"TO some the sky is always bright, while to others it is never free
from clouds. There is to me a mystery in this--something that looks
like a partial Providence--for those who grope sadly through life in
darkened paths are, so far as human judgment can determine, often
purer and less selfish than those who move gayly along in perpetual
sunshine. Look at Mrs. Adair. It always gives me the heart-ache to
think of what she has endured in life, and still endures. Once she
was surrounded by all that wealth could furnish of external good;
now she is in poverty, with five children, clinging to her for
support, her health feeble, and few friends to counsel or lend her
their aid. No woman could have loved a husband more tenderly than
she loved hers, and few wives were ever more beloved in return; but
she has gathered the widow's weeds around her, and is sitting in the
darkness of an inconsolable grief. What a sweet character was hers!
Always loving and unselfish--a very angel on the earth from
childhood upwards, and yet her doom to tread this darkened pathway!
If Heaven smiles on the good--if the righteous are never forsaken,
why this strange, hard, harsh Providence in the case of Mrs. Adair?
I cannot understand it! God is goodness itself, they say, and loves
His creatures with a love surpassing the love of a mother; but would
any mother condemn beloved child to such a cruel fate? No, no, no!
From the very depths of my spirit I answer--No! I am only a weak,
erring, selfish creature, but--"
Mrs. Endicott checked the utterance of what was in her thought, for
at the instant another thought, rebuking her for an impious
comparison of herself with her Maker, flitted across her mind. Yes,
she was about drawing a Parallel between herself and a Being of
infinite wisdom and love, unfavourable to the latter!
The sky of Mrs. Endicott had not always been free from clouds. Many
times had she walked in darkness; and why this was so ever appeared
as one of the mysteries of life, for her self-explorations had never
gone far enough to discover those natural evils, the existence of
which only a state of intense mental suffering would manifest to her
deeper consciousness. But all she had yet been called to endure,
was, she freely acknowledged, light in comparison to what poor Mrs.
Adair had suffered, and was suffering daily--and the case of this
friend gave her a strong argument against the wisdom and justice of
that Power in the hands of which the children of men are as clay in
the hands of the potter.
Even while Mrs. Endicott thus questioned and doubted, a domestic
opened the door of the room in which she was sitting, and said,
"Mrs. Adair is in the parlour."
"Is she? Say that I will be down in a moment."
Mrs. Endicott felt a little surprised at the coincidence of her
thought of her friend and that friend's appearance. It was another
of those life-mysteries into which her dull eyes could not
penetrate, and gave new occasion for dark surmises in regard to the
Power above all, in all, and ruling all. With a sober face, as was
befitting an interview with one so deeply burdened as Mrs. Adair,
she went down to the parlour.
"My dear friend!" she said, tenderly, almost sadly, as she took the
hand of her visiter.
Into the eyes of Mrs. Adair she looked earnestly for the glittering
tear-veil, and upon her lips for the grief curve. To her surprise
neither were there; but a cheerful light in the former and a gentle
smile on the latter.
"How are you this morning?"
Mrs. Endicott's voice was low and sympathizing.
"I feel a little stronger, to-day, thank you," answered Mrs. Adair,
smiling as she spoke.
"How is your breast?"
"Still very tender."
"And the pain in your side."
"I am not free from that a moment."
Still she smiled as she answered. There was not even a touch of
sadness or despondency in her voice.
"Not free a moment! How do you bear it?"
"Happily--as I often say to myself--I have no time to think about
the pain," replied Mrs. Adair, cheerfully. "It is wonderful how
mental activity lifts us above the consciousness of bodily
suffering. For my part, I am sure that if I had nothing to do but to
sit down and brood over my ailments, I would be one of the most
miserable, complaining creatures alive. But a kind Providence, even
in the sending of poverty to his afflicted one, has but tempered the
winds to the shorn lamb."
Mrs. Endicott was astonished to hear these words, falling, as they
did, with such a confiding earnestness from the pale lips of her
much-enduring friend.
"How can you speak so cheerfully?" she said. "How can you feel so
thankful to Him who has shrouded your sky in darkness, and left you
to grope in strange paths, on which falls not a single ray of
light?"
"Even though the sky is clouded," was answered, "I know that the sun
is shining there as clear and as beautiful as ever. The paths in
which a wise and good Providence has called me to walk, may be
strange, and are, at times, rough-and toilsome; but you err in
saying that no light falls upon them.
"But the sky is dark--whence comes the light, Mrs. Adair?"
"Don't you remember the beautiful hymn written by Moore? It is to me
worth all he ever penned besides. How often do I say it over to
myself, lingering with a warming heart and a quickening pulse, on
every word of consolation!"