but that all are the
children of the Father. And He is just; He will not neglect the little
one because of those prayers which the father and the mother pour forth
to Him, although they cry with anguish and with tears. Nor will He break
His great law and violate the nature He has made, and compel His own
child to what it wills not and loves not. The woman is comforted in the
breaking of her heart; but those whom she loves, are not they also the
children of the Father, who loves them more than she does? And each is to
Him as if there were not another in the world. Nor is there any other in
the world,--for none can come between the Father and the child.'

A smile came upon the little Pilgrim's face, yet she trembled. 'It is dim
before me,' she said, 'and I cannot see clearly. Oh, if the time would
but hasten, that our Lord might come, and all struggles be ended, and the
darkness vanish away!'

'He will come when all things are ready,' said the Sage; and as they went
upon their way be showed her other sights, and the mysteries of the heart
of man, and the great patience of our Lord.

It happened to them suddenly to perceive in their way a man returning
home. These are words that are sweet to all who have lived upon the earth
and known its ways; but far, far were they from that meaning which is
sweet. The dark hours had passed, and men had slept; and the night was
over. The sun was rising in the sky, which was keen and clear with the
pleasure of the morning. The air was fresh with the dew, and the birds
awaking in the trees, and the breeze so sweet that it seemed to blow from
heaven; and to the two travellers it seemed almost in the joy of the new
day as if the Lord had already come. But here was one who proved that it
was not so. He had not slept all the night, nor had night been silent to
him nor dark, but full of glaring light and noise and riot; his eyes were
red with fever and weariness, and his soul was sick within him, and the
morning looked him in the face and upbraided him as a sister might have
upbraided him, who loved him. And he said in his heart, as one had said
of old, that all was vanity; that it was vain to live, and evil to have
been born; that the day of death was better than the day of birth, and
all was delusion, and love but a word, and life a lie. His footsteps on
the road seemed to sound all through the sleeping world; and when he
looked the morning in the face he was ashamed, and cursed the light. T