The Childrens Portion | Page 2

say to them, that people would be happier the nearer they got to
the Golden Age. In this way the children came early to the thought that,
one way or other, happiness would come into the world along with the
Golden Age.
But always there was one thing they could not understand: that was the
time when the Golden Age should be.
About the Age itself they were entirely at one. They could not
remember a year in their lives when they were not at one in this. As far
back as the days when, in the long winter evenings, they sat listening to
the ballads and stories of their old nurse, they had been lovers and
admirers of that Age. "It was the happy Age of the world," the nurse
used to say. "The fields were greener, the skies bluer, the rainbows
brighter than in other Ages. It was the Age when heaven was near, and
good angels present in every home. Back in that Age, away on the
lonely pastures, the shepherds watching their flocks by night heard
angels' songs in the sky. And the children in the cities, as they were
going to sleep, felt the waving of angel wings in the dark. It was a time
of wonders. The very birds and beasts could speak and understand what
was said. And in the poorest children in the streets might be found
princes and princesses in disguise."
They remembered also how often, in the mornings, when they went
down to school, their teacher chose lessons which seemed to tell of a
Golden Age. They recalled the lessons about the city of pure gold that
was one day to come down from heaven for men to dwell in; and other
lessons that told of happy times, when nations should learn the art of
war no more, and there should be nothing to hurt or destroy in all the
earth.

"Yes, my dear children," their mother would say, in the afternoon,
when they told her of the teacher's lessons and the nurse's stories. "Yes,
there is indeed a happy age for the children of men, which is all that
your nurse and teacher say. It is a happy time and a time of wonders. In
that time wars cease and there is nothing to hurt or destroy. Princes and
princesses in poor clothing are met in the streets, because in that Age
the poorest child who is good is a child of the King of Heaven. And
heaven and good angels are near because Christ is near. It is Christ's
presence that works the wonders. When He is living on the earth, and
His life is in the lives of men, everything is changed for the better.
There is a new heaven and a new earth. And the Golden Age has
come."
II.
DIFFERENT VIEWS.
It was a great loss to these children that this holy and beautiful mother
died when they were still very young. But her good teaching did not die.
Her words about the Golden Age never passed out of their minds.
Whatever else they thought concerning it in after years, they always
came back to this--in this they were all agreed--that it is the presence of
Christ that makes the Gold of the Golden Age.
But at this point their agreement came to an end. They could never
agree respecting the time of the Golden Age.
Yestergold believed that it lay in the past. In his esteem the former
times were better than the present. People were simpler then, and truer
to each other and happier. There was more honesty in trade, more love
in society, more religion in life. Many an afternoon he went alone into
the old abbey, where the tombs of saintly ladies, of holy men, and of
brave fighters lay, and as he wandered up and down looking at their
marble images, the gates of the Golden Age seemed to open up before
him. There was one figure, especially, before which he often stood. It
was the figure of a Crusader, his sword by his side, his hands folded
across his breast, and his feet resting on a lion. "Ay," he would say, "in
that Age the souls of brave men really trod the lion and the dragon

under foot." But when the light of the setting sun came streaming
through the great window in the west, and kindling up the picture of
Christ healing the sick, his soul would leap up for joy, a new light
would come into his eyes, and this thought would rise within him like a
song--"The Golden Age itself--the Age into which all other Ages open
and look back--is pictured there."
But on such occasions, as he came out of the abbey and went along the
streets,