A SEQUEL TO "THE BLACK SHIP."
On the night when the old man, the messenger of glad tidings, was borne away, the mother and her children, turning sadly back, from watching him depart, to the blank his going left in the cottage, found that he had left with them a scroll. With trembling expectation they unrolled it, and read. It contained further revelations concerning the King's ship (they would call it the Black Ship no more), and the land to which it bore those for whom it was sent.
The Island was not a detached land set in the midst of a lonely sea. It was a fragment of a great Continent, broken off from the Main Land by some convulsion, long ago. And from this Continent it was divided, not by broad spaces of the heaving ocean, but by a mere strait, in some places narrowed to a chasm of seething waters, in others spreading into a calm lagoon, but everywhere, in itself, quite insignificant.
The Island lay in a land-locked Bay of the great Continent, encompassed on all sides by its Highlands. The little hills, which its inhabitants called mountains, were girt around by the magnificent mountain-ranges of the Main Land. Its colonial settlements, which the dwellers in them called cities, were commanded from the other side by the glorious cities of the kingdom. Its islanders, who called themselves "the world," were compassed about by the victorious ones now at home in the great true world across the waters.
Not only had the King's Son come and reconciled the islanders to the King; not only did He Himself come and receive each one who trusted Him to Himself, making the Black Ship, for all such, no more a phantom of terror, but the messenger of infinite joy; He had not withdrawn Himself to a distance. The mountains where He dwelt rose close above the Island where He had tarried and suffered and overcome, compassing it about on every side. From their heights every nook of the Island was visible to Him, every work of His faithful ones was watched. They were only concealed by a thin but opaque veil of mist, which brooded unceasingly over the strait. This mist was the great mystery of the Island, absolutely impenetrable to all its inhabitants, but from the other side altogether transparent. There were indeed moments when, to the eyes of those who watched some best-beloved borne away from them, this mist became translucent (though not transparent) even in the Island. But once beyond it, once on the other side; once within it, even, on the crossing, it was seen to be absolutely nothing.
Many a creek in the Island itself was wider and more difficult to cross than the strait which divided it from the Main Land. Only, no one could cross that strait at his own will, at his own time, or in his own way.
Not that the crossing was equally calm for all. Some passed over softly across the sunlit lagoon; some in the rush of the surf boiling through the narrow chasm. But, for all, the crossing was but a moment. And for those who, in that moment, on this side, for the first time met the eyes that had been watching them so long across the sea, who can utter what the revelations of that moment were!
The hills of the Fatherland stood round about the Island. The towers of the golden city were watch-towers; at the gates those who had entered in were waiting in joyful expectation,—at the pearly gates, open day and night, from which the songs of welcome had never time to die away, so constantly were the new citizens entering there.
All through the night the mother and sister listened with rapt attention as the brother read. Very much of the scroll contained simple every-day directions as to what was the King's will for the daily living of His subjects. But these, at that time, the three glanced hastily over, as interruptions to the great revelation of the things unseen.
The lifting of the veil had given them such a longing to see it lifted further! The Hand that had raised it had so evidently moved from within, and from above; the veil was so evidently rent from top to bottom; the glimpses were so manifestly glimpses of continuous depths of light, of a full world of wonders, all fully open to the eyes of Him that had given those glimpses, that who could say what else might be made known? Why not more? Why not all?
And as they read and listened, marvellous gleams came. Every now and then the curtain of mist seemed to rise. Fold behind fold the mountain landscape of the Better Country deepened beyond them; depth above depth they saw into its heavens of light. In a rapture of awe they seemed to stand on the threshold of the opening door of a Temple, as if at last all were about to become clear. But almost in the same instant the mist was there again, and the glorious vision vanished.
Marvellous, it seemed, to learn so much, compared with the blank before, and yet so little compared with what might have been revealed. So that first night of revelations passed, and the morning dawned. The three laid down the scroll and went out to the beach before the cottage.
How wonderfully everything had changed to them since the previous night!
As they had read and listened in eager expectation through the night, every now and then a disappointment had crept over them that so much should be left untold; but now as they stepped out over the familiar threshold on the familiar beach, for the first time they understood how much had been revealed, and how marvellously everything was transfigured to them. The world had grown so infinitely larger; the island so infinitely less!
The island, which had been their world, seemed to have shrunk and shrivelled to a mere rocky peak, where some shipwrecked company had found a transient refuge, and where they were merely awaiting the vessel which was to take them thence.
