devour all the creation, say that they had met the father amongst the
trees, and that he had kissed them; 'And,' added one of them once, 'I grew
so big!' But when the others went out to look, they could see no one. And
some said it must have been the brother, who grew more and more beautiful,
and loving, and reverend, and who had lost all traces of hardness, so that
they wondered they could ever have thought him stern and harsh. But the
eldest sister held her peace, and looked up, and her eyes filled with
tears. 'Who can tell,' thought she, 'but the little children know more
about it than we?'

"Often, at sunrise, might be heard their hymn of praise to their unseen
father, whom they felt to be near, though they saw him not. Some words
thereof once reached my ear through the folds of the music in which they
floated, as in an upward snowstorm of sweet sounds. And these are some of
the words I heard--but there was much I seemed to hear which I could not
understand, and some things which I understood but cannot utter again.

"'We thank thee that we have a father, and not a maker; that thou hast
begotten us, and not moulded us as images of clay; that we have come forth
of thy heart, and have not been fashioned by thy hands. It _must_ be so.
Only the heart of a father is able to create. We rejoice in it, and bless
thee that we know it. We thank thee for thyself. Be what thou art--our
root and life, our beginning and end, our all in all. Come home to us.
Thou livest; therefore we live. In thy light we see. Thou art--that is all
our song.'

"Thus they worship, and love, and wait. Their hope and expectation grow
ever stronger and brighter, that one day, ere long, the Father will show
Himself amongst them, and thenceforth dwell in His own house for evermore.
What was once but an old legend has become the one desire of their hearts.