Chapter III: Part 3

"Yes," responded the hymn-book; "my history resembles yours in one happy feature more than that of any of us besides. For even in your days of training you are of service. You may clothe cold limbs, and bind up many wounds even now, as I did when I was a poor linen-rag. And, more than that, even now, in your time of trial, the ministries you are destined for at last may be begun. Even now you may be a living epistle, a book wherein many may read lessons of hope and patience, and sing praises, as they look on you, as you do when you look on me."

"Yes," responded the stones; "even now you are a living stone. The temple you are to form is building even now."

And the pastille-burner:—"Even now your prayers and praises may rise like sweet incense."

And the water-glass:—"Many a draught of living water may you carry, even now, in the dry and thirsty land, to hearts that need it."

And the night-lamp:—"Even now in the night, thou, child of the day, sheddest light around thee—a little light, it may be, in a narrow circle, yet which, though thou mayest not know it, cheers and guides not a few, even now."

And the guitar:—"Many a strain of thankful song has come from the depths of your heart, even now, in these your days of trial, to blend with my harmonies, and to soar to regions which my poor metallic music can never reach!"

And all the mute things sang together—"We are complete and rejoice to serve you, vessels meet for your using. One day you also shall be perfected, a vessel meet for the Master's use. And then He will take you into His house, unto the temple which is a home and your home for ever. Like us, when you are perfected, you shall serve; but, unlike us, even whilst you are being perfected, you may serve!"

Then the sufferer turned over the leaves of another Book, and saw how the Master had written His parables, not in streams, and corn-fields, and birds, and flowers, and fruitful earth, and starry sky alone, but in common household things, and common human ties. And henceforth, not nature only, but everyday cares, and duties, and relationships, and all things around her, became for her illuminated with the lessons of His love.

Passages from the Life of a Fern.

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MY life has been one of such extraordinary vicissitudes as might have made many almost doubt their own identity. But it is only to-day that I have learned its real purpose. To-day, for the first time, I am content. A light has dawned on me which makes all the dark passages of my former life clear and luminous, and unites the whole into one harmonious picture. I will narrate a few of my adventures to you while I am full of this happy discovery.

The first thing I can remember is being in a world overflowing with life in every form. It was a tropical forest. Gigantic palms rose above me so high that I could not see their feathery crowns. From one erect stem to another hung tangled festoons of parasites and climbing plants, broad, rich, green leaves which fell into stately crowns with their own weight, enormous gorgeous flowers, delicate wreaths of intertwined many-coloured blossoms and many-shaped foliage; so that when I looked up, I could scarcely see one point of the deep blue sky, except when a strong wind made rifts in my fretted roof. Scarcely one ray of light fell on me pure, but broken and green and tremulous, softly shaded, or tinted like a rainbow through the flowers.

The animals which lived in our forest depths I cannot distinctly recall. I have not seen any like them for so many thousand years. But all was gigantic, and many would seem misshapen monsters to us now. Yet then it was quite natural, and an everyday thing, to hear the great tree-eaters tramping each like an army through the forest shades, cropping the tops of the highest trees, and devouring branches as our animals crop the herbage. Trees crackled under them like brambles.

We dreaded much, we smaller creatures, to see these approach, for they trampled down a generation of us under the tread of their ponderous feet. There were lizards whose scales glittered like the waves of the sea in the sunshine, each scale a massive prismatic metallic plate. And from the lower reaches of the forest, where the hot mist steamed up from the marshy hollows, monstrous creatures, half-fish, half-forest-climbers, occasionally strayed among us.

I cannot recall if there was music in the forest; yet I think I hear across these countless years the dim echoes of strange voices, which have been silenced for ages on the earth, a confusion of wild calls and cries in the mornings and evenings, weird bell-notes tolling through the sultry noon-day silences, and a confused whirr, and buzzing, and croaking, and whizzing, and rustling of countless smaller animals which have perished and left no trace of their existence behind.

