mediate betwixt his pupil and the lovely things he saw.

"I wonder where the penitent thief was all the time," said Leopold.

"Yes, that also is a difficulty. There again come in the bothering
time and space, bothering in their relation to heavenly things, I
mean. On the Friday, the penitent thief, as you call him, was to be
with Jesus in Paradise; and now it was Sunday, and Jesus said he had
not yet been up to see his Father. Some would say, I am too literal,
too curious; what can Friday and Sunday have to do with Paradise?
But words MEAN in both worlds, for they are not two but one--surely
at least when Jesus thinks and speaks of them; and there can be no
wrong in feeling ever so blindly and dully after WHAT they mean.
Such humble questioning can do no harm, even if, in face of the
facts, the questions be as far off and SILLY--in the old sweet
meaning of the word--as those of any infant concerning a world he
has not proved.--But about Mary Magdalene: He must have said the
word TOUCH ME NOT. That could not have crept in. It is too hard for
an interpolation, I think; and if no interpolation, it must mean
some deep-good thing we don't understand. One thing we can make sure
of: it was nothing that should hurt her; for see what follows. But
for that, when he said TOUCH ME NOT, FOR I AM NOT YET ASCENDED TO MY
FATHER, she might have thought--'Ah! thou hast thy Father to go to,
and thou wilt leave us for him.'--BUT, he went on, GO TO MY BRETHREN
AND SAY UNTO THEM: I ASCEND UNTO MY FATHER, AND YOUR FATHER; AND MY
GOD AND YOUR GOD. What more could she want? Think: the Father of
Jesus, with whom, in all his knowledge and all his suffering, the
grand heart was perfectly, exultingly satisfied,--that Father he
calls our Father too. He shares with his brethren--of his best, his
deepest, his heartiest, most secret delight, and makes it their and