The Little Pilgrim | Page 5

well with him,--but what they
want is their child. They are to blame; but who shall blame them? Not
any one that is born of woman. How can we tell them what is the
Father's secret and the child's?'
'And yet we could tell them why it must be so?' said the little Pilgrim.
'For they prayed and besought the Lord. O brother, I have no
understanding. For the Lord said, "Ask, and it shall be given you;" and
they asked, yet they are refused.'
'Little sister, the Father must judge between His children; and he must
first be heard who is most concerned. While they were praying, the
Father and the child talked together and said what we know not; but
this we know, that his heart was satisfied with that which was said to
him. Must not the Father do what is best for the child He loves,
whatever the other children may say? Nay, did not our own fathers do
this on earth, and we submitted to them; how much more He who sees
all?'
The little Pilgrim stole softly from his side when he had done speaking,
and went back into the darkened house, and saw the mother where she
sat weeping and refusing to be comforted, in her sorrow perceiving not
heaven nor any consolation, nor understanding that her child had gone
joyfully to his Father and her Father, as his soul had required, and as
the Lord had willed. Yet though she had not joy but only anguish in her
faith, and though her eyes were darkened that she could not see, yet the

woman ceased not to call upon God, God, and to hold by Him who had
smitten her. And the father of the child had gone into his chamber and
shut the door, and sat dumb, opening not his mouth, thinking upon his
delightsome boy, and how they had walked together and talked
together, and should do so again nevermore. And in their hearts they
reproached their God, the giver of all, and accused the Lord to His face,
as if He had deceived them, yet clung to Him still, weeping and
upbraiding, and would not let Him go. The little Pilgrim wept too, and
said many things to them which they could not hear. But when she saw
that though they were in darkness and misery, God was in all their
thoughts, she bethought herself suddenly of what the poet had said in
the celestial city, and of the songs he sang, which were a wonder to the
Angels and Powers, of the little life and the sorrowful earth, where men
endured all things, yet overcame by the name of the Lord. When this
came into her mind, she rose up again softly with a sacred awe, and
wept not, but did them reverence; for without any light or guidance in
their anguish they yet wavered not, died not, but endured, and in the
end would overcome. It seemed to her that she saw the great beautiful
angels looking on, the great souls that are called to love and to serve,
but not to suffer like the little brethren of the earth; and that among the
princes of heaven there was reverence and awe, and even envy of those
who thus had their garments bathed in blood, and suffered loss and pain
and misery, yet never abandoned their life and the work that had been
given them to do.
As she came forth again comforted, she found the Sage standing with
his face lifted to heaven, smiling still at the sound, though faint and
distant, of the children all calling to each other and shouting together as
they reached the gate. 'Oh, hush!' she said; 'let not the mother hear them!
for it will make her heart more bitter to think she can never hear again
her child's voice.'
'But it is her child's voice,' he said; then very gently, 'they are to blame;
but no one will be found to blame them either in earth or heaven.'
The earth pilgrims went far after this, yet more softly than when they
first left their beautiful country,--for then the little Pilgrim had been

glad, believing that as all had been made clear to her in her own life, so
that all that concerned the life of man should be made clear; but this
was more hard and encompassed with pain and darkness, as that which
is in the doing is always more hard to understand than that which is
accomplished. And she learned now what she had not understood,
though her companion warned her, how sharp are those thorns of earth
that pierce the wayfarer's foot, and that those who come back cannot
help but suffer because of love and fellow-feeling. And she