THE RULER.
When it was time for the Child to have lessons, the Teacher-Angel gave him a sheet of paper, smooth and white, and a pencil, and a ruler.
"Write as well as you can," he said; "and mind you keep the lines straight!"
The Child admired the ruler greatly; "I will put it up on the wall," he said, "where I can see it always." So he put it up on the wall, and the sunbeams, hardly brighter than itself, sparkled on it.
"It must be pure gold," said the Child; "there is nothing else so beautiful in the world." And then he began his task.
By and by the lesson time was over, and the Teacher-Angel came to see what had been done. The Child showed him the paper on which he had written his task. Up and down went the lines, here andthere, from side to side of the sheet, which was covered with sprawling, straggling letters. There were smudges, too, where he had tried to rub something out; it was not a pretty page.
"What is this?" asked the Teacher-Angel. "Where is your ruler?"
"There it is," said the Child. "Up on the wall. It was so beautiful, I put it up there where I could see it always. See where it hangs! But methinks it is not so bright as it was."
"No!" said the Teacher-Angel. "It would have been brighter if you had used it."
"But I admired it greatly," said the Child.
"But your lines are crooked!" said the Angel.
THE TORCH-BEARER
A voice came ringing down the way: "Room! room for the Torch-bearer! room for the keeper of the gates of To-morrow! room!"
"Ah! yes," I said. "It is he, the great sage, who has lightened the world-shadows this many a year. Who should bear the torch but he?"
I looked, and the sage passed, his arms folded on his breast, his calm eyes bent forward, seeing many things: but no torch was in his hand.
And still the cry came ringing down the world's way: "Room for the Torch-bearer! make way! make way for the keeper of the gates of To-morrow!"
"Ah!" I said. "It will be the mighty leader, then; he who so long has marshalled our hearts, and led us whithersoeverhe would with a wave of his hand. Hail to him, hail to the Master of Armies!"
But as I looked, the Master passed, and his truncheon hung low by his side, and his eyes looked downward, remembering; and no torch was in his hand.
Yet still, as I marvelled, came that great cry ringing down the world's way, and now it sounded loud in my ears.
"Room! room! make way, give place! the Torch-bearer comes. Make way for the keeper of the gates of God!"
And once more I looked.
Ah! bare and dusty were her feet, the little woman; and she went bowed, and stumbled on the rough stones, for the great torch hung heavy in her hand, and heavy the babe on her arm: but he sat there as on a throne, and laughed and leaped as he sat, and clutched the living torch and shook it, flinging the blaze abroad, and the world-way lightened before him.
THE STONE BLOCKS
"Why is your little sister crying, dear?" asked the Play Angel. "I thought you were taking care of her."
"So I am, taking beautiful care of her," said the child. "But the more beautiful care I take, the more she cries. She does not like care to be taken of her."
"Let me see!" said the Play Angel; and she sat down on the nursery floor. "Now show me what you have done."
"Look!" said the child. "First I showed her all my dolls, and then all my new dresses; and now I have given her my new stone blocks to play with, but she will not play, only puts them in her mouth and cries."
"Perhaps she is hungry!" said the Play Angel. She took a piece of bread from thefolds of her robe and gave it to the baby; and the baby stopped crying, and ate the bread, and laughed and crowed.
"See!" said the Angel. "Now she is happy. Remember, dear, that when babies are hungry, stone blocks do them no good."
"You are a very clever angel to know that!" said the child.
"You are a rather foolish child," said the Angel, "or you would have found it out for yourself."
THE POTTER
A potter wrought at his wheel, singing as he wrought, turning out crocks and pipkins of red clay. They were clumsy of shape and rude in the making, yet they served to hold meal and milk, and the poor folk bought of him. But ever, as he shaped the clay, the potter said to himself: "Some day, some day, I will make a cup of gold for the Prince's drinking!"
Now and again, when he was well paid for his pots, he would get a bit of gold and put it by. This small hoard was precious to him as sunlight, and bit by bit, little coin by little coin, it grew, till one day he had enough. Then he left his clay, and with care and loving pains, his lathe turning to the beat of his heart, he fashioned a little cup of gold.
"It is small," he said, "but it will hold wine for a single draught." And he set it in the sun among his pots, where it could be seen of the passers-by.
Presently rode by the Prince and his court, and saw the pots, and on one the sun shining.
"Look!" said one of the courtiers, "if the potter have not gilded one of his clay pipkins!"
THE NEIGHBOUR
"What can you tell me of your neighbour?" asked the Angel-who-looks-into-things.
"Oh, an excellent person!" said the Busy Man. "Full of wisdom and virtue; merry, too, withal; in short, a delightful companion."
"You have been much together, then?" said the Angel-who-looks-into-things.
