IT was Sabbath morning. Soft and silvery, like stray notes from thequivering chords of an archangel's harp, floated the clear, sweetvoice of the church-bells through the hushed heart of the greatmetropolis, while old men and little children--youth in its hope,and manhood in its pride--came forth at their summons, setting amighty human tide in the direction of the sanctuaries, beneath whosesacred droppings they should hear again the tidings which come to usover the waves of nearly two thousand years, fresh and full ofexceeding melody, as when the Day-Star from on high first poured itsblessed beams over the mountain heights of Judea, and the song,pealing over the hills of jasper, rolled down to the shepherds whokept their night-watches on her plains; "Peace on earth andgood-will to men."
A child came forth with his ragged garments, unwashed face anduncombed hair, from one of those haunts of darkness and misery whichfill the city with crime and suffering. He was a little child, andyet there was none of its peace on his brow, or its light in hiseye, as he looked up with a strange, wistful earnestness at thestrip of blue sky that looked down with its serene heaven-smilebetween the frowning and dilapidated pile of buildings which rose oneither side of the alley. The sunshine flitted like thesoft-caressing fingers of a spirit over his forehead, and the voiceof the bells fell upon his spirit with a strange, subduinginfluence; and the child kept on his way until the alley terminatedin a broad, pleasant street, with its crowd of church-goers, andstill the boy kept on, unmindful of dainty robe and silken vesturethat waved and rustled by him.
He stood at last within the broad shadow of the sanctuary, while farabove him rose the tall spire, with the sunbeams coiling like aheaven-halo around it, pointing to the golden battlements of thefar-off city, within whose blessed precincts nothing "which defilethshall ever enter." The massive church doors swung slowly open as oneand another entered, and the child looked eagerly up the long,mysterious mid-aisle, but the silken garments rustled past--therewas no hand outstretched to lead the ragged and wretched little onewithin its walls, and no one paused to tell him of the Great Father,within whose sight the rich and poor are alike. But while he stoodthere, an angel with golden hair and gleaming wings bent over him,holding precious heart-seed, gathered from the white plains of thespirit-land, and as the child drew nearer the church steps, theangel followed.
Suddenly the little dapper sexton, with his broad smile and bustlinggait, came out of the church. His eyes rested a moment upon theyoung wistful face and on the ragged garments, and then he beckonedto the child.
"Shall I take you in here, my boy?" asked a voice kinder andpleasanter than any which the child had ever heard; and as hetimidly bowed his head, the sexton took the little soiled hand inhis own, and they passed in, and the angel followed them.
Seated in one corner of the church, the child's eyes wandered overthe frescoed walls, with the sunshine flitting like the fringe of aspirit's robe across it, and up the dim aisle to the great marblepulpit, with a kind of bewildered awe, for he had seen nothing ofthe like before, unless it might be in some dim, half-forgottendream; but when the heavy doors swung together and the Sabbath hushgathered over the church, and the hallelujahs of the organ filledthe house of the Lord and thrilled the heart of the child; he bowedhis head and wept sweet tears--he could not tell whence was theircoming. Then the solemn prayer from the pulpit--"O, Thou who lovestall men, who art the Father of the old and the young, the rich andthe poor, and in whose sight they are alike precious, grant us Thyblessing," came to the ears of the child, and a new cry awoke in hissoul. Where was this Father? It did not seem true that He couldlove him, a poor little, hungry, ragged beggar; that such a onecould be his child. But, oh! it was just what his heart longed for,and if all others were precious to this Great Father, he did notbelieve He would leave him out. If he could only find Him--no matterhow long the road was, nor how cold and hungry he might be, he wouldkeep straight on the way, until he reached Him, and then he would goright in and say, "Father, I am cold and hungry, and very wretched.There is no one to love me, none to care for me. May I be yourchild, Father?" And perhaps He would look kindly upon him, andwhisper softly, as no human being had ever whispered to him, "Mychild!" and stronger and wilder from his heart came up that cry,"Oh, if I could only find Him!"
Again the tones of the deep-toned organ and the sweet-voiced choirfloated on the Sabbath air, and crept, a strange, soft tide, intothe silent places of the boy's heart, softening and subduing it;while during the long sermon, of which he heard little, andcomprehended less, that spirit cry rolled continually up from thedepths of his soul--"Where is the Father?"
The benediction had been pronounced, and the house was disgorged ofmost of its vast crowd of worshippers, and yet the boy lingered--hecould not bear to return to his dark and dismal dwelling, to theharsh words and harsher usage of those who loved him not, withouthaving that question, which his soul was so eagerly asking,answered. But that little timid heart lacked courage, and he knewthe words would die in his throat if he attempted to speak them, andso he must go away without knowing the way to the Father--but hisfeet dragged unwillingly along, and his eyes searched earnestly thefigures that, unwitting of his want, passed swiftly before him.
"What is it you want to know, little boy?" The voice was verymusical, and the smile on the lips of the child-questioner verywinning. The chestnut-brown curls floated over her silken robe, andthe soft blue eyes that looked into the boy's, wore that unearthlypurity of expression which is not the portion of the children ofthis world.
The boy looked into that fair, childish face, and his heart tookcourage, while very eagerly from his lips came the words, "Where isthe Great Father?"
