I have not misapprehended the spirit and motive of your letters.
I have read them--more than once--with care and, I believe,
with candor. When a man stands in the shadow of a great and
awful change--and my physician warns me that my lifework may end
suddenly--he is a fool who deals any other way than seriously and
honestly with the questions you discuss. If I cannot say that your
reasoning removes all my doubts, I can most sincerely say this, even
though it may be, in your judgment, at the cost of my consistency: _I
would give the world to have your faith and hope_. While I have
been glad to have the arguments of Mr. ---- to support my own faith
or want of faith, I will be candid and say that I have not been at
rest. Life has been terribly empty and hopeless since I felt, with
Professor Clifford, that "the Great Companion is dead." I have had
success, as the world goes, but what of it? What does it amount to?
What is to be the end of it all? No God! No immortality! Nothing
beyond this little circle whose utmost limit I seem to be even now
touching! Is it so?
I am writing at midnight--an hour when these questions often come
to me with the pressure of despair. Oh to be a child again with a
child's faith, a child's peace! My mother--
* * * * *
Here the letter ended. Did the thought of his mother open the door
of his aching heart to his mother's God and his mother's Christ? So
let us hope. There is a mercy that is from everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear God, and a righteousness that is unto children's
children to such as keep his covenant.
Lying upon the letter was the following slip, cut from a newspaper.
It was stained apparently with tears, and was probably the last thing
that my friend read. It could hardly be the expression of any heart
to whom the "hand of mercy" was not already "opening the wicket-gate:"
"'Mid the fast-falling shadows,
Weary and worn and late,
A timid, doubting pilgrim,
I reach the wicket-gate.
Where crowds have stood before me
I stand alone to-night,
And in the deepening darkness
Pray for one gleam of light.
"From the foul sloughs and marshes
I've gathered many a stain;
I've heard old voices calling
From far across the plain.
Now, in my wretched weakness,
Fearful and sad I wait,
And every refuge fails me,
Here at the wicket-gate.
"And will the portals open
To me who roamed so long
Filthy and vile and burdened
With this great weight of wrong?
Hark! a glad voice of welcome
Bids my wild fears abate.
Look! for a hand of mercy
Opens the wicket-gate.
"On, to the palace Beautiful
And the bright room called Peace!
Down, to the silent river,
Where thou shalt find release!
Up, to the radiant city,
Where shining ones await!
On! for the way of glory
Lies through the wicket-gate."