As the dawn flushed over what they had been used to call mountains, the vision of the glorious mountain-ranges beyond and above them seemed to dwarf them into sand-banks. When the dawn grew into practical day, and the busy hum of labour and traffic came from the White Town across the creek, and eager voices began to resound along the shore, the three looked at one another with smiles that said, "Why make they this ado?" And when, with much pomp and circumstance, the attendants of one of the Town authorities escorted him with trumpets and banners past the Cottage, and all the dwellers in the neighbouring cottages made obeisance as they passed, and eagerly gazed after the pageant,—to the three whose eyes were opened it seemed like some game of little children playing at being kings and princes.
At first, on the discovery of the true proportion between the Island and the Main Land, everything was swallowed up in the sense of that proportion; or rather, of that tremendous disproportion. The Island dwindled to a mere speck. It was as if they had fallen asleep on what they believed to be terra firma, and wakened up on a raft with nothing but a few planks between them and the fathomless depths on every side.
For one thing, both from the old man's words and from the scroll, was absolutely clear.
Everywhere, everywhere, above that brooding mist, on high, commanding all they did, were towering at that moment the Everlasting Hills.
Somewhere, somewhere, behind that impenetrable veil (impenetrable only to eyes on this side of it), were flashing the towers of the Golden City, were standing open the pearly gates, were echoing in the tones of dear familiar voices, the welcomes which never die away along those happy shores, as the echoes of the partings never die from these. Somewhere, not afar off, the eyes of the Deliverer and the King were watching them.
And no one in that region knew of it but those three, standing together alone by the cottage threshold.
Every one, indeed, knew of the Black Ship. That was but too obvious to all. But who entertains longer than can be helped the thought of an inevitable misery?
Once transmute this fact of sorrow into a revelation of joy, and surely every one would delight to keep it in view.
In the first fervent joy of the discovery of that great Continent of life lying close around them unseen, nothing seemed worth doing but either to tell every one of it, or themselves to watch if perchance some glimpses of it might be vouchsafed to their own eager gaze.
Hope chose the first part of the work. The mother and the maiden the second.
With a pilgrim's wallet hastily filled with such provision as was ready, and with his staff in his hand, Hope went joyously forth, while the mother and sister followed him with their eyes until he waved a farewell to them from the edge of a cliff and they turned back to the cottage.
Months passed by ere they met again. Meantime the mother and sister kept ceaseless watch by the shore. Every night they lingered, longing that the veil of daylight, whose withdrawing revealed to them the stars, and all the hidden world of night, might enable them to pierce that other veil which hid a world always there, and so much nearer, and so much more their own.
Every morning they rose with the earliest dawn, hoping that the morning winds might rend some little rift in the curtain of mist, and give if but one glimpse of the everlasting hills which were so surely rising at that very hour crowned with sunlight above. When a tempest swept across the sea they rejoiced; for in the scroll there were strange hints of a day when all at once, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole intervening volume of mist should be broken up and swept aside, and through the glorious break should come, not one dark, mysterious, solitary ship, for one solitary emigrant, but the whole array of the King's armies, and at their head the Prince, the Deliverer, and with Him all the beloved who had gone before to Him.
And who could say which thunders and lightnings might be the heralds of that liberating storm?
Nor did the mother and daughter remain always alone. The fire of that joy was one that could not burn in any heart without shining, and many a mourner gathered around the cottage threshold to listen to their tidings and to share their vigils. Together they looked towards the Fatherland. And as they gazed, their longings broke into song.
"Come," they sang, in low chants. "Come, O King! why tarriest Thou? Thou hast suffered and overcome! Thou hast won us back, and Thou wilt take us Home. Since we have heard of Thee, what can we do but long for Thee? Since we have learned of our home, what do we here any longer? Since we know where our beloved are gone, how can we bear this exile any more? Exiles on this broken fragment of thy Land, which is ours,—why dost Thou keep us here? All beautiful sights and sounds, henceforth, to us are but faint echoes of our home-music; and but fill us with home-sickness. The mountains of our home stand round about us, and we know it. How can we rest longer on these shores of exile? Exile is for those whose hearts are estranged from Thee. Our hearts are won back to Thee, Deliverer and King. When wilt Thou come for us and take us Home?"
Thus, gradually the songs which had begun as songs of triumph fell into a minor, and became songs of exile. The restlessness of unsatisfied longing crept over the joy of discovery. Many abandoned the common round of life. Tents arose on the hill-sides, whose inmates, forsaking the Island treasures which had become to them such baubles, and the pursuit of those Island ambitions which had become to them so childish, lived only to gaze towards that mountain-range of their home which was encircling them unseen, and to watch for the breaking of the mist.
These the mother and sister might have joined, but for their waiting for the brother's return.
At last, in the twilight of a winter's evening, he came back, weary and worn.
The three sat together once more around the cottage hearth. A chill of unconfessed disappointment brooded over them all, like the mist itself which brooded around their Island; and they sat silent.
