Book 9 — THE WHITE LAMB.

A STORY FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

Once in a far country, for which you might search all the geographies of the world in vain, there lived a poor woman who had a little daughter named Agnes. That she was poor, and had a child, was by no means wonderful; for poor people are common in all parts of the earth; and so for the matter of that, are children too; for which the good God cannot be enough thanked.

But this poor woman and child were not altogether like the thousands who surrounded them, as I shall show you in the course of my little story. For the mother was exceeding goodly, and the child was exceeding fair; and goodly too, so far as a child could be. Not that children cannot be as good, aye, and better than most grown people; but in that country they were very bad and ignorant.

It is true that there were schools and academies there, and great colleges time-honored and world-renowned; but somehow or other the people were no better, but on the contrary rather worse for all these blessings. Whether they neglected good, or good neglected them, is not for us to inquire now; but certain it is that the greater part of them grew up in ignorance and vice. Now they need not have grown up in vice unless they had preferred it to virtue; though they could hardly have escaped a life of ignorance. There were many priests there to teach them the folly of sin in this world, and its eternal punishment in the next. They were very energetic in picturing the misery of sinners; but in spite of all they could say, and do, they preached to thin and careless congregations: in consequence of which many of their salaries were unpaid from one year's end to another.

Most of the men spent their Sabbaths in bull-baiting and dog-fighting; most of the women in gadding from house to house with budgets of scandal; while the children ran off to the woods to snare birds and gather berries, and oftentimes to fight out a match made up the day before. Black eyes were by no means uncommon, with plenty more in perspective when those were healed.

This was the life of the mass of people, though I am happy to say there were many exceptions, in men, women, and children, who went to the chapel, as all good Christians should; and lived up to the precepts of the Good Book, as all good Christians do; among whom was the mother and child that I began to tell you about.

And not only did the good woman go to church on the Sabbath, and on all the appointed holidays and feasts, but she endeavored to make her life a perpetual sabbath unto the Lord. But the child, because she was of a tender age, could not always accompany her, nor understand why she must always clasp her hands, and kneel down in the pew, when the vicar did the same in his little pulpit. But she was a good child for all that, as the story will show, and loved her mother with an exceeding love.

When she was about three years of age, her mother died. Her death, however, was by no means unexpected. The only wonder was that she had lived so long, she was so thin and sickly. Her husband had been dead a little over a year. He left her nothing but his child and poverty; a common legacy among the poorer sort of people in that country. After his death she toiled late and early to maintain herself and babe. Many a dawn she rose before the sun, and the sun rose there very early. Many a night she saw the moon set, and it sets very late at certain seasons of the year; but her labors were never done. The labors of the poor never are until death comes. When death came to her, she rested from her work, and her work followed her.

It was a fine day in spring when they buried her. The fresh green earth was full of dew, the soft blue sky without a cloud. It was a day to make one certain of immortality. Few and unconcerned were those who bore her to the grave; they would rather have gone to a merry-making; mere neighbors and nothing more: the dead woman left no friends, or relatives; only her child.

When they reached the churchyard, they found the old sexton beside the grave, leaning on his spade, ready to fill it again at the shortest notice. The vicar put on his bands, and read the funeral service. "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, but the spirit to God who gave it." The coffin was lowered into its narrow house and the earth thrown upon it, while the minister of Christ exhorted the people around.

Little Agnes being left to herself by those who had charge of her, strayed down the winding paths, and was soon hidden among the grave-stones, which were very thick; for the dead of ages were buried in that little churchyard. At first she wondered why she had been brought there; but the sky was so blue above her, and the earth so beautiful around, that she soon forgot it. The shadow of Death, which falls heavily on the hearts of men, passes like a light mist over the soul of a child.

Large butterflies with crimson and golden wings were flying to and fro in the air, and the wild bee pursued its honey-making in the buttercups. She sat down in the long grass, and began to weave the blue violets, as she had seen the basket-maker weave his rushes. Not a month before, a little girl of her own age was laid with many tears in the mound at her feet; but the dew hung there as brightly as in the deep meadows, and the sunshine filled the place, like the smile of God. Nature mourns not like man for the dead whom she has gathered to her bosom in peace.

By and by little Agnes began to grow drowsy, and in spite of all she could do to keep awake, she found her eyes closing and her head nodding on her breast; so she repeated the prayer that her good mother had taught her to say before going to bed, and committed herself to the care of her Heavenly Father, and in a moment was fast asleep, and walking in a dream with the Angels.

In the mean time the good vicar, having finished his exhortation, and the people having departed, began to wonder at her absence, and searched for her down the path which he remembered to have seen her take. Looking right and left among the grave-stones, and calling "Agnes," with a sweet, low voice, he came to the spot where she had fallen asleep. She was sleeping still, and beside her stood a little lamb, innocent and beautiful. Its fleece was whiter than the driven snow, and glistened in the sunlight like gold. There was a golden collar around its neck, with an inscription in an unknown tongue; and its eyes were exceeding tender and beautiful. There were no folds in that country, and how it could have come there was a mystery which the vicar could not explain; nor could the child when she awoke. She only remembered to have seen it in her dream, following a Shepherd in the pastures of Paradise.

As the vicar stood lost in amazement, it drew near him, and looked up in his face with its tender and beautiful eyes, and then at the child, and then in his face again, as much as to say—Here is a poor motherless one; she has no friends in the wide world; who will take care of her, if you do not? Indeed, he fancied that it did say so; and that a voice softer than silence whispered to him, "Feed my Lambs." His heart was touched with pity, and he lifted her up in his arms and bore her to the vicarage.

