第82章

"Dear Helen, I am very sorry for you; I hope you feel that, even when, according to my want, I fall into arguments, as if one could argue a sorrow away!""You are so happy," she answered."Ernest loves you so dearly, and is so proud of you, and you have such lovely children! I ought not to expect you to sympathize perfectly with my loneliness.

"Yes, I am happy," I said, after a pause; "but you must own, dear, that I have had my sorrows, too.Until you become a mother yourself, you cannot comprehend what a mother can suffer, riot merely for herself, in losing her children, but in seeing their sufferings.Ithink I may say of my happiness that it rests on something higher and deeper than even Ernest and my children.""And what is that?"

The will of God, the sweet will of God.If He should take them all away, I might still possess a peace which would flow on forever.Iknow this partly from my own experience and partly from that of others.Mrs.Campbell says that the three months that followed the death of her first child were the happiest she had ever known.Mrs.

Wentworth, whose husband was snatched from her almost without warning, and while using expressions of affection for her such as a lover addresses to his bride, said to me, with tears rolling down her cheeks, yet with a smile, I thank my God and Saviour that He has not forgotten and passed me by, but has counted me worthy to bear this sorrow for His sake.' And hear this passage from the life of Wesley, which I lighted on this morning:

"He visited one of his disciples, who was ill in bed and after having buried seven of her family in six months, had just heard that the eighth, her husband, whom she dearly loved, had been cast away at sea.'I asked her,' he says, ' do you not fret at any of those things?' She says, with a lovely smile, 'Oh, no! how can I fret at anything which is the will of God? Let Him take all beside, He has given me Himself.I love, I praise Him every moment.'""Yes," Helen objected, "I can imagine people as saying such things in moments of excitement; but afterwards, they have hours of terrible agony.""They have 'hours of terrible agony,' of course.God's grace does not harden our hearts, and make them proof against suffering, like coats of mail.They can all say, 'Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee,' and it is they alone who have been down into the depths, and had rich experience of what God could be to His children there, who can utter such testimonials to His honor, as those I have just repeated.""Katy,' Helen suddenly asked, "do you always submit to God's will thus?""In great things I do," I said."What grieves me is that I am constantly forgetting to recognize God's hand in the little every-day trials of life, and instead of receiving them as from Him, find fault with the instruments by which He sends them.I can give up my child, my only brother, my darling mother without a word; but to receive every tire some visitor as sent expressly and directly to weary me by the Master Himself; to meet every negligence on the part of the servants as His choice for me at the moment; to be satisfied and patient when Ernest gets particularly absorbed in his books because my Father sees that little discipline suitable for me at the time;all this I have not fully learned."

"All you say discourages me," said Helen, in a tone of deep dejection."Such perfection was only meant for a few favored ones, and I do not dare so much as to aim at it.I am perfectly sure that Imust be satisfied with the low state of grace I am in now and always have been."She was about to leave me, but I caught her hand as she would have passed me, and made one more attempt to reach her poor, weary soul.

"But are you satisfied, dear Helen?" I asked, as tenderly as I would speak to a little sick child."Surely you crave happiness, as every human soul does!""Yes, I crave it," she replied, "but God has taken it from me.

"He has taken away your earthly happiness, I know, but only to convince you what better things He has in store for you.Let me read you a letter which Dr.Cabot wrote me many years ago, but which has been an almost constant inspiration to me ever since."She sat down, resumed her work again, and listened to the letter in silence.As I came to its last sentence the three children rushed in from school, at least the boys did, and threw themselves upon me like men assaulting a fort.I have formed the habit of giving myself entirely to them at the proper moment, and now entered into their frolicsome mood as joyously as if I had never known a sorrow or lost an hour's sleep.At last they went off to their play- room, and Una settled down by my side to amuse Daisy, when Helen began again.

"I should like to read that letter myself," she said."Meanwhile Iwant to ask you one question.What are you made of that you can turn from one thing to another like lightning? Talking one moment as if life depended on your every word, and then frisking about with those wild boys as if you were a child yourself?"I saw Una look up curiously, to hear my answer, as I replied, "I have always aimed at this flexibility.I think a mother, especially, ought to learn to enter into the gayer moods of her children at the very moment when her own heart is sad.And it may be as religious an act for her to romp with them at the time as to pray with them at another."Helen now went away to her room with Dr Cabot's letter, which Isilently prayed might bless her as it had blessed me.And then a jaded, disheartened mood came over me that made me feel that all Ihad been saying to her was but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, since my life and my professions did not correspond.Hitherto my consciousness of imperfection has made me hesitate to say much to Helen.Why are we so afraid of those who live under the same roof with us? It must be the conviction that those who daily see us acting in a petty, selfish, trifling way, must find it hard to conceive that our prayers and our desires take a wider and higher aim.Dear little Helen! May the ice once broken remain broken forever.