The Angel Children | Page 8

how far
different was it with him when he played with us in the gardens up
there!"
The children were silent; they knew not how to comfort him. They
thought, too, of the time when they should live on the earth.
Then they flew along and came to a large city, in which lived many
homeless children, who were led about by unkind and evil spirits; and
passed constantly by men and women, who did not so much as give
them one kind word.
As the angel-children wandered among them they shuddered: such

strange words filled the air, and so dark and dingy looked the houses
where they went in and out. Could it be that these children, who talked
together in angry moods, who rather sought the opportunity to trouble
each other, had ever played in that fountain, and laughed together in the
heavenly fields? "O," they sighed, "could we but once drive the evil
spirits from one of them, and whisper in his ear of the kind love of
God!"
Then their wings fluttered and folded themselves over the head of a
large boy, whose clothes were dirty and tattered, his hair matted and
disordered, his body thin and wan, while the expression of his face was
very old and vacant. A slight girl, holding a little pail in her hand, came
along near him, and made as if she would go by him; but the boy would
not suffer her to pass on, and, stopping her, said to her,
"Well, and what have you got?"
The child looked at him fearfully, and remained silent; but the boy did
not heed her half-imploring look, but proceeded to lay hold of her pail,
in which she had had hot corn to sell, and, opening it, discovered there
six pennies instead.
"Ah," he cried exultingly, "that is what I wanted! You have done well
with your corn; you may go on now;" and, despite the poor child's cries,
he took away the pennies, and, in resisting the little struggle the child
was able to make, he threw her down upon the pavement.
This was in a dark street, filled with people wicked like this boy, and
where was no one who cared to take the child's part.
But those angel-children were silent witnesses of this scene, and they
put out their hands, so the little girl was not much hurt in her fall. Then
they looked at each other in dismay; the pearly tears again came into
their bright eyes, and they asked each other what they might do for this
wretched boy. They remembered when the boy and girl played together
in the fair garden of God; and it was not possible for them to remember
that, and look unmoved upon this fearful change which had come over
him. "O, this is a sad earth-life!" murmured the baby's spirit; and he

nodded his head again in sorrow. "Why may not I, too, become like this
boy?"
"But must the earth-life bring this change?" asked another of the
angel-children, who saw the anguish of his friend, but knew not how to
comfort him. "Do we not remember the poor boy who worked so hard,
and had no rest, yet he was patient and good, and kept bright, and hung
the cord which tied his soul to heaven with the tear-drops which fell for
his dear, dead mother? When tried, he gave back no hard words. He
was better than we, who are happy always and have no trials."
Not long after, they found the wicked boy asleep; he had thrown
himself down, in the corner of a dirty alley, on a little straw. The
children hovered over him, trying how they might approach him. They
drove hence the dark spirits, one by one, who hindered their approach,
and then they carried him off by the sea-shore in a dream; they made
him sit upon the sand and listen to the roaring of the waters; the large
rocks stood scattered on the beach, and the sea-mosses and shells were
thrown up by the waves. Afar off, upon the water, he saw a long line of
bright clouds, which seemed to climb up to heaven to meet the bright,
twinkling stars. The moonlight shone softly down upon him.
Then they laid him down upon the sand, and made him look up into the
sky to feel the rest and peace of it; still more came the moonlight upon
him, and the stars seemed to open and close their eyes for pity. The
wind came towards him and passed along his brow and over his heart.
Then came into his soul an indescribable longing, such as he had never
felt before--a longing which the noise of the sea, the beauty of the
clouds, the peace