all the work, screamed a plebeian

"He! he! he!" in response.

"We shall never recover it!" they all laughed in chorus. "This child is

making the old mistake! She thinks _we_ belong to the _people_ of the

house! She thinks it is _they_ who use _us_, instead of their belonging

to us, and our using them!"

"As if we had not sheltered generation after generation of them,"

creaked the bed.

"As if we had not seen face after face change and grow wrinkled," smiled

the Cupids, "while we keep our bloom and smoothness undiminished."

"As if only last week," said the steel tongs, "a young woman had not

been dismissed for leaving a spot of rust on _me_."

So they went on, until really I could stand it no longer. It seemed to

me so very unbecoming and treasonable in these possessions to speak in

so sarcastic and disrespectful a way of their possessors, that at

length, with a great effort, I sat up in bed and remonstrated.

"I cannot let you talk so," I said, in a voice trembling at once with

indignation and awe. "You are forgetting yourselves altogether. You are

nothing but Things, any of you. And we are Persons. It says so in the

Grammar. We are Persons, the least of us, even a little child like me!

What would become of any of you, I should like to know, if some of us

did not take care of you?"

"Things and Persons indeed!" they all said, in a very unpleasant and

satirical tone. "We know nothing of such philosophical distinctions. But

who ever said you or your kind were _Things_? We paid you no such

honour. Who ever said we could get on unless you took care of us? You

are not Things indeed! You are _servants_ of Things. We possess you, use

you, and outlast you. Who stays in the house--the owner, or the

servants? If you were the owners, you would stay. But it is we who stay.

We outstay you, generation after generation. Doubtless, therefore, this

is our world, and you are merely our slaves--sojourning here for our

service, and at our pleasure."

It was useless arguing any further with such obstinate, impenetrable

Things. But when, on my return home, I told my mother what they had

said, to my surprise she said they were not altogether wrong.

"For," said she, "if we do not use and distribute our possessions, we do

not merely sink to their level, but below it. If we are not truly the

masters of our Things, we become their slaves."

This set me thinking of my own tiny hoard of treasures, and it occurred

to me how disagreeable it would be if at that moment they were talking

in any such sarcastic and disrespectful way of me!

How was I to show myself truly the possessor and mistress of those

cherished Things of my own?

At last I propounded the question to my mother.

"I know no way," she said, "but to get Love to be lord and possessor of

you and of them. For while Selfishness sinks us below the very Things we

are supposed to possess, making us fade, and rust, and perish like them,

Love lifts these very perishing things themselves into our higher world,

transfiguring them into ladders on which angels go up and down, and into

keys of the kingdom of heaven."

_Sunshine, Daylight, and the Rock._

Sunshine and Daylight had one day a serious difference of opinion about

a rocky waste, over which their course led them.

"I am not severe," said Daylight, fixing her clear, generalizing gray

eyes on the Rock. "If I cannot, like some people, see nothing but what I

_wish_ to see, no one ever accused me of blackening any one's character.

I have known that old Rock more years than I care to mention; not a

jagged edge nor a whimsical cranny but I am intimately acquainted with;

and I do not hesitate to say, that a more barren, unmitigated rock I

seldom meet with. I do not slander it. I only say, it is nothing more or

less than a rock."

Sunshine said nothing, but peeped round the shoulder of her cousin's

gray cloak, until the smile of her soft eye met the eye of a little blue

violet, which, by dint of hard living, had contrived to obtain a secure

footing in a crevice of the old rock; and a flutter of joy passed

through the blossoms and leaves of the violet, and communicated itself

to a tuft of dry short grass, which had ensconced itself behind. The red

and gray cups of some tiny moss and lichens, which had crept into

corners here and there, next drank in her kind glances, and fancied

themselves wine-cups at a feast. Here and there specks of colour and

points of life revealed themselves, and, as they looked, expanded.

By this time Sunshine had folded Daylight to sleep on her warm breast.

