The Ravens and the Angels, with Other Stories and Parables

by Elizabeth Rundle Charles

The sick girl lay in her shaded room, in the street of a great city, and thought, "If I could only leave this prison of mine, and look at the beautiful world, I know I should grow happier and holier with every breath I drew. The thorny buds on the brown branches in spring would give me promise of resurrection; every butterfly would tell me of life through death; every flower would lift my heart to Him who cares for our little pleasures; every bubbling spring would murmur to me of the living water; every corn-field and garden would repeat the sacred parables. But here I can see nothing of God's making but the sky, and that is too high and far. I want some steps to take my feeble thoughts gently up to heaven. But around me are only manufactured things, which speak to me only of earth, and time, and man."

She leant back listlessly on her couch. Twilight came over the room, the glowing coals stirred quietly as they burned away, and then it seemed as if an angel's hand touched her ears and opened them, for the dark and silent room became full of soft and soothing harmonies. All the mute and inanimate things about her found voices and spoke comfort to her heart.

Together they said,—"It is true we are only manufactured things; but do not despise us for that! We came originally, as much as you yourself, or the flowers, and the trees, and the sunbeams, from one Divine Hand. It is only that we have been trained and moulded by human hands to be what we are. And just so are you; God creates you, but life moulds you. Your trial and your training come like ours, mostly through human hands, although you are destined for higher places and more blessed services. Listen to us, for we have messages for you, each one of us."

Then the stones from the wall said,—"We come from the mountains far away, from the sides of the craggy hills. Fire and water worked on us for ages, but only made us crags. Human hands have made us into a dwelling where the children of your immortal race are born, and suffer, and rejoice, and find rest and shelter, and learn the lessons set them by our Maker and yours. But we have passed through much to fit us for this. Gunpowder has rent our very heart; pick-axes have cleaved and broken us, it seemed to us often without design or meaning, as we lay misshapen stones in the quarry; but gradually we were cut into blocks, and some of us were chiselled with finer instruments to a sharper edge. But we are complete now, and are in our places, and are of service. You are in the quarry still, and not complete, and therefore to you, as once to us, much is inexplicable. But you are destined for a higher building, and one day you will be placed in it by hands not human; a living stone in a heavenly temple."

Then the glass water-beaker said,—"I was hard flint and waste sand on the desolate sea-shore once; but human hands gathered me, and fused me in furnaces heated seven times, and took me out to let me cool, and cast me in again, and shaped and cut me, till at last I carry your water from the spring, and am pressed with many a thankful glance to your parched lips. I am complete. But you, when you have passed through your fires, will be a vessel of living water in a better hand, and bear many a draught of refreshment to weary and thirsty hearts."

"I also have been in many furnaces," said the china flower-vase. "The colours you so often admire in me have been burnt in slowly, stage by stage, every fresh colour requiring a fresh fusing in the furnace. But you, when your trial is over, shall carry flowers of Paradise and leaves from the tree of life for the healing of the nations."

"And I," said the clock, "am scarcely an individual being. I am a little world in myself—a wondrous combination of mechanism. Each of my wheels and springs, with my unwearied pendulum, has its own history of fires, and blows, and ruthless instruments. None of us could form the slightest idea, as we lay dismembered in our various workshops, what we were designed for. Only in combination with every other part, has any part of us any meaning. You are not a little world like me, but a fragment of a great world. When all that belong to you are gathered together, you will understand it all as we do now. And your voice will mark with joyous music the flight of blessed ages, which only lead to others more and more blessed throughout eternity."

"And I," said the bronze pastil-burner, "came from ages of darkness in the depths of the earth. Human hands brought me to the light, moulded and sculptured me, and set me here to burn sweet perfumes, and diffuse fragrance around me. But you will be an incense-bearer in a Temple by-and-by, and from you shall stream a fragrance of love and praise acceptable to God."

"The quarries were my birth-place also," said the alabaster night-lamp; "but you shall be a light-bearer, when your training is complete, of a light which is life, and which has no need of night, like my dim flame, to make it visible."

"I," sang the guitar, with the wooden frame and metallic strings, "am a twofold being. I lived and waved in the forest once; and then the woodman's axe was laid on me, and I fell—I fell, and the life departed from me; and from a living, life-bearing tree, I became mere inanimate timber. More blows, more tearing with saws, more sharp cutting with knife and chisel, and I became melodious again, simply from being united with these metallic strings, which never had life, but lay silent in mines, till the hand of man woke them into music. And thus together we respond to your gentle touch, and soothe for you many a lonely hour. Life from death, music through fires of trial: this is also your destiny. Hereafter every nerve of your tried and perfected being shall respond to the slightest touch of the Hand you love, filling heaven with happy music."