Stepping Heavenward Part 24

You looked up to her and looked down upon me. At least it seemed so."

"My dear child, you have misunderstood the whole thing. I gave Martha just what she wanted most; she likes to be looked up to. And I gave you what I thought you wanted most, my tenderest love. And I expected that I should have your sympathy amid the trials with which I am burdened, and that with your strong nature I might look to you to help me bear them. I know you have the worst of it, dear child, but then you have twice my strength. I believe women almost always have more than men."

"I have, indeed, misunderstood you. I thought you liked to have them here, and that Martha's not fancying me influenced you against me.

But now I know just what you want of me, and I can give it, darling."

After this all our cloud melted away. I only long to go home and show Ernest that he shall have one cheerful face about him, and have one cheerful voice.

AUGUST 12.-I have had a long letter from Ernest to day. He says he hopes he has not been selfish and unkind in speaking of his father and sister as he has done, because he truly loves and honors them both, and wants me to do so, if I can. His father had called them up twice to see him die and to receive his last messages. This always happens when Ernest has been up all the previous night; there seems a fatality about it.

Chapter 15

XV.

OCTOBER 4

HOME again, and with my dear Ernest delighted to see me. Baby is a year old to-day, and, as usual, father, who seems to abhor anything like a merry-making, took himself off to his room. To-morrow he will be all the worse for it, and will be sure to have a theological battle with somebody.

OCTOBER 5.-The somebody was his daughter Katherine, as usual. Baby was asleep in my lap and I reached out for a book which proved to be a volume of Shakespeare which had done long service as an ornament to the table, but which n.o.body ever read on account of the small print.

The battle then began thus:

Father.-" I regret to see that worldly author in your hands, my daughter."

Daughter-a little mischievously.-"Why, were you wanting to talk, father?

"No, I am too feeble to talk to-day. My pulse is very weak."

"Let me read aloud to you, then."

"Not from that profane book."

"It would do you good. You never take any recreation. Do let me read a little."

Father gets nervous.

"Recreation is a snare. I must keep my soul ever fixed on divine things."

"But can you?"

"No, alas, no. It is my grief and shame that I do not."

"But if you would indulge yourself in a little harmless mirth now and then, your mind would get rested and you would return to divine things with fresh zeal. Why should not the mind have its seasons of rest as well as the body?"

"We shall have time to rest in heaven. Our business here on earth is to be sober and vigilant because of our adversary; not to be reading plays."

"I don't make reading plays my business, dear father. I make it my rest and amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Christians do not need amus.e.m.e.nt; they find rest, refreshment, all they want, in G.o.d."

"Do you, father?"

"'Alas, no. He seems a great way off."

"To me He seems very near. So near that He can see every thought of my heart Dear father, it is your disease that makes everything so unreal to you. G.o.d is really so near, really loves us so; is so sorry for us! And it seems hard, when you are so good, and so intent on pleasing Him, that you get no comfort out of Him."

"I am not good, my daughter I am a vile worm of the dust."

"Well, G.o.d is good, at any rate, and He would never have sent His Son to die for you if He did not love you." So then I began to sing.

Father likes to hear me sing, and the sweet sense I had that all I had been saying was true and more than true, made me sing with joyful heart.

I hope it is not a mere miserable presumption that makes me dare to talk so to poor father. Of course, he is ten times better than I am, and knows ten times as much, but his disease, whatever it is, keeps his mind befogged. I mean to begin now to pray that light may shine into his soul. It would be delightful to see the peace of G.o.d shining in that pale, stern face.

MARCH 28.-It is almost six months since I wrote that. About the middle of October father had one of his ill turns one night, and we were all called up. He asked for me particularly, and Ernest came for me at last. He was a good deal agitated, and would not stop to half dress myself, and as I had a slight cold already, I suppose I added to it then. At any rate I was taken very sick, and the worst cough ever had has racked my poor frame almost to pieces. Nearly six months confinement to my room; six months of uselessness during which I have been a mere c.u.mberer of the ground. Poor Ernest! What a hard time he has had! Instead of the cheerful welcome home I was to give him whenever he entered the house, here I have lain exhausted, woe- begone and good for nothing. It is the bitterest disappointment I ever had. My ambition is to be the sweetest, brightest, best of wives; and what with my childish follies, and my sickness, what a weary life my dear husband has had! But how often I have prayed that G.o.d would do His will in defiance, if need be, of mine! I have tried to remind myself of that every day. But I am too tired to write any more now.

MARCH 30.-This experience of suffering has filled my mind with new thoughts. At one time I was so sick that Ernest sent for mother. Poor mother, she had to sleep with Martha. It was a great comfort to have her here, but I knew by her coming how sick I was, and then I began to ponder the question whether I was ready to die. Death looked to me as a most solemn, momentous event-but there was something very pleasant in the thought of being no longer a sinner, but a redeemed saint, and of dwelling forever in Christ's presence. Father came to see me when I had just reached this point.

"My dear daughter," he asked, "are you prepared to face the Judge of all the earth?"

"No, dear father," I said, "Christ will do that for me."

"Have you no misgivings?"

I could only smile; I had no strength to talk.

Then I heard Ernest--my dear, calm, self-controlled Ernest--burst out crying and rush out of the room. I looked after him, and how I loved him! But I felt that I loved my Saviour infinitely more,and that if He now let me come home to be with Him I could trust Him to be a thousand-fold more to Ernest than I could ever be, and to take care of my darling baby and my precious mother far better than I could.

The very gates of heaven seemed open to let me in. And then they were suddenly shut in my face, and I found myself a poor, weak, tempted creature here upon earth. I, who fancied myself an heir of glory, was nothing but a peevish, human creature-very human indeed, overcome if Martha shook the bed, as she always did, irritated if my food did not come at the right moment, or was not of the right sort, hurt and offended if Ernest put on at one less anxious and tender than he had used when I was very ill, and-in short, my own poor faulty self once more. Oh, what fearful battles I fought for patience, forbearance and unselfishness! What sorrowful tears of shame I shed over hasty, impatient words and fretful tones! No wonder I longed to be gone where weakness should be swallowed up in strength, and sin give place to eternal perfection!

But here I am, and suffering and work lie before me, for which I feel little physical or mental courage. But "blessed be the will of G.o.d."

APRIL 5.-I was alone with father last evening, Ernest and Martha both being out, and soon saw by the way he fidgeted in his chair that he had something on his mind. So I laid down the book I was reading, and asked him what it was.

"My daughter," he began, "can you bear a plain word from an old man?"

I felt frightened, for I knew I had been impatient to Martha of late, in spite of all my efforts to the contrary. I am still so miserably unwell.

"I have seen many death-beds," he went on; "but I never saw one where there was not some dread of the King of Terrors exhibited; nor one where there was such absolute certainty of having found favor with G.o.d to make the hour of departure entirely free from such doubts and such humility as becomes a guilty sinner about to face his Judge."

"I never saw such a one, either," I replied; "but ere have been many such deaths, and I hardly know of any scene that so honors and magnifies the Lord."

"Yes," he said, slowly; "but they were old, mature, ripened Christians."

"Not always old, dear father. Let me describe to you a scene Ernest described to me only yesterday."

He waved his hand in token that this would delay his coming to the point he was aiming at.

"To speak plainly," he said, "I feel uneasy about you, my daughter.

You are young and in the bloom of life, but when death seemed staring you in the face, you expressed no anxiety, asked for no counsel, showed no alarm. It must be pleasant to possess so comfortable a persuasion of our acceptance with G.o.d; but is it safe to rest on such an a.s.surance while we know that the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ?"