Many weeks had passed, when, one quiet afternoon, Daylight again came

that way, and glancing critically around, she murmured to Sunshine,

"Where is the old gray Rock you were so sanguine about?"

Sunshine was silent; her motto being, "Not in word, neither in tongue,

but in deed and in truth;" and at length Daylight's quiet eyes awoke to

the fact, that the grassy knoll where flowers--tiny rock-plants indeed,

but still flowers--and mosses lay dozing, unawakened by her sober tread,

was none other than the Rock she had known of old. And she said meekly,

"Truly I find that one way to create beauty is to perceive it."

Then an angel, who was hovering near, on his way back from some message

of mercy (for the angels never linger till their messages are given),

sang softly, "Love veileth a multitude of sins." And the old Rock

answered in a chorus, through its moss-threads, and lichen-cups, and

leaves, and blossoms, "And under the warm veil spring a multitude of

flowers."

_Wanderers and Pilgrims._

A large tract of country lay spread before me; upland and lowland, hill

and plain. The whole land seemed stirring with perpetual movement, all

in one direction;--from the bright hills at its commencement, to the

dark mountains at the end. Earth and sky seemed moving, as when an

enormous flight of migratory birds is passing by; but earth and sky were

really stationary. This movement was one constant tide of human life,

ceaselessly streaming across the land.

It began on a range of wooded hills, with their sunny southern slopes,

forests and flowery banks, and grassy and golden fields. Down these

slopes joyous bands ran fast. As I looked closer, I saw the movement was

not incessant in the case of each individual; only the ceaseless passing

of the great tide of life made it seem so. Merry groups paused on the

hill-sides, and made fairy gardens, and twined leafy tents where they

would sit a little while and sing and dance. But only a little while! No

hand seemed driving them on; it appeared only an inward irresistible

instinct. Yet soon the bright groups were scattered, and moved down

again over the hills, often never joining more.

"Why do you hasten away from these sunny slopes?" I said. "There seems

nothing so pleasant in all the land besides."

"Perhaps not," the travellers replied, with a slight sigh; but it ended

in a snatch of song as they danced gaily on. "Perhaps not, but we are a

race of Wanderers! We cannot stay; and perhaps better things await us in

the plain."

"Whither are you going?" I asked.

"We know not," was the answer; "only onwards, onwards!"

In the plain were buildings of more solid construction, houses and

cities. And here I observed many of the travellers would have gladly

lingered, but it could not be. Homesteads, and corn-fields, and

vineyards, all had to be left; and still the tide of life streamed on

and on.

"Why?" I asked.

"It is the doom of our race," they said, sorrowfully; "we are a people

of Wanderers."

"Whither?" I inquired.

"We do not know," was the reply; "only onwards and onwards, to the dark

mountains!"

Slower and slower grew the footsteps of the Wanderers, more and more

regretful the glances they cast behind. Slower, yet with fewer pauses.

The strange restless impulse drove them steadily on, until, wearied and

tottering, they began the ascent of the dark mountains.

"What is on the other side?" I asked.

"The sea," they said, "the Great Sea."

"How will you cross it? And what is beyond?"

"We know not," they said, with bitter tears. "But we are a doomed race

of Wanderers--onwards, onwards; we may not stay!"

Then first I perceived that, among these multitudes of aimless

Wanderers, there was one band who kept close together, and moved with a

freedom and a purpose, as if they journeyed on not from a blind,

irresistible impulse, but from choice. Their looks were seldom turned

regretfully behind them, or only on the dark mountains. They looked to

something higher.

I asked them--"Why are you thus hastening on?"

"We are Pilgrims," they replied; "we would not linger here."

"Whither are you going?" I inquired.

"Home!" they answered joyfully--"to a Holy City which is our Home."

"But how do you know the way?" I asked; for no barriers seemed to limit

their path, so that any of the Wanderers might join it at any point.

"We know it by two marks," they answered;--"by the footsteps of One who

trod it once, and left indelible footprints wherever He stepped; and we

know it also by the goal to which it tends!"

