第89章

And yet I am leaving directions about its disposal!"I said I was glad that she was still human but that I did not think it a weakness to take thought for the abode in which her soul had dwelt so long.I saw that she was tired and was coming away, but she held me and would not let me go.

"Yes, I am tired," she said, "but what of that? It is only a question of days now, and all my tired feelings will be over.Then I shall be as young and fresh as ever, and shall have strength to praise and to love God as I cannot do now.But before I go I want once more to tell you how good He is, how blessed it is to suffer with Him, how infinitely happy He has made me in the very hottest heat of the furnace.It will strengthen you in your trials to recall this my dying testimony.There is no wilderness so dreary but that His love can illuminate it, no desolation so desolate but that He can sweeten it.I know what I am saying.It is no delusion.I believe that the highest, purest happiness is known only to those who have learned Christ in sick-rooms, in poverty, in racking suspense and anxiety, amid hardships, and at the open grave."Yes, the radiant face, worn by sickness and suffering, but radiant still, said in language yet more unspeakably impressive,--"To learn Christ, this is life!"

I came into the busy and noisy streets as one descending from the mount, and on reaching home found my darling Una very ill in Ernest's arms.She had fallen, and injured her head.How I had prayed that God would temper the wind to this shorn lamb, and now she had had such a fall! We watched over her till far into the night, scarcely speaking to each other, but I know by the way in which Ernest held my hand clasped in his that her precious life was in danger.He consented at last to lie down, but Helen stayed with me.What a night it was! God only knows what the human heart can experience in a space of time that men call hours.I went over all the past history of the child, recalling all her sweet looks and words, and my own secret repining at the delicate health that cut her off from so many of the pleasures that belong to her age.And the more I thought, the more I clung to her, on whom, frail as she is, I was beginning to lean, and whose influence in our home I could not think of losing without a shudder.

Alas, my faith seemed, for a time, to flee, and I see just what a poor, weak human being is without it.But before daylight crept into my room light from on high streamed into my heart, and I gave even this, my ewe-lamb, away, as my free-will offering to God.Could Irefuse Him my child because she was the very apple of my eye? Nay then, but let me give to Him, not what, I value least, but what Iprize and delight in most.Could I not endure heart-sickness for Him who had given His only Son for me! And just as I got to that sweet consent to suffer, He who had only lifted the rod to try my faith laid it down.My darling opened her eyes and looked at us intelligently, and with her own loving smile.But I dared not snatch her and press her to my heart; for her sake I must be outwardly calm at least.

JUNE 6.-I am at home with my precious Una, all the rest having gone to church.She lies peacefully on the bed, sadly disfigured, for the time, but Ernest says he apprehends no danger now, and we are a most happy, a most thankful household.The children have all been greatly moved by the events of the last few days, and hover about their sister with great sympathy and tenderness.Where she fell from, or how she fell, no one knows; she remembers nothing about it herself, and it will always remain a mystery.

This is the second time that this beloved child has been returned to us after we had given her away to God.

And as the giving cost us ten-fold more now than it did when she was a feeble baby, so we receive her as a fresh gift from our loving Father's hand, with ten-fold delight.Ah, we have no excuse for not giving ourselves entirely to Him.He has revealed Himself to us in so many sorrows and in so many joys; revealed Himself as He doth not unto the world!