Tea being over, we prepared to go; but before going our hostess conducted all of us upstairs to a room leading from her own. It was filled with pink and white roses, and a carpet made of silken rose petals covered the floor. The windows were closed, but inside the room pure lights of many lovely colours interwoven were playing from wall to wall, from ceiling to floor. These made sweet music as they touched and intermingled like harp-strings played by a passing breeze, and around the bed, made from one giant hollowed pearl, such as the world ne’er saw nor dreamt of, garlands of roses fell, and lily petals formed the counterpane. In the centre of all this pure loveliness lay the infant spirit, with a beauty words cannot paint. The smile of death is frozen and cold, but here was its facsimile in life and warmth. One hand lay resting on the counterpane and one upon the pillow, resting the sleepy head. The soft glow of health flushed either cheek, and dyed the parting lips; yet over all there was a nameless majesty and rest, a sleeping spirit begotten of the hard seeds of earth.
Suddenly Saint Ursula moved to where Jesus stood beside the bed and put her arm through His.
“Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven,” she said softly.
“Was this a little child?” I asked at length.
“Oh, no,” replied the mother, kneeling down and pressing the soft arm to her lips. “This was a full-grown man, whose life had been spent in one long battle with sin and self. This is not a little human child, but a spirit child born from the fruit seeds of a lifetime. Soon the happy childhood of the spirit will begin, for on earth there is no such thing. It is for the most part nothing but striving there to get together the essential seeds to form a spirit.”
“You do not devote much time to these young children,” I observed as we came out together later.
She smiled.
“Not outwardly,” she corrected. “But after they are born they need a long, long rest, and occasionally at fixed intervals such spiritual nourishment as we give them from ourselves. And spiritual food is very delicious,” she added, laughing. “It has nothing to do with the Ten Commandments nor any of those kinds of things, though they form part of the soil in which it is grown. But then one doesn’t eat the soil, though one enjoys the fruit; yet some people on the earth are very stupid and can’t understand the difference between the two. But the soil needs a deal of work before it is fit for cultivation, and the toiler does not reap the food till he is dead.”
So saying, she left me to think, and all the way home I heard indistinctly Sunbeam’s and Moonbeam’s accents of joy over this new addition to their friends’ family.