Then looking up, I saw resting on the mountains where this path ended, a

bridge like a rainbow, and beyond it, in the sky, a range of towers and

walls, pearl and opal, ruby and golden, such as in a summer evening is

sometimes faintly pictured on the clouds, when the setting sun shines

through them. And the little band chanted as they went, "The doom of our

race is reversed for us. We are not Wanderers; we are Pilgrims. We would

not linger here; this is not our rest. Onwards, upwards, to the

City!--to the Home!"

_The Ark and the Fortress._

One day, I had been thinking about the terrors of the Great Flood, when

it seemed to me that I saw back through the long ages to that distant

day, as you look with a night-glass through the night to an illuminated

planet. I saw an old man, venerable with the centuries by which we count

the lives of nations, not of men, yet vigorous with the vitality of one

who had still centuries to live. He stood on an inland plain, far from

any sea; yet above him rose the sides of a large ship. It had been

finished that day. Once more the old man warned the laughing crowds

around of the waters which would surely come and float the vessel high

above the submerged world. He had told them the same truth for a hundred

and twenty years. There had been no indefiniteness about his prophecy.

As, since then, men have been warned by the uncertainty of a doom which

may come at any moment; then, they were warned by the certainty of a

period definitely fixed. Every fall of the leaf had brought it precisely

a year nearer. And now the last evening of the last year had come, and

once more the patient preacher of righteousness stood and warned them to

forsake the sin which must bring the doom.

But in vain. There was no persecution; perhaps some mockery, as they

pointed to the cloudless sky, and the fields and forests growing daily

greener in the spring-tide sunshine; but for the most part simply

unbelief and indifference. "They ate, they drank, they married, they

were given in marriage." And so the last warning was finished, and the

last evening closed.

But one little group seemed to me to detach itself from the rest with a

bolder confidence. They pointed to a fortress on the highest summit of

the mountain-range above them, and said: "If what you say is true,

surely we shall be safer there than in a floating ark like yours. In the

rushing of the great water-floods you speak of, and the beating of the

storms, our mountain fortress will serve us better, at least, than your

wooden walls. We shall look down from our height on your waters, and,

perchance, see the wreck of your vessel drifted to our feet!"

The patriarch and his family were shut in the ark. Before the next

morning, the day of doom had set in. Not a break in the pitiless roof of

clouds. Steadily the torrents poured from the opened flood-gates of

heaven, whilst the waters from beneath broke their barriers, and the

reservoirs under the hills burst forth in sudden rivers.

The flood had begun. The valleys became lakes, the plains seas; but the

builders of the mountain fortress had fled to it, and looked

triumphantly down on the waves.

Higher and higher they rose. The lower hills were covered. The mountain

range was isolated. But the dwellers in the fortress thought, "We are

well provisioned. This cannot last for ever!"

The waters rose. Peak after peak became an island. And at last, the

highest peak, on which the fortress stood, looked out alone upon the

waste of waters, and the floating ark buoyed up securely on them.

They looked still down on the waters, but with trembling hearts. The

wild waves dashed furiously against this one remaining obstacle. The

firmest human masonry cannot stand like the everlasting rocks. The

strong foundations gave way, and with a crash, and a wail of anguish,

the fortress fell, and nothing rose above the waters but the floating

ark. For nothing that is founded on earth can escape the doom of earth.

But

"Planted Paradise was not so firm

As was, and is, Thy floating ark; whose stay

And anchor Thou art only."

_The Three Dreams._

I had once three dreams in close succession, which I will relate to you.

In the first, I saw a magnificent palace, a little world of gardens and

buildings, a city in itself. All was enclosed within a high wall, so

that from outside you could see nothing of it except the fairy white

minarets pencilled delicately against the blue sky, some lofty

battlemented watch-towers, and several graceful campaniles, with the

tops of a few of the highest trees. But a delicious blending of the

fragrance of a thousand flowers came thence in summer evenings; and

every night, bell-tower, watch-tower, spire, and dome, and minaret were

illuminated with innumerable starry lamps, as if every day within the

palace were a festival.

