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                        The Strange Little Girl


                         A Story for Children
                               By V. M.


                       Illustrations by N. Roth


                     _The Aryan Theosophical Press
                        Point Loma, California_



                 COPYRIGHT 1911, BY KATHERINE TINGLEY


                            [Illustration]

                     THE ARYAN THEOSOPHICAL PRESS
                        Point Loma, California


[Illustration: IN THE GARDEN OF DELIGHT]




The Strange Little Girl




                                   I


Once upon a time there was a beautiful palace where the king’s children
lived as happily as they alone can live. They never wanted anything and
they never knew that there could be others who were not as happy as
they. Sometimes, it is true, they would hear a story which would make
them almost think that perhaps there was a world beyond, which they did
not know, outside the palace of the king and its gardens, but something
would seem to say that after all it was only a fairy story, and they
would forget that it meant anything that might really be true.

One of the little princesses seemed to think more of these stories of a
world beyond the palace garden than the others, and she would sometimes
find herself gazing at the sun, and wondering if the great world lay
beyond the purple forests where the golden-edged clouds shone like dark
mountains in the distance. And the name of this princess was Eline.

More and more as she thought of these things she felt sure that there
must be a world where things were very different from the happy life in
the palace garden; and in the stories which the children heard she
thought of many things, which, with the others, she used to pass by
without notice. Once they used to hear of no sorrow, no pain, but only
joy and peace. Now, in thinking, she sometimes noticed that there were
things which were not spoken; that there were things passed by in
silence; that there were things which travelers passing through the
palace kept back, as though they knew of much which the children must
not know, and yet which they would have told had they dared.

Questions Eline asked, and the answers seldom satisfied her, for they
never seemed to tell her everything. Every time one of the travelers
left the palace to return on his journey there seemed to be a look of
appeal in his eyes, an appeal which only Eline seemed to see, and which
made her wish to follow them for the very love that shone in the kind
faces of these strangers—strangers who told the children stories of
things they loved—of wonderful fairy worlds where they were not as in
the palace; of worlds where Eline seemed to have traveled many times,
long, long ago.

One day she asked her father, the king:

“Shall I never go out of the palace, never leave the garden of delight
and see the world that lies beyond the cloud-mountains, beyond the
sunset and the whispering forests?”

And the king looked intently at Eline.

“These are strange fancies,” he said. “Are you not happy here in the
garden?”

“Yes, I am happy,” she said, “happier than I can tell. But you have not
answered me. Is there not a world beyond? Shall I ever see it?”

“Some traveler must have been telling you forbidden tales,” said the
king. “These things I have said may not be spoken in my garden.”

“No traveler has told me,” said Eline. “I have seen them looking as
though they would tell me, but could not, of things beyond the garden,
beyond the palace. I have asked them, and they have told me nothing. Yet
I have felt that I long to go with them. I have felt that I remember
strange places, strange sights, things I know not here, when they speak.
Sometimes, even, it seems that I hear a voice like my own repeating a
promise—a promise unfulfilled that must be kept. ‘I will return! I
will! I will!’ it says. And I hear voices calling in the wind, in the
rustling of the leaves, and in the silence of the day, ‘Come back! Come
back!’ And the birds say, ‘Come!’ The pines whisper to me strange
things, and the laughing water in the brooks says ‘Come!’ What does it
mean?”

“I cannot tell you here,” said the king. “But why do you wish to leave
the palace? You are yet young and there are many, many years of
happiness before you. You may stay in the palace where all things are
good, and put these things out of mind. There is another world, but not
for you—yet!”

Eline was troubled, or would have been had such a thing been possible in
the palace of the king.

“May I ever see that land? May I ever leave the palace?”

“The children of the king are free to come and go,” he said. “I may not
keep them if they will not stay; for I know that they will come again.”




                                  II


Again a traveler came to the palace. He brought with him a harp of seven
strings, on which he played to the children. He sang to them for a while
and then for a space was silent. Eline listened to the strange,
beautiful music. And to her it seemed that there was speech in the
harp—that it spoke. The other children seemed to listen to the music,
but to them it did not seem to speak. To Eline there were echoes of
wonderful things the palace knew not; things that the language of the
king could not tell. The harp spoke in a way that the Princess Eline
knew and understood, although there were no words in its tones. There
were sad and sorrowful notes that told of sorrows the palace never knew.
There were strains of music that sounded harsh to the listening ear,
though to the careless they told of happiness alone. And as she
listened, Eline dreamed. Clearer and more clear she felt that the harp
told of a world of men where sorrow and sadness and strife were not
unknown; where joy should be, and was not; where the people groped their
way through darkness and thought it light. “Return! Return!” called the
harp.

