The Angel Children | Page 9

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 and silver. At the sight of her, the earth-child threw himself at her feet, and besought her thus:
"Keep me with you, dear teacher, and teach me from your book! Why should I go to the earth-home again?"
Tenderly did the angel-teacher embrace and uplift the imploring child. She pointed to a distant part of the garden, towards a grate of lattice-work, in gold, silver and pearls, whence issued a glorious light. Beyond this they saw angels walking, in their hands bearing still more glorious books than the one she held.
"When I taught you, long ago, how beautiful was the life there, how pure the love, did you not long to go thither? And when I told you that the way thither was only through the earth,--that it was long and difficult and narrow,--that many troubles must make you strong to walk in it,--did you not long to go, promising not to complain? Do you so soon falter? Have I not told you that the book you carry in your hands there