The Angel Children / or, Stories from Cloud-Land

by Charlotte M. Higgins

"Ah, it would be so beautiful to stay with you!" he said. "I would like always to comfort these afflicted ones; but, alas! I shall need comfort myself, and you will come to me, as we have been to others. When I am on the earth there seems something gone and lost, and what is before me is confused and dim. I find myself so weak and helpless, when here I am so sprightly and strong! I cannot move myself at all, and when I remember these gardens I have left, and you with whom I have played, I can but cry all the time! It looks cold and bleak there, as it never does here. Then, should I grow up to be wicked, like those children we have seen, and so go far away from heaven, how wretched should I

become,—how much better that I never had left these gardens!"

Thus he complained, and the other children were silent, for they knew how they, too, at some time, must go down and try their fortunes upon the earth; and, too, they sorrowed to lose their companion, for they knew that soon he could not come to them any more;—and while they told him, very eagerly, how they would come to watch over him, a soft tread fell on their ears, and their dear teacher approached them.

Her hair floated in long curls upon the cool air, and her eyes were bent down in sorrow upon the earth-child.

"Have you so soon forgotten the lessons you have learned from the book of God?" she asked; and the tones of her voice were like the soft harmonies of heaven. She held in her hand a book, along whose pages the letters sparkled in the brightness of gold and silver. At the sight of her, the earth-child threw himself at her feet, and besought her thus:

"Keep me with you, dear teacher, and teach

me from your book! Why should I go to the earth-home again?"

Tenderly did the angel-teacher embrace and uplift the imploring child. She pointed to a distant part of the garden, towards a grate of lattice-work, in gold, silver and pearls, whence issued a glorious light. Beyond this they saw angels walking, in their hands bearing still more glorious books than the one she held.

"When I taught you, long ago, how beautiful was the life there, how pure the love, did you not long to go thither? And when I told you that the way thither was only through the earth,—that it was long and difficult and narrow,—that many troubles must make you strong to walk in it,—did you not long to go, promising not to complain? Do you so soon falter? Have I not told you that the book you carry in your hands there must first be formed on the earth?—that there you shall pick up one by one the shining letters which compose it? Why do you complain?—have you forgotten that your home is better than those miserable ones which have been given to those who were your beloved playmates here? This is your

last visit to the garden of God. The angel-children shall come and whisper to you in your dreams; and, when they in their turns go down to live upon the earth, hold your arms out to them, and, when their steps are weak, help them along. And when you see children with tattered clothes, in poor cottages, look not proudly on your own, but remember that here, in the garden of God, you played together in the same fountain, drank the same dew; and think no more of yourself or your beautiful earth-home, for God gave it to you for the same purpose he gave the wretched cottage to the other. Remember, too, the good mother, who has patiently hushed your cries, and will yet bear you through many dark places. She has never yet tired in caring for you, and you have given her little else but trouble. Go; be henceforth patient and loving."