The Childrens Portion | Page 8

to the story of the Princess, and does not know that the Age of Gold is found, and that it was found by the Prince whose dead body is here?
"O King, and ye Princes and peers and people, it was the daily teaching of the Sainted Lady, our Queen, that the Golden Age is the time when Christ is present in our life. In every form in which Christ's presence can be felt, it was felt in the village for whose helping the dear Prince laid down his life.
"A time of great misery had come to that village. The harvest, year after year, had failed. Poverty fell upon the people. Then, last and worst of all, came the pestilence. Through the story told by the beloved Princess we can see that faith in God began to fail. The people cried out in their agony: 'Has God forgotten?' And some, 'Is there a God at all?'
"It was in the thick darkness of that time the Prince visited them. He met them fleeing from their home. He gave up his own plans that he might help them. His coming into the village, into the very thick of its misery, was like the morning dawn. He was summer heat and summer cheer to the people. The clouds of anxiety and of terror began to lift. The shadow of death was changed for them into the morning. He made himself one with them. He went from house to house with cheer and help. The burden seemed less heavy, the future less dark, that this helper was by their side. Best of all, faith came back to them. It was as if the Lord had come back. In a real sense He had come back. He was present in His servant the Prince. The people beheld the form of the Son of God going about their streets doing good. They saw the old miracles. The blind saw, the deaf heard God, as in the days when Jesus was in the flesh. Even death was conquered before their eyes. A real gleam of heaven is falling this evening on the once-darkened village. The evil things that infested its life have been cast out and a new heaven and a new earth have come to it. It is the Golden Age come down to them from God.
"In his great task the dear Prince died. Our hearts are heavy for that we shall see his face no more. But count it not strange that he died, or that this trial should have descended on our King and us. It is the rule in the kingdom of the Lord. Whoever will bring the Golden Age where sin is, must himself lay down his life. For those peasants, as Christ for all mankind, the Prince laid down his life."
The people listened till the Councillor reached these words, then, as by one impulse, they rose and burst into a grand doxology. Then a company of torch-bearers entered. Then, the children took up their place at the head of the coffin and began again to sing. The bearers lifted the coffin. The King and Faith and the two Princes followed; after them the peasants from the village, then the chief nobles and the people, and in this order the coffin was carried to the place of the dead.
In the course of years the wise Pakronus died, and Yestergold became King. He made his brother Prime Minister. And the two brothers became really what their father called them when boys--"Captains of the Golden Age." In everything that was for the good of the people, they took the lead. They were Captains in every battle with sin and misery. What Goldenday did for the plague-stricken village, they strove to do for the whole kingdom. Their Sister Faith gave herself to the building and care of schools and hospitals. And the time in which those three lived is described in all the histories of that kingdom as a Golden Age.
It is told by travelers who have visited the Royal city, that a statue of the Prince Goldenday stands above the old gateway of the Abbey, and that there are written below it the words:
"TO-DAY IF YE WILL HEAR HIS VOICE."

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.
AS TOLD BY MARY SEYMOUR.
In the beautiful Italian city of Venice there dwelt in former times a Jew, by name Shylock, who had grown rich by lending money at high interest to Christian merchants. No one liked Shylock, he was so hard and so cruel in his dealings; but perhaps none felt such an abhorrence of his character as a young man of Venice named Antonio.
This hatred was amply returned by the Jew; for Antonio was so kind to people in distress that he would lend them money without taking interest. Besides, he