The Angel Children | Page 9

of the sky, and the tenderness of the wind, had
aroused in him.
He felt that something inexpressibly dear had been lost to him, and he
feared never again to regain it; the quiet moon and the pitying stars
made him fear. A deep grief entered his heart, and he wept as from an
everlasting sorrow. As he wept the angels rejoiced, and hovered over
his head in a halo of light; for they knew that these tears would bring
him into the path that led to heaven!

Not far off lived a man who cared for destitute and ignorant children;
the angel-band flew to bring him, and when the boy opened his eyes, in
which the tears of repentance still lay, the ocean and bright clouds had
disappeared; but there was bent upon him a pitying, benignant look,
which went to the boy's heart, and a kind voice lingered in his ear,
subduing him by its very strangeness. So he at once received the
proffered hand, and arose and went with him to his home.
After that, the angel-children went into a splendid mansion, where, in a
large, handsome chamber, lay a little girl suffering under severe pain.
Her little couch was hung in blue silk, and rich laces adorned her
pillows. On a little table by the side of her bed stood golden goblets, to
refresh her parched mouth with pleasant drinks. Yet, still the little girl
moaned in pain. Her eyelids were closed, and her weary hand lay still
upon the bed. At her side sat her nurse, watching her wants and longing
to relieve them. Costly toys lay uncared for on the rich, heavy carpet.
The flowers had lost their charm, the delicious fruit lay, full and ripe,
neglected on their dish.
Sleep would not come to the child; weary and in pain, she had laid
there a long, long time, her poor little body wasting slowly away
towards the grave.
"Let us give her rest and comfort," said the angel-children; and, waving
their wings over her, she fell to sleeping.
The nurse said, then, there might be hope. Listen and hear,--what bright
hope there was, indeed!
They whispered to her, that soon her pain should cease, and that, for
her trust and patience, she should go to God's beautiful garden. They
showed her the fountains and the birds; they told her how she should
again ride upon the clouds, and study from the great books of God.
Then in her sleep she smiled, and the nurse, who was watching her face,
wept for joy, and exclaimed,
"There is hope! there is hope!"

Yes, there was hope!
When the little girl awoke, there was a more heavenly patience still, in
her soul, and a longing to meet the loving glances of the angel-children
again.
As the children wended their flight back to the gardens, and sat down
beneath the green trees, and ate of their delicious fruit, they strove in
vain to bring back the brightness to the face of the earth-baby.
"Ah, it would be so beautiful to stay with you!" he said. "I would like
always to comfort these afflicted ones; but, alas! I shall need comfort
myself, and you will come to me, as we have been to others. When I
am on the earth there seems something gone and lost, and what is
before me is confused and dim. I find myself so weak and helpless,
when here I am so sprightly and strong! I cannot move myself at all,
and when I remember these gardens I have left, and you with whom I
have played, I can but cry all the time! It looks cold and bleak there, as
it never does here. Then, should I grow up to be wicked, like those
children we have seen, and so go far away from heaven, how wretched
should I become,--how much better that I never had left these gardens!"
Thus he complained, and the other children were silent, for they knew
how they, too, at some time, must go down and try their fortunes upon
the earth; and, too, they sorrowed to lose their companion, for they
knew that soon he could not come to them any more;--and while they
told him, very eagerly, how they would come to watch over him, a soft
tread fell on their ears, and their dear teacher approached them.
Her hair floated in long curls upon the cool air, and her eyes were bent
down in sorrow upon the earth-child.
"Have you so soon forgotten the lessons you have learned from the
book of God?" she asked; and the tones of her voice were like the soft
harmonies of heaven. She held in her hand a book, along whose pages
the letters sparkled in the brightness of gold