Weary and worn the mother and sister had expected to see him, footsore with travel, with cheeks hollow with scanty food, and perchance a form wasted by hard usage; for should the servant be greater than his lord? But in his eyes there was a look of unrest and despondency that scarcely fitted a messenger of glad tidings.
"My son," said the mother at length, laying her hand on the hand with which he had covered his brow, "we could not hope that all would welcome the great news. All did not listen even to Him!"
"It is not that," he answered, "that disquiets me. I want to be sure we are doing what He meant. Hundreds have listened. In some cities whole streets are unpeopled by the news I brought; workmen have left the workshops, judges the judgment-seat, merchants their bales, women their homes.
"'Why toil any more,' they say, 'for the low ambitions of this mere peak of rock? Why heap up its cockle-shells of wealth? Around us is the Continent, the Main Land of our true life; before us is our Home. For the moment we are poised here, like birds of passage on a sea-girt rock; what is there to do but to take a moment's rest, or a moment's refreshment, and plume our wings for flight?'
"Thus, where my message was believed, cities have been unpeopled, homes have been broken up, every-day pursuits have grown aimless and insipid, and have been abandoned, until some, not of the scoffers, but of the soberer sort, have said,—
"If your tidings are true, let them be true. The hour will come which discovers them to all. We will go on our quiet way, and find them true when our hour comes. And, we trow, the King, if he come, will be as well pleased to find us at our work as you at your watching."
"Mother," concluded the son, "I feel as if we had made some mistake; as if there must be more to learn. And I have come home to search and see."
Then once more, as on that first night of the old man's departure, Hope unrolled the scroll he had left behind, and the three sat into the night and drank in the enlightening words.
And now they learned the second half of the tidings. The passages over which, in the first joy of the discovery of the New World, they had passed hastily as mere trite and familiar truths, now shone out on them as the very directions they needed.
They learned how for thirty years the King's Son had lived quietly in the Island, doing its ordinary work, before for those three years He went about proclaiming why He came.
Of those precious years which He had sojourned among them, tenfold more time had been spent in doing what every man must do, than in doing what He seemed to have come especially to do.
In the word He had left to guide His own, tenfold more space was given to directions how to do His will in this land of exile than to revealing the glories of the abiding Home.
From the Everlasting Hills, and the Golden City, and the many mansions, the veil was lifted but for rare glimpses. On every step of the daily path shone for those who sought it a full daylight, in which no one need go astray.
Thus once more as they read, the Island, which had dwindled to a peak of sea-washed rock, expanded into a beauty and significance greater than ever.
For the Island was not merely a fragment broken off from the Continent.
It was an integral part of the Kingdom. The laws of the Royal City were its laws. The lowliest right work of its inhabitants was the King's work.
And when morning dawned, and they went out once more on the shore together, the very beach under their feet seemed to have grown a sacred place; the very drawing of water from the old familiar spring a royal service.
They had learned, not only the proportion between the Island and the Main Land, which made the Island dwindle to a fragment of rock, but the connection, which made it wide and grand, as the entrance to a boundless world. Only in itself, disconnected from the Kingdom to which it belonged, was it narrow and poor. Only its ambitions limited to itself, only its treasures, so used as to be left behind in it, were really worthless. Its paths, so broken and bounded in themselves, were infinite, as each the beginning of the radius of an infinite circle. Its hills, so low when compared with the mountain-ranges of the Main Land, were infused with a new inward glory like the light enshrined in gems, when looked at as but the lower slopes of those Everlasting Hills.
The lowliest loving works, done faithfully on His Island, were as much done under the King's eye as the loftiest in His palace chambers; and they might be done as much to His praise.
The service of the King on the Island and on the Main Land was indeed all one, though done in very different degrees of perfection, and on very different levels.
Not only in gazing towards their lofty Dwelling Place, but in following their lowly footsteps, were they drawing nearer those who had gone before.
The best waiting was obeying; the best Island lessons were not so much learning the wonders of that higher world, as learning the obedience which makes it the glorious, harmonious world it is.
And many a time, thenceforth, as the mother and her children went about their daily tasks, rendering such services as they could to all around, gleams of wonderful light which they had watched for in vain, and strains of inimitable music which all their listening had not caught, surprised them along their every-day paths. Every day, and all day long, the presence of the mountains of the Main Land brooded over them.
And one day, also by their every-day paths, the Messenger Ship will surprise them with its summons to the Land of welcome. The step into it will be but one of their every-day steps on the King's errands. But what the step out of it will be, who can utter?
For the Everlasting Hills do indeed stand round about the Island; and the gates of the Golden City are open towards it night and day, and the mist which veils the Glorious Land is altogether transparent on the other side.
RISEN WITH CHRIST.
