She is sleeping, but hers is a troubled slumber, for conscience is at work night and day in the mind of that woman, accusing and condemning—yet she sleeps. She is dreaming of the husband of her early years—of the child in whom, when she was young and innocent, and of contented mind, her hope and joy centered; she is dreaming of her maiden home—of her bridal morning. The voices of her former, youthful friends are ringing in her ears; the innocent thoughts and hopes of girlhood fill her heart again. She wakens weeping—for in imagination she is standing once more beside the death-bed of her mother, listening to the words of warning and counsel that mother forces herself to speak when she beholds with all a parent’s agony that the girl of her hopes is treading in the wild paths of shame and sin.
She wakens in tears, with a strange feeling of contrition that she has seldom or never felt before agitating her bosom, to see the Sunlight looking down with pitying glance upon her—to see the good spirit whose mission it is to make glad and bright the earth, deigning to creep through those prison-bars to speak a word of counsel and hope to her. Thoughts of her husband, on whose honest name she has cast such dishonor, and of her deserted, innocent child, come to her full of most sorrowful reproach. A longing for the restoration of her lost virtue—a conviction of the peacefulness and happiness and exceeding reward attending goodness, ever make her unsealed tears flow more freely. Beside that narrow bed, on the stone floor of her cell, she kneels down in her sorrow and contrition, and on her knees she breathes forth such a prayer as never before went from her heart. And the dear Sunlight is witness of that prayer! She looks upon the kneeling penitent with joy—and from that now hallowed place she does not steal forth hastily, leaving the cell dreary and comfortless as before; she is there when the woman rises from her supplication, as though to assure of the smile of Heavenly forgiveness, which may yet await her. She remains to give encouragement to the hope that the corroding stains now resting on her soul may be ere long effectually wiped away—that reconcilement and love and peace, are yet for her on earth.
Near this woman’s cell there is another where a youth, unjustly accused, singularly blameless and innocent in his life, is singing a morning hymn of praise and adoration. Hemmed in as he is by the prison-wall, deprived of that freedom which is the good man’s best possession, confined with guilty men, and bearing himself the heavy imputation of crime, yet is he supported by the comforting knowledge of his innocence, and by the assurance that the eye which is strong to pierce the secrets of the heart, knows his innocence. The dreariness of his confinement does not fill his soul with terror; his faith is strong in the power and goodness of his Maker, and so it is with patience he performs the labor apportioned him, looking confidently for the hour of his release, and the honorable conviction of his uprightness in the minds of all honest men.
And when the kindly Sunlight appears before him, her presence but serves to foster these hopes. It is a sweet message of patience and faith she whispers to him, and after she has departed, through all the long day its remembrance strengthens and cheers him. Blessed be the good spirit who remembers to visit these sad, afflicted, guilty ones in the hour when they are well-nigh forgotten of all the world, and by their own kin!
Beyond the prison, on the same range of elevated grounds, just without the city, there is a cemetery—a quiet place where the dead sleep in peace. And thither Sunlight bends her golden, sandaled feet. How brightly her shadow lies on the white monuments, and on the grass and flowers. How quiet and holy is this place, there is no sound of the tread of living feet to disturb the rest of the slumberers; no human form at this early hour is treading in this solitary place to muse on the “vanity of all earthly things,” or to weep over the departed! Oh, yes! there, by that newly-made grave, where the sod has been placed so recently, there, where the print of the feet of the funeral-train is yet fresh on the loosened ground, there stands a child with flowers in her hand; she has come to lay them on the grave of her mother! The Sunlight knew that she would meet her there, for every morning since the day the funeral-train paused there, and laid the loving mother in the dark, cold, “narrow house,” the little girl has visited that grave, bringing with her to beautify it, and make it seem a rest more sweet and cheerful, the flowers from her little garden, which early in the spring her mother planted there. When the child goes back to the city, the vast crowds of life will have awakened, and the rush, and jar, and strife, will have begun; happy were it for all those multitudes, if a voice, gentle and holy in its teaching as has spoken to that young girl, whispered also to them, ere they mingled in the whirlpools of business and pleasure!
Then amid the dwellings of the city Sunlight wanders next. And by no means is she sure to honor first with her presence the mansions of the rich; for at such an early hour she would hardly receive a welcome there; perhaps, however, this is not the sole reason why the very first place which she chooses to enter is the cot of the humble laborer. Gently does she lay her fair hand on his rude, weather-worn frame, and tenderly she kisses his hard-browned face, as a loving mother embraces her infant. And if the man does not at once awaken at the call of her royal highness, she does not go away and leave him in humanly anger, but yet more lovingly does she caress him, thinking meanwhile to herself, “poor man, he was worn out by his hard work yesterday.” And so at last by her patient gentleness she succeeds in awakening him—and when he rubs his eyes, and sees her waiting for him there, with her soft hand, on which the regal ring is glistening, resting so lovingly upon him, how he reproaches himself that he has dared to sleep while she was honoring his poor roof by her presence! and how fervent is the blessing with which his heart blesses her, as he hastens away to his labor with a light heart and renewed courage.
Later in the day, peeping into the small windows of the unpretending school-room, she beckons to the little children to come out and ramble with her among the fields, to hunt for the ripe strawberries in the grass, and to gather the violets, and lilies, and wild-geranium flowers which grow in the shady woods. A beautiful song she sings to the merry youngsters—a song whose burden has more of wisdom in it than many gather from their books in the coarse of years—a lesson of reverence of freedom, and of innocent love for nature.
Sunlight is not content with merely resting like a visible blessing on the head of the gentle girl whose breast is throbbing with a “love for all things pure and holy,” she steals into her guileless heart, and makes that glorious by her smiling there; and the little one laughs while she lingers, because she fancies that all the future to which she looks forward, will prove as bright and joyous as the unclouded present. And as for the king’s daughter, she knows when she hears that joyous ringing laugh which always welcomes her presence, that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive!
The bright-eyed maiden loves children, with all the earnestness of her soft, true heart, and how earnestly they return her love, let every man and woman and child answer! She is, indeed, like a kind and gentle elder friend to them—like a friend whose heart has not grown cold or hard from much mingling with the world, who knows how to sympathize with them in their simple joys, who listens to their merry voices with a tender interest, which time has not been enabled to make cold or false.
Well may the children love her, whose smile is the grand main-spring of their joy—the constant inspirer of their never-ceasing hope!