But the creatures which impressed the restless character on my being, which only to-day the sun has smiled away, were some near relations of my own. For, although I was but a little fern, many of my race were among the lords of the forest. Their roots spread into magnificent curved pedestals; their stems rose, decorated, and erect as the palms, to the height of the tallest trees; and their fronds expanded into ribbed and fretted roofs, beneath which hundreds like me could find shade and shelter, yet every frond as delicately fringed and edged as any of ours.

I thought—"These are my elder sisters. One day I shall grow like them."

Thus my own daily life seemed empty and shadowy to me, because of the strong yearning that possessed me to be great like them. It did not make me discontented or desponding, but filled me with a wild and feverish expectation which made the present appear nothing to me. I stretched out my little fronds, and caught every sunbeam and rain-drop I could; and when a shower came, and the life-giving waters circulated through my veins, I throbbed with vague desire, and thought, "Now I am to be something."

But with all my efforts, I never could grow to be any thing but a little fern! So the summer passed, and then I felt myself growing shrivelled and old. My limbs contracted, my fronds curled up and turned dry and brown, and in a few weeks I was scarcely visible. But the spring revived me and my yearnings, and I grew certainly very handsome and tall for one of my branch of our family; but still only a little fern!

The forest decayed, I know not how. The marsh extended, and, instead of the world of varied exuberant life, we lay a long time a mass of steaming, mouldering decay. And then, through millenniums more, we stiffened and hardened and grew black and shapeless, and were buried in the dark, no one can say how long, for to us, throughout those changeless ages, there were no days and no seasons to measure time.

At last a light came to us, not the sun, but a little trembling light, in the hands of a living creature, such as we had never seen. I know now it was a man. Then followed a time of stir and noise and knocking about, such as I shall never forget. We were hewn with pickaxes, and tossed into buckets, and, at last, lifted into the real old sunlight we had not seen for countless ages. The sun was the same as ever, as young and bright, it seemed, as he had been thousands of years before; but we did not bask long in his beams.

A period followed of darkness and cold and silence, in which all the world seemed to have forgotten my existence, although I had been dragged out of my native bed, and stored in this den with so much pains. But they remembered us at last.

One evening, after passing through a great deal of commotion, I found myself in an open place, with many of my brethren. A light like that we had first seen, after our ages of darkness in the heart of the earth, was applied to us, and then the strangest transformation passed over me.

Just as the water had streamed through my green veins in the forest of old, a new element began to course through all my black and stony heart. That light ran through and through me, until I became, not a receiver, but actually a giver of light. Instead of my green fronds, delicate pencils of red and golden flame streamed from me, until I became one glowing substance; and, in my own light, I actually saw living faces looking thankfully at me, and human hands stretched out to feel my warmth, just as of old I had spread my fronds in the rays of the sun.

But I was too full of my old vague longings to enjoy or observe any of those things much, for I thought, with glowing confidence, "Now, I am to be something great at last!"

It was the last glimmer of that vague ambition in me. My light faded, I grew cold, and, which was worse, I fell to pieces, became mere dust, and was wafted about by the slightest breath, so that I had the greatest difficulty in preserving my own identity. I was even ignominiously swept away by the very hands which had spread so gratefully in my light only a few hours before, and tossed contemptuously out into a rubbish heap behind the house.

But there, happily for me, I was once more in the sunshine; and the sun, and all heavenly creatures, think scorn of no one. They smiled on me, a poor heap of ashes, as if I had been a tree-fern; and the gentle dews descended on me, as if had been a flower; and the birds and winds scattered seeds amongst us, until I began to feel once more something like the stirrings of life within me. I had blended my being with a little seed, and in the spring, green tufts of life burst out from my shrivelled heart. I grew, and spread, and drank in rain and sunshine, until at length I waved and expanded in the summer breeze—a little fern!

