Philip's Death; or, The Pains of Children

saved by His Precious Blood!

OE,

THE PAINS OP CHILDREN.

Edith was looking out of the window in her own little room. Opposite to her was a beautiful wood of "beech trees. There was not in all England a more glorious wood for mossy banks and wild flowers than the Priory Wood; and none even to come near it for its wonderful purple hyacinths in spring, nor for the tallness of its green and yellow fern in autumn.

Just in sight of her window was a broken bank of white chalk a little way in the wood. It looked as if it had some time or other been a chalk pit. The sun of June was shining on ifc through the tliin transparent beech-leaves, and the white hank looked almost golden in the light. In the spring the crest of that old pit had worn a perfect diadem of the darkest purple hyacinths, and Edith remembered how she and Philip used to go to admire them, when her lessons were over. She had often to coax the nurse very much to let her take Philip so near the edge of the bank, though it was a very little one, and the pit so choked up with mossy earth, that I doubt if Philip would have taken much harm even if he had rolled over.

She remembered also how she had now and then been half vexed with Philip, because he sometimes broke the juicy stalks, and gathered a handful of the flowers, and threw them away as soon as he had gathered them. She believed he only plucked them to enjoy the nice little snap they made, when he broke the stalks.

Now there was but one argument which ever was good with Philip, and that was God. And so she used to tell him that God never plucked flowers unless He wanted them, never plucked them only to fling them away. Edith remembered all this. The spring, with its hyacinths, and new leaves, and boisterous thrushes half choking themselves with singing in a hurry, seemed as if it was only yesterday. And now Philip was dying, dying in terrible pain, and his face was as white as the chalk bank when the sun is not on it, a cold and weary white.

It was plain that Edith had been crying. But the look on her face just then was not a look of sorrow. It was something more painful, and not altogether right. There was a frown upon her brow, which never ought to be seen on a child's forehead; nor indeed on the forehead of a grown-up person. For there is no frowning, when all is peace and pure love within the heart. At length she said out loud, Surely not everything which God does is right. He can be wrong, as well as any body else. I know He can do what He likes. But sometimes He seems to like very dreadful things. He is alwaj^s powerful, but He is not always love.

Edith! said a very sweet voice.

The child started. She had never heard that voice before, and somehow it made her very much afraid. She turned round from the win dow to see who it was, but there was nobody in her room. She looked out of the wood, but there was nobody on the lawn between the wood and herself. She held her breath and listened.

Edith! said the voice, in a tone of love but also of reproach.

Who called me? cried Edith, very much agitated.

It is I, Edith, replied the voice: I, who am your Guardian Angel. I come to reproach you for thinking and saying such things of God.

The Angel then made her sit down. She could not see him, but she felt him at her side, and her fear passed away she did not know why.

Edith! said the Angel, the house is full of Angels, waiting on Philip, and helping him to die. It is like the sanctuary of a church. But the Evil Angel wants to come into this home of holy and peaceful sorrow. Now he never can get into a house, except through a heart; and he is trying to get in through your heart by trying to fill it with wrong thoughts of our Blessed God.

And Edith felt that the Angel bowed very low, and trembled, while he pronounced the Name of God, and his trembling made a kind of hushed music, like the sound she once heard in the piano, when she ran against it in the dark.

Now tell me, said he, what the matter is.

Edith had some difficulty in explaining herself. The Angel knew very well what she was going to say, and could have put it into better words than she did. But he knew also that she would unburden her heavy little heart better if she said it for herself in the best way she could. So she answered as follows:

Mamma sometimes talks of being scandalized. I am not quite sure that I know what she means, but I have tried to make it out; and I think I am now scandalized at God.

No sooner had she said the words than she heard the trembling music of the Angel much more deeply than before. It quite went through her, as if she had been suddenly touched with ice. And for a few moments she could not go on. But the Angel comforted her, and she spoke again.

It seems so dreadful to me that dear Philip should suffer those horrible pains. He has never been naughty. Mamma says he is not old enough to do sins, and I know he loves God very much, and that he will go to heaven because he has been baptized. Oh if you had ever heard him say the Name of Jesus, and seen the sweet smile on his little pale face, when he lisps out, " Baby loves Jesus," it would be quite dreadful to you to see him twisting in bed, with his feet all drawn up, and his poor thin fingers tied up like a knot in a rope, and to hear his piteous moans. God could cure him if He pleased. Why does

He make him suffer such dreadful pains? And poor mamma's face is so shocking when she sees Philip in this way, that it breaks my heart. She says she has done sins, and that God is now punishing her for them, but I do not belie ve she can have done many, and I am sure they must have been very little ones. I really do not think it is right of God to be so cruel to her. It is very hard of Him to take Philip away from her; for she loves Philip ten times more than she loves me, and I am glad of it, because I love darling Philip so much myself. But if God will have Philip, and I know He has a right to him, because poor mamma said so, but she cried dreadfully when she said it, if He wants Philip, why need He put him to such horrible pain? I know it is very wrong, very, very wrong, and I am very wicked; but I cannot bear to see God breaking mamma's heart, and torturing Philip so.