Around the palace were the lanes and alleys of the city--scenes of

poverty and squalor--which contrasted strangely with it; and wretched,

half-starved-looking creatures, with tattered garments and faces worn

with deep marks of want and woe, lingered round the gates. Outside the

gates!--and this was one strange incongruity of my dream, for on the

gates were emblazoned in golden letters, which were illuminated into

transparencies at night, the words--

"KNOCK, AND IT SHALL BE OPENED UNTO YOU."

The gates were solid, and enormously massive, like blocks of black

marble. No violence could have forced them. There was no crevice at

which any one could get a glimpse of what was within. But the golden

knocker, underneath those golden words, was so low as to be within reach

of the youngest children. Indeed, I noticed that none tried it so often

as little children; and whenever any one knocked with the very feeblest

sound, in time, and often immediately, the stately portals opened from

within, turning on their massive hinges with a sound like the music of

many choirs, and the applicant was quietly drawn inside. Then I saw that

the inside of the gates was of translucent pearl. A stream of light and

fragrance for a moment came through, and induced others afterwards to

knock. But immediately the gates were closed, and stood a wall of

impenetrable marble as before.

I awoke, and whilst meditating on my dream fell asleep again.

In my second dream, I saw the same palace as in my first, but the

massive doors were gone, and in their place stood the form of One whom,

although I had never seen Him, I had heard so often described, and so

faithfully, by those who had seen Him, that I knew Him at once. The same

wretched beings were cowering round; but the massive barriers were gone,

and in their place He stood, and said, in tones that every one could

hear--"_I am the Door_. By Me if any man enter he shall be saved."

One wretched and woe-worn woman gave a trembling glance at His face, and

then listening again to those tones, not welcoming merely, but pleading

and persuasively tender, she ventured close to Him, and fell on her

knees to kiss the hem of His garment. But He stooped, and stretched out

His hand, and took her hand, and led her in. Then I understood what His

words had meant;--that by saying, "I am the door," He must have meant

that there was no barrier, no impenetrable gate, but that in the

doorway, where the door had been, He stood, and, instead of the lifeless

knocker, stretched out His living hands to aid and welcome all who

came.

And I awoke from my second dream.

* * * * *

Before long I fell asleep again, and then again I saw the same palace,

with the massive portals flung open wide, but that gracious princely

form stood in them no more. Among the most wretched of that crowd He

went--among the maimed, the halt, and the blind. They thronged around

Him, yet many of them scarcely seemed to heed, they were so intent on

their own sordid pursuits. Some were crowding with sharp, eager faces

round a rag merchant, bargaining with the most absorbing passion for his

wretched wares, and then separating to quarrel and fight over their

purchases, or bartering their rags again as eagerly for a draught of the

intoxicating drinks which had made so many of them the lost creatures

they were. Not a rag or a burning drop was to be had except for money,

and often for a price which to them was life itself. And He came to them

from the palace, and offered them the palace freely; yet few listened!

But with that strange absence of the sense of incongruity and the

emotion of surprise characteristic of dreams, I did not wonder.

Patiently He went in and out among them, pleading with one and another,

often encountering rough words and blows; yet still His words were--"I

come to seek and save that which was lost." And some even of the most

wretched listened, and returned with Him, and were welcomed inside.

As if "Knock, and it shall be opened!" were not free enough, the gates

were thrown open wide, and He stood there, the outstretched hand,

instead of the door; the living friend, instead of the written words of

welcome. And as if that were not enough, instead of saying, "Come to

Me!" He came Himself--He "came to seek and to save that which was

lost."

THE FOLD AND THE PALACE.

THE FOLD.

There is a Fold, once dearly bought,

But opened now to all,

Reaching from regions high as thought,

Low as our race can fall.

Far up among the sunny hills,

Where breaks the earliest day;

Down where the deepest shadow chills

The wanderer's downward way;--

There some have seen a Shepherd stand

Who guards it day and night;

Mightier than all His gentle hand,

His eyes the source of light.

