"Then, my darling little sister" I cried, "you will give up--this struggle? You will let God do what He will with His own?""I have to let Him," she replied; "but I submit because I must."I looked at her gentle, pure face as she uttered these words, and could only marvel at the will that had no expression there.
"Tell me," she said, "do you think a real Christian can feel as I do?
For my part I doubt it.I doubt everything."
"Doubt everything, but believe in Christ," I said."Suppose, for argument's sake, you are not a Christian.You can become one now."The color rose in her lovely face; she clasped her hands in a sort of ecstasy.
"Yes," she said, "I can."
At last God had sent her the word she wanted.
MAY 28.-Helen came to breakfast this morning in a simple white dress.
I had not time to tell the children not to allude to it, so they began in chorus:
"Why, Aunt Helen! you have put on a white dress!""Why, Aunty, how queer you look!"
"Hurrah! if she don't look like other folks!"She bore it all with her usual gentleness; or rather with a positive sweetness that captivated them as her negative patience had never done.I said nothing to her, nor did she to me till late In the day, when she came to me, and said:
"Katy, God taught you what to say.All these years I have been tormenting myself with doubts, as to whether I could be His child while so unable to say, Thy will be done.If you had said,' 'Why, yes, you must be His child, for you professed yourself one a long time ago, and ever since have lived like one,' I should have remained as wretched as ever As it is, a mountain has been rolled off, my heart.Yes, if I was not His child yesterday, I can become one to-day; if I did not love Him then, I can begin now"I do not doubt that, she was His child, yesterday and last year, and years ago.But let her think, what she pleases.A new life is opening before her; I believe it is to be a life of entire devotion to God, and that out of her sorrow there shall spring up a wondrous joy.
SEPT.2, Sweet Briar Farm.-Ernest spent Sunday with us, and I have just driven him to the station and seen him safely off.Things have prospered with us to such a degree that he has been extravagant enough to give me the use, for the summer, of a bonnie little nag and an antiquated vehicle, and I have learned to drive.To be sure Ibroke one of the shafts of the poor old thing the first time Iventured forth alone, and the other day -nearly upset my cargo of children in a pond where I was silly enough to undertake to water my horse.But Ernest, as usual, had patience with me and begged me to spend as much time as possible in driving about with the children.It is a new experience, and I enjoy it quite as much as he hoped Ishould.Helen is not with us; she has spent the whole summer with Martha; for Martha, poor thing, is suffering terribly from rheumatism and is almost entirely helpless.I am so sorry for her, after so many years of vigorous health, how hard it must be to endure this pain.
With this drawback, we have had a delightful summer; not one sick day; nor one sick night.With no baby to keep me awake, I sleep straight through, as Raymond says, and wake in the morning refreshed and cheerful.We shall have to go home soon; how cruel it seems to bring up children in a great city! Yet what can be done about it?
Wherever there are men and women there must be children; what a howling wilderness either city or country would be without them!
The only drawback on my felicity is the separation, from Ernest, which becomes more painful every year to us both.God has blessed our married life; it has had its waves and its billows, but, thanks unto Him, it has at last settled down into a calm sea of untroubled peace.
While I was secretly braiding my dear husband for giving so attention to his profession as to neglect me and my children, he was becoming, every day, more the ideal of a physician, cool, calm, thoughtful, studious, ready to sacrifice his life at any moment in the interests of humanity.How often I have mistaken his preoccupied air for indifference; how many times I have inwardly accused him of coldness, when his whole heart and soul were filled with the grave problem of life, aye, and of death likewise.
But we understand each other now, and I am sure that God dealt wisely and kindly with us when He brought together two such opposite natures.No man of my vehement nature could have borne with me as Ernest has done, and if he had married a woman as calm, as undemonstrative as himself what a strange home his would have been for the nurture of little children? But the heart was in him, and only wanted to be waked up, and my life has called forth music from his., Ah, there are no partings and meetings now that leave discords in the remembrance, no neglected birthdays, no forgotten courtesies.
It is beautiful to see the thoughtful brow relax in presence of wife and children, and to know that ours is, at last, the happy home I so long sighed for.Is the change all in Ernest? Is it not possible that I have grown more reasonable, less childish and aggravating?
We are at a farm-house.Everything is plain, but neat and nice.Iasked Mrs.Brown, our hostess; the other day, if she did not envy me my four little pets; she smiled, said they were the best children she ever saw, and that it was well to have a family if you have means to start them in the world; for her part, she lived from, hand to mouth as it was, and was sure she could never stand the worry and care of a house full of young ones.
"But the worry and care is only half the story," I said."The other half is pure joy and delight.""Perhaps so, to people that are well-to-do," she replied; "but to poor folks, driven to death as we are, it's another thing.I was telling him yesterday what a mercy it was there wasn't any young ones round under my feet, and I could take city boarders, and help work off the mortgage on the farm.""And what did your husband say to that?"
