The Little Pilgrim | Page 3

so dear. They would have given up
their home and all they possessed, and become poor and homeless and
wanderers with joy, if God, as they said, would have but spared their
child. She saw into their hearts and read all this there; and knowing
them, she knew it without even that insight. Everything they would
have given up and rejoiced, if but they might have kept him. And there
he lay, and was about to die. The little Pilgrim forgot all but the pity of
it, and their hearts that were breaking, and the vacant place that was
soon to be. She cried out aloud upon the Father with a great cry. She
forgot that it was a grief to Him in His great glory to refuse.

There came no reply; but the room grew light as with a reflection out of
heaven, and the child in the bed, who had been moving restlessly in the
weariness of ending life, turned his head towards her, and his eyes
opened wide, and he saw her where she stood. He cried out, 'Look!
mother, mother!' The mother, who was on her knees by the bedside,
lifted her head and cried, 'What is it, what is it, O my darling?' and the
father, who had turned away his face not to see the child die, came
nearer to the bed, hoping they knew not what. Their faces were paler
than the face of the dying, upon which there was light; but no light
came to them out of the hidden heaven. 'Look! she has come for me,' he
said; but his voice was so weak they could not hear him, nor take any
comfort. At this the little Pilgrim put out her arms to him, forgetting in
her joy the poor people who were mourning, and cried out, 'Oh, but I
must go with him! I must take him home!' For this was her own work,
and she thought of her wonderings and her questions no more.
Some one touched her on the shoulder, and she looked round; and
behind her was a great company of the dear children from the better
country, whom the Father had sent, and not her,--lest he should grieve
for those he had left behind,--to come for the child and show him the
way. She paused for a moment, scarcely willing to give him up; but
then her companion touched her and pointed to the other side. Ah, that
was different! The mother lay by the side of the bed, her face turned
only to the little white body which her child had dropped from him as
he came out of his sickness,--her eyes wild with misery, without tears;
her feverish mouth open, but no cry in it. The sword of the angel had
gone through and through her. She did not even writhe upon it, but lay
motionless, cut down, dumb with anguish. The father had turned round
again and leaned his head upon the wall. All was over,--all over! The
love and the hope of a dozen lovely years, the little sweet companion,
the daily joy, the future trust--all--over--as if a child had never been
born. Then there rose in the stillness a great and exceeding bitter cry,
'God!' that was all, pealing up to heaven, to the Father, whom they
could not see in their anguish, accusing Him, reproaching Him who had
done it. Was He their enemy that He had done it? No man was ever so
wicked, ever so cruel but he would have spared them their boy,--taken
everything and spared them their boy; but God, God! The little Pilgrim

stood by and wept. She could do nothing but weep, weep, her heart
aching with the pity and the anguish. How were they to be told that it
was not God, but the Father; that God was only His common name, His
name in law, and that He was the Father. This was all she could think
of; she had not a word to say. And the boy had shaken his little bright
soul out of the sickness and the weakness with such a look of delight!
He knew in a moment! But they--oh, when, when would they know?
Presently she sat outside in the soft breathing airs and little morning
breezes, and dried her aching eyes. And the Sage who was her
companion soothed her with kind words. 'I said you would feel the
thorns as you passed,' he said. 'We cannot be free of them, we who are
of mankind.'
'But oh,' she cried amid her tears, 'why,--why? The air of the earth is in
my eyes, I cannot see. Oh, what pain it is, what misery! Was it because
they loved him too much, and that he drew their hearts away?'