Then a bright, transforming thought flashed through me. In the tropical forest, in the black coal-beds, on the glowing hearth, I had not been an imperfect likeness and a vague promise of something else, but myself, in my little degree, pleasant and serviceable; exactly the best thing it was possible for me to be, filling up my tiny measure of service in the world, so that the world would have been the poorer for that tiny measure of pleasure and good without me. How happy I might have been always, if I had known this before! How happy I am to know it now!

I begin life again, but I have learned my lesson. I am something; not something great, but something I was meant to be—a little green happy fern. At this moment I tremble with joy in the soft breezes, I thrill with life, I drink the rain-drops, and the next moment and to-morrow will bring each its store of work and joy for me, and I shall be the highest thing I could wish to be, the thing I was made to be. And now I am here near the tall trees, and among the many-coloured flowers, a little, happy, lowly fern.

Parables.

The Clock-bell and the Alarm-bell.

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"WE have lived a long time here together," said the ponderous Alarm-bell to the little brisk bell in the clock-tower of the Orphan-house, "and a useful life yours has been! I have watched carefully, and never once during these hundred years that we have stood side by side have you failed to tell the hours and half-hours by day and night. I have plenty of leisure for thought; but it would be beyond my powers to calculate how often your voice has been heard in the service of man.

"I observe, too, how much attention is paid you by all, and with how much well-deserved respect you are regarded. Nothing is done in house or field without your sanction. At your early call, this little busy hive begins to stir in the morning. At your mid-day invitation, the boys gather from the fields where they have been working; and the girls from the laundries and workrooms to the noon-day meal. At your evening summons, the doors are closed at night, and not a sound is heard afterwards in house or field until your steady voice wakens our little world again.

"Yours is, indeed, a useful, honoured life; but as for me, who can tell what I am made for? Since I was placed here first, a hundred years ago, lifted up with enormous trouble and labour, and safely roofed in my belfry, not a creature has heard my voice, or been the better for my existence. I might as well have been lying still a lump of unsmelted ore in the depths of the mines. I feel so stiff and rusty, that I sometimes question if they could move me if they tried.

"For you, daily, hourly usefulness! For me, a hundred years of silence! And who can say how many more? I do not complain; but our destinies are very different. It must be wonderfully happy to be so useful, and to be looked on by every one with such attention and regard. Of course, I could not expect to be as serviceable as you—I, with my cumbrous, ponderous mass of heavy metal, and you, hung so lightly, so graceful in your shape, so brisk in all your movements, so cheery and pleasant in your voice. But I should like to be of some use once in my life, even if it were only to know for what purpose I was made, and set on high."

"Wait!" said the Clock-bell. "There must be some work for you. It would have taken a hundred such as I am to make one like you. Think of the trouble there must have been in getting a mould large enough for you—of the labour it was to raise you so high. You must be set there for some end, although we do not yet know what. Wait!" said the Clock-bell, cheerily, and struck nine.

Then there was a sound from within the house, as of many childish voices singing an evening hymn. A few minutes after, all was still, and ten o'clock echoed over the silent fields to the sleeping city near at hand.

But that night there was an unusual stir in the Orphan-house. Feet were heard rushing hither and thither; and from every window poured forth the cry: "Fire! Fire! The Orphan-house is on fire!"

And, through the darkness, lurid smoke began to rise from an outhouse attached to the main building.

Then came another cry: "The Alarm-bell! Ring the Alarm-bell!"

And feet were heard on the steps of the belfry-tower; and hands began pulling vigorously at the ropes, and in a moment, for the first time, the deep tones of the long silent bell pealed heavily on the midnight air. They awoke the city. In a short time, fire-engines were on the way. Streams of water played on the flames, and quenched them; and the children and the Orphan-house were saved.

The next morning all was silent again, as if nothing had happened; the outhouse lay in ashes, but the Orphan-house was uninjured. At eight the Clock-bell called the children to their morning prayer; whilst the Alarm-bell had relapsed into silence, perhaps for another century.

But the Clock-bell said—"You have done in an hour the service of a century. Had it not been for you, I should never have struck another hour."

And the grateful children often looked up as they passed beneath, and said—"Had it not been for our good Alarm-bell, we might all have perished!"