[Illustration: “I WILL RETURN”]

And a mighty resolve came to Eline. “I will return! I will! I will!”

She remembered the king’s saying: “The children of the king are free to
come and go,” he had said. “I may not keep them if they will not stay,”
he had told her.

She loved him much; but the call came clear, and she dared not seek him
to say farewell, lest she should be persuaded to remain.

She bowed her head and to the harper spoke:

“I will go,” she said. “I will return with you.”

Then the harp sent forth such a melody of joyous music that it echoed
thrilling through the hot discordant notes of the world beyond the
sunset; and for a moment a chord of harmony ran through the life of men:

“Joy unto you, men of the underworld! Joy unto you, children of sorrow!
Joy unto you, sons of forgetfulness! Joy unto all beings!”

They passed out of the garden together, the musician and the soul.

[Illustration: THROUGH PINE FOREST]




                                  III


Westward they traveled, westward, ever westward. The way was dark and
sometimes dreary, and Eline felt like one awakened from a beautiful
dream before it was ended.

Through the pine forests, over mountains, in deep valleys, and by mighty
streams they traveled. Ever they had the harp to cheer the way, to urge
their footsteps onward. For the path was untrodden where they went.

“There is a path,” the harper said, “a pleasant path and broad, but the
journey is long and we must hasten on our way. To the setting sun, to
the gleaming sea, we must go; nor may we seek a beaten track lest we be
too late.”

A river there was in whose waters were reflected pictures of all that
surrounded them—such crystal clear reflections that sometimes it seemed
as if they looked at real things in the water mirrored in the things
around them.

[Illustration]

And on the waters grew beautiful lotus-flowers, lilies with cup-shaped
leaves. In the blue and white petals of the lotus also there seemed to
be reflections, so clear were they. The musician plucked one of the
cup-like lily-pads and filled it with the water for Eline.

The still surface of the water shone like silver in its green cup as
Eline held it. Then the musician played. Soft and low and sweet were the
notes of that wonderful harp. Scarcely they rippled the surface of the
water, and yet they vibrated, trembled, spread, until picture after
picture came to the surface of the water in colors of every hue.

Scarcely may it be told what Eline saw in the magic cup in the water of
remembrance. She seemed to see herself—and yet another—in picture after
picture. Now she saw herself as part of a golden sea of selves which
made but one self, so lifelike were they, so glorious was their unity.
Then in life after life Eline seemed to see her other selves living and
loving and working, sleeping and suffering and struggling. She saw that
on a day she had made her great resolve to help the world. “I will
return! I will! I will!”

And now she knew what things they were she had seemed to remember in the
king’s garden of delight. Joyously, eagerly, willingly, she saw that she
had determined to return to earth in body after body, to help the men
of sorrow who struggled and slumbered and suffered. She saw that she had
before so done; that her work remained unfinished, to be begun again
where she had laid it down. There was suffering shown to her in the cup;
there were sorrow and grief and pain. But she saw that it must all be,
and was content. For at other times she had desired just such things
that she might know how others felt them, that she might help them the
more with understanding. Happiness she had taken to give to others, and
she must repay the debt. She saw that all things were just, and when the
musician said in a low voice:

“Will you yet proceed?”

“I will!” she said.

“Then drink the cup,” he said, “Drink!”

She drained the green cup of the lotus leaf until scarcely a drop
remained, and with that draught she forgot all things that had been—the
garden, the king, the journey and the vision, and the master
harper—all were forgotten. Only there remained a dim remembrance as of a
dream at dawn forgotten.

[Illustration: DOMES AND SPIRES]




                                  IV


A little ship stood by the shore of the great sea; into this Eline
entered. There were other ships, some better, some worse. But somehow
she knew that just this, and not another, was the ship she wanted, and
none questioned her when she entered.

So they sailed away towards the setting sun.

Long was the voyage and lonely; for the seas ran high and all was dark
below in the heart of the ship. Nine months they sailed on the ocean,
until in the time appointed land appeared. Strange dwellings were there,
domes and spires and crowded cities. With wide, wondering eyes Eline
watched them as the ship passed them by in strange procession; for the
men of that land were like none she knew; none of these things could she
remember. For she had forgotten even her name at the river of
forgetfulness, where remembrances are left in the mirror of the waters
until time and their creator bring them back to life.

