“Mary, don’t question me about _that_. That belongs to the unutterable things. God will take care of it. I _think_ I could leave it to him even if he brought it for me myself to face. I feel sure that he will make it all come out right. Perhaps He will be so dear to us, that we could not love any one who hated him. In some way the void _must_ be filled, for he shall wipe away tears. But it seems to me that the only thought in which there can be any _rest_, and in that there _can_, is this: that Christ, who loves us even as his Father loves him, can be happy in spite of the existence of a hell. If it is possible to him, surely he can make it possible to us.” “Two things that He has taught us,” she said after a silence, “give me beautiful assurance that none of these dreams with which I help myself can be beyond his intention to fulfil. One is, that eye hath not seen it, nor ear heard it, nor the heart conceived it,--this lavishness of reward which he is keeping for us. Another is, that ‘I shall be _satisfied_ when I awake.’” “With his likeness.” “With his likeness. And about that I have other things to say.” But Old Gray stopped at the gate and Phœbe was watching for her butter, and it was no time to say them then. XII. July 22. Aunt Winifred has connected herself with our church. I think it was rather hard for her, breaking the last tie that bound her to her husband’s people; but she had a feeling, that, if her work is to be done and her days ended here, she had better take up all such little threads of influence to make herself one with us. 25th. To-day what should Deacon Quirk do but make a solemn call on Mrs. Forceythe, for the purpose of asking--and this with a hint that he wished he had asked before she became a member of the Homer First Congregational Church--whether there were truth in the rumors, now rife about town, that she was a Swedenborgian! Aunt Winifred broke out laughing, and laughed merrily. The Deacon frowned. “I used to fancy that I believed in Swedenborg,” she said, as soon as she could sober down a little. The Deacon pricked up his ears, with visions of excommunications and councils reflected on every feature. “Until I read his books,” she finished. “Oh!” said the Deacon. He waited for more, but she seemed to consider the conversation at an end. “So then you--if I understand--are _not_ a Swedenborgian, ma’am?” “If I were, I certainly should have had no inducement to join myself to your church,” she replied, with gentle dignity. “I believe, with all my heart, in the same Bible and the same creed that you believe in, Deacon Quirk.” “And you _live_ your creed, which all such genial Christians do not find it necessary to do,” I thought, as the Deacon in some perplexity took his departure, and she returned with a smile to her sewing.