"God is in heaven!" answered the little girl in solemn tones, whilea sudden gravity gathered over her features.
From lips that burned with blasphemies, amid oaths from the vile,and revilings from the scoffer, had the boy first learned that name,and never before had it possessed aught of import for him. But nowhe knew it was the name of the Great Father that loved him, andagain he asked very earnestly, "Where is the way to God in heaven? Iam going to Him now."
The child shook her head as she looked on the boy with a sort ofpitying wonder at his ignorance, and again she answered, "You cannotgo to Him, but He will come to you if you will call upon Him, and Hewill hear, though you whisper very low, for God is everywhere."
"Come, come, Miss Ellen, you must not stay here any longer," calledthe servant, who had been very intent at ranging the cushions in thepew, and who now hurried her little charge through the aisle,apprehensive that some evil might accrue from her contiguity with a"street-beggar."
But the words of the little girl had brought a new and preciouslight into the boy's heart. That "cardinal explication of thereason," the wondrous idea of the Deity, had found a voice in hissoul, and the child went forth from the church, while thegolden-winged angel followed him to the dark alley, and the darkerhome; and that night, before he laid himself on his miserable palletin the corner, he bowed his head, and clasped his hands, andwhispered so that none might hear him, "My Father, will you takecare of me, and come and take me to yourself? for I love you." Andthe angel folded his bright wings above that scanty pallet, and bentin the silent watches of the night over the boy, and filled hisheart with peace, and his dreams with brightness.
Six months had rolled their mighty burden of life-records into thepulseless ocean of the past. The pale stars of mid-winter werelooking down with meek, seraph glances over the mighty metropolisalong whose thousand thoroughfares lay the white carpet of thesnow-king; and Boreas, loosed from his ice caverns on the frozenfloor of the Arctic, was holding mad revels, and howling withdemoniac glee along the streets, wrapped in the pall shadows ofmidnight.
Twelve o'clock pealed from the mighty tongue of the time-recorder,and then the white-robed angel of death knocked at the door of twoyoung human hearts, in the great city.
The tide of golden hair flowed over the white pillows ofcrimson-draperied couch. Shaded lamps poured their dim, silveryglances upon bright flowers and circling vines, the cunningworkmanship of fingers in far-off lands, which lay among the softgroundwork of the rich carpet, while small white fingers glidedcaressingly among the golden hair; and white faces, wild withsorrow, bent over the rigid features of the dying child, and tears,such only as flow from the heart's deepest and bitterest fountains,fell upon the cold forehead and paling lips, as the lids swept backfor a moment from her blue eyes, and the light from her spirit brokefor the last time into them; the lips upon which the death-seal wasready to be laid, opened; and clear and joyous through the hushedroom rang the words, "I am coming! I am coming!" and the next momentthe cold, beautiful clay was all which was left to the mourners.
The other, at whose heart the death-angel knocked, lay in one cornerof an old and dilapidated room, on a pallet of straw. No soft handwandered caressingly among his dark locks, or cooled with its coldtouch the fever of his forehead. The dim, flickering rays of thetallow candle wandered over the features now grown stark and rigidwith the death-chill. No grief-printed face bent in anguish abovehim; no eye watched for the latest breath; no ear for the dyingword; but through the half-open door, came to the ear of the dyingboy the coarse laugh of the inebriate--the jest of the vile, and thefrightful blasphemies of those whose way is the way of death.
None saw the last life-light, as it broke into the dark, spiritualeyes of the boy. None saw the smile that played like the lightaround the lips of a seraph, about his blue and cold lips, as theyspoke exceeding joyfully, "Father! Father, I have called and youhave heard me; I am coming to you, coming now; for the angels beckonme;" and the pale clay on that sunken pallet was all that remainedof the boy.
Together they met, those two children who had stood together in theearthly courts of the Most High, and whom the angel hadsimultaneously called from the earth, beneath the shiningbattlements of "the city of God." The white wings of thewarden-angels, who stood on its watch-towers, were slowly foldedtogether, and back rolled the massive gates from the walls ofjasper; and with the great "Godlight" streaming outward, and amidthe sound of archangel's harp and seraph's lyre, the ministeringangels came forth. They did not ask the child-spirits there, iftheir earthly homes had been among the high and the honourable; theydid not ask them if broad lands had been their heritage, andsparkling coffers their portion; if their paths had lain by pleasantwaters, and animals followed their biddings; but alike they ledthem--she, the daughter of wealth and earthly splendour, whoseforehead the breezes might not visit too roughly, and whose pathwayhad been bordered with flowers and gilded with sunshine; and he, theheir of poverty, whose portion had been want, and his inalienableheritage, suffering; whose path had known no pleasant places; whoselife had had no brightness within that glorious city. They placedbright crowns, alike woven from the fragrant branches of thefar-spreading "Tree of Life," around their spirit-brows; they deckedthem alike in white robes, whose lustre many ages shall not dim;alike they placed in their hands the harps whose music shall rollfor ever over the hills of jasper; and alike they pointedthem to the gleaming battlements, to the still skies over whosesurface the shadow of a cloud hath never floated; to the "manymansions" which throw the shadow of their shining portals on therippling waters of the "River of Life," and to far more of glory"which it hath never entered into the heart of man to conceive of,"and told them they should "go no more out for ever."
THE END.
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