now; and so I am, indeed. For, day by day, I am growing fixedly into the attitude which I bear my sorrows in; and from under them, my look heavenwards, whatever it is, is becoming eternal with me. And then it is not as though any trouble could be spared me, and I not be other than what I am to be. O my destiny! God keep me growing towards it! My crown of glory! Lord, make me worthy of it!

MARHAM.

For some time I have not been able to catch all your words, Oliver.

AUBIN.

I thought some time I might be going into a furnace of affliction, and I was talking with myself about it. And I was saying, "Body! thou must burn away here, and for thee there is no help possible. But, soul! out of this furnace, this straitened and fiery place, thou shalt esсаре,

And thou shalt walk in soft, white light, with kings and priests abroad,

And thou shalt summer high in bliss upon the hills of God."

MARHAM.

Whose lines are those?

AUBIN.

They are Thomas Aird's, and a beautiful couplet. I often say them to myself; and always when I do, it is as though it were an August

afternoon, and I had lived for ages, while my spirit in me feels so calm, yet earnest, and as though it were growing into great thoughts. Yes! and what is there I may not hope for? For I am like Melchisedek of old; and I am king and priest both; for so to God Christ has made me be. Prayer is the sacrifice I have to offer; and morning and evening, day and night, it is welcome, for the Father seeks to have it. My passions are the subjects of my kingly rule, and my throne is the Gospel; and from the height of it I judge the men, and things, and the affairs about me. My soul, my soul! be thou faithful in judgment, and thou shalt grow up to the companionship of King Alfred, and St. Louis, and George Washington.

And thou shalt walk in soft, white light, with kings and priests abroad,

And thou shalt summer high in bliss upon the hills of God.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Transition into the divine is ever woful, yet it is life.

He that lives fourscore years is but like one

BETTINA ARNIM.

That stays here for a friend: when death comes, then

Away he goes, and is ne'er seen again. -THOMAS MIDDLETON.

MARHAM.

I HAVE been thinking, Oliver, of what we talked about yesterday. What you said has done me good, though I wish I could remember it better. My memory is not what it was, I think. Well, I must be patient. I am an old man, and so patience ought to be my special business. There is not much else for me; there is no work for me in the world. My share in life I have had, and there is no further part for me in the struggles and successes of it. Now I have to study to be quiet, and wait for

AUBIN.

my

dismissal

Your admission, uncle. And it is a sublime. waiting. Blackly the gates of the grave frown against us, outside them; but from the inside they will be beautiful, for they will be seen through light that is not of the sun, nor the moon, but older; yes, and newer, too, for what is eternal is always young.

MARHAM.

But it will grow

More trust is what I want. in me, perhaps, with the patience that old age forces. For I must be patient; and more and more I shall have to be. For with an old man friends die fast, hopes come to nothing, the world lessens in interest, and things that were once a passion are not cared about.

AUBIN.

Is it beginning to be so with you, uncle? Then why is it? There is an answer, and a happy one. It is because you are growing up to a higher order of things than what are of this earth. For what this world has to teach you, you have learned.

O, no, no!

MARHAM.

AUBIN.

All the wisdom and freshness of the world you have not exhausted. But what each man's nature is capable of is commonly imbibed in threescore years and ten, though perhaps an angel might profit in this world for ages; just as a daisy is perfect with one year's growth, while in the same soil an oak will be deepening with its roots, and rising with its head, for two centuries or more. Do you feel as though you might some time, perhaps, be weary of life, be thinking that there is nothing new in it, and

no more to be known from it? Weary of it you will never be, uncle, for you will be patient, and always you will think that life, even as endurance only, will prove to be a privilege, and a rare one, perhaps; for they are not many who live to exercise the patience of fourscore years. The patience of eighty years did I say? I ought to have said the blessedness of them; for with a God to be glad in, the believing soul must always be happy, or else be just about being the happier for suffering.

MARHAM.

Yes, and so I hope for more faith than I have. I want it. In my last days, I fear feeling to have no pleasure in them; for it ought not to be so with me, as a Christian.

AUBIN.

Nor will it be, if you keep looking for the great hope, and the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Childhood, youth, manhood, marriage, friendship, trading, study, pleasure, and sorrow, you have got the good of them all; and some of them you might have tired of, if they had lasted with you long, but now they feel like the first lessons introductory to a wondrous book that has to be opened yet.

MARHAM.

O, the very thought an old man ought to wait with!