Beliefs must
be lived in for a good while, before they accommodate themselves to the
soul's wants, and wear loose enough to be comfortable.
The Reverend Doctor had no such scruples. Like thousands of those who
are classed nominally with the despairing believers, he had never prayed
over a departed brother or sister without feeling and expressing a
guarded hope that there was mercy in store for the poor sinner, whom
parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters could not bear to give up
to utter ruin without a word,--and would not, as he knew full well,
in virtue of that human love and sympathy which nothing can ever
extinguish. And in this poor Elsie's history he could read nothing
which the tears of the recording angel might not wash away. As the good
physician of the place knew the diseases that assailed the bodies of men
and women, so he had learned the mysteries of the sickness of the soul.
So many wished to look upon Elsie's face once more, that her father
would not deny them; nay, he was pleased that those who remembered her
living should see her in the still beauty of death.
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