and the town was saved, and he
became a great king. It was so secret that even the angels did not know
it. But without that child the history would not have been complete."

"And is he here?" the little Pilgrim said.

"Ah," said the historian, "that is more strange still; for that which
saved him was also to his harm. He is not here. He is Elsewhere."

The little Pilgrim's face grew sad; but then she remembered what she had
been told.

"But you know," she said, "that he is coming?"

"I know that our Father will never forsake him, and that everything that
is being accomplished in him is well."

"Is it well to suffer? Is it well to live in that dark stormy country?
Oh, that they were all here, and happy like you!"

He shook his head a little and said,--

"It was a long time before I got here; and as for suffering that matters
little. You get experience by it. You are more accomplished and fit for
greater work in the end. It is not for nothing that we are permitted to
wander; and sometimes one goes to the edge of despair--"

She looked at him with such wondering eyes that he answered her without a
word.

"Yes," he said, "I have been there."

And then it seemed to her that there was something in his eyes which she
had not remarked before. Not only the great content that was everywhere,
but a deeper light, and the air of a judge who knew both good and evil,
and could see both sides, and understood all, both to love and to hate.

"Little sister," he said, "you have never wandered far; it is not needful
for such as you. Love teaches you, and you need no more; but when we have
to be trained for an office like this, to make the way of the Lord clear
through all the generations, reason is that we should see everything, and
learn all that man is and can be. These things are too deep for us; we
stumble on, and know not till after. But now to me it is all clear."

She looked at him again and again while he spoke, and it seemed to her
that she saw in him such great knowledge and tenderness as made her glad;
and how he could understand the follies that men had done, and fathom
what real meaning was in them, and disentangle all the threads. He smiled
as she gazed at him, and answered as if she had spoken.

"What was evil perishes, and what was good remains; almost everywhere
there is a little good. We could not understand all if we had not seen
all and shared all."

"And the punishment too," she said, wondering more a