And then Edith burst into a flood of tears.

Kneel down, my child, said the Angel, and before I speak to you, let us say the Our Father together.

The Angel then told Edith to remain kneeling, and she heard the hushed music again. Gradually the room grew dark, and then the Angel made himself visible to her, all glowing with silver light, with a transparent body; and in the midst of it, where his heart should have been, was a great bright sea with a harp rising up out of the waters; and she seemed to hear the billows of that sea beating in the softest thunder upon the shore which was invisible, and somehow she felt that the shore was God.

The Angel laid his hands on her head, and at his touch all the feeling of rebellion against

God went out of her heart, and he spoke to her. Edith! my little one! God is indeed our Father, and He loves us to love Him, and lets us make very free with Him in our love. But we must remember that He is also the great, magnificent, terrible, everlasting God. He is so wide that we cannot see Him all. He is so deep that we cannot see down into the depths of Him. He is so bright that He dazzles us when we look upon Him. There is nothing about Him which we understand perfectly; but what we under stand least of all is His love. There are many things about Him which we Christians are certain of, you men because you believe them, we Angels because we see them; but it is one thing to be certain, and another to understand. Young children have more need than any one else to know this, because God sparkles in their pure souls, and they thus see things within them which the world hinders grown-up people from seeing, and so they ask very strange and very hard questions ahout God. Thus they must remember that, where God is concerned, it is one thing to be certain, and another thing to under stand.

Blessed Angel, said Edith; but do not even you understand God?

No, Edith! although I know so much of God, that the big world is not big enough to hold all I know, and though I see Him in this room at this moment so clearly, that you would drop down dead if you saw Him as I see Him, yet I am so far from understanding Him, that, as a big grain of sand and a little one do not differ much from each other compared with a vast mountain many miles high, so, compared with God, my ignorance and your ignorance look nearly the same. my child! God is very great, unspeakably great, dreadfully great! We must never question His ways. We are certain that all He does is the sweetest and most loving thing that can be done.

But, kind Angel! replied Edith, if I see with my own ejes that it is not loving, but very cruel, as now with Philip's pains, what am I to do then?

My poor child! answered the Angel, you must trust God rather than your eyes. If you both saw and heard and touched a thing, it would not be one hundred thousandth part so certain as what the Church teaches you about God. There is an Angel in heaven, whose name is Michael, who is so strong that his breath would blow a thousand worlds away, and w T hose wisdom is so great that it would frighten you to see the least little blaze of it. He sees deep into God; yet his eye is lost in a brilliant jewelled darkness not a quarter of a quarter of the way down into the depths of God. There is another Angel whose name is Raphael, and who loves men and women, boys and girls, with such a wonderful love, that I do not think he could bear to stay in heaven, if he did not think and know that our dear God was all burning with love for men on earth. It is only one little spark of God's love of men which has fallen into Raphael's spirit, and yet if Raphael spilled only one drop of his love of men upon the earth, I verily believe it would burn the whole world up in less than a minute. Yet both Michael and Raphael totter and tremble with fear, as they stand before God, and look into Him.

Then the Angel trembled, like a poplar tree in the wind, and his countenance changed, and the harp within him sounded over its vast sea, and Edith heard the waves beat faster and louder on the invisible shore. She listened in silence for a while, and then said,

Blessed Angel! but I thought you were all happy, and how can you be happy if you fear so terribly?

For a moment it seemed as if the Angel could not speak, but the harp sounded louder than ever over the sea, and the waves beat on the invisible shore as if there were a storm upon the sea. And the Angel said,

Oh, Christian Child! there is no happiness like the happiness of exceedingly fearing God!

Edith! he continued, you little think what we see and hear in God up in heaven! We see glorious resplendent lights flashing in Him, and breaking in blazes of glory, as if ten thousand suns were rising, and ten thousand suns were setting in Him; all at once. We call these the storms of divine light, though they are not confused and violent like what you call storms on earth. We lie on our faces before them, and almost die of happiness. Sometimes we hear thunders deep down in the darkness of God, and then our harps all cease, and we leave off singing, and we grow very little, and sink down before God as if we were crushed, crushed with glory, and with happiness. But when the divine thunder ceases, all heaven lifts itself up and the harps and the voices burst out in new songs which they have learned in the thunder, so glorious and so loud, and with such a very earthquake of grand music, that it is a wonder the stars do not fly like bees through the dark blue slues, and the mountains of the earth leap into the green sea. Sometimes we feel God touching us, and I cannot tell you what it is like. The great seas, which we have in us instead of hearts, tingle all through, and the waves cease to beat upon the shore, and the harp sinks down into the deep, and there comes such a cairn, such a silver calm, throbbing, throbbing, throbbing in the deeps, that the sea drinks in all our light, and a beautiful night, a beautiful darkness, comes over our spirits; and if you could look into heaven at that moment, you would see the grand power of God all stretched out with great bands round the spirits of the mightiest Angels to prevent their breaking, and spilling their seas, and dying of unspeakable blessedness, because of this little gentle touch of the dear God.

