University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
LOVE KNOWN.

Hour after hour passed. The storm was dying away,
and at times, through broken rifts in the clouds, stars
would gleam out. Instead of the continued rush and roar,
the winds blew in gusts at longer intervals, and nature
seemed like a passionate child that had cried itself to
sleep. The fitful gusts were like the involuntary sobs that
heave the breast, till at last quiet and peace take the place
of stormy anger.

It seemed as if the silent watcher never could withdraw
her gaze from the beautiful world of her vision.
Never had it seemed so near and real before, and she was
unconscious of the lapse of time. Suddenly she heard
her name called:

“Ethel!”

If the voice had come from the imaginary world present

to her fancy, it could not have startled her more for
a moment. Then she realized that it was her husband
who spoke. He had called her name in his sleep, and yet
it seemed a call of God. At once it flashed through her
mind that in dreaming of a glorious and happy future,
she was forgetting him and his need.

She turned the light upon his face. Never had he
looked so pale and wan, and she realized, as never before,
that he might be near his end. In an agony of self-reproach
and yearning tenderness she knelt at his bedside
and prayed as she never prayed before. Could he
go home? Could he be received, feeling toward his Father
as he did? He had talked of forgiving when he stood so
sorely in need of Christ's forgiveness. And she had been
forgetting that need, when every moment might involve
her husband's salvation. Out of his sleep he had called
her to his help. Perhaps God had used his unconscious
lips to summon her. With a faith naturally strong, but
greatly increased by the vision of the night, she went, as
it were, directly into the presence of her Lord, and entreated
in behalf of her husband.

As she thus knelt at the bedside, with her face buried
in the covering, she felt a hand placed softly on her head,
and again her husband's voice called—

“Ethel!”

She looked up and saw that he was awake now, his
eyes fixed on her with an expression of softness and tenderness
that she had not seen for many a long day. The
old, restless, anxious light had gone.

“What were you doing, Ethel?” he asked.

“Praying that you might see that God loved you—that
you might be reconciled to Him.”

Two great tears gathered in the man's eyes. His lips
quivered a moment, then he said, brokenly—

“Surely God must love me, or He would never have

given me—a wife—who would watch and pray for me—
the long Winter night.”

“O Dennis, forgive me; I cannot deceive you; for a
time I forgot everything, and just wandered
through paradise alone. But in your sleep you called me
to your help, and now it seems as if I could not be happy
even there without you. I pray you, in Christ's stead, be
reconciled to God,” she pleaded, falling into the familiar
language of Scripture, as she often did under strong emotion.
Then, in low, thrilling words, she portrayed to him
the “new earth” of her vision, wherein “God shall wipe
away all tears, and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”
She showed him how there all might still be well—that
eternity was long enough to make up for the ills of our
brief troubled life here. But his mind seemed preoccupied.
These future joys did not take that hold upon him
that she longed to see. His eyes seemed to grow dim in
tender, tearful wistfulness, rather than become inspired
with immortal hopes. At last he spoke:

“Ethel, it seemed as if I heard some one calling me.
I woke up—and there you—were praying—for me. I
heard my name,—I heard God's name,—and I knew that
you were interceding for me. It seemed to break my hard
heart right up like the fountains of the great deep to see
you there,—praying for me,—in the cold, cold room. (The
room was not cold; it was not the Winter's chill that he
was feeling, but a chill that comes over the heart even in
the tropical Summer.) “Then, as you prayed, a great
light seemed to shine into my soul. I saw that I had been
charging God unjustly with all my failures and misfortunes,
when I had to thank myself for them. Like a wilful
child, I had been acting as if God had but to carry
out my wild schemes. I remembered all my unreasonable
murmurings and anger; I remembered the dreadful

words I was on the point of uttering to-night, and for a
moment it seemed as if the pit would open and swallow
me up.”

He paused for breath, and then went on.

“But as my despairing eyes glanced restlessly around,
they fell upon the face of my son, noble and beautiful
even in sleep, and I remembered how God had brought
him safely back. Then your low, pleading tone fixed my
attention again. It seemed to me that God's love must
be better and stronger than human love, and yet you had
loved me through all my folly and weakness: so perhaps
had He. Then I felt that such a prayer as you were offering
could not remain unheard—you seemed to pray so
earnestly. I felt that I ought to pray myself, and I commenced
calling out in my heart, `God be merciful to me—
a sinner.” Then, while I prayed, I seemed to see my Saviour's
face right above your bowed head. O how reproachfully
He looked at me, and yet His expression was
full of love, too. It was just such a look, I think, that
He fixed on Peter when he denied Him. Then it seemed
that I fell down at His feet and wept bitterly, and as I did
so the look of reproach passed away, and only an expression
of love and forgiveness remained. A sudden peace
came into my soul which I cannot describe; a rush of
tears into my eyes, and when I had wiped them away, I
saw only your bowed form praying—praying on for me.
And Ethel, dear, my patient, much-enduring wife, I believe
God has answered your prayer. I feel that I am a
new man.”

