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By Root 2217 0

Suddenly there stood beside him a small boy who shone with brightness, and was as beautiful and kind as an angel. The child smote his little hands together, until Peter was forced to look up and see him. Then the child said: “Why are you sitting there in such trouble?” “Alas!” answered Peter, “I am going about the world seeking bread, that I may yet see the dear Savior who is promised, that is my greatest desire.” The child said: “Come with me, and your wish shall be fulfilled.” He took poor Peter by the hand, and led him between some cliffs to a great cavern. When they entered it, everything was shining with gold, silver, and crystal, and in the midst of it twelve cradles were standing side by side. Then said the little angel: “Lie down in the first, and sleep a while, I will rock you.” Peter did so, and the angel sang to him and rocked him until he was asleep. And when he was asleep, the second brother came also, guided thither by his guardian angel, and he was rocked to sleep like the first, and thus came the others, one after the other, until all twelve lay there sleeping in the golden cradles. They slept, however, three hundred years, until the night when the Savior of the world was born. Then they awoke, and were with him on earth, and were called the twelve apostles.

The Rose

THERE WAS once a poor woman who had two children. The youngest had to go every day into the forest to fetch wood. Once when she had gone a long way to seek it, a little child, who was quite strong, came and helped her industriously to pick up the wood and carry it home, and then before a moment had passed the strange child disappeared. The child told her mother this, but at first she would not believe it. At length she brought a rose home, and told her mother that the beautiful child had given her this rose, and had told her that when it was in full bloom, he would return. The mother put the rose in water. One morning her child could not get out of bed. The mother went to the bed and found her dead, but she lay looking very happy. On the same morning, the rose was in full bloom.

Poverty and Humility Lead to Heaven

THERE WAS once a King’s son who went out into the world, and he was full of thought and sad. He looked at the sky, which was so beautifully pure and blue, then he sighed, and said: “How well must all be with one up there in heaven!” Then he saw a poor gray-haired man who was coming along the road towards him, and he spoke to him, and asked: “How can I get to heaven?” The man answered: “By poverty and humility. Put on my ragged clothes, wander about the world for seven years, and get to know what misery is, take no money, but if you are hungry ask compassionate hearts for a bit of bread; in this way you will reach heaven.”

Then the King’s son took off his magnificent coat, and wore in its place the beggar’s garment, went out into the wide world, and suffered great misery. He took nothing but a little food, said nothing, but prayed to the Lord to take him into his heaven. When the seven years were over, he returned to his father’s palace, but no one recognized him. He said to the servants: “Go and tell my parents that I have come back again.” But the servants did not believe it, and laughed and left him standing there. Then said he: “Go and tell it to my brothers that they may come down, for I should so like to see them again.” The servants would not do that either, but at last one of them went, and told it to the King’s children, but these did not believe it, and did not trouble themselves about it. Then he wrote a letter to his mother, and described to her all his misery, but he did not say that he was her son. So, out of pity, the Queen had a place under the stairs assigned to him, and food taken to him daily by two servants. But one of them was ill-natured and said: “Why should the beggar have the good food?” and kept it for himself, or gave it to the dogs, and took the weak, emaciated beggar nothing but water; the other, however, was honest, and took the beggar what was sent to him. It was little, but he could live