Christian life -- Fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction
I came into the busy and noisy streets as one descending from the
mount, and on reaching home found my darling Una very ill in Ernest's
arms. She had fallen, and injured her head. How I had prayed that God
would temper the wind to this shorn lamb, and now she had had such a
fall! We watched over her till far into the night, scarcely speaking
to each other, but I know by the way in which Ernest held my hand
clasped in his that her precious life was in danger. He consented at
last to lie down, but Helen stayed with me. What a night it was! God
only knows what the human heart can experience in a space of time
that men call hours. I went over all the past history of the child,
recalling all her sweet looks and words, and my own secret repining
at the delicate health that cut her off from so many of the pleasures
that belong to her age. And the more I thought, the more I clung to
her, on whom, frail as she is, I was beginning to lean, and whose
influence in our home I could not think of losing without a shudder.
Alas, my faith seemed, for a time, to flee, and I see just what a
poor, weak human being is without it. But before daylight crept into
my room light from on high streamed into my heart, and I gave even
this, my ewe-lamb, away, as my free-will offering to God. Could I
refuse Him my child because she was the very apple of my eye? Nay
then, but let me give to Him, not what, I value least, but what I
prize and delight in most. Could I not endure heart-sickness for Him
who had given His only Son for me! And just as I got to that sweet
consent to suffer, He who had only lifted the rod to try my faith
laid it down. My darling opened her eyes and looked at us
intelligently, and with her own loving smile. But I dared not snatch
her and press her to my heart; for her sake I must be outwardly calm
at least.
JUNE 6.-I am at home with my precious Una, all the rest having gone
to church. She lies peacefully on the bed, sadly disfigured, for the
time, but Ernest says he apprehends no danger now, and we are a most
happy, a most thankful household. The children have all been greatly
moved by the events of the last few days, and hover about their
sister with great sympathy and tenderness. Where she fell from, or
how she fell, no one knows; she remembers nothing about it herself,
and it will always remain a mystery.
This is the second time that this beloved child has been returned to
us after we had given her away to God.
And as the giving cost us ten-fold more now than it did when she was
a feeble baby, so we receive her as a fresh gift from our loving
Father's hand, with ten-fold delight. Ah, we have no excuse for not
giving ourselves entirely to Him. He has revealed Himself to us in so
many sorrows and in so many joys; revealed Himself as He doth not
unto the world!
Chapter 26
XXVI.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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