I know the feeblest that have e'er

Entered those precincts blest,

Find everlasting safety there,

Freedom and life and rest.

But I have wandered far astray,

Blinded, and wearied sore;

How can I find the plainest way,

Or reach the nearest door?

The silence with a Voice is fraught!

When did I hear that tone?--

Awful as thunder, soft as thought,

Familiar as my own.

"_I am the Door_," those words begin--

I press towards that Voice,

And, ere I know it, am within,

And all within rejoice.

THE PALACE.

There is a Palace vast and bright,

Athwart the night's cold gloom

Stream its soft music and warm light--

A Palace, yet a Home.

The guests who are invited there

Are called therein to dwell:

"Laden with sin, oppressed with care,"

The calling suits me well.

They say none ever knocked in vain;

Yet I have often tried,

And scarce have strength to try again.

Will one then be denied?

Again that Voice my spirit thrills,

So strange, yet so well known,

Divine as when it rent the hills,

Yet human as my own.

The golden portals softly melt,

Like clouds around the sun,

And where they stood, and where I knelt,

Behold that matchless One!

He pleads for me, He pleads with me,

He hears ere I can call;

Jesus! my first step is to Thee,

And Thy first gift is _all_!

_Thou and I[4]_

In a room in a stately mansion, a little babe lay in its mother's arms.

All kinds of beautiful things were around, and many people passed in and

out. Pictures by the first masters were on the walls; the rarest exotics

filled the air with choice perfumes. The chair in which the mother sat

was gilded and tapestried; the carpet her feet rested on was soft as

mossy turf, and delicate as embroidery. Jewels sparkled on her dress.

The windows opened on a magnificent landscape of park and lake, woodland

and distant hills. But the little babe saw nothing but its mother's

smile--understood nothing but that it was on its mother's knee. Its only

consciousness was, "Thou and I!" and love.

* * * * *

The railway train was entering a long tunnel. The babe was still on its

mother's knee. The darkness grew deeper. The heavy train thundered

through the hollow earth. Another met it, and rushed past with a

deafening din. An older child in the carriage screamed with terror. Many

of the passengers felt uneasy, and were impatient to see the light

again. But the babe cared nothing for the noise or the darkness. It

looked in the dim lamp-light into its mother's face, and saw her smile,

and smiled again. It knew nothing of the world but "Thou and I!" and

love.

* * * * *

The ship was tossing fearfully on the stormy sea. Every timber strained,

every wave seemed as if it must engulf the vessel. The weak and timid

cried out in an agony of fear. The brave and loving moved about with

white, compressed lips, and contracted brows, striving now and then to

say some brief re-assuring words to those for whose safety they feared.

But the babe lay tranquil and happy in its mother's arms. Her breast was

to it a shelter against the world. It knew nothing of danger or fear.

Its world was, "Thou and I!" and love.

* * * * *

Years passed away, and the babe grew into a child, and the child into a

man. His life was one of many vicissitudes, of passionate hopes, and

bitter sorrows, and wild ambition. He worshipped the world in many

forms, and wandered further and further from the Father's house, until

the world which first had beguiled him with its choicest things came to

feed him on its husks; and a long way off he thought of the Father and

the home, and rose to return. His steps were doubtful and slow, but the

heart which met him had no hesitation and no upbraidings. Then the

wanderer understood the love with which he had been watched and pitied

all those desolate years, the love with which he was welcomed now. The

earth, and sky, and human life grew sacred and beautiful to him as they

had never been, because through them all a living Presence was around

him, a living heart met him; and, as of old on his mother's knee, once

more, as he looked up to God his Father, his world became only "Thou and

I!" and love.

His life moved rapidly on to its dark goal. He had to leave the sunshine

of earth, its pleasant fields and cherished homes, and all familiar

things, for ever. The light grew dimmer, and the darkness deepened. But

he had no fear. In the darkness, and the bewildering rush of new

experience, he was again as the babe on the mother's knee. To him there

was no darkness, no confusion. He looked into his Father's face, and

smiled. Life and death and earth, all he left, and all he went to, were

as nothing to him then. He had nothing but that one living, loving

Presence; but it was enough. Again it was "Thou and I!" and love.

