Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Temperance -- Juvenile fiction
The text, again so familiar, so significant on this day, floated out
through the church. This was the way--the truth--the life--indeed.
"He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our
iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His
stripes we are healed."
It seemed as if the sermon, so gentle, so simple, so tender, held in
it no human words and yet it was not a mere repetition of verse upon
verse of Scripture.
As Denys sat with her eyes rivetted on Mr. Owen's face, she felt as if
she had never even guessed before at the depth of Christ's salvation,
that she had only touched the fringe of the knowledge of the love of
Christ which passeth knowledge.
When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of Glory died.
She rose with the congregation and sang it with her whole heart, sang
it through its verses till they came to the fourth verse, and she sang
that, too, thinking not so much of its words as of the love she felt
for that Prince of Glory--
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small,
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Her soul--her life--how gladly she gave them once more to Him for his
service!
And then--in one instant--she came back to the things of earth, and so
to another thought--her all! A movement about her had brought Charlie
into her view. She saw him before her with a ray of sunlight resting
across his fair head.
Her all! The whole realm of nature, in her eyes! She remembered again
the blissful content, the undreamed of happiness, his presence had
brought to her yesterday. She remembered with a shiver how that
perfection of joy, which had seemed so unassailable, had been
shattered in a moment by a word of her own, which had given offence
where none was meant, by a care for others which had been resented.
She knew in a flash that the cause of her unending tears, of her
heart-sickness ever since, had been the fear of Charlie's anger,
the fear that, be the reason great or small, she should forfeit his
affection and cease to be all the world to him.
She did not stop to think how much she was wronging Charlie's faithful
love. She was oblivious for the moment of everything but this fear.
She had been fighting fiercely since last night against the bare
thought of the possibility of losing Charlie's love; she had been
holding on to that love as for her life, and now another love, a love
higher, wider, deeper the love that passeth knowledge, had risen up
before her and claimed--her all.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small.
The thoughts passed through her mind with the swiftness of a dream,
as, instinctively following the movements of those about her,
she stood there with her eyes fixed upon Charlie, while the slow
procession of the choir filed out and the organ sounded plaintively
among the high arches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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