It seemed as though one of wise and kindly countenance held her as a
little child in his arms and whispered softly, “Remember! I will return!
I will! I will!” A light of happy recollection came to her and she
smiled in reply. He had spoken in her own language as the harp had
spoken, and strangely, strangely she seemed to see in him the harper
whose music had told her of the sorrowful land beyond the sunset. For
this moment, she remembered, and then the thought departed.

At first the air seemed heavy and oppressive to the wanderer; but by
degrees she grew accustomed to it and even, in time, scarcely felt
it. Yet ever and again a dim remembrance of brighter, purer skies came
to her. She spoke of this more than once; but others only laughed and
said: “The child is dreaming!”

[Illustration]

Because she was no longer dressed in shining garments, they did not know
her for the princess she really was. Indeed, she was no way different
from those around her but that at heart she was still the daughter of
the king. They could not see her heart—this they could not know. And
seeing that they did not understand, she said no more of the thoughts
that came to her. They called it dreaming; but Eline thought that if
this were so, a dream were better than a waking life—unless—

Could these be thoughts that came to her of the world beyond the water,
the reflection of the real life? She knew not.

“We must teach this little dreamer what is life!” they said. “She will
not know what life is if we leave her to her dreams.”

They made her work and made her play: work that never seemed to do
anyone any good, and play that seemed like work. She nearly forgot that
in what they called her dreams she had ever known of another life.

Sometimes she sang to herself, strange songs that they said sounded sad
and sorrowful, yet of a sweetness all their own.

“Where does she hear them?” people asked.

But Eline never told. For the truth was that they came to her in moments
when her thoughts were far away, dreaming.

“She sings like a bird in a cage that knows of a brighter world
outside,” said one. But he was a poet, so they only smiled as if they
themselves would have made the same remark if it had not been so
fanciful.

And though men thought her sad and lonely, there was joy to her in the
hum of the bees and the song of the birds and the rustling of the
leaves. The butterflies and the flowers and the brooks were her friends.

“What a strange child,” people said when they heard her talking to these
friends. They did not know of the stories her friends told her, stories
which reminded her of a wonderful garden of delight where men did not
ever stare and stare in gaping wonder because a little child talked with
the fairies that live in all things beautiful, clothed in robes of
sunlight and rainbow hues.

They would have taken her away from these friends but for one old man,
her grandfather, who said:

“The child will be better for the fresh air. Let her live while she
may.”

So it was that she played and talked with the flowers and sang to the
brooks and listened to the stories of the forest trees that whispered
among themselves. None dared take her away.

One day she had been for a long ramble by a mighty river, and the sun
had sunk to the westward on its journey; but she turned not to the place
she called her home. Tired and worn out with her play, she lay on a rock
and slept.

In her sleep it seemed that a touch upon her forehead awakened in her a
vision of things she once had known, but had now almost forgotten. There
was the king’s garden and the palace, and the other wonderful buildings,
tall and stately—mighty buildings which seemed to speak of mighty
builders, noble thoughts and great men’s deeds. Some were even more
stately, some more humble, than the palace. But in all there was a sense
of grander, nobler life than the life those knew who were with her now,
and who, laughing, called her a dreamer.

And she heard a voice repeating, “I will return! I will! I will!”

Again she smiled as she recognized the voice. A feeling of intense
happiness and content came to her and she—awoke. More than ever it
seemed as if that other were the real life, and this a heavy dream.

[Illustration]




                                   V


The twilight glow still lingered in the west and the evening breeze
called her to thoughts of home.

But she had learned wisdom, and when they asked her where she had been,
Eline said she had fallen asleep in the sunshine on a rock by the great
river. Which was true.

Of her dream she said nothing to any except to the old man who alone
seemed to understand her a little. He did not laugh, but looked with
thoughtful eyes intent, into the distance, away to the starlit sky, and
it seemed to her that he also was trying to remember a forgotten dream
of life. And seeing this she put her hand in his trustingly, and they
two knew well each other’s thoughts though never a word was spoken.

It seemed to the old man that the child was leading him along a familiar
road to a home forgotten—after many weary days of wandering.

“There are some things the heart can say that words can never tell,” he
said to himself when she was gone. “I think we understand one another.”

As time passed by Eline came to know more and more of that other life
and she longed to tell these things to the people who struggled and
surged in hot strife to win the things of the world they knew, never
thinking that there was a happier, purer, brighter world. Some thought
they knew of such a one; but all except a few made it seem like the one
in which they lived—only they made it a little more bright by day, a
little more dark by night, and with a little more success in the strife
for the things that change and pass away. These she would tell of the
nobler life she knew, but they listened not at all.

