The Little Pilgrim | Page 7

'And oh,' she said, 'is this the Lord's reply?' with thankfulness and awe; but because she was human, and knew so little, and was full of impatience, 'Oh, and is this all?' was what she next said. 'I asked for them, and Thou hast given to me--' then the voice of her heart grew louder, and she cried, with the sound of the pain coming back, 'I ask one thing, and Thou givest another. I asked no blessing for me. I asked for them, my Lord, my God. Give it to them--to them!' with disappointment rising in her heart. The little Pilgrim laid her hand upon the woman's arm,--for she was afraid lest our Lord might be displeased, forgetting (for she was still imperfect) that He sees all that is in the soul, and understands and takes no offence,--and said quickly, 'Oh, be not afraid; He will save them too. The blessing will come for them too.'
'At His own time,' said the Sage, 'and in His own way.'
These thoughts rose in the woman's soul. She did not know that they were said to her, nor who said them, but accepted them as if they had come from her own thoughts. For she said to herself, 'This is what is meant by the answer of prayer. It is not what we ask; yet what I ask is according to Thy will, my Lord. It is not riches, nor honors, nor beauty, nor health, nor long life, nor anything of this world. If I have been impatient, this is my punishment,--that the Lord has thought, not of them, but of me. But I can bear all, O my Lord! that and a thousand times more, if Thou wilt but think of them and not of me!'
Nevertheless she returned to her home stilled and comforted; for though her trouble returned to her and was not changed, yet for a moment it had been lifted from her, and the peace which passeth all understanding had entered her heart.
'But why, then,' said the little Pilgrim to her companion, when the friend was gone, 'why will not the Father give to her what she asks? for I know what it is. It is that those whom she loves should love Him and serve Him; and that is His will too, for He would have all love Him, He who loves all.'
'Little sister,' said her companion, 'you asked me why He did not let the child remain upon the earth.'
'Ah, but that is different,' she cried; 'oh, it is different! When you said that the secret was between the child and the Father I knew that it was so; for it is just that the Father should consider us first one by one, and do for us what is best. But it is always best to serve Him. It is best to love him; it is best to give up all the world and cleave to Him, and follow wherever He goes. No man can say otherwise than this,--that to follow the Lord and serve Him, that is well for all, and always the best!'
She spoke so hotly and hastily that her companion could find no room for reply. But he was in no haste; he waited till she had said what was in her heart. Then he replied, 'If it were even so, if the Father heard all prayers, and put forth His hand and forced those who were far off to come near--'
The little Pilgrim looked up with horror in her face, as if he had blasphemed, and said, 'Forced! not so; not so!'
'Yet it must be so,' he said, 'if it is against their desire and will.'
'Oh, not so; not so!' she cried, 'but that He should change their hearts.'
'Yet that too against their will,' he said.
The little Pilgrim paused upon the way; and her heart rose against her companion, who spoke things so hard to be received, and that seemed to dishonor the work of the Lord. But she remembered that it could not be so, and paused before she spoke, and looked up at him with eyes that were full of wonder and almost of fear. 'Then must they perish?' she said, 'and must her heart break?' and her voice sank low for pity and sorrow. Though she was herself among the blessed, yet the thorns and briers of the earth caught at her garments and pierced her tender feet.
'Little sister,' said the Sage, 'to us who are born of the earth it is hard to remember that the child belongs not first to the parents, nor the husband to the wife, nor the wife to the husband, but that all are the children of the Father. And He is just; He will not neglect the little one because of those prayers