In tones well-nigh inaudible she continued: “When Jerusalem, the Holy City, was destroyed, the dead rose up out of their graves … the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob … and also Moses, and Aaron his brother … and David the King … and prostrating themselves before God’s throne they sobbed: ‘Dost Thou not remember the deeds we have done?… Wouldst Thou now utterly destroy all these our children, even to the innocent babe at the breast?’ But the Almighty was inexorable. “Then Sarah, our mother, approached the Throne… When God beheld her, He covered His face, and wept. ‘Go,’ said He, ‘I cannot listen to thee.’ … But she exclaimed … ‘Dost Thou no longer remember the tears I shed before I gave birth to my Joseph and Benjamin … and dost Thou not remember the day when they buried me yonder, on the borders of the Promised Land … and now, must mine eyes behold the slaughter of my children, their disgrace, and their captivity?’… Then God cried: ‘For THY sake will I remember thy children and spare them.’ …” “Would you like to know,” Gudule suddenly cried, with uplifted voice, “what this Sechûs is like? It has the form of an angel, and it stands near the Throne of the Almighty. … But, since the days of Rachel, our mother, it is the Sechûs of a mother that finds most favor in God’s eyes. When a mother dies, her soul straightway soars heavenward, and there it takes its place amid the others. “‘Who art thou?’ asks God. ‘I am the Sechûs of a mother,’ is the answer, ‘of a mother who has left children behind her on earth.’ ‘Then do thou stand here and keep guard over them!’ says God. And when it is well with the children, it is the Sechûs of a mother which has caused them to prosper, and when evil days befall them … it is again the Angel who stands before God and pleads: ‘Dost Thou forget that these children no longer have a mother?’… and the evil is averted. …” Gudule’s voice had sunk to a mere whisper. Her eyes closed, her head fell back, her breathing became slower and more labored. “Are you still there, children?” she softly whispered. Anxiously they bent over her. Then once again she opened her eyes. “I see you still”—the words came with difficulty from her blanched lips—“you, Ephraim, and you, my little Viola … I am sure my Sechûs will plead for you … for you and your father.” They were Gudule’s last words. When her children, whose eyes had never as yet been confronted with Death, called her by her name, covering her icy hands with burning kisses, their mother was no more …