In due time Eline was sent to school to learn. But her teachers found
little that she did not quickly understand. For one thing she remembered
now plainly, how in the garden of delight everything that was done was
well done—were it the telling of a story or the singing of a song or the
watering of the flowers that grew in that fair land. All was done with a
wonderful thoroughness, and Eline now felt that she must do all things
in that way or leave them quite alone. But often they would teach Eline
things about which she seemed to care little and to understand as one in
a dream. Then they would call her attention to the work only to find
that she was learning to understand a great deal more than they
themselves could tell. It was so with numbers. When they asked her what
the numbers were by name, she not only named them all but told them why
they were so named and what each meant. And so with music. With every
chord she seemed to see harmonies of color, like beautiful pictures too
glorious to paint. And when she said that life itself to her was music,
Eline’s teachers did not understand.

One said: “She has learned these things before in another life.”

Another declared: “She sees the heart of things where we see only the
outer covering. She sees the soul, we the body.”

Perhaps they both were right.

But many gave other reasons for these things and all of them were
gravely discussed. But curiously enough, the two who gave the reasons I
have told, were laughed at and told that such things could not be. So
they said little about their thoughts because, like all those who are
sure that they know the truth, they could afford to wait until their
words were proved to be right.




                                  VI


At first Eline longed to tell the world of better things. She would
gladly have told the world of the glorious masonry of those noble cities
which she saw in her visions—cities where men and women moved like gods;
where sorrow and want and selfishness seemed to be unknown. She longed
to tell them of the harmonies which came to her of music which might
stir a dead world to life, thrilling all nature into blossoms and fruits
in abundance, as the music of a waterfall seems to send life into the
flowers which grow beside. She would have told them of the colors with
which nature loves to paint the sky, the mountains and valleys, sea and
land, when all is ready for the master’s work. For nature paints
wherever the canvas is prepared to receive the picture, and she asks no
price for her work. Eline knew of times in the past—times that will come
again—when man did not ever strive to be rich regardless of his poorer
brothers, but each worked as he was able, all working for the whole
world’s good. And she would have told them how in those times man did
not earn his living by toil unending, by ceaseless pain and sorrow, but
that nature helped him as he helped her, and the earth brought out her
stores of rich fruits for the welfare of her upgrown sons, well knowing
that they in turn with loving service would seek to make nobler and
better that which nature gave to them in charge, birds and beasts,
flowers and trees, plants and stones and all that lives—which is
everything.

Eline saw how the desire to possess more than enough, for the selfish
pleasure of saying, “It is mine!”—how the growth of selfishness in the
world; the love of killing nature’s younger sons for food and pleasure
increased; how the love of ease and forgetfulness of others and of duty
to mother nature—how all these things had chilled the warmth of the one
great life that is in all things, and crippled the mother’s efforts to
help her wayward sons.

Others had told these things; others had striven to show the glorious
light of life that shines behind the cold mist of sin and sorrow which
has been cast like a veil over the earth; but all had been rejected.
Some were ill-received; some were stoned; some were killed.

“How can I raise this humanity which like a great orphan has cut itself
off from its mother and now lies ignorant of the happiness that awaits
its coming?” thought Eline. “I have returned to tell them of the way,
and they will not hear. Others have returned as far as they might and
have been rejected. Others still have boldly plunged deeper yet in the
hot sea of human life and have been lost in its poisonous fumes. Even
so, I will again return, yet lower, if by chance there be a few who will
not reject my message.”




                                  VII


So Eline hid in her heart the things she knew and the things she would
have told, as she had hidden in her soul at the river of forgetfulness
the memory of the king’s garden of delight. And she took her way into
the world with messages of love and of hope, such simple messages as the
children understood, better sometimes than their elders. She told the
children many beautiful fairy stories and they listened eagerly. They
did not know that these were the stories which she had told to the
learned ones of the earth and which were really true, though they had
not believed.

The children listened, and they said: “It is beautiful. Some day we will
seek out such a beautiful world as that of which the stories tell.”

[Illustration: SHE TOLD THE CHILDREN STORIES]

There were houses, too, which they built—little toy houses with toy
bricks. But Eline showed them how to shape the bricks and how to make
each brick fit in its proper place so that never a one should lose its
worth. And Eline showed the children how that behind the building of
beautiful mansions there was the beautiful thought that made the masonry
so noble a work, though it were only toy masonry. And the children
understood.

In their games they had done each his best and they did well. But Eline
showed them games in which they all acted together, even the little ones
helping and sharing. It was wonderful to them that they had not thought
of this before, because now they found that they could do more than ever
they had done when each worked alone and for himself.

