The little Pilgrim was silent for a moment, but then turned her head from the bright shining of the skies and the voices of the children which floated farther and farther off, and looked at the house in which there was sorrow and despair. She pointed towards it, and looked at him who was her instructor and had come to show her how these things were.
‘They are to blame,’ he said, ‘but none will blame them. The little life is hard. The Father, though He is very near, seems far off: and sometimes even His word is as a dream. It is to them as if they had lost their child. Can you not remember?—that was what we said. We have lost——’
Then the little Pilgrim musing began to smile, but wept again as she thought of the father and the mother. ‘If we were to go,’ she said, ‘hand in hand, you and I, and tell them that the Father had need of him: that it was not for the little life but for the great and beautiful world above that the child was born; and that he had got great promotion and was gone with the princes and the angels according as was ordained? And why should they mourn? Let us go and tell them——’
He shook his head. ‘They could not see us; they would not know us; we should be to them as dreams. If they do not take comfort from our Lord, how could they take comfort from you and me? We could not bring them back their child. They want their child, not only to know that all is well with him,—for they know that all is well with him,—but what they want is their child. They are to blame, but who shall blame them? Not any one that is born of woman. How can we tell them what is the Father’s secret and the child’s?’
‘And yet we could tell them why it must be so?’ said the little Pilgrim. ‘For they prayed and besought the Lord. O brother, I have no understanding. For the Lord said, “Ask, and it shall be given you”; and they asked: yet they are refused.’
‘Little sister, the Father must judge between His children: and he must first be heard who is most concerned. While they were praying, the Father and the child talked together and said what we know not: but this we know that his heart was satisfied with that which was said to him. Must not the Father do what is best for the child He loves, whatever the other children may say? Nay, did not our own fathers do this on earth, and we submitted to them: how much more He who sees all?’
The little Pilgrim stole softly from his side when he had done speaking and went back into the darkened house, and saw the mother where she sat weeping and refusing to be comforted, in her sorrow perceiving not heaven nor any consolation, nor understanding that her child had gone joyfully to his Father and her Father, as his soul had required, and as the Lord had willed. Yet though she had not joy but only anguish in her faith, and though her eyes were darkened that she could not see, yet the woman ceased not to call upon God, God, and to hold by Him who had smitten her. And the father of the child had gone into his chamber and shut the door, and sat dumb, opening not his mouth, thinking upon his delightsome boy, and how they had walked together and talked together, and should do so again nevermore. And in their hearts they reproached their God, the giver of all, and accused the Lord to His face, as if He had deceived them: yet clung to Him still, weeping and upbraiding, and would not let Him go. The little Pilgrim wept too, and said many things to them which they could not hear. But when she saw that though they were in darkness and misery God was in all their thoughts, she bethought herself suddenly of what the poet had said in the celestial city, and of the songs he sang, which were a wonder to the Angels and Powers, of the little life and the sorrowful earth, where men endured all things, yet overcame by the name of the Lord. When this came into her mind she rose up again softly with a sacred awe, and wept not, but did them reverence; for without any light or guidance in their anguish they yet wavered not, died not, but endured, and in the end would overcome. It seemed to her that she saw the great beautiful angels looking on, the great souls that are called to love and to serve, but not to suffer like the little brethren of the earth; and that among the princes of heaven there was reverence and awe, and even envy of those who thus had their garments bathed in blood, and suffered loss and pain and misery, yet never abandoned their life and the work that had been given them to do.
As she came forth again comforted, she found the Sage standing with his face lifted to heaven, smiling still at the sound, though faint and distant, of the children all calling to each other and shouting together as they reached the gate. ‘Oh hush,’ she said, ‘let not the mother hear them! for it will make her heart more bitter to think she can never hear again her child’s voice.’
‘But it is her child’s voice,’ he said: then very gently, ‘They are to blame: but no one will be found to blame them either in earth or heaven.’
The earth pilgrims went far after this, yet more softly than when they first left their beautiful country: for then the little Pilgrim had been glad, believing that as all had been made clear to her in her own life, so that all that concerned the life of man should be made clear; but this was more hard and encompassed with pain and darkness, as that which is in the doing is always more hard to understand than that which is accomplished. And she learned now what she had not understood, though her companion warned her, how sharp are those thorns of earth that pierce the wayfarer’s foot, and that those who come back cannot help but suffer because of love and fellow-feeling. And she learned that though she could smile and give thanks to the Father in the recollection of her own griefs that were past, yet those that are present are too poignant, and to look upon others in their hour of darkness makes His ways more hard to comprehend than even when the sorrow is your own.