Not alone the victors free,
Standing by the crystal sea,
Sing the song of victory,
"Risen are Thine own with Thee,"—
We may chant it; even we.
One our life with those above,
One our service, one our love.
Not at death that life begins,
Though a fuller strength it wins;
Freed from all that cramps its might,
Freed from all that bounds its flight,
Freed from all that dims its light.
We upon these lower slopes,
Dim with fears and fitful hopes;
They upon the eternal heights,
Glorious in undying lights,
Radiant in the cloudless Sun;
Yet their life and ours is one.
E'en on us their Sun hath shone,
And for us their Day begun.
And the lowly paths we tread
Are the same where they were led;
Very sacred grown and sweet,
Printed by immortal feet;
Trodden once, long years before,
By His feet whom they adore.
And each service kind and true,
Which to any here we do,
Linked in one immortal chain,
Makes their service live again;
Draws us to the service nigh
Which they render now on high:
For the highest heavens above
Nothing higher know than love.
Hidden are our best with Thee,
Hidden too our life must be;
Since e'en Thou, our Life and Light,
Hidden art from mortal sight:
Yet for us has Life begun,
E'en on us their day hath shone,
Still with theirs our life is one.
The Jewel of the Order of the King's Own.
Once, on the sea-shore, in a land a long way off, I met an old man dressed as a galley-slave, and toiling at convicts' work, with a heavy chain around one of his arms; but his face and bearing were stamped with the truest nobility. I felt sure he must be a victim of some political cabal, and not a criminal; for not a trace of crime or remorse debased that calm brow, and those clear, honest eyes. This might not have struck me as remarkable, since such unmerited sufferings were but too common in that country. What arrested my attention was the expression of unfeigned and lofty joy which irradiated his aged countenance.
In the interval of noonday rest allowed him, as well as the other convicts, I sat down beside him and entered into conversation with him. I found he was an old soldier; and at length I was encouraged by his frankness to inquire the cause of the strange contrast between his expression and his circumstances.
The veteran lifted his cap, and said mysteriously, "The King shall enjoy His own again. The spring will come, and with it the violets."
The thought struck me that some harmless and happy insanity had risen, like a soft mist, to veil from him his miserable lot; and following his train of thought, I said, "You wait for a king, and hope cheers you. Yet you must have waited long; and hope deferred maketh the heart sick."
"The uncertainty of hope," he replied, "often makes the heart sick with fear of disappointment; but my hope is sure, and every day of delay certainly brings me nearer to it. Every night, as I look out from my convict's cell over the sea, before I lie down to sleep, I think that before to-morrow the white sails of His fleet may stud the blue waters—for He will not return alone; and when morning dawns gray across the bare horizon, I am not cast down, because I know the morning we wait for will surely come at last."
"But," I said reverently, and half hesitating to disturb his happy dream, "when that morning dawns will you still be here?"
"Here or there," he answered solemnly. "Either with the few who look for Him here, or with the countless multitudes who will accompany Him thence."
Knowing how such legends of the return of exiled princes linger in the hearts of a nation, and wondering whether the old man spoke from the delusion of his own peculiar madness or of a tradition current among his people, I said, "Your words are strange to me. Tell me the history."
"After the great battle," the old soldier replied, a smile bright as a child's, yet tender as tears, lighting up his whole countenance,—"after the last great battle the King, the true King, our own King, has never been seen publicly in our country. They wounded Him, and left Him for dead on the field—they had wounded His heart to the core. Traitors were amongst them; it was not only an open enemy that did Him this dishonour. But they were mistaken; He is not dead. We who loved Him know. We bore Him secretly from the field. He lingered a few days amongst us after His wounds had healed, in disguise; but although His royal state was hidden for a time, we who knew His voice could tell Him blindfold from a million; and since He left us, His faithful adherents, who before His departure could be counted by tens, have increased to thousands."
"An unusual fortune," I remarked, "for a cause whose last effort seems generally to have been considered a defeat, and whose leader has apparently abandoned it."
"There are many reasons," said the old man, "why it should be so; and among the chief of these is this one. When our Prince left us, He gave to each of His adherents a precious gift as a token of His love, and a sign by which we may know each other."
As he spoke he drew aside his poor garment, and on his breast there sparkled a gem more brilliant than any star or decoration I had ever seen!
"This is the star of the King's Own Order," he said; and as I looked at it a wonderful transformation seemed to have taken place in the old man's dress. His poor convict's garb seemed metamorphosed into the richest robes, such as princes wore in that southern land, of the costliest materials, and all of a glistening white, at once royal and bridal, whilst his chain glittered like a jewelled bracelet. The veteran smiled at my surprise, and unclasping his jewel, bound it on his brow. Instantly the same magical change passed over his face. Noble as it was before, his countenance now shone as if it had been the face of an angel. Every trace of care and age was effaced; the eyes shone under the calm, unfurrowed brow with the sparkle of early youth, and nothing was left to indicate age but a depth in the glance and a history in the expression, which youth cannot have.