And death found that childlike and angelic smile upon his lips, and left

it there.

* * * * *

A day will come of storm, and fire, and tempest, and convulsion, when

earth and heaven shall mingle and be rolled up as a scroll and pass

away. But in that day what will such have to fear? Amidst all the

convulsed worlds the redeemed will rest tranquil as the infant in the

storm on its mother's breast. For amidst it all their eyes will rest on

the Face which was bowed in death to save them, and will know no fear.

It will be, "Thou and I, and Thou art love!" for ever.

Autumn was on the earth

When Summer came to me,

The Summer in the soul,

And set the life-springs free.

Darkness was on my life,

A heavy weight of night,

When the Sun arose within,

And filled my heart with light.

Ice lay upon my heart,

Ice-fetters still and strong,

When the living spring gushed forth

And filled my soul with song.

That Summer shall not fade,

That Sun it setteth never;

The Fountain in my heart

Springs full and fresh for ever.

Since I have learned Thy love,

My Summer, Lord, Thou art;

Summer to me, and Day,

And life springs in my heart.

Since I have learned THOU ART,

THOU LIVEST, and art Love,

Art Love, and lovest me--

Fearless I look above!

Thy blood can cleanse from sin,

Thy love casts out my fear;

Heaven is no longer far,

Since Thou, its Sun, art near.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Suggested by a passage in Sartorius' "Lehre von der heiligen Liebe,"

contrasting the world, "Ich und Nicht Ich," with the Christian's world,

"Ich und Du."

_What Makes Things Musical?_

WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?

"The Sun!" said the Forest. "In the night I am still and voiceless. A

weight of silence lies upon my heart. If you pass through me, the sound

of your own footstep echoes fearfully, like the foot-fall of a ghost. If

you speak to break the spell, the silence closes in on your words, like

the ocean on a pebble you throw into it. The wind sighs far off among

the branches, as if he were hushing his breath to listen. If a little

bird chirps uneasily in its nest, it is silenced before you can find out

whence the sound came. But the dawn breaks. Before a gray streak can be

seen, my trees feel it, and quiver through every old trunk and tiny twig

with joy; my birds feel it, and stir dreamily in their nests, as if they

were just murmuring to each other, 'How comfortable we are!' Then the

wind awakes, and tunes my trees for the concert, striking his hand

across one and another, until all their varied harmonies are astir;

whilst the soft, liquid rustlings of my oaks and beeches make the rich

treble to the deep, plaintive tones of my pines. Then my early birds

awake one by one, and answer each other in sweet responses, until the

SUN rises, and the whole joyous chorus bursts into song to the organ and

flute accompaniments of my evergreens and summer leaves; and in the

pauses countless happy insects chirp, and buzz, and whirl with contented

murmuring among my ferns and flower-bells. The SUN makes me musical,"

said the Forest.

* * * * *

WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?

"Storms!" said the Sea. "In calm weather I lie still and sleep, or, now

and then, say a few quiet words to the beaches I ripple on, or the boats

which glide through my waters. But in the tempest you learn what my

voice is, when all my slumbering powers awake, and I thunder through the

caverns, and rush with all my battle-music on the rocks; whilst, between

the grand artillery of my breakers, the wind peals its wild

trumpet-peals, and the waters rush back to my breast from the cliffs

they have scaled, in torrents and cascades, like the voices of a

thousand rivers. My music is battle-music. STORMS make me musical," said

the Sea.

* * * * *

WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?