So the Alarm-bell learned what it was made for; and was content to wait another hundred years, or more, before its voice was heard again.

Thorns and Spines. *

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IN a garden there once grew a beautiful, blossoming thorn. When the spring came, for a fortnight it was always clothed with a robe of white blossoms. They seemed at once relics of winter, and promises of summer. It was as if Winter, in departing from the earth, had left behind a fragment of his snowy vestments; and Spring, touching them with her magic wand, had transformed them from snow-wreaths into wreaths of snowy blossoms. They were beautiful even in fading; and for many days after the whiteness had gone, they glowed into a delicate pink, and strewed the earth with silky petals when they fell.

* Thorns are abortive leaf-buds. Spines are the lower leaves of plants metamorphosed into bristles, to guard the young tree from the attacks of cattle. This little parable was suggested by a passage in "Modern Painters."

On this thorn, one spring, a little brown leaf-bud formed, at the foot of a green twig, the cradle of the green twigs of the next spring. But it happened that, as this brown leaf-bud watched the beauty of the flowers, it grew discontented with its destiny:—

"Why am not I a flower-bud?" it murmured, inside its little brown casing. "That would be worth living for!—To fill the air with delicate fragrance, to be sung to by the birds, to be gathered by human hands as a treasure; or even to live unnoticed by any one, but only to be a flower!—A beautiful, fragrant creature, with a coat of many colours, and a crown of golden stamens, and with promise in its heart;—that would be worth living for! But to be a leaf-bud, a brown, dark, hard leaf-bud!—It would be better to die at once."

And a discontented shiver ran through its veins; and all that summer it never cared to drink in sun or rain, but sat and shivered, and shrivelled on its stem, while all around it, meek and happy buds were growing strong and full of life, nourished by the same rain and sunshine. And in the spring, when the white shower of snowy flowers came again on the thorn-tree, and the other leaf-buds had expanded into green twigs, waving and whispering in the breeze, with each a new bud at its feet, the envious and discontented bud had shrivelled and narrowed itself into a thorn, which pierced the hand of the child, as it reached up to gather the spray of fair white blossom.

* * * *

In a field near this garden, there grew a green shrub, which at the top expanded into luxuriant branches, giving shade at mid-day to man and beast. But from the lower branches, instead of broad green leaves, grew long sharp spines. One summer day, these spines said to each other, in their short and broken speech, for they could not wave and rustle in the wind like the leaves:—

"We are not worthy to live on the same tree with the beautiful forest leaves which wave in the fresh air above us. We can make no refreshing sound as they do; we give no shade as they do to any creature; and we only prick any one that tries to touch us. But it is very pleasant to us to be allowed to grow from the same trunk as they; and it is very kind of the sweet leaves to sing to us as if we belonged to them, and not to be ashamed of us. We are certainly most happily situated; so far beyond what we have any right to expect!"

But all the leaves rustled in a joyous chorus, and said:—"You are our elder sisters, meek and useful spines! If it had not been for you, we should never have come into life at all, and man and beast would have had no shade from us. The hungry cattle would have eaten us before we unfolded, and our parent-tree would never have grown to what it is, had it not been for you, our faithful and patient guardians. If you had rebelled against the gracious hand that moulds us all, and prevented our expanding into leaves, we should all have perished together long ago. We owe our life to you!" murmured the leaves.

And the rough spines quivered through all their faithful hearts at the words of the leaves.

Then the master passed by, and he said:—"Well done, my faithful spines! You have done your work, and guarded my treasures well. But for you, my trees would have had no leaves, and my fields no shade."

And the spines wondered, and rejoiced greatly; for they had never thought that, in meekly and contentedly bearing their rough lot, and being what they were meant to be, they were serving the master, and doing such good work for others.

Sunshine, Daylight, and the Rock. *

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SUNSHINE and Daylight had one day a serious difference of opinion about a rocky waste, over which their course led them.

* Reprinted from "Excelsior."

