“Friends say that I am left alone; but it is not true. I am never alone. There is no separation for those whom love unites. We are one in the universal spirit of love--God. Did not one friend beyond the grave tell us that every death is a resurrection? Is not the stone already rolled away from every sepulchre? Would I call my dear ones back to face the cruel conditions of life here? No, a thousand times no. When I looked at the dead face of my husband, so calm, and profoundly at peace with everything, I said ‘My love, my dear love, heart of my heart and soul of my soul, love of my youth and companion of my spirit forevermore, I thank God that the hard things of the world can hurt you no more.’ The cruelest pang poverty has given me was seeing him bear humiliation and insult in silence, with heavenly patience. Poverty for oneself is bad enough, but when we see those we love suffer because of it, we know exquisite anguish. I can make the fight alone, and it is better so. He is safe. That will sustain me. “And my children; they, too, are safe. It is well with them. They are not lost. All things we call lost are in the angels’ keeping. “I shall go on with my work, thankful for the chance, disagreeable as much of it is, because of unavoidable contact with shallow, inferior people. But my true life is away from it all, sacred and safe. There is a reason beyond my fathoming for my being what and where I am. It is all right--all wisely directed, and I shall go on, not sullenly, but in patience and hope. My faith is that all is well. I must live it and not simply talk it.” Looking at Lilla’s beautiful face, brightened with the radiance of belief, Cartice Doring knew that one by one she was finding her people--the people whom she dimly remembered as having been a part of her life in the remote past, and who were linked by the ties of sympathy and love to the present and all the endless future. Her own people,--the faithful, the heroic, the aspiring, the wide-minded, the loving, the true. Lilla was one of them--Lilla of the light heart and rippling laugh in days gone by; and of the sturdy soul and dauntless faith in sorrow and misfortune. Now Cartice saw that her own people all became acquainted with suffering, sooner or later, and that this was the greatest of teachers to the human race. Without suffering nothing is born, nothing grows. “Who are these in white garments?” asked the saint of the heavenly visions. “They are those who have passed through great tribulation,” was the answer. In fancy she saw again the long procession, made up of her people. Out of the dim and far distant past they came, filing steadily on into the unseen, endless future. In each spirit burned the quenchless fire we name genius; on each face were signs of suffering; “but no voice uttered plaints.” Not all were victors. Many were of the baffled and beaten, the disappointed and defeated, but they went to the wall with unbent head and silent, smiling lips.