"But," I said, "surely your enemies must seek to rob you of such a treasure?"
"Try," he replied, "if you can take it from me."
I endeavoured gently to detach the jewel from his brow, but my fingers had scarcely touched it when it sprang up like glittering drops from a fountain, and was gone, yet leaving the glory on the old man's face.
He smiled, and observed quietly, "Our jewel no man taketh from us."
Then again unclasping the fillet which had bound it round his brow, the magic gem reappeared in his hand.
It was mid-day, and the usual fare of the convicts was brought to him—scanty and coarse fare, with bad water. He humbly and thankfully partook of the poor food, but poured out the contents of the cup on the ground.
"The water of this land is bad," he said. "The people render it palatable by mixing it with a fiery stimulant, which, alas! only increases their thirst, so that they ever thirst again. But we do not need this."
Then gently laying his finger on the gem, it expanded, like a lily-bell in the sun, into a crystal vase, and in it bubbled up a miniature fountain of pure, sparkling water.
"In us a well of water springing up," he murmured, as if to himself, as he drank and was refreshed; and touching the vase again, it folded up, like a convolvulus going to sleep when the sun sets.
I wondered he had not had the courtesy to offer me a draught. He read my thoughts, and said, "This water is untransferable. Each of us must have his own jewel."
"Then," I replied, "if your Prince left those jewels to you at His departure, and has not returned since, how can His followers have increased, if this token is essential to them, and, indeed, as you intimated, an inducement to many to enlist under His banner?"
"It is free to all, and yet a secret," he replied. "Whenever any one desires to enlist in our Prince's service, he must repair alone, before daybreak, to a lonely beach on our shores, and wait there for what the King will send. There, when the sun rises—not always the first morning, or the second, or the third, but always at last—his first rays gleam on a new jewel, exactly like the others, sparkling among the shells and pebbles. The young soldier takes it up, presses it to his lips, murmurs the name written on it, binds it on his heart, and it is his own, and he is the King's for ever. None ever saw it come, though some fancy they have seen a streak of light on the sea when it first appears, as of the track of an illumination out on the waters."
"What name is engraved on it?" I asked.
"The King's name," he replied, bowing his head reverently.
"May I see it?" I said.
"You could not," he replied gravely. "None of us can read that name, except on our own jewels."
I was silent for a moment. He continued,—
"But I have a greater wonder yet to tell you of our jewel—the greatest wonder of all; and this you must take at my word. The light and glory of this gem is entirely reflected from a jewel of the same kind, but infinitely more glorious, which sparkles on the King's own heart. When I raise this gem to my eyes, and look through it," he added, in a tone which thrilled with the deepest emotion, raising it at the same time like a telescope to his eyes, "this country vanishes from me altogether, and I see wonders."
"What do you see?" I asked, half trembling.
"I see the King in His beauty," he replied. "I see the land which is very far off. I see a city which has no need of the sun. I see a palace where His servants serve Him. I see a throne which is as jasper, and, above it, a rainbow like an emerald; and, above all I see, I see Him, with the jewel on His heart: but His jewel is no mere gem, no reflection—it is a star, it is light itself; and in its glory the city, the palace, and the throne, and the happy faces of His servants round Him, glow and shine."
And as he spoke, I looked at the old man's jewel, and his countenance itself grew so glorious, that I could not gaze any longer, but cast down my dazzled eyes, and was silent. At length, after a pause of some moments, my eagerness to hear more constrained me to resume the conversation; and when I looked up, the jewel was again hidden in the old man's breast, his appearance had taken its soberer beauty, and the presence of that marvellous treasure was only betrayed by the strange calm and peace which had first attracted me in the veteran's face.
"But," I asked, "if such a possession indeed is yours, the wonder now seems to me to be, how the King's enemies can have a follower left. Have your opponents any similar guerdon to offer?"
"Similar things," he replied, "they at one time often tried to make, but the same they could never have; and even to imitate the outside beauty of it they found so difficult, that the soberest men of the party have, for the most part, given it up in despair, and say it is all a cheat."
"But why, at least, does not each one try for himself," I asked, "and see if it is true or not?"
"There are many reasons," he replied sorrowfully, "which keep the land from returning nationally to its allegiance. The usurper is still in power, and gives away the offices of state as he pleases; bonds and imprisonment often await us, as you see is the case with me; and many prefer the possession of lands and houses, or even less, to the reversion of a city, and the service of a Prince they have never seen."
"I understand," I replied.