"I am not severe," said Daylight, fixing her clear, generalising gray eyes on the Rock. "If I cannot, like some people, see nothing but what I wish to see, no one ever accused me of blackening any one's character. I have known that old rock more years than I care to mention; not a jagged edge, nor a whimsical cranny, but I am intimately acquainted with, and I do not hesitate to say, that a more barren, unmitigated rock I seldom meet with. I do not slander it. I only say, it is nothing more or less than a rock."

Sunshine said nothing, but peeped round the shoulder of her cousin's gray cloak, until the smile of her soft eye met the eye of a little blue violet, which, by dint of hard living, had contrived to obtain a secure footing in a crevice of the old rock; and a flutter of joy passed through the blossoms and leaves of the violet, and communicated itself to a tuft of dry short grass, which had ensconced itself behind. The red and gray cups of some tiny moss and lichens, which had crept into corners here and there, next drank in her kind glances, and fancied themselves wine-cups at a feast. Here and there specks of colour and points of life revealed themselves, and, as they looked, expanded.

By this time, Sunshine had folded Daylight to sleep on her warm breast. Many weeks had passed, when, one quiet afternoon, Daylight again came that way, and glancing critically around, she murmured to Sunshine, "Where is the old gray rock you were so sanguine about?"

Sunshine was silent: her motto being, "Not 'in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.'"

And at length, Daylight's quiet eyes awoke to the fact, that the grassy knoll where flowers—tiny rock-plants indeed, but still flowers—and mosses lay dozing unawakened by her sober tread, was none other than the rock she had known of old. And she said, meekly, "Truly I find that one way to create beauty is to perceive it."

Then an angel, who was hovering near, on his way back from some message of mercy (for the angels never linger till their messages are given), sang softly, "Love veileth a multitude of sins."

And the old Rock answered in a chorus, through its moss-threads, and lichen-cups, and leaves, and blossoms, "And under the warm veil spring a multitude of flowers."

Wanderers and Pilgrims.

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A LARGE tract of country lay spread before me; upland and lowland, hill and plain. The whole land seemed stirring with perpetual movement, all in one direction;—from the bright hills at its commencement, to the dark mountains at the end. Earth and sky seemed moving, as when an enormous flight of migratory birds is passing by, but earth and sky were really stationary. This movement was one constant tide of human life, ceaselessly streaming across the land.

It began on a range of wooded hills, with their sunny southern slopes, forests and flowery banks, and grassy and golden fields. Down these slopes, joyous bands ran fast. As I looked closer, I saw the movement was not incessant in the case of each individual; only the ceaseless passing of the great tide of life made it seem so. Merry groups paused on the hill-sides, and made fairy gardens, and twined leafy tents where they would sit a little while and sing and dance. But only a little while! No hand seemed driving them on; it appeared only an inward irresistible instinct. Yet soon the bright groups were scattered, and moved down again over the hills, often never joining more.

"Why do you hasten away from these sunny slopes?" I said. "There seems nothing so pleasant in all the land besides."

"Perhaps not," the travellers replied, with a slight sigh; but it ended in a snatch of song as they danced gaily on. "Perhaps not, but we are a race of Wanderers! We cannot stay; and perhaps better things await us in the plain."

"Whither are you going?" I asked.

"We know not," was the answer; "only onward, onward!"

In the plain were buildings of more solid construction, houses and cities. And here I observed many of the travellers would have gladly lingered, but it could not be. Homesteads, and corn-fields, and vineyards, all had to be left; and still the tide of life streamed on and on.

"Why?" I asked.

"It is the doom of our race," they said, sorrowfully; "we are a people of Wanderers."

"Whither?" I inquired.

"We do not know," was the reply; "only onwards and onwards to the dark mountains!"

Slower and slower grew the footsteps of the Wanderers, more and more regretful the glances they cast behind. Slower, yet with fewer pauses. The strange restless impulse drove them steadily on, until, wearied and tottering, they began the ascent of the dark mountains.

