A Little Pilgrim in the UnseenOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Religion
A Little Pilgrim in the Unseen
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Death -- Fiction
and wealthy place, in a thunderous atmosphere, with a storm coming on.
In the next there was a section of a street with a great banqueting hall
open to the view, and many people sitting about the table. You could see
that there was a great deal of laughter and conversation going on, some
very noisy groups, but others that sat more quietly in corners and
conversed, and some who sang, and every kind of entertainment. The
little Pilgrim was very much astonished to see this, and turned to the
painter, who answered her directly, though she had not spoken. "We used
to think differently once. There are some who are there and do not know
it. They think only it is the old life over again, but always worse, and
they are led on in the ways of evil: but they do not feel the punishment
until they begin to find out where they are and to struggle, and wish
for other things."
The little Pilgrim felt her heart beat very wildly while she looked at
this, and she thought upon the rich man in the parable, who, though he
was himself in torment, prayed that his brother might be saved, and she
said to herself, "Our dear Lord would never leave him there who could
think of his brother when he was himself in such a strait." And when she
looked at the painter he smiled upon her, and nodded his head. Then he
led her to the other corner of the room where there were other
pictures. One of them was of a party seated round a table and an angel
looking on. The angel had the aspect of a traveller, as if he were
passing quickly by, and had but paused a moment to look, when one of the
men glancing up suddenly saw him. The picture was dim, but the startled
look upon this man's face, and the sorrow on the angel's, appeared out
of the misty background with such truth that the tears came into the
little Pilgrim's eyes, and she said in her heart, "Oh, that I could go
to him and help him!" The other sketches were dimmer and dimmer. You
seemed to see out of the darkness gleaming lights, and companies of
revellers, out of which here and there was one trying to escape. And
then the wide plains in the night, and the white vision of the angel in
the distance, and here and there by different paths a fugitive striving
to follow. "Oh, sir," said the little Pilgrim, "how did you learn to do
it? You have never been there."
"It was the master, not I; and I cannot tell you if he has ever been
there. When the Father has given you that gift, you can go to many
places, without leaving the one where you are. And then he has heard
what the angels say."
"And will they all get safe at the last? and even that great spirit, he
that fell from Heaven--"
The painter shook his head, and said, "It is not permitted to you and me
to know such great things. Perhaps the wise will tell you if you ask
them: but for me I ask the Father in my heart and listen to what He
says."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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