"When all was dark and still, I stole like a cat to where she lay bound.I put my hand on her wrist and whispered, `Trust me, and I will take you safely home.' I cut her bonds with my knife, and she looked at me to show that she trusted.Father, by terrible ways that I knew, hidden from the others, I took her safe to the convent gate.She knocked; they opened; and she slipped inside.And, as she left me, she turned and said, `God will remember.'
"That was all.I could not go back to the old bad life, and I had never learned an honest way to earn my bread.So I became a clown, and must be a clown until I die.""No! no! my son," cried the hermit, and now his tears were tears of joy."God has remembered; your soul is in his sight even as mine, who have prayed and preached for forty years.Your treasure waits for you on the heavenly shore just as mine does.""As YOURS? Father, you mock me!" said the clown.
But when the hermit told him the story of his prayer and the angel's answer, the poor clown was transfigured with joy, for he knew that his sins were forgiven.And when the hermit went home to his mountain, the clown went with him.He, too, became a hermit, and spent his time in praise and prayer.
Together they lived, and worked, and helped the poor.And when, after two years, the man who had been a clown died, the hermit felt that he had lost a brother holier than himself.
For ten years more the hermit lived in his mountain hut, thinking always of God, fasting and praying, and doing no least thing that was wrong.Then, one day, the wish once more came, to know how his work was growing, and once more he prayed that he might see a being--"Whose soul in the heavenly grace had grown To the selfsame measure as his own; Whose treasure on the celestial shore Could neither be less than his nor more."Once more his prayer was answered.The angel came to him, and told him to go to a certain village on the other side of the mountain, and to a small farm in it, where two women lived.In them he should find two souls like his own, in God's sight.
When the hermit came to the door of the little farm, the two women who lived there were overjoyed to see him, for every one loved and honored his name.They put a chair for him on the cool porch, and brought food and drink.But the hermit was too eager to wait.He longed greatly to know what the souls of the two women were like, and from their looks he could see only that they were gentle and honest.One was old, and the other of middle age.
Presently he asked them about their lives.They told him the little there was to tell: they had worked hard always, in the fields with their husbands, or in the house; they had many children; they had seen hard times,-- sickness, sorrow; but they had never despaired.
"But what of your good deeds," the hermit asked,--"what have you done for God?""Very little," they said, sadly, for they were too poor to give much.Tobe sure, twice every year, when they killed a sheep for food, they gave half to their poorer neighbors.
"That is very good, very faithful," the hermit said."And is there any other good deed you have done?""Nothing," said the older woman, "unless, unless--it might be called a good deed--" She looked at the younger woman, who smiled back at her.
"What?" said the hermit.
Still the woman hesitated; but at last she said, timidly, "It is not much to tell, father, only this, that it is twenty years since my sister-in-law and I came to live together in the house; we have brought up our families here; and in all the twenty years there has never been a cross word between us, or a look that was less than kind."The hermit bent his head before the two women, and gave thanks in his heart."If my soul is as these," he said, "I am blessed indeed."And suddenly a great light came into the hermit's mind, and he saw how many ways there are of serving God.Some serve him in churches and in hermit's cells, by praise and prayer; some poor souls who have been very wicked turn from their wickedness with sorrow, and serve him with repentance; some live faithfully and gently in humble homes, working, bringing up children, keeping kind and cheerful; some bear pain patiently, for his sake.Endless, endless ways there are, that only the Heavenly Father sees.
And so, as the hermit climbed the mountain again, he thought,--"As he saw the star-like glow Of light, in the cottage windows far, How many God's hidden servants are!"
