Twilight And Dawn | Page 8

light, and stretched out your little
clasping fingers, your first cry, and every movement of your little body,
showed that you were alive. Then, by-and-by, the nurse said, "Hush,
baby is asleep!" and everyone moved about softly, so as not to wake the
little creature, who had not been there yesterday, the baby whose life
had just begun, the little traveller who had just started on its journey
through time to the great eternity beyond.
But you knew nothing about this; only your mother knew, as she
watched you in your sleep, that one more tiny vessel had been launched
upon that stream which flows on, on, till it meets the ocean which has
no shore--the time which never ends.
I remember, a very long time ago, how fond I used to be of making
boats. Not far from where I lived a real ship was being built, and I used
to watch how it was made, and think that when I grew up I should like
above all things to be a shipwright, for I had heard someone say that
was the name of the man who was building this beautiful vessel. Of
course, the boats which my brother and I used to make were only toy
boats--we generally made them of paper--but however small they were,
we were very particular to give each of them at least three tall masts.
Then, when it came to sailing them, we had to be content with any
water we could find, and generally these three-masted vessels made
very short voyages, from one side of a big tub to the other; and though,
by rocking the tub, we used to manage to make pretty stormy weather
for them, they generally reached the end of their voyage in safety. It
was quite another thing when we set our vessels afloat upon what we
thought a real river, like the Thames or the Severn; but it was only a
brown stream, which, ran along the bottom of a meadow, and was
crossed, not by a bridge, but by stepping-stones. Sometimes, on a
lovely day in June, we were allowed to go down to our river, and we
used to sit for hours among the flags which grew beside it, hidden by
the tall reeds and the yellow flowers, making little green boats out of
the broad leaves of the flags, while the sound of "Cuckoo, cuckoo"

came from the orchard close by.
When we had made as many boats as we could carry, each with a
curly-whirly bit of a leaf for its sail, we used to balance ourselves
carefully on the stones--for we knew that if we got wet we should not
be allowed to go to our river again--and launch our little fleet, one by
one, on the brown water, and then eagerly watch each green vessel
upon its course. We wanted them to sail across to the other side; but I
need not tell you that the river water was very far from being so calm as
the water in the tub, and I do not think many got safely over.
One little boat would start off very straight, and then suddenly stop
because it had run against some hidden rock; the greater number, in
spite of all our efforts to steer them, would get into the current, and so
be carried down the stream out of our sight; while some at once turned
on their sides, got filled with water, and became dismal wrecks.
I can remember well how happy we were in spite of all such disasters
and losses!
But we should have been surprised indeed in those days if anyone had
told us, as we launched our boats, and watched them sail away from
land--to "America" or "India," or any of those far-away places where
we used to pretend they were going--that we were like those boats of
ours. And yet it would have been true, for we too had been launched;
the voyage of life had begun for us; and every birthday that came found
us a little farther from the place from whence we had started--a little
nearer to the end of the voyage, the place whither we were bound. Yes,
in this sense you and I and all the people in the world are voyagers on
the stream of time. But this voyage of our life--how long will it be?
That is one of the things which no one can tell. God alone knows.
In one sense the story of your life may be soon told; your little voyage
down the stream of time may be very short, and your boat may reach
the great ocean of eternity before many birthdays have come and gone.
But in another sense it is a story without an end;