Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/120

Rh own accord, at the fourteenth chapter of St John. There is a little folded piece of paper there: it touches the first verse and the twenty-seventh. She sees neither: she reads both out of her soul:—"Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God; believe also in me:" "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto yon." She opens the paper. There is a little brown dust in it; perhaps the remnant of a flower. She takes the previous relic in her hand, made cold by emotion. She drops a tear on it, and the dust is transfigured before her eyes; it is a red rose of the spring, not quite half blown, dewy fresh. She is old no longer. It is not Aunt Kindly now; it is sweet Agnes, as the maiden of eighteen was, eight and sixty years ago, one day in May, when all nature was woosome and winning and every flower-bell rung in the marriage of the year. Her lover had just put that red rose of the spring into her hand, and the good God another in her cheek, not quite half-blown, dewy fresh. The young man's arm is round her; her brown curls fall on his shoulder; she feels his breath on her face, his cheek on hers; their lips join, and like two morning dew-drops in that rose, their two loves rush into one. But the youth must wander to a far land. They will think of each other as they look at the North Star. She bids him take her Bible, He saw the North Star hang over the turrets of many a foreign town. His soul went to God—there is as straight a road from India as from any other spot—and his Bible came back to her—the Divine love in it, without the human lover, the leaf turned down at the blessed words of St John, first and twenty-seventh of the fourteenth chapter. She put the rose there to note the spot ; what marks the thought holds now the symbol of their youthful love. To-day her soul is with him, her maiden soul with his angel soul ; and one day the two, like two dew-drops, will rush into one immortal wedlock, and the old age of earth shall become eternal youth in the Kingdom of Heaven.

is old. His back also is bent. In the street he sees crowds of men looking dreadfully young,