"Besides," he added, "there are strict rules binding our order. The people of the usurper do each what is right in his own eyes; but we are subject to our Prince's laws, which, though most blessed to those who keep them, seem to those who are outside, and live lawlessly, severe and strict. We are subject to our Prince, and to one another for His sake; and only those who have proved the joy of that subjection and service know how much happier it is than the tyranny of their lawlessness and self-will."
"What are those counterfeit jewels you alluded to?" I asked.
"They are of various construction," he replied. "Some try to imitate one quality of our jewel, and some another. Some of the court jewellers of the usurper make a paste or tinsel jewel, which, when the sun shines, has a lustre a little like that of ours. The young courtiers often wear this; but when the sun is clouded or sets, it ceases to shine: so that even its outward resemblance is very imperfect, and it does not even pretend to imitate the secret of the fountain or the magic glass. And, moreover, it can be stolen or broken. Often, even in the courtly revels, it is broken—often it is stolen or dropped; and even if it is retained, in a few years the lustre fades away, and can never be restored. Then," he continued, "some make a bold effort to imitate our jewel in its form of the crystal vase, but the crystal itself is dim; and for the living fountain they have never been able to substitute anything but a fiery liquid, needing constantly to be replenished, and, in reality, only increasing the thirst it professes to still, until it becomes a burning, consuming inward fever. But as they have never tasted of our water, the wretched deluded ones persist in saying theirs is the true."
"And the telescope?" I inquired—"the magic glass?"
"The telescope," he replied, with a smile, which had no mockery, but much sadness in it—"the magic-glass they have never even attempted to imitate; and, therefore, as none can ever look through it but its possessor, they say it is a lie and a cheat; and our persisting in declaring what it really is, is the source of many of our sufferings. For this we are thrown into madhouses and prisons, and led to the scaffold and the stake."
After a brief pause, he resumed—
"The wise men and statesmen of the usurper's party now, however, for the most part, take an entirely different method. They discourage all these counterfeits, which they say are paying a most undeserved compliment to us. They say our jewels are mere sham and tinsel; that the light they shed exists only in the fancy of the spectators; that the living water is nothing but a mirage; and that the visions we see through the telescope are simply a lie. They affect to despise us too much to punish us; and if they persecute us at all, it is simply by contemptuously shutting us up in asylums as enthusiasts—harmless, unless we mislead others. It is only a few of the most inveterate, such as myself, who may succeed in bringing over too many to the side of our King, that they occasionally make examples of to sober the rest. But it is all entirely useless," he added, very joyfully; "the King's followers increase, His cause is gaining ground, and," he added, with a subdued voice, "the King Himself is coming."
"Is it really true," I asked, after a time, "that nothing, or no man, can rob you of this treasure?"
"Our treasure no man taketh from us," he replied. "This He gave us, this He left with us: not as the world giveth, gave He unto us."
"But can nothing you yourselves do, or omit to do, spoil or dim your jewel?" I resumed.
His brow saddened.
"Alas! there and there only have our enemies any real strength against us," he replied. "Sorrows only add to its lustre; in the loss of everything else it only shines the brighter; hunger and thirst but prove the unfailing nature of the fountain in the crystal vase; destitution and darkness, dungeons and tortures, only make the bright visions of our telescope more glorious: but we, we ourselves may indeed dim its lustre, or, if we will, yield it up altogether."
"All this is natural and comprehensible," I said. "The dungeon must make the jewel brighter; the drought, the unfailing spring more precious; the narrowing of all prospects here, enhance the visions of that magic glass; the cruelties of the usurper, endear the sight of the Prince you serve."
"This the wisest of our enemies have found out," the old man replied. "They find that nothing they can do harms us, but only what they can make us do ourselves; and to this they direct their efforts."
"In what way?" I inquired.
"In many ways," he answered sadly. "The jewel, which nothing external can dim, is sensitive to the least change in us. Any infringement of our King's laws, or, especially, any unfaithfulness to our King, dims its lustre at once; any drinking of those forbidden cups of intoxication dries up the crystal fountain; any yielding to the usurper's service blots out from our magic glass its glorious visions, and the sight of our King in His beauty."
"Are there any other dangers?" I inquired.
"Countless dangers," he replied. "Especially three devices have been found too successful against us. Our jewel only keeps bright with use, and in three ways our enemies endeavour to deter us from using it. The timid they threaten, and induce to hide it from fear: and the cowardly concealing of our treasure inflicts on us two evils; it prevents our winning by it fresh followers to our Prince; and in concealment the jewel itself invariably grows dim. The young and careless they engage in the ambitious pursuits or the gay amusements of the court, until they forget to use the precious gem; and in ceasing to use it they necessarily cease to shine with its light, and grow like any of the usurper's train. And again, there are some poor, and distrusting, and fearful ones, whom our enemies persuade that it is a daring presumption for such as they to pretend they have had especial communication with the King, and even at times torment them into thinking the King's own jewel tinsel; so that, in looking and looking to see if it is a true jewel, they forget to clasp it on their hearts, or drink the living water, or look through the magic glass."
