A Story from the Sand Dunes

Every Sunday he accompanied the family to church, and sat quietly with a blank face. Once, during the psalm singing, he sighed deeply, and his eyes took on life. He was gazing at the altar, at the very spot where, over a year ago, he had knelt beside his dead friend; his face turned white, his lips murmured her name, and the tears rolled down his cheeks.

They gently led him from the church, but he told them that he was well, and that he had no recollection of what had happened. Poor soul, tried indeed, but not rejected by our Lord! For who dares doubt that God, our Creator, is all-wise and all-loving? Our heart and our mind give us this truth, and the Bible confirms it. "His mercy is over all His works."

In Spain, where gilded Moorish cupolas are fanned by the warm breezes amid laurels and orange trees, and where song and castanets are heard, a childless old man, the rich merchant, sat in his beautiful palace, sadly watching a procession of pretty children passing through the street with torches and waving banners. How much of his wealth would he not give to have such children himself! He thought of his daughter and her child who perhaps had never seen the light of this world, hence would never attain the glory of paradise. "Poor child!"

Yes, "Poor child!" indeed- a child still, though past thirty years old; for Jörgen had lived thus for many years in Old Skagen.

The flying sand had drifted over the graves in the churchyard up to the very walls of the church; here among those who had gone before them, among relatives and friends, the dead were still being buried. Merchant Brönne and his wife now rested here under the white sand, among their children.

It was early in the year, the time of storms; the sand curled up like smoke from the sand dunes; the ocean tossed huge waves; large flocks of birds, like storm clouds, flew screaming overhead, and ship after ship was wrecked on those fatal reefs that stretched along the coast from Skagen to the Hunsby sand dunes.

One afternoon, as Jörgen sat alone in his room.