t He
who came was seen of none, save him to whom He came. The weary man rose
up with a great cry, then fell again upon his knees, and flung his arms
wide in the wonder and the joy. And 'Lord,' he cried, 'was it Thou?
Lord, it was Thou! Thine was the face. And Thou hast brought me here!'

The watchers knew not what the other voice said, for what is said to each
new-comer is the secret of the Lord. But when they looked again, the man
stood upright upon his feet, and his face was full of light; and though
he trembled with weakness and with weariness, and with exceeding joy, yet
the confusion and the fear were gone from him. And he had no longer any
suspicion of them, as if they might betray him, but held out his
trembling hands and cried, 'Friends,--you are friends? and you spoke to
me and called me brother? And am I here? And am I here?' For to name the
name of that blessed country was not needful any longer, now that he had
seen the Lord.

Then a great band and guard of honor, of angels and principalities and
powers, surrounded him, and led him away to the holy city, and to the
presence of the Father, who had permitted and had not forbidden what the
Lord had done. And all the companies of the blessed followed after with
wonder and gladness and triumph, because the great love of the Lord had
drawn out of the darkness even those who were beyond hope.

The little Pilgrim saw them depart from her with love and joy, and sat
down upon the rocky edge and sang her own song of peace; for her fear was
gone, and she was ready to do her service there upon the verge of the
precipice as among the flowers and the sunshine, where her own place was.
'From the depths,' she said, 'they come, they come!--from the land of
darkness, where no love is. For Thy love, O Lord, is more than the
darkness and the depths. And where hope is not, there Thy pity goes.' She
sat and sang to herself like a happy child, for her heart had fathomed
the awful gloom which baffles angels and men; and she had learned that
though hope comes to an end and light fails, and the feet of the
ambassadors are stayed on the mountains, and the voice of the pleaders is
silenced, and darkness swallows up the world, yet Love never fails. As
she sang, the pity in her heart grew so strong, and her desire to help
the lost, that she rose up and stepped forth into the awful gloom, and
had it been permitted, in her gentleness and weakness would have gone
forth to the deeps and had