"Ah! there is precious consolation! No father’s—no mother’s heart—Hear me, Arthur"——and he laid his hand on that of his son—“No parent’s heart had ever more perfect repose upon a child than we have had upon you, my dear son!” “He hears you.” "If not now, I trust he shall know it hereafter. His mother and I have never been thankless, I believe, for what God has given us in our children; but now is the time to feel truly what His bounty has been. Some time hence, we may find ourselves growing weary under our loss, however we may acquiesce: but now there is the support given through him who is the resurrection and the life,—this support without drawback, without fear. Thank God!" After a pause, Mrs. Temple said, hesitatingly, “You have seen Mr. Hesselden?” "I have. He believes that there is presumption in the strength of my hope. But it seems to me that there would be great presumption in doubt and dread. If my son were a man of a worldly mind,—if his affections were given to wealth and fame, or to lower objects still, it would become us to kneel and cry, day and night, for more time, before he must enter the state where, with such a spirit, he must find himself poor and miserable and blind and naked. But his Maker has so guided him that his affections have been fixed on objects which will not be left behind in this world, or buried away with the body, leaving him desolate in the presence of his God. He loves knowledge, and for long past he has lived on benevolence; and he will do the same henceforth and for ever, if the gospel, in which he has delighted from his youth up, say true. Far be it from us to doubt his being happy in thus living for the prime ends of his being!" Mrs. Temple was still silent. “You are thinking of the other side of his character,” observed Dr. Sneyd; “of that dark side which every fallible creature has. Here would be my fear, if I feared at all. But I do not fear for Arthur that species of suffering which he has ever courted here. I believe he was always sooner or later thankful for the disappointment of unreasonable desires, and the mortifications of pride, and all retribution for sins and follies. There is no reason to suppose that he will shrink from the retribution which will in like manner follow such sins and follies as he may carry with him into another state. All desires whose gratification cannot enter there will be starved out. The process will be painful; but the subject of this pain will be the first to acquiesce in it. We, therefore, will not murmur nor fear.” “If all this be true, if it be religious, how many torment themselves and one another in vain about the terrors of the gospel!”