Robert Hardy's Seven Days: A Dream and Its ConsequencesSheldon, Charles M.
Religion
Robert Hardy's Seven Days: A Dream and Its Consequences
Sheldon, Charles M.
Christian fiction
"No," he said, as if in answer to a spoken charge, "I am not insane. I
never was more calm. I am in possession of all my faculties. But I
have looked into the Face of Eternity this night and I know, I know
that in seven days God will require my soul. Mary," he turned to his
wife with the most beseeching cry, "Mary, do you believe me?"
She looked into her husband's face and saw there the old look. Reason,
the noblest of all gifts, shone out of that noble face now lighted up
with the old love, and standing on the brink of the other world. And
Mrs. Hardy, looking her husband in the face, replied:
"Yes, Robert, I believe you. You may be mistaken in this impression
about the time left you to live, but you are not insane."
"O God, I thank Thee for that!" cried Mr. Hardy.
Often during the most remarkable week he ever lived Mr. Hardy reposed
in that implicit belief of his wife in his sanity.
There was a pause. Then Mr. Hardy asked George to bring the Bible. He
read from John's Gospel that matchless prayer of Christ in the
seventeenth chapter; then kneeling down, he prayed as he had never
prayed before, that in the week allotted him to live he might know how
to bless the world and serve his Master best. And when he arose and
looked about upon his wife and children, it was with the look of one
who has been into the very presence chamber of the only living God. At
the same moment, so fast had the time gone in the excitement, the clock
upon the mantel struck the hour of midnight--and the first of Robert
Hardy's seven days had begun!
MONDAY--THE FIRST DAY.
When Mr. Hardy woke on the morning of the first of the seven days left
him to live, he was on the point of getting ready for his day's
business, as usual, when the memory of his dream flashed upon him, and
he was appalled to decide what he should do first. Breakfast was
generally a hurried and silent meal with him. The children usually
came straggling down at irregular intervals, and it was very seldom
that the family all sat down together. This morning Mr. Hardy waited
until all had appeared, and while they were eating he held a family
council.
His wife was evidently in great excitement and anxiety, and yet the
love and tenderness she felt coming back to her from her husband gave
her face a look of beauty that had been a stranger to it for years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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