Edith crouched down as the Angel spoke. She did not understand half he said, But she felt herself growing very little, so that she thought she should -almost disappear Into nothing. In deed I think she was dying, but the Angel put his hand into the sea within him, and sprinkled a few drops upon her, as if he had been sprinkling holy \vater, and she revived.

Then the angel whispered something to her; and she rose, and went to her mother, and asked if she might put her bonnet on, and go to Father Paul, and ask him to come into the chapel, and hear her confession. In the chapel the Angel helped her to examine her conscience. She was a long time in the confessional, and when she and Father Paul came out, if any persons had been in the chapel, they might have perceived that both the old priest and the little girl had been weeping. But certainly they were not tears of sadness.

She remained in the chapel to do her penance, and to thank Jesus for His Precious blood, in that sweet Sacrament of Confession.

Then the Angel led her to Philip's room. Neither her mother nor the nurse were there; for some sleeping medicine had been given to Philip, and they knew they could safely leave him for a while. Round his little bed were chintz curtains, lined with pink calico. Her mamma liked to deceive herself in this way, and Philip certainly looked less pale, when the pink flush of the curtains fell upon his wan and interesting face. The Angel parted the curtains, and told Edith to come and look. She drew near, but suddenly started, and fell upon her knees, and said, merciful God! what is this? For instead of Philip she saw the Infant Jesus in the bed, with a crown of thorns on His Head, and a rosy wound in one of His tiny hands, which lay outside the bed-clothes; the other hand was under His Head, so she could not see it. She trembled all over, and began to weep sweet tears. And the Angel looked at her, and smiled, and disappeared.

That night there was a very high wind. The house seemed to rock like a cradle. Several large trees were blown down. The rooks in the rookery were blown out of their nests, like stones hurled from a sling, and they cawed and clamoured dismally, which was a strange sound in the dark night. Edith rose, and crept to her mother's room: but her mother was not there. But she saw the door of Philip's room ajar, and she peeped in, and her mother was sitting on a low sofa, with the dead body of Philip across her knee. Poor Edith! she ran up and threw herself upon her little brother, and cried as if her heart would break. Then the nurse took her by the hand, and led her to her room, and one of the servants came and sate by her bed-side.

Edith cried herself to sleep; and when she slept, she dreamed. She dreamed that she was in Philip's room, and on the low green sofa sate our Blessed Lady, with the dead Body of the crucified Jesus on her lap, and Philip's Guardian Angel stood near, and was playing a sweet song to God upon his harp. And on the bed was a small white coffin, in which Philip was lying, strewn over with flowers; and as he lay in his coffin, he did not look like a boy, but like the whitest of white angels, with his wings folded by his side. Then she saw heaven open; and she saw the living Jesus on His throne, with His Mother near Him on her throne, and she exclaimed, Two Christs, two Maries, two Philips! for Philip also was there. She was puzzled whether earth was in heaven, or heaven upon earth. Ah! this is always the puzzle of loving and believing hearts, even when they are grown up!

Jesus was sending millions of angels to souls on earth that were in sorrow, or in want, or in sin. He gave the Angels graces to give them, and Edith saw that the graces came out of Philip's pains, which rose and fell with a sweet splashing murmur, like a fountain, just before the throne of Jesus. When the Angels had gone oui- Lord filled both His hands from the foun tain, and sprinkled the water upon the earth, and it fell all over, into heathen lands as well

> 7 as Christian, and wherever it fell, some child got baptism, who would not else have got it. So they got it through Philip's pains. Then Edith looked up into our Lady's face, and behold! on our Lady's lap lay Philip, as if he were a wonderful dark blue hyacinth. It was a hyacinth, yet somehow she knew it was Philip, and our Lord leaned over His Mother, and smelled at the sweetness of the hyacinth, and smiled as if it pleased Him exceedingly. And Edith looked up into the Face of Jesus, and behold! it was so beautiful that it awoke her.

Then Edith remembered the chalk pit in the beech wood, and how she had said to Philip, prophecying true prophecies without knowing it, as we so often do, that God never plucked flowers unless He wanted them, never plucked them only to fling them away!