Never had his dear old friend failed to share in any joy of theirs before.
At length, as he was lingering about the old man"s little hut, wondering, a sad, silent company came bearing slowly and tenderly a heavy burden, which at last they laid on Hans"s poor straw pallet.
It was poor Hans himself, bruised and crushed and wounded in his struggles to press through the crowd to see his darling, his poor crooked limbs broken and unable to move any more.
But the face was untouched; and when they had laid him on the couch, and the languid eyes opened and rested on the beloved face of the child bending over him bathed in tears, a light came over the poor rugged features, and shone in the dark, hollow eyes, such as nothing on earth can give--a wonderful light of great, unutterable love, as they gazed into the eyes of the child, and then, looking upward, seemed to open on a vision none else could see.
"Jesus! Saviour! I can do no more. Take care of him, Thou thyself, Jesus, Lord!"
He said no more--no prayer for himself, only for the child.
Then the eyes grew dim, the head sank back, and with one sigh he breathed his soul away to G.o.d.
And such an awe came over the boy that he ceased to weep.
He could only follow the happy soul up to G.o.d, and say voicelessly in his heart,--
"Dear Lord Jesus! I understand at last! The raven was the angel. And Thou hast let me see him for one moment as he is, as he is now with Thee, as he will be evermore!"
_Ecce h.o.m.o_
A STORY OF THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOUSAND.
I.
"_Apparebit repentina dies magna Domini._"[1] Again and again the words of the old Latin hymn echoed through the aisles of the Minster.
It was the dusk of a short winter"s day in the year of our Lord One Thousand.
The shadowed s.p.a.ces were filled with a vast crowd; all the city had gathered together to hear the stranger monk. He had come into the city yesterday, and was to leave to-morrow.
It was reported that he came from an island beyond the seas, of an ancient race, rich in saints when the Teutons were still wild heathen tribes; from the borders of the sea without a sh.o.r.e.
All was mystery about him. He flitted through the land like a wandering voice, a voice crying in the wilderness. No man knew certainly whence he came or whither he went. He came not so much to teach or to preach, as to utter a great "cry," and be gone.
It was the old cry, that the generations of men are as the crops of gra.s.s, mown down surely by the mower; and the glory of man as the flower of the gra.s.s, scattered before the mowing-time by any pa.s.sing wind.
But the old cry would scarcely have gathered the people together and riveted them in breathless, awe-struck attention as this voice gathered and fixed them.
To the old cry was added a new cry, "an exceeding great and bitter cry."
"The mowers are at hand, the harvest is come. It may not be to-day or to-morrow. But _this year_ it will be.
"It is the Sat.u.r.day night of the ages.
"The world is doomed.
"The thousand years have run their course at last. The long-suffering of G.o.d has an end.
"You may sow your fields this spring.
"You may possibly reap the seed you sow this autumn.
"But you will never see another spring.
"You will never reap another harvest.
""_Apparebit repentina._" Suddenly and so soon!
"You may keep one more Easter.
"But before the next the graves will have been opened. The resurrection to endless woe or joy will have come.
"You may even possibly keep one more Christmas. But it will be the last.
It must be all but the last day of the world, for before its octave has dawned "_apparebit repentina_."
"He will have come. Not as a babe smiling on His mother"s knee, not as the lowly Saviour to the manger, to live, and teach, and heal, and suffer, and die.
"As the Judge, to punish, to reward, to avenge.
"And before Him all the world will be gathered, all the ages, and all the nations.
"But not in one band; in two bands. Divided for ever into two flocks.
Not Teuton and Latin, not rich and poor, not n.o.ble and slave, not clergy and laity, not learned and ignorant; but wicked and good, just and unjust, merciful and unmerciful, those who love G.o.d and men, and those who love only themselves.
"And the division exists now.
""_Apparebit repentina_," His fan in His hand; the winnowing fan. What does the fan do? It only stirs the air; it stirs the wind of G.o.d. It does not make the wheat wheat, or the chaff chaff. It only divides them; the wheat into the garner, the chaff _away_.
"Away _whither_?
"It does not make wheat wheat, or tares tares.
"The wheat to the barn; the tares whither? In bundles to be burned.
"This year, this year, in His heavens, or in His fires.
"And what will be burned in His fires? Your gold? your houses? your harvests? Nay, earthly fires can do that.
"You, you yourselves: in His fires.
""_Apparebit repentina_."
"Suddenly, and this year.