This audio was created with an artificial voice for the Audiobook Initiative on Sermon Audio, Chapter 31, Sunset. And now I am getting very near the end of my story, and I am not going to tell you very much more. It is not because there is little to tell, for I could find a very great deal to say about the weeks following Geoffrey's return, But I think it might seem sad to you, although, looking back upon that time, it does not look sad to me, and I do not want you to think my story a sorrowful one, but to carry away a bright and happy impression of what I have told you. Those weeks of my second springtime at Hazelmere were very happy ones to me. We were not boisterously merry, as we had sometimes been last year in Arthur's company, but we were quietly happy for the most part, living in greater peace and unanimity of feeling than we had ever done before. Sometimes there were sad moments when the recollection of former things would come too forcibly upon us. I remember how such a moment came one bright morning late in April, when Geoffrey was out in the garden in his chair, and we suddenly heard for the first time for many long months a sweet familiar note. The cuckoo, cried Geoffrey, lifting his head suddenly, his face aglow and his eyes full of eager welcome. The cuckoo. And then all in a moment the tide of recollection swept over him, and to a certain extent over me, of past days when he first had heard the sweet, soft call. What a sense of joy it had always brought, and how he had gone bounding homewards to tell Aunt Mary or Ted or anyone he met how he had heard the cuckoo. I thought of how he had taken me down one lovely day last spring into the little wood to listen for the first time to its note. I thought of him as he was then, strong and active and full of life and vigour, and now, almost timidly, I stole a glance at him. The colour had quite faded from his face. It was very pale, and the lips that always smiled so bravely were trembling now with feelings he tried in vain to repress. I did not know what to say or do, I could only look helplessly at him in mute distress, and then, with a sudden sense of relief, I saw that Aunt Mary was close at hand. "'Oh, Aunt Mary,' cried Geoffrey unsteadily, "'the cuckoo has come back again.' And then he burst into a passion of tears, laid his head upon her shoulder as she knelt beside him and folded her arms about him, and cried as though his heart would break. These were almost the first tears I had seen Geoffrey shed since he had come back to us, and mine flowed freely from sympathy. But I knew that Aunt Mary could always comfort him and so I stole quietly away, leaving them alone together. It was not often that Geoffrey gave way. Indeed, that was the only time I remember to have seen him deeply moved. Generally he was delighted at any new proof of the coming summer. It was always to him we brought the first blossom of every budding plant, as day by day they bloomed into their lovely life. The first cluster of the little creamy banksia rose. His own hands had planted against the western wall of the old orchard. The first forget-me-not from the sheltered nook in the stream, the first wild rose from the little woodland dell. And each flower was received with eager hands, and the closest enquiries were made as to the exact spot in which it had been found. There were very many places which he dearly loved and which it was now impossible for him to visit. But so clear was his mental picture of every tree, of almost every flower and blade of grass, as it seemed to me, that when we told him what there was to see, it was almost as though he were looking at it through the medium of our eyes. Those days, as I have said, were happy ones for us all. I think it was some time before it struck any of us that, so far from getting stronger, Geoffrey was growing gradually, yet very steadily, weaker day by day. The change was so gradual that it was a very long while before it dawned upon any of us boys what it must mean, this gentle decline of strength. I think Aunt Mary knew it very soon. She was so wonderfully tender over Geoffrey. It seemed as though she could hardly bear him out of her sight, and I used often to wonder why her eyes filled with tears as she watched him and heard him talk. Uncle Reginald, I think, refused for a long while to believe the truth, and clung with desperate tenacity to the hope that all would yet be well, and that this weakness was only the natural result of the wasting illness and the shock of an operation. He had many doctors down to see Geoffrey, And by degrees, I suppose, he gathered that his hopes were vain, and a very heavy cloud often rested upon his brow. I think Geoffrey himself knew as soon as anyone, but he did not speak of his thought. Thinking over those days, it often strikes me now that it must have been in part this knowledge that kept him so serene and happy, No laminis, no trouble could seem very bad to him when he knew it would not last long, and Geoffrey had no dread of death. His faith and love were too simple and too strong. I think the first suspicion of the truth came upon me in this wise. Geoffrey was lying out of doors upon his couch, and I was sitting beside him on the grass. We were watching the peafowl strutting about, and laughing to see the peacock spread his tail and try to gain the notice and admiration of his mate, who was too much interested in digging up worms to pay the least heed to her lord and master. The young peafowl were pecking about too, and I suddenly turned to Geoffrey and said laughingly, Are you not in a great hurry for next year to come that we may see their tails grow? Such a strange expression passed over his face that I gazed at him in amazement. Geoffrey, what