Near the city where they dwelt was a vast plain full of great boulders,
which they could have made into a great park and a beautiful garden; but
the people of the city cared not for such things and would not help
them. By themselves they knew not how to move the rocks. So it remained
a waste of wild growth, except in those places where the children had
moved one by one, and with great difficulty, the smaller stones.

Now Eline bid them take a strong rope. “For,” said she, “we will clear
that plain, and it shall be for a dwelling and a garden for all.” She
was thinking of the king’s garden.

The children looked at her in astonishment as though they wondered if
she meant the thing she said.

“We have no rope,” they said, “and none will give us any.”

“There is your rope,” said Eline, pointing out the overgrown plain,
where, amid the rocks in the great patches from which they had slowly
and painfully drawn the smaller stones, grew masses of pale blue
flowers, beautiful, delicate little blossoms, like wind-flowers.

Again the children looked at her, questioningly; not as the people at
first had done, but trustingly, though they knew not what she would have
them do, but sought to learn her wishes.

[Illustration]

So at her bidding they gathered all the ripened stalks of the little
flowers and laid them out in the sun as she directed.

Almost it seemed a pity to destroy the plants. One little worker asked
Eline of this matter for he loved the flowers and was sorry to see them
gathered and dried.

“Does it not hurt the flowers to pluck them?” he asked. “Some say that
you can talk with them as with all living things, and you can tell if
the flowers do not suffer in the gathering, although they are old and
ripe.”

His was a loving heart and Eline saw that he asked this out of no mere
curiosity. Gently she touched his forehead with her finger.

“Look!” she said. “Look and listen, for I have opened the seeing eye to
you.”




                                 VIII


And the boy looked around in wonderment, amazed, and saw that the whole
great plain was full of teeming life which he had not before seen.
Fairies and elves peeped from every flower, gnomes and earthmen worked
and played and danced among the boulders. And where before was silence
but for the rustling of the leaves in the breeze, there rose a murmur of
many voices, like the humming of bees in the sunshine. The boy listened
and at once he knew what the flowers were whispering.

“There is a saying that the flax-people are being used for a mighty
work,” said one little blue fairy to another.

“I heard a bee spreading the news,” said another. “All the flax-people
are asked to give their dresses to help in clearing the plain for a
palace and a garden where kings may dwell—not kings of earth and of
little cities, but kings of wisdom whom nature loves to obey, and we
among her children.”

“Body after body have I grown,” said the other. “I have struggled and
striven to grow useful in this glorious brotherhood of nature, and my
only success seems to be that I have a pretty head. It is good to be
beautiful, perhaps, but I have always thought that I would sacrifice my
beauty for a chance of sharing in noble deeds.”

A butterfly that had stopped to listen now spoke to her:

“You have waited and now you will have your reward. For surely your
body will be taken to help in the work that is going forward. The
flax-people have indeed lived to good purpose.”

“They certainly do not seem afraid to die,” said the boy to himself.

And as if in answer to his whispered thought the little flax-fairy said:

“Of course we are not afraid! I have been told that there are giants of
men who really think that when they leave their worn-out stalks—bodies
they call them—behind, they live no more, or at least are not sure what
becomes of themselves. But it cannot be true—it must be a fairy story!”
laughed the little elf. “They must know, as we know, that all things
sleep awhile and then take new bodies like dresses woven while they
worked in their last awaking which men call life. And then one day we
know that we shall have woven dresses so fine that we shall be free to
leave them as the butterfly leaves his dull-hued robes and spreads his
bright wings for flight into the grand unknown which we all long to
know.”

“But _how_ do you know that these things are so?” asked the boy.

“How do I know that I am alive?” answered the flax-fairy in a murmur.
Fainter grew the voices and the vision faded from the boy’s sight.

He knew not how long it was he stayed there, but after awhile he awoke
with a start to find that Eline was no longer with him, and that he had
slept among the flax in the sunshine.




                                  IX


“It must have been a dream!” he said. But he did not believe it was a
dream—for all his words. And really the flowers seemed to him to bear a
new life after that wonderful vision which came to him when Eline gave
him for an hour the seeing eye.

Working with the others joyfully and happily without a moment’s pause or
one thought of failure, they saw quickly growing an immense heap of
beautiful fine white thread. The children had helped the flax to grow
and now in turn it aided them to clear more ground.

For in no long time all was finished and before them they had a mighty
rope growing greater every day under their Leader’s eye.

One strange thing there was about the rope. For there were golden
threads interwoven which the children did not remember having seen among
the flax. And they wondered.

