The Childrens Portion | Page 7

and making all things work together for good."
As the Prince was bringing his speech to a close, a distant rolling of drums announced that one of his brothers had arrived at the gates of the city. It was Goldmorrow. And in a little while he entered the hall, embraced his father, and was telling the story of his travel.
"My companions and I," he said, "have been where the Golden Age of my dreams is displayed. We have been in that far future where there is to be neither ignorance nor poverty, neither sickness nor pain, and where cruelty and oppression and war are to be no more. It is greater than my dreams. It is greater than I have words to tell. It is greater than I had eyes to see. We were not able to endure the sight of it. We felt ourselves to be strangers in a strange land. The people we met looked upon us as we look upon barbarians. Our hearts sickened. We said to each other: 'It is too high, we cannot reach up to it.' The very blessings we had come to see did not look to us like the blessings of which we had dreamed.
"But our greatest trial was still to come. The Lord had come back to the earth and was living among the people of that Age. We made our way to the palace in which He lived. It was like no palace we had ever seen. It was like great clouds piled up among the hills. We were present when the doors were thrown open. We beheld Him coming forth. But the vision of that glory smote our eyes like fire. We were not able to gaze upon it. Our hearts failed within us. This was not the Christ we had known. We shrank back from the light of that awful presence. We fell on the ground before Him. 'God be merciful to us sinners,' we cried, 'we are not worthy to look upon thy face.' And when we could open our eyes again the vision had passed.
"Then, O father! then, O friends beloved, I knew that I had sinned. In that moment of my humiliation and shame I recalled a sight which I had seen in the first days of my journey. I remembered some peasants fleeing from a plague-stricken village, whom we had passed. I said to myself, I say this day to you, we were that day at the gates of the real Golden Age and we did not know it. We might that day have turned aside to the help of these peasants, but we missed the golden chance sent to us by God."
VI.
THE FINDER OF THE AGE.
When Goldmorrow had finished, a strain of the most heavenly music was heard. It sounded as if it were coming toward the assembly hall from the gates of the city. It was like the chanting of a choir of angels, and the sounds rose and fell as they came near, as if they were blown hither and thither by the evening wind. In a little while the singing was at the doorway of the hall, and every eye was turned in that direction. A procession of white-robed children entered first. Behind them came a coffin, carried on men's shoulders, and covered with wreaths of flowers. Then, holding the pall of the coffin, came in the Princess Faith, behind her the attendants who had accompanied her brother and herself, and last of all a long line of bare-headed peasants walking two and two. It was the coffin of the Prince Goldenday. His strength had never come back to him. He had laid down his life for the poor villagers. Having fulfilled his task in their desolate home, the brave young helper sickened and died.
When this was known, the old King lifted up his voice and wept, and the Princes, and the nobles, and all the people present joined in his sorrow. Then it seemed to be found out, that the dead Prince had been of the three brothers the most beloved. Then, when the weeping had continued for a long time, the Princess Faith stepped forward, and in few words told the story of the year. Then silence, only broken by bursts of sorrow, fell upon all. And then the Councillor rose up from his seat at the right hand of the King, and said:
"We have heard, O King, the words of the Princes who searched the Past and the Future for the Age of Gold. The lips that should have spoken for the Age we are living in are forever closed; but in the beautiful statement of our Princess we have heard the story they had to tell.
"Can there be even one in this great assembly, who has listened