“I did so long for you, dear Mrs. Heritage,” said Sir Emanuel. “I wanted to say that your good wishes for me and labour with me, I trust, are not quite thrown away. I have thought much and deeply on all that you have said. Yes, truly this is a world in which gigantic difficulties present themselves to our reason. I cannot surmount those difficulties, but I have resolved to leave them. How can I or any man fathom the depths of the Infinite? It is vain—it is foolish to expect it—we will leave the illimitable to clear itself up in the illimitable of existence.” “Thou dost well,” said Mrs. Heritage. “It is true, dear madam—it is true that as all visible things are slipping away—as the foundations of this existence are sinking beneath me, I feel the want of some hand to lay hold on; some power to bear me up and save me. My nature calls for a saviour—and it is only in the Saviour you have so often pointed out to me that I find what my soul craves. They are the divine assurances which He gives in the Gospel that alone meet the demands of my inner being. But oh! my dear friend, can I hope to receive the gracious acceptance of Him whom I have through the whole of a proud life rejected and refused to believe necessary.” Mrs. Heritage took from her pocket a small New Testament, and read the parable of the Prodigal Son. Then laying down the book on the bed, she said: “Dear friend—dear brother, thou hast had the divine answer of our blessed Redeemer. It is only the narrowness of our conceptions, the coldness of our hearts, that render doubtful the offer of Almighty Love. He who sent down His only Son to seek and save sinners; He who came down to convince them by His death of the infinity of love; He who said, ‘If thy brother sin against thee not seventy, but seventy times seven, forgive him,’ shall He not forgive more abundantly? ‘Fear not little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’” Then laying aside her hood, she softly sunk on her knees, and in her plain muslin cap, and with an uplifted, and as it seemed, glorified countenance, as her hand still retained that of the dying man, she said,— “Oh, dear Father, receive this dear son to Thy love and Thy eternal peace. It is Thou who hast raised in his soul the cry for Thy help and forgiveness. It is Thou who hast winged his soul with fears that he might the more eagerly fly to Thy divine arms. It is Thou who hast shown him the emptiness of earth, the fathomless gulf of absence from Thee—the alone eternal and substantial foundation of all life. All these are the calls of Thy measureless affection for Thy repentant creature. And now, O Lord! let the mantle of Thy peace, the living spirit of Thy consolation, fall on his heart. Into the mansions of the glorified, into the assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect, receive his tendered and regenerated soul. Amen!”