It was not long before the news spread through the neighboring towns, and many of their dwellers came to see the White Lamb and the young child, who grew daily more beautiful and good. The pious seemed to grow better the moment they beheld the loving pair; and the wicked, who had sat for years under the droppings of the sanctuary, or mocked at the goodness of Heaven afar off, grew thoughtful and penitent, and were soon numbered among the people of God.

The lamb and child were seldom separated. Little Agnes was very unhappy when parted from it, and it seemed equally unhappy in its turn when parted from her. Sometimes they used to sit for hours together; she poring over the vicar's antique missal, which by this time she had learned to read, and the lamb at her feet, looking up in her face with its tender and beautiful eyes. Sometimes in the warm summer days they went off together to the woods and lanes; sometimes, to the meadows where the daises grew in tufted grass; and little Agnes was wont to braid them in a wreath around her brow. She said one day on returning that she would soon wear a wreath of stars. As regularly as the Sabbath came, they went to the chapel together, side by side. The sexton made a path for them, as they walked up the broad aisle which was now crowded with earnest and devout listeners. Their accustomed place was on the cushioned seat that ran around the altar. When the choir sang their anthems, the voice of the child was heard above the deep bass singers, and the full-toned organ; yet it was softer and sweeter than the voice of a dove. When the vicar read the morning and evening service, her responses fell on the hearts of all like dew; and a halo seemed to encircle her as she listened to the words of life.

The people began to consider it a miracle. Cock-fighting and bull-baiting fell into disrepute; drinking and gaming, to which the greater part of them had been bred from childhood, lost caste as amusements, and other vices declined in proportion. It was evident that a great change was going on in the hearts and habits of all. Profane oaths and light jests, which even the gentry condescended to indulge in (as they did in other things better left to their inferiors), were banished from all society, even that of travelling tinkers, time out of mind a coarse set of fellows. Feuds handed down from father to son were dropped at once, and old enemies met with kind greetings, and parted friends. Every body seemed to prosper, and nobody was the worse for it. Beggars began to lay aside their tatters, and wear good substantial garments. There was no longer any need to beg, for work was plentiful. Cottage windows, once stuffed with old hats, rejoiced in the possession of new panes of glass; and new cottages were being builded every where, and every body declared it was the work of the White Lamb.

Spring melted into summer, and summer was now on the verge of autumn. The fields were full of harvesters, reaping and binding up yellow sheaves, and barns were open all day, and boys might be seen within, storing up fruit for the winter. Every day added some new grace to the child; but those who were experienced in such matters, mostly mothers who had lost children, said she was dying. Her bloom was too unearthly, her eye too spiritual to last. She was no longer able to run to the woods and fields: a walk to the little summer house at the end of the vicar's garden, only a stone's throw from the door, was sufficient to make her very weary. Nor could she visit the chapel unless carried thither, which was a source of great grief to all the villagers.

Day by day she grew more lovely and feeble; and the lamb grew more fond of her: they could not for a moment separate them. It clung to her days as she sat in her little chair leaning on pillows; and nights it crept to her feet as she lay upon her couch dreaming of the angels. Its white fleece seemed to grow more white, and its eyes more tender and beautiful. And it often looked at the fading child, and at the far blue sky, shining through the lattice, and its glance seemed to say—Heaven is waiting for this little slip of earth, and it must soon go.

Autumn came at last, and the child was dying. It was morning, and she lay on her couch, with half the village around her. Her eyes were fixed upon the sky, and her arms were entwined about the lamb, who lay with its head in her bosom. The vicar knelt down, and prayed. He could not bear to lose the light of his household, though he knew that the angels were waiting for her on the threshold of heaven. When he arose she slept. Ages have passed since then, and she still sleeps; and will sleep till the heavens and the earth shall have passed away. The next day was the Sabbath, and they bore her to the little churchyard where her mother was buried. Their graves were dug side by side. All the children and maidens, dressed in white, followed her bier; and half the mothers in the village wept as if she had been their own child; and the Lamb, looking whiter than ever, walked in their midst. But when the services were over and the coffin lowered into the grave, it looked once at the far blue sky, and then turned away, and walked down the path which little Agnes had taken at her mother's funeral. No one dared to stop it; but all watched it with breathless attention until it disappeared among the grave-stones. Some of the boldest, and the vicar among the rest, followed to where it seemed to disappear, but could find no further traces. Nobody was ever able to account for it, but every body believed it to have been a miracle, manifested for their salvation, notwithstanding a wise philosopher who wrote a large folio to prove that it never existed at all. Its memory is still preserved with veneration in that country, and from that day to this, the people have continued godly and pious.

—And so ends the story of the White Lamb.

M. Romieu, an ultramontane writer, quoted with much parade by the Tablet, says of France:—"The most exact picture of our epoch is drawn in the phrase, 'that not a woman is brought to bed in France who does not give birth to a Socialist.'" On this the Nation remarks:—"In what a dissolute condition la jeune France, with all its bibs and tuckers, must certainly be! Only imagine Madame de Montalembert brought to bed of twin Phalansteriens! The lady of M. Jules Gondou, redacteur de l'Univers, of a horrid little Fourierist! The nursery of M. de Falloux in red pinafores, squalling out Soc.-de-moc. canticles! Never before such danger in swaddling clothes!"