"Action!" said the Stream. "I lay still in my mountain-cradle for a long

while. It is very silent up there. Occasionally the shadow of an eagle

swept across me with a wild cry; but generally, from morning till night,

I knew no change save the shadows of my rocky cradle, which went round

steadily with the sun; and the shadows of the clouds, which glided

across me, without my ever knowing whence or whither. But the rocks and

clouds are very silent. The singing-birds did not venture so high; and

the insects had nothing to tempt them near me, because no honeyed

flower-bells bent over me there--nothing but little mosses and gray

lichens, and these, though very lovely, are quiet creatures, and make no

stir. I used to find it monotonous sometimes, and longed to have power

to wake the hills; and I should have found it more so, had I not felt I

was growing, and should flow forth to bless the fields by-and-by. Every

drop that fell into my rocky basin I welcomed; and then the spring rains

came, and all my rocks sent me down little rills on every side, and the

snows melted into my cup; and, at last, I rose beyond the rim of my

dwelling, and was free. Then I danced down over the hills, and sang as I

went, till all the lonely places were glad with my voice; and I tinkled

over the stones like bells, and crept among my cresses like fairy

flutes, and dashed over the rocks and plunged into the pools with all my

endless harmonies. ACTION makes me musical," said the Stream.

* * * * *

WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?

"Suffering!" said the Harp-strings. "We were dull lumps of silver and

copper ore in the mines; and no silence on the living, sunny earth is

like the blank of voiceless ages in those dead and sunless depths. But,

since then, we have passed through many fires. The hidden earth-fires

underneath the mountains first moulded us, millenniums since, to ore;

and then, in these last years, human hands have finished the training

which makes us what we are. We have been smelted in furnaces heated

seven times, till all our dross was gone; and then we have been drawn

out on the rack, and hammered and fused, and, at last, stretched on

these wooden frames, and drawn tighter and tighter, until we wonder at

ourselves, and at the gentle hand which strikes such rich and wondrous

chords and melodies from us--from us, who were once silent lumps of ore

in the silent mines. Fires and blows have done it for us. SUFFERING has

made us musical," said the Harp-strings.

* * * * *

WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?

"Union!" said the Rocks. "What could be less musical than we, as we rose

in bare crags from the hill-tops, or lay strewn about in huge isolated

boulders in the valleys? The trees which sprang from our crevices had

each its voice; the forests which clothed our sides had all these voices

blended in richest harmonies when the wind touched them; the streams

which gushed from our stony hearts sang joyous carols to us all day and

all night long; the grasses and wild-flowers which clasped their tiny

fingers round us had each some sweet murmur of delight as the breezes

played with them; but we, who ever thought there was music in us? Yet

now a human hand has gathered us from moor and mountain and lonely fell,

and side by side we lie and give out music to the hand that strikes us.

Thus we, who had lain for centuries unconscious that there was a note of

music in our hearts, answer one another in melodious tones, and combine

in rich chords, just because we have been brought together. UNION makes

us musical," said the Rocks.

* * * * *

WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?

"Life!" said the Oak-beam in the good ship. "I know it by its loss. Once

I quivered in the forest at the touch of every breeze. Every living leaf

of mine had melody, and all together made a stream of many-voiced music;

whilst around me were countless living trees like myself, who woke at

every dawn to a chorus in the morning breeze. But since the axe was laid

at our roots, all the music has gone from our branches. We are useful

still, they say, in the gallant ship, and our country mentions us with

honour even in death; but the music has gone from us with life for ever,

and we can only groan and creak in the storms. LIFE made us musical,"

said the Oak-beam.

* * * * *

WHAT MAKES CREATURES MUSICAL?

"Joy!" laughed the Children, and their happy laughter pealed through the

sweet fresh air as they bounded over the fields, as if it had caught the

most musical tones of everything musical in nature--the ripple of waves,

the tinkling of brooks, the morning songs of birds. "JOY makes creatures

musical," said the Children.

* * * * *

WHAT MAKES THINGS MUSICAL?

"Love!" said the little Thrush, as he warbled to his mate on the spring

morning; and the Mother, as she sang soft lullabies to her babe. And all

the Creatures said--

"Amen! LOVE makes us musical. In Storms and Sunshine, Suffering and Joy,

Action, Union, Life, LOVE is the music at the heart of all. LOVE makes

us musical," said all the Creatures.