"What is on the other side?" I asked.

"The sea," they said, "the Great Sea."

"How will you cross it, and what is beyond?"

"We know not," they said, with bitter tears. "But we are a doomed race of Wanderers—onwards, onwards; we may not stay!"

Then first I perceived that, among these multitudes of aimless Wanderers, there was one band who kept close together, and moved with a freedom and a purpose, as if they journeyed on not from a blind, irresistible impulse, but from choice. Their looks were seldom turned regretfully behind them, or only on the dark mountains. They looked to something higher.

I asked them—"Why are you thus hasting on?"

"We are Pilgrims," they replied; "we would not linger here."

"Whither are you going?" I inquired.

"Home!" they answered, joyfully. "To a Holy City which is our Home."

"But how do you know the way?" I asked, for no barriers seemed to limit their path, so that any of the Wanderers might join it at any point.

"We know it by two marks," they answered—"by the footsteps of One who trod it once, and left indelible footprints wherever He stepped. And we know it also by the goal to which it tends!"

Then looking up, I saw resting on the mountains where this path ended, a bridge like a rainbow, and beyond it, in the sky, a range of towers and walls, pearl and opal, ruby and golden, such as in a summer evening is sometimes faintly pictured on the clouds, when the setting sun shines through them.

And the little band chanted as they went, "The doom of our race is reversed for us. We are not Wanderers; we are Pilgrims. We would not linger here; this is not our rest. Onwards, upwards, to the City!—To the Home!"

The Ark and the Fortress.

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ONE day, I had been thinking about the terrors of the Great Flood, when it seemed to me that I saw back through the long ages to that distant day, as you look with a night-glass through the night to an illuminated planet.

I saw an old man, venerable with the centuries by which we count the lives of nations, not of men, yet vigorous with the vitality of one who had still centuries to live. He stood on an inland plain, far from any sea; yet above him rose the sides of a large ship. It had been finished that day.

Once more the old man warned the laughing crowds around of the waters which would surely come and float the vessel high above the submerged world. He had told them the same truth for a hundred and twenty years. There had been no indefiniteness about his prophecy. As, since then, men have been warned by the uncertainty of a doom which may come at any moment; then, they were warned by the certainty of a period definitely fixed. Every fall of the leaf had brought it precisely a year nearer. And now the last evening of the last year had come, and once more the patient preacher of righteousness stood and warned them to forsake the sin which must bring the doom.

But in vain. There was no persecution; perhaps some mockery, as they pointed to the cloudless sky, and the fields and forests growing daily greener in the spring-tide sunshine; but for the most part simply unbelief and indifference. "They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage." And so the last warning was finished, and the last evening closed.

But one little group seemed to me to detach itself from the rest with a bolder confidence. They pointed to a fortress on the highest summit of the mountain range above them, and said:—

"If what you say is true, surely we shall be safer there than in a floating ark like yours. In the rushing of the great water-floods you speak of, and the beating of the storms, our mountain fortress will serve us better, at least, than your wooden walls. We shall look down from our height on your waters, and, perchance, see the wreck of your vessel drifted to our feet!"

The patriarch and his family were shut in the ark. Before the next morning, the day of doom had set in. Not a break in the pitiless roof of clouds. Steadily the torrents poured from the opened flood-gates of heaven, whilst the waters from beneath broke their barriers, and the reservoirs under the hills burst forth in sudden rivers.

The flood had begun. The valleys became lakes, the plains seas; but the builders of the mountain fortress had fled to it, and looked triumphantly down on the waves.

Higher and higher they rose. The lower hills were covered. The mountain range was isolated. But the dwellers in the fortress thought, "We are well provisioned. This cannot last for ever!"

The waters rose. Peak after peak became an island. And at last, the highest peak, on which the fortress stood, looked out alone upon the waste of waters, and the floating ark buoyed up securely on them.