is it? Why do you look so? "'When next year comes,' said Geoffrey, his eyes looking oh so far, far away, "'I shall be seeing, I think, such different things.' I did not grasp his meaning. I had heard discussions about taking him right away out of England for change of air and scene, and I thought he must be alluding to that. Are you going away, Geoffrey? I think so. Oh, I didn't know. I am sorry. Shall you be glad or sorry? I shall be sorry to leave you all, he answered steadily, but I think I shall be glad to go. Will you? Who is going with you? Aunt Mary, I suppose. No, he answered dreamily. I shall have to go alone, at least not alone really, but for a little way it will seem like going alone. I turned and stared at him in mute astonishment, and he continued in the same tone. And then I shall not be lame any more. Like a flash of light breaking in upon a dark night, I saw it all, but would not understand without passionate resistance. Jeffrey, Jeffrey, don't! Oh, Jeffrey, you shan't go, you mustn't go. But he lifted his hand. His gesture and sweet yet weary smile stopped me. Don't, Arnold, please. You mustn't talk so. Don't want me to stay if you can help it. It would be so hard to grow up lame, and there I shall be so happy. But I could not yet be unselfish. My sorrow was too fresh. Why do you want to leave us? I cried. How can you? Don't you love us? Oh, yes, yes, I love you all very dearly. But Arnold, you know I love God better. I think he is being very good indeed to me. For a moment I was silent, battling with my feelings, but I could not conquer them. Pain and sorrow and a feeling almost like indignation against God himself were too strong to be subdued, and again I cried passionately. I don't then, and I don't see how you can. Oh, Geoffrey, Geoffrey, I can't bear it, and you said once it was so sad to die in the spring when everything was so beautiful. It made you sorry for the crows. Oh, Geoffrey, don't die. We can't spare you. It would be too dreadful. Oh, do stay with us. Arnold, dear, don't. And his face was very wistful and pleading now. You know it is God who decides, not I, and so it must be right. And you ought to know that it is the best, for you know what it is like to be lame. But it didn't make me want to die. I didn't say I wanted to exactly, but that if God makes it so, I know it is best. But in the spring I began in a choked voice, and then such a smile shone over Geoffrey's face as he answered almost gladly, Sometimes I think he will make it always springtime where I am going. After that I felt I could say no more. I do not know how nor when, Geoffrey told the others. I only know that gradually it seemed clear to everyone that he would not be with us very much longer, that the journey he would soon have to take would be one from which there would be no return, that when he left us we should see his face no more. Perhaps it was because the knowledge came so gradually, perhaps it was because he himself was so peaceful and content, But from some cause or other the understanding at which we had all arrived did not seem to make us as miserable as I once should have thought, and yet at the same time I am sure we all grew to love Geoffrey more devotedly day by day. Now and then, but very seldom, he spoke to us upon the subject on which we all thought so much. "'I want you not to be very sorry,' he said one day. "'I know you will miss me, and I know you will not forget me. I should like to think that you will talk about me sometimes, and remember the things we have done together and spoken about. And you will be very kind to all the animals, won't you?' We all assented very emphatically." Arthur, he went on, I have asked Papa and Uncle Fred, and I want you to have Lightfoot. You know you do drive him now, and very soon he will let you ride him, I think, for he is getting very fond of you, I can see, and I know you will be very good to him. Arnold, you are to have all the chickens, because we have fed them so often together, and there are a lot of books for you too. Aunt Mary knows all about them. Ted, you will have everything else, except what Aunt Mary has put aside for the servants and my friends, and King must be yours too. Please be very, very kind to him. "'For I know he will be so miserable. Sometimes I wonder if he may not die too.' "'We shall all be miserable,' said Ted with a little sob. "'Oh, but you mustn't,' answered Geoffrey quickly, "'because you know where I have gone and how happy I shall be, "'and you will come too by and by, and then we shall wonder why we minded so much.'" But, Geoffrey, it is so sad to die young. No, Ted, it isn't, not a bit, especially for anyone like me. I think it is just as though we were soldiers, and we are soldiers in one way, you know, Christ's soldiers and servants, and as though we just had our marching orders. Soldiers don't grumble and get miserable when they are called away from their homes to follow their leader. And when our leader calls us, we ought to be glad to go out to him. Oh, Geoffrey, you are so brave and good. No, I am not. It is not that. It is that God is so good he makes it all seem easy. Are you not afraid?" Oh, no, and the look on his face was answer enough without words. I can't think how it is you are not. It was Arthur who spoke now. When you love God very much, answered Geoffrey with a little smile, then you will understand. Geoffrey, said Arthur gravely, I used to think a great many horrid things about you, and to say worse, but now I feel as though I'd give anything in the world to be like you. Geoffrey smiled again in his sunny way, just as he used to do long ago. You have only got to love everything very much then, he answered. For that's the only thing I can think