On the following Sunday evening Carol appeared at Mr. Higgs' cottage at
the usual time.
It seemed almost impossible to believe there had been a break, and that
for three days he had lain, to mortal sense, between life and death. So
entirely had the cloud rolled away, it was difficult to realize it had
ever darkened the horizon.
"I wasn't expecting you, Master Carol, but I'm right glad to see you.
It do seem so wonderful that just this time last Sunday all the village
was waiting for news from the Manor, and I was that sad thinking I'd
never have you come to see me again. The Rector prayed for you in
church. I was there for the first time for well-nigh two years. 'Well,
well,' I said to myself, 'if the Lord takes him, His will be done.'
But, oh, I prayed as I've never prayed since we lost our first child
that He wouldn't."
"You do not understand then yet that death can never be God's will.
Didn't Jesus say, 'I am come that they might have life, and that they
might have it more abundantly'? If Jesus came to bring us life, does
not that show that God never sends death?"
"Well, Master Carol, as you put it, maybe it is so, but I'm an old man,
and it's what I was taught as a boy, and the belief's grown up wi' me,
and somehow I wouldn't like to give up the thought. It's the only thing
that makes the parting bearable--to think God wills it. We put it on
the headstone where we laid our little girl. _Thy will be done_. Aye,
I've stood and looked at them words many a time, and they sort o'
comforted me. She was our first-born."
"There is another verse which says 'to know God is everlasting life.'
In everlasting life there can be no death, can there? Just think of
this: If the sun were never hidden, and you could keep your eyes
steadfastly on the light, you would have no knowledge of darkness--you
would not understand it or believe in it. In the same way when we
understand that God is ALL, we must lose the thought of and belief in
death. There is no death to those that know we live and move and have
our being in God-Life. Death could not steal one of God's ideas--His
children--and destroy it. What seems to die is not God's child. What
you buried in the churchyard was not your little girl, and what they
cast into the sea, was not my father. They are still living. It is only
that we do not see them. You know Jesus says, 'In my Father's house are
many mansions.' They have passed on to another mansion--that is all.
My cousin has taught me that the mansions Jesus spoke of are not afar
off in a locality called Heaven. We are to-day--you and I--dwelling in
one of God's mansions, and it is a higher or a lower mansion according
as we dwell in the consciousness of good. We have to take all the steps
up to that special place which Jesus has gone to prepare for us. If we
are not ready for it, we shall not be able to enter it, even if we have
passed through the door called death. We have to fight and overcome all
that separates us from God. Jesus overcame everything. He put sin and
disease under his feet, and we have just to follow in his steps, knowing
that he prepared the way, and is helping us all the time. Perhaps you
did not think when you had rheumatism that it was a shadow between you
and God, did you? You thought it was God's will for you."
"That's true, Master Carol. I just bowed down to it, thinking God chose
to afflict me for some special purpose."
"I knew it was not so, when I tried to help you. I always saw you
perfect, as God made you, and you know the shadow disappeared. When I
lay in bed a few days ago, and couldn't move, the bruises seemed so
real, and the pain very great, I couldn't think of them as shadows, but
my cousin was able to do it for me, and all disappeared. Neither my
aunt nor the doctor seemed able to believe it at first, because they do
not understand. Won't it be a happy day when everyone understands that
Truth destroys disease; and when little children have hip-disease
doctors won't hurt them to try to make them better, as they did me?"
"Did they really?"
"Yes, and the operation did not make me better. But we will not talk
about it. I ought not to remember anything about it. It was all error.
Shall we have the chapter again from St. John which tells us 'In my
Father's house are many mansions'?"
"Aye, I mind that chapter well. The words just sink down into my heart,
and stir up something there, and I've wanted to understand them better.
I've thought a lot about it since the last time you talked to me. I
know He is faithful who promised, the 'works that I do shall he do
also.' As I said before, I'm an old man, Master Carol, and I've been
looking for it all my life. Why, I've asked myself, don't His servants
and ministers give us the signs He promised?"
"And now what you have been looking for all these years has come--the
light at eventide," Carol said softly, looking beyond the old man with
eyes that seemed unconscious of the crimson of the setting sun, as he
caught a glimpse of that marvellous light which 'never was, on land or
sea'--spiritual understanding.
"You have been healed, and your little grand-daughter, and I, too, in
the way the Master commanded."
"Aye, it's true, Master Carol. I feel like saying, 'Lord, now lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy
salvation.' It is His salvation. Maybe when you have read me that
chapter from the Bible, you'll read me some pages of the little book
which seems to make things clearer to me, and helps me to understand the
Bible better."
"I am sorry, I may not," Carol said regretfully, looking at the little
book which lay beside the old man's Bible. "My uncle has taken my copy
of the book away because he did not wish me to read it. It would not be
honorable to read from another copy. It will be given back to me
sometime. I do not know how or when. Auntie asked me not to stay long
this evening, so I will read the chapter now."
"My daughter'll be sorry she missed coming in. We didn't expect you
to-night, Master Carol. She's very grateful to you; her little girl
seems quite well now. There's been no return o' the fits. An' my
rheumatiz is quite the talk o' th' village. What's took it away? First
one and then another asks. When I tell 'em th' Lord's healed me--well,
well, they just look at me, as if they thunk th' rheumatiz has gone to
my head and turned my brain. Farmer Stubbins says he's coming in one
night to have a talk with me, for he's tried many remedies, but his
rheumatiz keeps getting worse."
"Give him the little book to read, or tell him to get one for himself,"
Carol said. Then he read again the chapter he had once before read. At
the end he closed the book without comment.
Brightly wishing the old man good-night, he left the cottage.