They looked still down on the waters, but with trembling hearts. The wild waves dashed furiously against this one remaining obstacle. The firmest human masonry cannot stand like the everlasting rocks. The strong foundations gave way, and with a crash, and a wail of anguish, the fortress fell, and nothing rose above the waters but the floating ark. For nothing that is founded on earth can escape the doom of earth. But—

"Planted Paradise was not so firm
As was, and is, Thy floating ark."

The Three Dreams.

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I HAD once three dreams in close succession, which I will relate to you.

In the first, I saw a magnificent palace, a little world of gardens and buildings, a city in itself. All was enclosed within a high wall, so that from outside you could see nothing of it except the fairy white minarets, pencilled delicately against the blue sky, some lofty battlemented watch-towers, and several graceful campaniles, with the tops of a few of the highest trees. But a delicious blending of the fragrance of a thousand flowers came thence in summer evenings; and every night, bell-tower, watch-tower, spire, and dome, and minaret were illuminated with innumerable starry lamps, as if every day within the palace were a festival.

Around the palace were the lanes and alleys of the city—scenes of poverty and squalor—which contrasted strangely with it; and wretched, half-starved-looking creatures, with tattered garments and faces worn with deep marks of want and woe, lingered round the gates. Outside the gates!—and this was one strange incongruity of my dream, for on the gates were emblazoned in golden letters, which were illuminated into transparencies at night, the words—

"KNOCK, AND IT SHALL BE OPENED UNTO YOU."

The gates were solid, and enormously massive, like blocks of black marble. No violence could have forced them. There was no crevice at which any one could get a glimpse of what was within. But the golden knocker, underneath those golden words, was so low as to be within reach of the youngest children. Indeed, I noticed that none tried it so often as little children; and whenever any one knocked with the very feeblest sound, in time, and often immediately, the stately portals opened from within, turning on their massive hinges with a sound like the music of many choirs, and the applicant was quietly drawn inside.

Then I saw that the inside of the gates was of translucent pearl. A stream of light and fragrance for a moment came through, and induced others afterwards to knock. But immediately the gates were closed, and stood a wall of impenetrable marble as before.

I awoke, and whilst meditating on my dream fell asleep again.

In my second dream, I saw the same palace as in my first, but the massive doors were gone, and in their place stood the form of One whom, although I had never seen Him, I had heard so often described, and so faithfully, by those who had seen Him, that I knew Him at once. The same wretched beings were cowering round; but the massive barriers were gone, and in their place He stood, and said, in tones that every one could hear—

"'I am the Door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.'"

One wretched and woe-worn woman gave a trembling glance at His face, and then listening again to those tones, not welcoming merely, but pleading and persuasively tender, she ventured close to Him, and fell on her knees to kiss the hem of His garment.

But He stooped, and stretched out His hand, and took her hand, and led her in.

Then I understood what His words had meant;—that by saying, "I am the door," He must have meant that there was no barrier, no impenetrable gate, but that in the doorway, where the door had been, He stood, and, instead of the lifeless knocker, stretched out His living hands to aid and welcome all who came.

And I awoke from my second dream.

* * * *

Before long I fell asleep again, and then again I saw the same palace, with the massive portals flung open wide, but that gracious princely form stood in them no more. Among the most wretched of that crowd He went—among the maimed, the halt, and the blind.

They thronged around Him, yet many of them scarcely seemed to heed, they were so intent on their own sordid pursuits. Some were crowding with sharp, eager faces round a rag merchant, bargaining with the most absorbing passion for his wretched wares, and then separating to quarrel and fight over their purchases, or bartering their rags again as eagerly for a draught of the intoxicating drinks which had made so many of them the lost creatures they were. Not a rag or a burning drop was to be had except for money, and often for a price which to them was life itself.

And He came to them from the palace, and offered them the palace freely, yet few listened. But with that strange absence of the sense of incongruity and the emotion of surprise characteristic of dreams, I did not wonder! Patiently He went in and out among them, pleading with one and another, often encountering rough words and blows; yet still His words were—

"I come to seek and to save that which was lost."