“God be praised!” exclaimed his wife with streaming
eyes. Then in a sudden rush of tenderness, she clasped
her husband to her heart, her strong love seeming like the
echo of God's love, the earnest here on earth of that above
where all barriers shall pass away.

The sound of their voices toward the last had awakened

their son, and he now stood beside them with wet eyes
and heaving breast.

When his wife rose from her embrace, she saw that her
husband was very weak. For a few moments he gasped
for breath. Then getting a little easier, he looked up and
saw his son, and exclaimed—

“Thank God—my boy,—thank God—you are here.
Ah, my son,—I have learned much—since we spoke together
last. I have seen that—I have much more—need
of forgivness than—to forgive. Thanks to your—mother's
prayers,—I believe,—I feel sure that I am forgiven.”

“More thanks to God's love, Dennis,” said his wife.
“God wanted to forgive you all the while more than we
wanted Him to. Thank God, who is rich in mercy, for
His great love wherewith He loved us. He is long suffering
to us-ward, not willing that any should perish.”

“Those are sweet words, wife, and I have found them
true.”

For a little time they sat with clasped hands, with
hearts too full to speak. Faint streaks along the Eastern
horizon showed that the dawn was near. The sick man
gave a slight shiver, and passed his hands across his eyes
as if to clear away a mist, and then said feebly,

“Dennis, my son,—won't you turn up the lamp a little
—and fix the fire? The room seems getting so cold—and
dark.”

The wife looked at her son in quick alarm. The stove
was red-hot, and the lamp no longer shaded, stood openly
on the table.

The son saw that he must take the lead in the last sad
scene, for in the presence of death the heart of the loving,
constant woman clung to her husband as never before.
Throwing herself on her knees by his side, she cried with
loud, choking sobs,

“O Dennis,—husband,—I fear—you are leaving me!”

“Is this death?” he asked of his son, in an awed tone.

“I fear it is, father,” said the young man gently.

After a moment his father said composedly,

“I think you are right. I feel that—my end is near.
Ethel,—darling,—for my sake—try to be calm—during the
last few moments I am with you.”

A few stifled sobs and the room was still.

“I have but little time to—put my house—in order,—
and if I had months—I could not do it. Dennis, I leave
you — little else —than debts,—embarrassments, and the
record of many failures. You must do—the best you can.
I am not able to advise you. Only never love this world
as I have. It will disappoint you. And whatever happens,
never lose faith in the goodness of God. This has been my
bane. It has poisoned my life here, and had it not been
for this dear wife, it would have been my destruction hereafter.
For long years—only her patient love—has stood
between me and a miserable end. Next to God—I commit
her and your little sisters to your care. Be true to
this most sacred trust.”

Ethel, dear, my more than wife,—my good angel,—
what shall I say to you?” And the man's lip quivered, and
for a time he could say no more. But an unwonted composure
had come into his wife's manner. The eyes were
gaining that intent look which was their expression when
picturing to herself scenes in the life beyond.

“O Dennis, we seem just on the confines of a glorious
world,—it is so near, so real—it seems as if but a step
would take us all into it. O if you could but see its beauties,
its glories,—if you could hear the music, you would
not fear to enter. It seems as if we were there together
now.”

“O Ethel, come back, come back,” cried her husband
piteously. “I am not worthy of all that. I have no heart
for glory now. I can see only my Savour's face looking—

at me—with love and forgiveness. That is heaven enough
for me,—and when you come—my cup will be more than
full. And now—farewell—for a little while.”

For a few moments they clung to each other. Then
the little girls were brought, and their father pressed his
cold lips to their warm, fresh young faces, wondering at a
scene they could not understand, and tearful because of
the tears of others.

He was now going very fast. Suddenly he turned to
his son and said,

“Dennis, repeat to me that verse, `This is a faithful
saying.'”

With a hoarse voice and broken by emotion, his son
complied—

“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

“Of whom I am the chief,” said his father emphatically.

“And yet”—his face lighting up with a wan smile, like
a sudden ray of light falling on a clouded landscape before
the sun sinks below the horizon—“and yet forgiven.”

By and bye he again whispered—

“Forgiven!”

Then his eyes closed, and all was still. They thought
he was gone. But as they stood over him in awed, breathless
silence, his lips again moved. Bending down, they
heard in faint, far away tones, like an echo from the other
side,

“Forgiven!”