But Eline only said “It is golden flax.”

Whatever it was, it shone brightly in the sun until it looked like a ray
of real sunlight in the rope.

[Illustration: MAKING ROPE]

One little child said:

“It looks like a brother to the sun!”

“Perhaps it is,” said Eline, and smiled.

The work grew apace. And the play grew apace, because the children
scarcely knew which was work and which was play. They seemed to have
found something better than both. Stone after stone, rock after rock,
was encircled with the cord and triumphantly drawn by that merry army of
children to the edge of the plain. Clearer and clearer grew the space.
Where before the stones had been, little pools of water formed, while
round them grew masses of beautiful flowers, among which was a new crop
of the little blue flax, stronger and better grown than any that had
been there before. Gradually there grew up a great wall of rock around
the plain where the boulders were drawn by the children, for each was
taken to its nearest boundary, as Eline told them this would be the
simplest way to clear the plain.

Some mighty rocks yet remained in the center of the plain but the
children had so seen the wisdom of their Leader that they doubted not
that these too would be removed without difficulty, although how this
was to be done they could not tell.

And as the work was nearing an end they did as their Leader bid them in
perfect trust. Actually they put their ropes around a rock which some
said was like a small mountain. They pulled with a will, but the rock
moved not.

Still they pulled willingly and with all their might, for now they had
grown strong until they scarcely knew their own powers.

From the great city, from the mountains, and from the country round
about, came sightseers and inquirers. At first they only laughed and
talked, and helped not at all. But among them came men of strange
countenance, strong men, wise in looks, men of kingly bearing.

[Illustration: CLEARING THE PLAIN]

These said: “It is not right that these children should work for ever
alone.”

And they too, with strong grip of a strange sort, laid hold of the
golden ropes, seeing which, the idlers too came and helped until with a
mighty song of joy the children saw the great rock move, slowly at
first, then faster, faster, until with a run they had placed it in a far
corner of the great plain, standing like a sentinel to the North.




                                   X


Another and yet others followed. East and South and West the unhewn
boulders stood like guardians of the plain. A circle of twelve yet
remained in the center, like giant pillars supporting the sky. But these
Eline said should stand, as also some smaller ones which were placed
across their tops like great beams resting upon a doorway. How this was
done I cannot say; but there is a saying in the city that, in the night
before they were found placed high above the giant circle, the sound of
a great and joyous song, a hymn of power, was heard like the tones of a
great bell shaking the houses with its vibrations and putting men in
fear of the destruction of their city. But at sunset the children had
not returned from the plain, so that they were not in the city when this
happened. And not until the sunrise did the people flock to the doors
and windows for a glimpse of the joyous army that marched in their
streets. Led by the men of kingly bearing the children marched, singing
a song of triumph, with such shining glory in their faces that all the
people marveled.

Tired they were, and slept; but when in the late noontide the people
asked them what had happened, all seemed like the forgotten glory of a
dream. They could remember little except that they were filled with the
joy of wonderful things which no tongue could tell.

The work had not taken one day, or two, but many days. Months and even
years had passed since the children played together in the sunshine.
Strong and sturdy lads and lasses were they now. A beautiful temple had
arisen within the giant circle, and all around it was a garden of beauty
like no garden which they had seen.

But when Eline looked amid the rare flowers and found a little purple
star with heart of gold, she knew that it was a flower from the king’s
garden, and she was glad that it could grow where all was rock before.
There were great purple pansies, too, like thoughts from the palace in
which Eline had lived.

Now it was that the children came to the temple to learn of Eline, and
she taught them the wonderful truths which she knew; to them she told
the wonderful things that have been and the more wonderful things that
may be, if men will only try to bring them about.

She taught them things so simple that they often wondered why they had
not already known them without the telling. They did not know that there
was a good reason why it should be so. Eline taught them, too, how by
all working together for the welfare and progress of all, there is no
task we may not overcome.

“We know it,” said the children, remembering the waste of rocks in the
plain where now the garden stood and the temple.

“Each by himself can do much, but all working together can move the
world,” she said. “Now I will tell you a strange thing, which is yet
true. For we are not at all separate from any other thing in the world,
but the same nature is in us as in them—in the rocks and the flowers, in
the forests and streams, in city and mountain, in air and fire and
water, just as the rocks and this temple are of the same stone,
although they differ in shape. And if we only will, we can make all our
rocks into beautiful, glorious temples.

“When the world of men has learned this lesson the earth itself will
become a mighty temple, that the wise teachers of old, whom men call
gods, may come to us again and live with us in peace for evermore.