"That is a strange delusion," I remarked.
"Yes," he said; "but it is easily cured, if once we can persuade them to look through the jewel instead of looking at it; for then they see the King with the jewel on His breast, and the smile in His eyes, and their doubts melt away in floods of happy tears. This I know," he added, "for I was once one of these. I had neglected to use my jewel; and then an enemy, in the guise of a friend, persuaded me to question its genuineness; but I ventured to look through it once again, and since then I do not look at my jewel, but gaze through it to the King's heart; and from that day my jewel has not grown dim."
"But you spoke of some who lost it altogether," I said.
"They are those," he said, solemnly, "who have deliberately yielded it up to enter the service of the usurper; or those who, in base timidity, have cast it away in denying our King."
"And for such can it ever be recovered?" I said.
"For one such, as disloyal as any, it was," he answered. "He went out and wept bitterly; the King forgave him, and in time the treasure was restored to him, and he became one of our most glorious veterans."
"How is the jewel to be recovered if lost?" I asked.
"By going to the place where first it was found," he replied. "There, on the lonely beach, before daybreak, it must be sought, morning after morning, until the sun's first rays reveal it once more glittering among the shingle as at first. But the waiting is often longer than it was at first."
"Will you wear your jewel," I asked, "when the King comes, or when you go to join Him beyond the sea?"
"There," he replied, with an expression of rapturous joy, "we shall see the jewel on the King's heart. There we shall have no need of the hidden fountain, for the river of living waters flows there, bright as crystal; and no need of the magic glass, for the King is near; but the jewel will shine in that happy place on brow and breast for ever and ever."
And as I left the sea-shore and the old man, these words floated through my heart, as if they were echoes of his history, or his story an echo of them:—
"Be not ye, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance.
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."
"Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice."
"Your joy no man taketh from you."
The Acorn.
When will my training begin?" said the acorn to itself, as it unfolded its delicately-carved cup and saucer on the branch of an old oak on the edge of a forest. "I understand I am to be an oak one day, like my father. All the acorns say that is what we are to be, but there certainly seems little chance of it at present. I have been sitting here for no one knows how many days, and I feel no change, except that I look less pretty than I did when I was young and green, and begin to feel rather dry, and shrivelled, and old. At this rate, I do not see much chance of my becoming an oak, or anything else but an old, dry acorn. When will my training begin?"
As it meditated thus, a strong breeze sighed mournfully through the autumn woods, and shook down many brown leaves from the old oak, and with them the acorn.
"This will hinder my progress again," thought the acorn; "for it is evident such a downfall as this can have nothing to do with my education. When will my training begin?"
A day or two afterwards a drove of hogs was turned into the forest, and they began grunting and grubbing among the dead leaves for acorns. Many of its brethren did our acorn see ruthlessly hurried into those voracious snouts. It kept very quiet under the dead leaves to avoid a similar fate, but it thought—"This is a sad delay. It is too plain that being trampled on and tossed about in this way can teach no one anything. When will my training begin?"
Meanwhile, the swine rummaged among the dead leaves, and trod them under foot, and tossed the decaying mould hither and thither with their snouts and feet, until one of them by accident rolled our acorn down a little hill, where it lay buried under some stray leaves many yards from the edge of the forest, in the outskirts of a park. There it lay unobserved all the rest of the winter. Even this was a pleasant change after having been tossed about and trodden under foot so long; but in its fall its shrivelled brown skin had cracked, and the acorn thought—"This is a sad disaster. How ever am I to grow into an oak when I am so crushed and cracked that scarcely any one would recognize me for an acorn? When will my training begin?"
All the winter the rain pattered on it, and sank it deeper and deeper under the dead leaves and under the earth-clods, until all its acorn beauty was marred and crushed out of it, and it fell asleep in the dark, under the cold, damp earth; and the snows came and folded it in under their white eider-down pillows. At last, the warm touch, that comes to all sleeping nature in the spring, came softly on it, and it awoke.
"What a pity," it said, "I should have lost so much time by falling asleep! I can scarcely make out what I am like, or where I am. What a sad waste of time! It is clear no one can go on with his education in sleep. When will my training begin?"
With these thoughts, it stretched out two little green things on each side of it, which felt like wings; and tried to peep out of its hole, and, to its delight, it succeeded, and, with a few more efforts, even contrived to keep its head steadily above ground, and look around it.
"There is my father, the old oak," it said. "He looks quite green again. But I am a long way off from him, and how very small and close to the ground! When shall I begin to be like him?"