"Well, scarcely that," replied the Busy Man; "in fact, I have been so excessively busy that I have seen nothing of him for a long time. But now I have every intention of doing so; indeed, I think I will ask him to dine with me to-night."
"You can hardly do that!" said the Angel.
"Why not?"
"Because he died this morning."
THE WOUND
Once an Angel found a child crying bitterly, and stopped to comfort him.
"What is the matter, dear?" asked the Angel.
"Oh, I have hurt myself dreadfully!" said the child. "Dreadfully! see!" and he showed his wound.
"Yes, that must have hurt very much, I know," said the Angel; "but cheer up! I knew another child who was wounded in the same place, and he got over it in good time."
"Ah! but it was not so bad a wound as mine!" said the child.
"Yes, it was," said the Angel; "every bit as bad."
"But it did not hurt him so much!" said the child.
"How do you know that?" asked the Angel.
"Because he wasn't me!" said the child.
THE WHITE FIRE
Three men came to Love the Lord, asking a gift of his white fire, and the gift was not denied. "Take it, keep it, use it!" said Love the Lord; and they answered joyfully, "Yea, Lord, this will we do!"
Then the three fared forth on their way, the old way, and the new way, and the only way; yet they went not together, but each by himself alone.
Presently one came to a dark valley, full of men who groped with their hands, seeking the way, and finding it not, for they had no light; and they moaned, and cried, "Oh! that we had light, to show us the way!"
Then that man answered aloud, "Yea, and there shall be light!"
And he took the fire that was given him of Love the Lord, and made of it a torch, and held it aloft, and it flashed through the darkness like a sword, and showed the way; and he leading, they following, they came safe through that place into the light of day.
The second man went by another path of the way, and it led him over a bleak moor, where the wind blew bitter keen, and the rocks stood like frozen iron; and here were men shivering with cold, huddling together for warmth, yet finding none, for they had no fire. And they moaned, and cried, "Ah! if we had but fire to keep the life in us, for we perish!"
And the man said, "Yea, there shall be fire!"
And he took the fire that he had of Love the Lord, and spread it out, and set faggots to it, and it blazed up broad and bright; and the folk gathered round it, and held out their hands and warmed themselves at it, and forgot the bitter wind.
Now the third man went his way also; and as he went he said to himself, "How shall I keep my fire safe, that no fierce wind blow it out, and no foul vapor stifle it? I know what I will do; I will hide it in my heart, and so no harm can come to it." And he hid the fire in his heart, and carried it so, and went on.
Now by and by those three came to the end of the way, and there waited for them one in white, and his face veiled. He said to the first man, "What of your fire?"
And the man said, "I found folk struggling in darkness, and I made a torch of my fire, and showed them the way; now is it well-nigh wasted, yet still it burns."
And he in white said, "It is well; this fire shall never die."
Then came the second, and of him, too, that one asked, "What of your fire?"
And he said, "I found men shivering, with nought to warm them, and I gave my fire, that they might live, and not die."
And he in white answered again, "It is well; this fire too shall never die."
Then came the third, and answeredboldly, and said, "I have brought my fire safe, through peril and through strife; lo, see it here in my heart!"
Then that one in white put aside his veil; and it was Love the Lord himself. "Alas!" he said; "what is this you have done?"
And he opened the man's heart; and inside it was a black char, and white ashes lying in it.
THE WHITE FIRE
This one Love the Lord called to him, and waited no asking, but put the gift in her hands, the white gift of fire.
"What shall I do with it, Lord?" she asked: and he said, "Lighten the darkness!"
"Yea, Lord," she answered, "as I may!" and took the gift meekly and went. But as she went, she met one strong and silent, who took her in his arms, and bore her to a high tower, and kept her there in ward. The name of that strong one was Pain, and he was faithful as Night and Death, and they two dwelt together.
But she in the tower tended ever the white fire, and wept over it, saying, "How,in this tower, shall I do the will of Love the Lord, seeing here are only my fellow Pain and I? and the tower is full of seams and cracks, so that the wind blows cold upon my fire, and would fain quench it; and in no case can I lighten any darkness save my own."
But still she tended the fire and kept it alive; pure and white was the flame of it, and she and her fellow Pain sat beside it and kept them warm.
But Love the Lord looked from the clearness where he dwelt, and smiled; well pleased was he. For he saw through the seams and rents in that doleful tower the light stream clear and radiant: and in the darkness toward which his high heart yearned he saw men struggling forward, and heard them cry to one another joyfully, "Look up! take heart! yonder shines a light to guide us on the way."
FOR YOU AND ME
"I have come to speak to you about your work," said the Angel-who-attends-to-things. "It appears to be unsatisfactory."
"Indeed!" said the man. "I hardly see how that can be. Perhaps you will explain."