And some even of the most wretched listened, and returned with Him, and were welcomed inside.

As if "Knock, and it shall be opened!" were not free enough, the gates were thrown open wide, and He stood there, the outstretched hand, instead of the door, the living friend, instead of the written words of welcome.

And as if that were not enough, instead of saying, "Come to me!" He came Himself—He "came to seek and to save that which was lost."

Thou and I. *

—————

IN a room in a stately mansion, a little babe lay in its mother's arms. All kinds of beautiful things were around, and many people passed in and out. Pictures by the first Masters were on the walls; the rarest exotics filled the air with choice perfumes. The chair in which the mother sat was gilded and tapestried; the carpet her feet rested on was soft as mossy turf, and delicate as embroidery. Jewels sparkled on her dress.

* Suggested by a passage in Sartorius' "Lehre von der heiligen Liebe," contrasting the world of a cold philosophy, "Ich and Nicht Ich," with the Christian's world, "Ich und Du."

The windows opened on a magnificent landscape, of park and lake, woodland and distant hills. But the little babe saw nothing but its mother's smile—understood nothing, but that it was on its mother's knee. Its only consciousness was "Thou and I!" and love.

* * * *

The railway train was entering a long tunnel. The babe was still on its mother's knee. The darkness grew deeper. The heavy train thundered through the hollow earth. Another met it, and rushed past with a deafening din. An older child in the carriage screamed with terror. Many of the passengers felt uneasy, and were impatient to see the light again. But the baby cared nothing for the noise or the darkness. It looked in the dim lamp-light into its mother's face, and saw her smile, and smiled again. It knew nothing of the world but "Thou and I!" and love.

* * * *

The ship was tossing fearfully on the stormy sea. Every timber strained, every wave seemed as if it must engulph the vessel. The weak and timid cried out in an agony of fear. The brave and loving moved about with white, compressed lips, and contracted brows, striving now and then to say some brief reassuring words to those for whose safety they feared. But the babe lay tranquil and happy in its mother's arms. Her breast was to it a shelter against the world. It knew nothing of danger or fear. Its world was "Thou and I!" and love.

* * * *

Years passed away, and the baby grew into a child, and the child into a man. His life was one of many vicissitudes, of passionate hopes, and bitter sorrows, and wild ambition. He worshipped the world in many forms, and wandered farther and farther from the Father's house, until the world which first had beguiled him with its choicest things, came to feed him on its husks.

And a long way off, he thought of the Father and the home, and rose to return. His steps were doubtful and slow, but the heart which met him had no hesitation and no upbraidings. Then the wanderer understood the love with which he had been watched and pitied all those desolate years, the love with which he was welcomed now.

The earth, and sky, and human life grew sacred and beautiful to him as they had never been, because through them all, a living Presence was around him, a living heart met him; and, as of old on the mother's knee, once more, as he looked up to God his Father, his world became only "Thou and I!" and love.

His life moved rapidly on to its dark goal. He had to leave the sunshine of earth, its pleasant fields, and cherished homes, and all familiar things, for ever. The light grew dimmer, and the darkness deepened. But he had no fear.

In the darkness, and the bewildering rush of new experience, he was again as the babe on the mother's knee. To him there was no darkness, no confusion. He looked into his Father's face, and smiled. Life and death and earth, all he left, and all he went to, were as nothing to him then. He had nothing but that one living, loving Presence, but it was enough.

Again it was "Thou and I!" and love.

And death found that childlike and angelic smile upon his lips, and left it there.

* * * *

A day will come of storm, and fire, and tempest, and convulsion, when earth and heaven shall mingle and be rolled up as a scroll and pass away. But in that day, what will such have to fear? Amidst all the convulsed worlds, the redeemed will rest tranquil as the infant in the storm on its mother's breast. For amidst it all, their eyes will rest on the Face which was bowed in death to save them, and will know no fear. It will be, "Thou and I, and Thou art love!" for ever.

THE END.

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Ballantyne & Company, Printers, Edinburgh.