We want no explanation of the joy, for that flows freely from the heart
of the Father, and all is clear between us and Him; but that which you
desire to know is why trouble should be. Therefore you must think of Him
and be strong, for here is what will rend your heart.'

The little Pilgrim was seized once more with mortal fear. 'O friend,' she
cried, 'I have done with pain. Must I go and see others suffering and do
nothing for them?'

'If anything comes into your heart to do or say, it will be well for
them,' the Sage replied: and he took her by the hand and led her into a
house she knew. She began to know them all now, as her vision became
accustomed to the atmosphere of the earth. She perceived that the sun was
shining, though it had appeared so dim, and that it was a clear summer
morning, very early, with still the colors of the dawn in the east. When
she went indoors, at first she saw nothing, for the room was darkened,
the windows all closed, and a miserable watch-light only burning. In the
bed there lay a child whom she knew. She knew them all,--the mother at
the bedside, the father near the door, even the nurse who was flitting
about disturbing the silence. Her heart gave a great throb when she
recognized them all; and though she had been glad for the first moment to
think that she had come just in time to give welcome to a little brother
stepping out of earth into the better country, a shadow of trouble and
pain enveloped her when she saw the others and remembered and knew. For
he was their beloved child; on all the earth there was nothing they held
so dear. They would have given up their home and all they possessed, and
become poor and homeless and wanderers with joy, if God, as they said,
would have but spared their child. She saw into their hearts and read all
this there; and knowing them, she knew it without even that insight.
Everything they would have given up and rejoiced, if but they might have