And from the multitude before the throne, who, through fires of

Tribulation and Storms of conflict, had learned the new song, and from

depths of Darkness and the silence of Isolation had been brought

together in the Light of Life to sing it, floated down a soft "Amen, for

GOD is LOVE."

_The Song without Words._

LEAVES FROM A VERY OLD BOOK.

_PART I.--THE SONG WITHOUT WORDS._

CHAPTER I.

The waves were plashing against the foot of the rocks, but the cave in

which the little Child lived was far above their reach; and he lay still

on his little bed of dry leaves and moss, in his soft warm clothing, and

kept his eyes closed. One little hand lay on his bosom, and the other

was stretched out and folded close over a tiny shell; and he lay

quietly, with the last soft kisses of Slumber still sealing his eyelids,

and talked in his heart to the waves.

"You are awake," he murmured. "You are always awake: night and day you

sing, and dance, and roll over one another in play. You do not know what

it is to sleep and to dream, nor what the joy of waking is. You sing by

my bed all night, and in the morning I go and thank you. But it is not

you who call me to rise from my bed." And as he spoke, a sunbeam darted

across the tops of the waves, and gently crept from ledge to ledge of

the old gray rocks until it pressed through the leaves which drooped

over the mouth of the cave, and touched the Child's eyelids. Then he

sprang joyfully up, for he knew the sun was awake and was smiling on

him, and had sent him this sweet morning kiss to call him.

Meantime, the little cave had burst into an illumination: long crystals

like icicles glistened on the roof, and the fine sand on the floor

sparkled with a thousand gems; and the Child's heart was glad, for he

knew all this was to welcome him and the sun. It was all the rocks and

stones could do, and the Child looked gratefully round on the clean

bright sand and the rock spars.

But his eyes rested with a different feeling on the little delicate

lichens which held up their tiny cups towards him in the shade, and the

soft mosses which crept in as far as they could feel the sunshine, and

the leaves of the trees which grew outside. For these had each a life of

its own; and each tiny threadlet of moss, and each little gray lichen

cup, and every one of the green leaves of the trees, trembled and

fluttered with a separate joy as the sunbeams smiled on them, the dews

kissed them, or the eyes of the Child rested on them.

So he left the cave, to take his morning meal on the mossy bank outside,

among the trees and wild-flowers.

The cave was at an angle of the cliffs. On one side a little shingly

path sloped from it to the beach where the waves broke; whilst on the

other, the path lay through shrubs and grassy slopes into a valley. The

trees grew thicker and thicker as the path led farther up the valley;

but the Child had never wandered far on that side: he loved the open

beach and the sunny waves, and every day brought so many pleasures, that

the sun was sinking on the other side of the sea before his day's work

was done. Often on his little bed he planned a ramble up the valley, and

in his dreams wandered along beneath the thick shade; but the morning

always led his steps again to the shore.

On this morning he sat on his bank. The little stream which trickled by

the cave, and then leaped over the edge of the cliff into the sea,

filled the pure white cockle shell, which was his breakfast cup; the

nuts and fruits which made his little feast were spread on limpet and

pearly mussel shells; and as he sat and enjoyed his simple meal, his

heart thanked the trees which fed him, and the joyous little stream

which gave him drink, and the sea creatures whose empty dwellings made

him such dainty plates and cups, and the sun which ripened and smiled on

them all. The harebells trembled on their fragile stems around him, and

the violets and many other sweet flowers peeped up at him from their

soft nests of leaves; and he said to the flowers, "You and I are like

each other; every one has some gift and joy for us, and we have nothing

to give them back but our love and our smiles; yet they are content, for

we all give each other all we can."

Then the harebells trembled faster than ever, for joy to hear the Child

speak, and the violets gazed into his happy eyes. They could none of

them speak,--that the Child knew; but they were still, and listened, and

he could interpret their looks: so they understood each other, and were

all the best friends.