“My dear child, there are many mysteries that one cannot wholly explain. Don’t you remember telling me the Mission teacher said it was an allegory, a story that is like our daily lives? We are going heavenward in every right and tender and loving thing we do. We are the children of God as well as the children of mortal parents; God gives us the soul, the part of us that is to live forever. And when he calls this part of you to the heavenly mansions, he gives it the perfect new body. The old one is laid away in the ground. When Jesus was here he helped and cured people as I told you. But he does not come any more. He calls people to him, and sends his angels for them. So he said, ‘It is very hard for poor little Bess to wait all winter, to suffer with the cold, the pain in her maimed body, to be afraid of her mother, to hear the babies cry when her head aches. She must come to the land of pure delight, and have her new body. She must be well and joyous and happy, so that she can run and greet her sister Dil when I send for her.”
Dilsey Quinn was listening with rapt attention. But at the last words she cried out with tremulous eagerness,—
“Oh, will he send? Will he take me to Bess? You are quite sure?”
Her very breath seemed to hang on the answer.
“He will send. He has a place for you in the many mansions he went to prepare. And this little step we take from one world to the other is called the river of death, and you know how Christiana went through it. Sometimes the Lord Jesus lifts people quite over it.”
There was a long silence. He could see she was studying the deep, puzzling points. The lines came in her forehead, white as a lily now, and her eyes seemed peering into fathomless depths.
Looking into the sweet, wasted face, holding the slim little hands, once so plump and brown, thinking of the heroic, loving life, he felt that indeed “of such was the kingdom of heaven.”
“Well, ’f I c’n go to Bess,” a sigh of heavenly resignation seemed to quiver through the frail body, “’n’ I think the Lord couldn’t help bein’ good to Bess, she was so sweet ’n’ patient; for ’twas so hard not to run about, ’n’ have to be lifted, ’n’ I couldn’t always come on ’count of the babies ’n’ mother ’n’ things. ’N’ she never got cross. ’N’ I do b’lieve she understood ’bout Christiana, for after that she wanted so to go to heaven. An’ she was so glad about her poor hurted legs bein’ made well. We couldn’t read fast, you know; an’ we couldn’t see into things, ’cause we hadn’t been to school much. But she kinder picked it out, she was such a wise little thing, an’ the pictures helped. But I don’t understand ’bout the new body.”
Her face was one thought of puzzled intensity.
“My dear little Dil, we none of us quite understand. It is a great mystery. The Lord Jesus came down from heaven and was born a little child that children might not be afraid of him, but learn to love him. When he grew to manhood he helped the needy, the suffering, and healed their illnesses. He went about doing good to everybody, and there were people who did not believe in him and treated him cruelly.” How could he explain the great sacrifice to her comprehension? “Dil,” he said in a low tone, “suppose you could have saved Bess great sorrow and suffering by dying for her, would you not have done it? Suppose that night the Lord Jesus had said to you, ‘I can only take one of you to-night, which one shall it be?’ What would you have done?”