The Little Pilgrim | Page 2

are all beautiful, but there is sorrow in them as
well as joy; and Pain, you know, is one of the great angels at the door.'
'Is his name Pain? and I took him for Consolation!' the little Pilgrim
said.
'He is not Consolation; he is the schoolmaster whose face is often stern.
But I did not come to tell you of him whom you know; I am going to
take you--back,' the wise man said.
'Back!' She knew what this meant, and a great pleasure, yet mingled
with fear, came into her mind. She hesitated, and looked at him, and
did not know how to accept, though she longed to do so, for at the same

time she was afraid. He smiled when he saw the alarm in her face.
'Do you think,' he said, 'that you are to go this journey on your own
charges? Had you insisted, as some do, to go at all hazards, you might
indeed have feared. And even now I cannot promise that you will not
feel the thorns of the earth as you pass; but you will be cared for, so
that no harm can come.'
'Ah,' she said wistfully, 'it is not for harm--' and could say nothing
more.
He laid his hand upon her arm, and he said, 'Do not fear; though they
see you not, it is yet sweet for a moment to be there, and as you pass, it
brings thoughts of you to their minds.'
For these two understood each other, and knew that to see and yet not
be seen is only a pleasure for those who are most like the Father, and
can love without thought of love in return.
When he touched her, it seemed to the little Pilgrim suddenly that
everything changed round her, and that she was no longer in her own
place, but walking along a weary length of road. It was narrow and
rough, and the skies were dim; and as she went on by the side of her
guide she saw houses and gardens which were to her like the houses
that children build, and the little gardens in which they sow seeds and
plant flowers, and take them up again to see if they are growing. She
turned to the Sage, saying, 'What are--?' and then stopped and gazed
again, and burst out into something that was between laughing and
tears. 'For it is home,' she cried, 'and I did not know it! dear home!' Her
heart was remorseful, as if she had wounded the little diminished place.
'This is what happens with those who have been living in the king's
palaces,' he said with a smile.
'But I love it dearly, I love it dearly!' the little Pilgrim said, stretching
out her hands as if for pardon. He smiled at her, consoling her; and then
his face changed and grew very grave.

'Little sister,' he said, 'you have come not to see happiness but pain. We
want no explanation of the joy, for that flows freely from the heart of
the Father, and all is clear between us and Him; but that which you
desire to know is why trouble should be. Therefore you must think of
Him and be strong, for here is what will rend your heart.'
The little Pilgrim was seized once more with mortal fear. 'O friend,' she
cried, 'I have done with pain. Must I go and see others suffering and do
nothing for them?'
'If anything comes into your heart to do or say, it will be well for them,'
the Sage replied: and he took her by the hand and led her into a house
she knew. She began to know them all now, as her vision became
accustomed to the atmosphere of the earth. She perceived that the sun
was shining, though it had appeared so dim, and that it was a clear
summer morning, very early, with still the colors of the dawn in the
east. When she went indoors, at first she saw nothing, for the room was
darkened, the windows all closed, and a miserable watch-light only
burning. In the bed there lay a child whom she knew. She knew them
all,--the mother at the bedside, the father near the door, even the nurse
who was flitting about disturbing the silence. Her heart gave a great
throb when she recognized them all; and though she had been glad for
the first moment to think that she had come just in time to give
welcome to a little brother stepping out of earth into the better country,
a shadow of trouble and pain enveloped her when she saw the others
and remembered and knew. For he was their beloved child; on all the
earth there was nothing they held