"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!"
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 bud 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 burnt 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 harmonics. 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 plans 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; pickaxes 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 pastille-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 birthplace 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 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 pastille-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 which, though thou mayest not know it, cheers and guides
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 everyday cares, and duties, and relationships, and all
things around her, became for her illuminated with the lessons of His
love.
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 overflowing 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 was gigantic, and many would seem misshapen monsters to us now. Yet
then it was quite natural, and an everyday 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 noon-day silences, and a confused whirr, 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.