And when morning dawned, and they went out once more on the shore together, the very beach under their feet seemed to have grown a sacred place; the very drawing of water from the old familiar spring a royal service.
They had learned, not only the proportion between the Island and the Main Land, which made the Island dwindle to a fragment of rock, but the connection, which made it wide and grand, as the entrance to a boundless world. Only in itself, disconnected from the Kingdom to which it belonged, was it narrow and poor. Only its ambitions limited to itself, only its treasures, so used as to be left behind in it, were really worthless. Its paths, so broken and bounded in themselves, were infinite, as each the beginning of the radius of an infinite circle. Its hills, so low when compared with the mountain-ranges of the Main Land, were infused with a new inward glory like the light enshrined in gems, when looked at as but the lower slopes of those Everlasting Hills.
The lowliest loving works, done faithfully on His Island, were as much done under the King's eye as the loftiest in His palace chambers; and they might be done as much to His praise.
The service of the King on the Island and on the Main Land was indeed all one, though done in very different degrees of perfection, and on very different levels.
Not only in gazing towards their lofty Dwelling Place, but in following their lowly footsteps, were they drawing nearer those who had gone before.
The best waiting was obeying; the best Island lessons were not so much learning the wonders of that higher world, as learning the obedience which makes it the glorious, harmonious world it is.
And many a time, thenceforth, as the mother and her children went about their daily tasks, rendering such services as they could to all around, gleams of wonderful light which they had watched for in vain, and strains of inimitable music which all their listening had not caught, surprised them along their every-day paths. Every day, and all day long, the presence of the mountains of the Main Land brooded over them.
And one day, also by their every-day paths, the Messenger Ship will surprise them with its summons to the Land of welcome. The step into it will be but one of their every-day steps on the King's errands. But what the step out of it will be, who can utter?
For the Everlasting Hills do indeed stand round about the Island; and the gates of the Golden City are open towards it night and day, and the mist which veils the Glorious Land is altogether transparent on the other side.