“And it shall be known that music is life, for in music is harmony, and
by harmony all things live, each note in its own place, doing its
perfect work, be it great or small. For this too is a brotherhood of
harmony.”

Because in those days the people listened to the teachings from the
temple and to the great ones who came to dwell therein when it was
finished, and who taught the seekers after truth, through their
messenger Eline, there were happiness and joy and peace in all the land.
Men became nobler as they thought of nobler things than had hitherto
been their custom.

Seeing the beauty of the temple and the mighty work that comes of
aiding nature, working in unity and harmony, they also built their
houses to be like the temple. Stone they used for brick, beautiful they
built them within and without, and they labored to make their dwellings
fit temples for the gods. For it was said among them that sometimes
strangers would visit their city, and seeking entrance, would dwell with
them awhile where they found a welcome. And it was noticed that always
they came to such dwellings as those where the beauty and harmony of the
building showed beauty and harmony within. And when they left the house,
always there seemed to remain a memory of their presence as a ray of
light at sunset leaves a memory of joyous days and a sense of hope for
brighter days yet to come.

When this thing happened the neighbors would gather together and it was
said:

“The Master has built the house.”

Then the great beam which rested on the pillars of the doors was lifted
and where it had stood was built an arch of stone. And last of all was
dropped in place the keystone which held the arch, and there was great
rejoicing, for the people said: “The house is finished.” Some there were
who would have lifted the beam and built the arch, but unless the Master
had been in the house, always some accident would occur and the house be
destroyed.

In the center of the arch was placed a great light which was ever kept
burning, for it was fed with oil of gold which never burns away, but
whose smoke ever turns to oil again. Each light was like the greater
light which ever shone from the dome of the temple, a light to lighten
all around, such light as it was said went out to the world from the
temple itself in the knowledge of the laws of life and of all things
good and great and beautiful. Never was the light to be put out, lest
harm should come. Day and night it was held a sacred duty to guard the
light.

When that light shone there was peace and plenty in the land, for
fellowship made life joyful. Some called that glorious time the Golden
Age; some there are even now among us who will to bring that golden age
again to earth as then, through brotherhood and the joy of life, that
misery shall not always be among us, nor poverty, sorrow, and pain.




                                  XI


But there came a day when messengers from far off lands came over sea a
great journey to the temple. And to Eline they told the despair and want
and the madness of unbrotherliness that men knew in the countries whence
they came, countries where the light shone no longer. Of wars and of
famines they spoke, of poverty, oppression, and crime.

[Illustration: “GUARD WELL THE TEMPLE”]

Eline’s great compassion could not be silent to appeal. “From these
things, I say Humanity SHALL be saved!” said she. “I have a duty here,
but there are guardians in the Temple, and the call comes loud to me
from the world beyond. I will go!”

Those messengers heard with joy of the success of their journey, for
they had traveled far and had overcome many trials and difficulties by
the way. And all the time they had hoped in perfect faith that they
would return with some encouragement to the country whence they came.
And doubtless it was because of the grand faith they showed that Eline
herself answered their call.

“Guard well the temple while I am away,” Eline charged her people. “I
must travel far, but in no long time I will return!—I will return! Be
watchful, therefore, that the light be burning, that the oil fade not.
None can tell the time of the coming, whether it be by night or day.
With your lives must you guard the light!”

She spoke somewhat sadly as it seemed to them, and they supposed she
thought of the great misery and need of those she went to succor in
their distress.

And they answered the more eagerly:

“We will! We will!”

For the first time since it had been built the temple was left without
its head—a sacred trust indeed.

They thought they knew themselves; they thought they knew the evil in
their natures, and the good, did those temple watchers.

And in their surety of knowing they grew careless, so that in no long
time they lost their caution. Some there were who were faithless, and
these began to tell them of their great success; how they had built the
temple; how their industry and labor had succeeded; how well they had
learned to know themselves. Gently they suggested these things, gently
these sayings took root, almost unperceived.

“Our temple which we have built is very mighty. It can never fall,” they
said.

Some few there were who would have spoken for Eline, but they were timid
and afraid of those who talked so boastfully. Wherefore they were
silent. It is true that one or two attempted to recall the noble deeds
of the absent one, and to point out that she had really built the
temple; they had supplied only the labor; yet the fruits of it were
theirs and the world’s.

