By this time Sunshine had folded Daylight to sleep on her warm breast. Many weeks had passed, when, one quiet afternoon, Daylight again came that way, and glancing critically around, she murmured to Sunshine, "Where is the old gray Rock you were so sanguine about?"
Sunshine was silent; her motto being, "Not in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth;" and at length Daylight's quiet eyes awoke to the fact, that the grassy knoll where flowers—tiny rock-plants indeed, but still flowers—and mosses lay dozing, unawakened by her sober tread, was none other than the Rock she had known of old. And she said meekly, "Truly I find that one way to create beauty is to perceive it."
Then an angel, who was hovering near, on his way back from some message of mercy (for the angels never linger till their messages are given), sang softly, "Love veileth a multitude of sins." And the old Rock answered in a chorus, through its moss-threads, and lichen-cups, and leaves, and blossoms, "And under the warm veil spring a multitude of flowers."
Wanderers and Pilgrims.
A large tract of country lay spread before me; upland and lowland, hill and plain. The whole land seemed stirring with perpetual movement, all in one direction;—from the bright hills at its commencement, to the dark mountains at the end. Earth and sky seemed moving, as when an enormous flight of migratory birds is passing by; but earth and sky were really stationary. This movement was one constant tide of human life, ceaselessly streaming across the land.
It began on a range of wooded hills, with their sunny southern slopes, forests and flowery banks, and grassy and golden fields. Down these slopes joyous bands ran fast. As I looked closer, I saw the movement was not incessant in the case of each individual; only the ceaseless passing of the great tide of life made it seem so. Merry groups paused on the hill-sides, and made fairy gardens, and twined leafy tents where they would sit a little while and sing and dance. But only a little while! No hand seemed driving them on; it appeared only an inward irresistible instinct. Yet soon the bright groups were scattered, and moved down again over the hills, often never joining more.
"Why do you hasten away from these sunny slopes?" I said. "There seems nothing so pleasant in all the land besides."