Subjugated so long to the untrue, she required to
be for a time, until her spiritual being should be somewhat
individualized, under the genial influences of one who was not
afraid to believe, one who knew the master. Nor was there danger to
either so long as he sought no end of his own, so long as he desired
only His will, so long as he could say, "Whom is there in heaven but
thee! and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee!"
By the time she reached the top she was radiantly joyous in the
prospect of a quiet hour with him whose presence and words always
gave her strength, who made the world look less mournful, and the
will of God altogether beautiful; who taught her that the glory of
the Father's love lay in the inexorability of its demands, that it
is of his deep mercy that no one can get out until he has paid the
uttermost farthing.
They stepped upon the roof and into the gorgeous afterglow of an
autumn sunset. The whole country, like another sea, was flowing from
that that well of colour, in tidal waves of an ever advancing
creation. Its more etherial part, rushing on above, broke on the old
roofs and chimneys and splashed its many tinted foam all over them;
while through it and folded in it came a cold thin wind that told of
coming death. Arctura breathed a deep breath, and her joy grew. It
is wonderful how small a physical elevation, lifting us into a
slightly thinner air, serves to raise the human spirits! We are like
barometers, only work the other way; the higher we go, the higher
goes our mercury.
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