“True,” said the wicked and faithless ones, “she had a great mind for
building; but she made mistakes. She herself said so. We have learned by
those mistakes and we know. She would have made the temple teachings too
common altogether. Why, she actually began to turn into a teacher of
virtues of which the world is weary, instead of building as at first.
She had taught all she knew, but we can teach greater things, and better
things; we can teach the world twenty different styles of building in
metals, wood, stone, and marble; of ornaments and decorations enough to
last for a century. Thus we honor her; thus we carry on her work and
make it grow—although she made mistakes.”

“Indeed she did make mistakes,” said one, “and the greatest mistake of
all was when she chose such faithless craftsmen for the temple work.
Shame on you!”

“O faithful one!” said they. “Such faith deserves a great reward. To you
we will entrust the duty of finding her. We will give you all you need
for the voyage—a ship and provisions enough for a year!”

[Illustration: ADRIFT ON THE SEA]




                                  XII


So those treacherous ones cast adrift on the ocean the one who remained
faithful. And those others who would have spoken out for their absent
Teacher were silenced against their own better natures. For those wicked
ones had been great among them, and they were afraid.

It was thought that in no long time the winds and the waves would
destroy the little ship with its lonely voyager; yet with stout heart,
knowing that he might not return alone, he held on fearless and
determined. Sometimes it seems that those who so follow the voice of
their inner wisdom in dauntless courage are helped by nature, as though
she ever loves such brave hearts. I have heard the story told how the
great Columbus who found a new world was beset by his followers to
return. How nature sent him messages that he was nearing land—birds and
driftwood, branches of trees and floating weed. He read the message
with the eyes of one who loves all nature well, and promised sight of
land to his men in three days, a promise that was fulfilled.

So it was that the little ship with the one who remained faithful did a
greater work than ever those desired who sent it.

Slowly, slowly, in the Temple, it came about that the guardians forgot
their duty, forgot that they were there to guard the temple in sacred
trust for humanity; and as the wicked ones among them wished, they
busied themselves about many things; but not the one thing needful, the
welfare and the progress of mankind.

How can the tale be told? A tale that is new, yet old—old beyond count
of years.

For the enemies of the world, with whom those wicked ones were leagued,
came suddenly by night, when the sacred lamp which sent rays of hope
over the great ocean was allowed to flicker and to go out. And those
enemies destroyed the temple so that scarcely one stone remained upon
another. And with it were destroyed those weak ones who failed in their
trust. All perished and with them perished for a time the Light of the
World.




                                 XIII


It is said, how truly I know not, that beneath the foundation pillars of
the temple was wisely prepared by Eline a vault, a vast cave wherein
were hidden the most sacred records of the temple and the sacred secret
name which they had forgotten.

To her over the sea came the knowledge of the faithless guard, and in
her agony she called upon that sacred name if by chance the temple
should be saved.

In days of old men knew that there is a power in words, a power now
forgotten. Stories there are which tell of city walls falling at a
trumpet blast, of cities rising as if by magic at a word, of mighty
doors thrown open, of nature spellbound by a song, of mighty names the
jinns and genii of the desert obey.

And this sacred name was such a one as these; for with its whispering a
mighty thrill passed out over the world and the foundations of the sea
were shaken. Vast continents were destroyed, and men said the world was
at an end. Terrible was the time, but Eline knew that it was better so;
for the remnant of the living might one day restore the ancient glory of
that land. But had it been that the land remained, those wicked ones
would have lived and worked to destroy the whole world so that not even
a remnant should be left in the bosom of the waters to re-people the
earth.

After many days, tossed and beaten by the waves, the little ship with
the outcast faithful one came drifting to the land where Eline was.

The winds and the sea conspired, as it seemed, to urge the ship on her
voyage, and the dwellers of the ocean pointed the way, watchful ever and
untiring in their duty. Small as it was, and ill-found, Eline chose this
ship for her return, and once again she came to the place where the
temple had stood—she and that faithful one.

She gazed on the ruins of that sacred spot and sadly looked at the tops
of the mighty pillars just rising above the waves of the sea which at
times filled the arches in between so that no man might pass beneath.

Unseen guards there were, Eline knew, guards who would keep that spot
free for future generations of a world to come. Water-nymphs,
sea-sprites, and earth-goblins, undines, gnomes, and sylphs dwelt there
as sentinels of a sacred trust, and Eline was content to go.

“For,” she said, “the secret vault of the sacred name yet stands intact
until these same faithless ones shall come again, purified by many
wanderings and trials, and shall again guard that new-old temple with
me. That time they shall not fail!”

And a ray of glorious hope shone in her face as she left the ruined
temple.

“I will return!” she said. “I will return!”

[Illustration: “I WILL RETURN”]