"I love you," he said, "and love you to all eternity! I have love
enough now to live upon, if you should die to-night, and I should
tarry till he come. O God, thou art too good to me! It is more than
my heart can bear! To make men and women, and give them to each
other, and not be one moment jealous of the love wherewith they love
one another, is to be a God indeed!"
So said Donal--and spoke the high truth. But alas for the love
wherewith men and women love each other! There were small room for
God to be jealous of that! It is the little love with which they
love each other, the great love with which they love themselves,
that hurts the heart of their father.
Arctura signed at length a prayer for release, and he set her gently
down in her chair again. Then he saw her face more beautiful than
ever before; and the rose that bloomed there was the rose of a
health deeper than sickness. These children of God were of the
blessed few who love the more that they know him present, whose
souls are naked before him, and not ashamed. Let him that hears
understand! if he understand not, let him hold his peace, and it
will be his wisdom! He who has no place for this love in his
religion, who thinks to be more holy without it, is not of God's
mind when he said, "Let us make man!" He may be a saint, but he
cannot be a man after God's own heart. The finished man is the saved
man.
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