"I will!" said the Angel. "To begin with, the work is slovenly."
"I was born heedless," said the man. "It is a family failing which I have always regretted."
"It is ill put together, too;" said the Angel. "The parts do not fit."
"I never had any eye for proportion," said the man; "I admit it is unfortunate."
"The whole thing is a botch," said the Angel. "You have put neither brains nor heart into it, and the result is ridiculousfailure. What do you propose to do about it?"
"I credited you with more comprehension," said the man. "My faults, such as they are, were born with me. I am sorry that you do not approve of me, but this is the way I was made; do you see?"
"I see!" said the Angel. He put out a strong white hand, and taking the man by the collar, tumbled him neck and crop into the ditch.
"What is the meaning of this?" cried the man, as he scrambled out breathless and dripping. "I never saw such behavior. Do you see what you have done? you have ruined my clothes, and nearly drowned me beside."
"Oh yes!" said the Angel: "this is the wayIwas made."
THE PICTURE BOOK
"Brother," said the little boy, "show me a pretty picture book!"
"Nay!" said the brother. "I would rather show you this book with the ugly pictures, so that when you come to see ugly things you may know what they are. Look! see this, how hateful it is; and this, how hideous; and here again, this, enough to turn one cold with horror."
"Oh!" said the child; and he shuddered. "They are horrible indeed; show me more!"
Next day the brother found the child before a mirror, twisting his face this way and that, squinting, and making a thousand horrible grimaces.
"My dear little boy," cried the brother, "why are you making yourself so hideous?"
"I want to see if I can look like the pictures in the book!" said the child.
THE FLOWER OF JOY
The white frost struck my garden, and blighted my flower of joy. Oh! it was fair, and all the sweetness of the spring breathed from its cup; but now it lay blackened and withered, and my heart with it.
Then, as I stood mourning, I heard another crying voice; and looking up I saw my neighbour in her garden, bending over her stricken plants and weeping sore. I hastened to her. "Take courage!" I said. "It may be they are not quite dead: for, look! here lingers a little green along the leaves. Look here again, the sap flows. Take heart, and we will work together, you and I."
So I labored, and she with me, binding up, tending and watering, night and day;till at last life came back to her plants, first faltering, then flowing free, and they held up their heads and drank the sunshine, and opened fair and sweet to the day.
Then, with her blessing warm at my heart, I turned me homeward: and oh! and oh! in the ruined garden where all lay black and prone, a thread of green creeping, a tiny bud peeping, a breath of spring upon the air. Glad woman, I fell upon my knees, and stretched out trembling hands to where, faint and feeble, yet alive, bloomed once more my flower of joy.
THE BURNING HOUSE
Some neighbours were walking together in the cool of the day, watching the fall of the twilight, and talking of this and that; and as they walked, they saw at a little distance a light, as it were a house on fire.
"From the direction, that must be our neighbour William's house," said one. "Ought we not to warn him of the danger?"
"I see only a little flame," said another; "perchance it may go out of itself, and no harm done."
"I should be loth to carry ill news," said a third; "it is always a painful thing to do."
"William is not a man who welcomes interference," said a fourth. "I should notlike to be the one to intrude upon his privacy; probably he knows about the fire, and is managing it in his own way."
While they were talking, the house burned up.
THE PLANT
A plant grew up in the spring, and spread its leaves and looked abroad, rejoicing in its life.
"To grow!" said the plant. "To be beautiful, and gladden the eyes of those who look on me: this is life. The Giver of it be praised!"
Now the plant budded and blossomed: lovely the blossoms were, and sweet, and men plucked them joyfully.
"This is well!" said the plant. "To send beauty and fragrance hither and thither, to sweeten the world even a little, this is life: the Giver of it be praised!"
Autumn came, and the plant stood lonely, yet at peace. "One cannot always be in blossom!" it said. "One has done what one could, and a little is part of the whole."
By and by came a gatherer of herbs, and cut the green leaves from the plant. "They are good for bruises," he said; "or distilled, their juice may heal an inward wound."
The plant heard and rejoiced. "To heal!" it said. "That is even better than to gladden the eyes. The Giver of this too be praised!"
Now it was winter. The dry stalk stood in the field, and crackled with the frost, its few remaining leaves clinging black and shrivelled about it.
"All is over now," said the plant. "There must be an end to everything."
But now came a poor soul shivering with the cold, and took the dry plant and carried it to his home; and breaking it in pieces, laid the fragments on his naked hearth and set fire to them. Puff! the dry stalks crackled into flame and blazed up merrily, filling the room with light and warmth.
"And is this death?" said the plant. "The Giver of all be praised!"
Transcriber's NoteOriginal drop capitals beginning each chapter retained as images, with represented letter included in text.