of that made the difference between us. Only I should like to think that you would all be very much better than I am, because I hope you will all have a longer time to try in. This was the kind of way in which Geoffrey talked to us, frank, matter-of-fact, and simple as ever. We could not, in the face of it, feel very sad, or shrink back with painful dread from the thought of the dark, lonely journey which he was so glad and so willing to take. And the end, when it came, was so very peaceful that it was not like death at all. We all knew that it must be near at hand, because he was so very, very weak, and every day his little remnant of strength seemed visibly to ebb away. But still, as he pleaded so hard for it, he was carried out towards evening and laid upon his couch on the shady lawn, in a place from which he could watch the sun sink to rest We were all with him on one particularly lovely evening. Aunt Mary was sitting upon the couch and his head rested on her shoulder. Uncle Reginald was seated close by holding his hand. Ted, Arthur and I lay upon the grass. The birds were singing softly and sweetly around us. The breath of the laurel blossom filled the air with fragrance. The sky was one blaze of gorgeous colours which changed and shifted each moment only to increase in beauty with each new combination of moving cloud. Isn't it lovely? Geoffrey had said softly once or twice, and he had stroked King's head with his feeble hand and said, poor old fellow, how faithful he is. "'Arnold, Arthur, Ted,' he said presently, "'it's the loveliest sunset we've ever watched together, don't you think?' We all said yes, turning our faces to him for a moment, and then back to the sky. There was silence for a time, and then we heard his voice speaking very softly and dreamily, Are you there, Papa? I think I have been asleep, but it is very beautiful. It is not like it was just now. Look, Aunt Mary, it is like what it said in our chapter this morning, a sea of glass mingled with fire. How beautiful it is. I do love beautiful things. There was another silence, and then Aunt Mary's voice broke it. Children, she said gently, you had better go indoors. We started and looked round. Geoffrey's head lay still upon her shoulder. His eyes were closed. His face was so peaceful and so beautiful and so very, very still, that as we gazed, we knew quite well what had happened. It was nothing sad or dreadful. It was only that the father had called his child, and whilst we were watching the sunset sky, Geoffrey had gone home. Well, that is my story, and it has taken longer in the telling than ever I thought it would. I see your face is a grave, and there are tears in the eyes of one little maiden. And yet I say now, as I said at first, that I do not call my story a sad one. And the older I grow, the less sad it seems to me, and the more bright does the picture look when I turn and gaze at it with the eye of memory. Well, I have lived a good many years since those days of which I have been speaking, and I have made many friends since then, and amongst those friends have been many from whom I have received much help and learned many valuable lessons. And yet I think that none have taught me more or helped me as much as that one friend of my boyhood whom I lost after one short year of companionship. Sometimes I wonder what it was about Geoffrey that seemed to make him different from other boys, and I have come to the conclusion that it was his self-forgetfulness and his deep unselfish love for everyone about him and for every living thing that crossed his path. He seemed never to think of himself but always of others, and yet nothing surprised him more than to be called good. It is always, you will find, the best and bravest men who think least of themselves, and it is those, too, who are the kindest and the gentlest to all around them, even down to the birds and wild creatures with which they may have to do. And now, boys, I am not going to preach to you, and if the moral of my story is not plain enough without explanation, I shall think that either you or I have made a mistake somewhere. But one thing I will say. I want you all to aim very high in your lives, in the lives upon which you are now entering, and to follow as closely as ever you can, in the footsteps of one who lived on earth, a man amongst men, to be our pattern as well as our saviour. But some amongst you may say, or may think, that you cannot rise to so high a standard, at any rate not except by very slow degrees, that it bewilders you to aim so high, and that you grow discouraged thinking of your measureless inferiority to the one whom you would fain copy. Well, boys, such a feeling is very natural. I suppose we have all experienced it at various times, and we all know what it is like. But at least I may bid you do this. You can all of you try to follow the example of one who was a boy like yourselves, with all your feelings and all your failings of nature, and who yet overcame so many of these and taught so many lessons of gentle, generous forbearance to those around him. Yes, children, you can all do this, even the least, the youngest and weakest. And I think there is not one amongst you who will not grow to be a happier boy or girl, and a braver man or woman, by trying to be a little more like the boy of whom I have been telling you, more like Geoffrey. The end. This audio was created with an artificial voice for the audiobook initiative on Sermon Audio. There may be mispronunciations or occasional repetitions. To report a mistake please email us at info at sermonaudio.com and include the sermon ID or title of the message and the time at which the error occurs. We will do our best to get it corrected for future listeners.