But meantime it was very happy. It felt so full of life, although so small; and the sun shone so graciously on it, and all the showers and dews seemed so full of kindly desires to help and nourish it; and more and more little green leaves expanded from its sides, and more and more little busy roots shot down into the earth; and the leaves breathed and drank in the sunshine, and the roots were great chemists and cooks, and concocted a perpetual feast for it out of the earth and stones. But it thought sometimes, "This is all exceedingly pleasant, and I am very happy; but, of course, this is not education; it is only enjoying myself. When will my training begin?"
The next spring the early frosts had much more power over it, in its detached, exposed situation, than over the saplings in the shelter of the forest, and it saw the trees in the wood growing green, and tempting the song-birds beneath their leafy tents, whilst the sap still flowed feebly upward through its tiny cells, and its twigs and leaf-buds were still brown and hard.
"This must be a great hindrance to me," it thought—"this, no doubt, will retard my education considerably. What a pity I stand here so detached and unprotected! When will my training begin?"
But in the late spring came some days of bitter east wind and black frost, and it saw the more forward leaves in the wood turn pale and shrivel before they unfolded, and then fall off, nipped and lifeless, to join the old dead leaves of the past autumn, whilst its own little buds lay safe within their hard and glossy casings, protected by one enemy against a worse. And when the east wind and the black frosts were gone, the little sapling shot up freely. In that summer, and the next, and the next, it made great progress; but in the fourth autumn a great disappointment awaited it. The owner of the park in which it grew came by, and stood beside it, and said to his forester,—
"That sapling is worth preserving, it is so vigorous and healthy; and, standing in this detached position, it will break the line of the wood, and look well from my house. We will watch it, and set a fence around it to guard it from the cattle. But it has thrown out a false leader. Take your knife and cut this straggling shoot away, and next year, I have no doubt, it will grow well."
Then the forester applied his knife carefully to the false leader, and cut it off. But the sapling, not having understood the master's words, nor observed with what care and design the knife was applied, felt wounded to the core.
"My best and strongest shoot," it sighed to itself. "It was a cruel cut. It will take me a long time to repair that loss. I am afraid it has lost me at least a year. When will my training begin?"
But the next year the master's words were fulfilled.
Thus years passed on. And slowly, twig by twig, and shoot by shoot, the sapling grew. Sunbeams expanded its leaves; rains nourished its roots; frosts, checking its early buds, hardened its wood; winds swaying it hither and thither, as if they were determined to level it, only rooted it more firmly. And year by year the top grew a little higher, and the wood a little firmer, and the trunk a little thicker, and the roots a little deeper; but so slowly, that summer by summer it said,—
"This is very pleasant; but it is only breathing, and being happy. It certainly cannot be the discipline which forms the great oaks. When will my training begin?"
And autumn by autumn, as the sap flowed downward, and the buds ceased to expand, and the branches grew leafless and dry, it thought,—
"This is a sad loss of time. Now I am falling into torpor again, and shall make not an inch of progress for six long months. When will my training begin?"
And winter by winter, as the winds bent it to and fro, and made its branches creak, and threatened its very existence, and the heavy snows sometimes broke its boughs,—
"These are sore trials. I may be thankful if I barely struggle through them! In days like these existence is an effort, and endurance the utmost one can attain. When will my training begin?"
And in the spring, when the frosts nipped its finest buds,—
"These little nips and checks are very annoying; but one must bear them patiently. They are certainly hindrances; and it is disheartening, when one does one's best, to be continually thrown back by these trifling checks. When will my training begin?"
But, one summer day, a little girl and an old man came and seated themselves under its shade. By this time it had seen some generations of men, and had learned something of human language.
The old man said—"I remember, when I was a very little boy, my grandfather telling me how, when he was young, he had marked this tree, then a mere sapling, and pruned it of a false shoot, which would have spoiled its beauty, and had it fenced and preserved. And now my little grand-daughter and I sit under its shade! The fence has long since decayed; but it is not needed. The cattle come and lie under its shadow, as we do. It is a noble oak-tree now, and gives shelter instead of needing it."
Then the oak rustled above them; and the old man and the child thought it was a summer breeze stirring the branches. But in reality it was the oak laughing to itself, as it thought,—
"Then I am really a tree! and, whilst I was wondering when my training would begin, it has been finished, and I am an oak after all!"
Passages from the Life of a Fern.
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 over-flowing 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 were gigantic, and many would seem misshapen monsters to us now. Yet then it was quite natural, and an every-day 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 noonday silences, and a confused whir, 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 anything 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 hand 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 pick-axes, 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 I 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.
Thorns and Spines.[3]
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. 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 which prevented your 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.