"What if this great distant being, who, without any foregone sin of ours, has laid upon us the punishment of _life_--in the hollow of whose hand we lie!--what if He be laughing at us all this while! What if the sight of our writhings, of our unlovely tears and grotesque agonies, be to Him, in His high prosperity, a pleasant diversion!" So thinking, against her will she involuntarily clasps closer the cross in her straining arms--involuntarily moans a second time, "Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner!" No--no! it cannot be so! it is one of those things that are too horrible to be believed! There is no justice _here!_ none! but it exists _somewhere!_ How else could we ever have conceived the idea of it? It is, then, in some other world: we shall find it on the other side of these drenched, nettly charnels--on the other side of corruption's disgrace and abasement: "...........................If this be all, And other life await us not, for one I say, 'tis a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, A wretched failure! I, for one, protest Against it--and I hurl it back with scorn!" Despair never stays long with any one, unless it is specially invited. Struck with sudden horror at the daring blasphemy of her thoughts, wretched Esther, with clasped hands and a flood of penitential tears, sinks upon her trembling knees. God grant that the thoughts that come to us, we know not whence, that stab us in the dark, that we welcome not, neither cherish at all--yea, rather, drive them away rudely, hatingly--may not be counted to us for crimes in His great Day of Reckoning, any more than the sudden-smiting disease that makes the strong man flag in his noonday is counted to him! With a sudden revulsion of feeling, with a paroxysm of devotion, powerfuller than the former one of doubt had been, the desolate child, prone on the grave of her one treasure, lifts quivering lips and emptied arms to Him who "...................For mankynde's sake Justed in Jerusalem, a joye to us all!"-- to Him of whom "..........They who loved Him said 'He wept,' None ever said 'He smiled!'" Perhaps the good Lord, who was sorry for Mary and Martha, may be sorry for her too. Perhaps, after all, her boy is well rid of troublesome breath--well rid of his cares, and his farm, and his useless loving sister! Perhaps she is falsely fond to desire him again--to be so famished for one sight more of his grey laughing eyes, of his smooth stripling face! Beyond her sight, he may be in the fruition of extremest good--in the sweet shade, beneath pleasant-fruited trees, beside great cool rivers. Would she tear him back again thence to toil in the broiling sun, because, so toiling, he would be in her sight? "If love were kind, why should we doubt That holy death were kinder?"