the bank.

It was a glorious night. The moon had sunk, and left the quiet earth
alone with the stars. It seemed as if, in the silence and the hush,
while we her children slept, they were talking with her, their
sister--conversing of mighty mysteries in voices too vast and deep for
childish human ears to catch the sound.

They awe us, these strange stars, so cold, so clear. We are as children
whose small feet have strayed into some dim-lit temple of the god they
have been taught to worship but know not; and, standing where the echoing
dome spans the long vista of the shadowy light, glance up, half hoping,
half afraid to see some awful vision hovering there.

And yet it seems so full of comfort and of strength, the night. In its
great presence, our small sorrows creep away, ashamed. The day has been
so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of
bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then
Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our
fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faces up to hers, and
smiles; and, though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and
lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone.

Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very
silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night's
heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our
hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away
beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a
mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great
Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that
Pain and Sorrow are but the angels of God.

Only those who have worn the crown of suffering can look upon that
wondrous light; and they, when they return, may not speak of it, or tell
the mystery they know.

Once upon a time, through a strange country, there rode some goodly
knights, and their path lay by a deep wood, where tangled briars grew
very thick and strong, and tore the flesh of them that lost their way
therein. And the leaves of the trees that grew in the wood were very
dark and thick, so that no ray of light came through the branches to
lighten the gloom and sadness.

And, as they passed by that dark wood, one knight of those that rode,
missing his comrades, wandered far away, and returned to the