She had some things to
trouble her, but none of them had touched the quick of her being.
Thoughtful, therefore in a measure troubled, by nature, she did not know
what heart-sickness was. Nor would she ever know it as many must, for
her heart went up to the heart of her heart, and there unconsciously
laid up store against the evil hours that might be on their way to her.
And this day her thoughts kept rising to Him whose thought was the
meaning of all she saw, the center and citadel of its loveliness.
For if once the suspicion wake that God never meant the things that go
to and fro in us as we gaze on the world, that moment is the universe
worthless as a doll to a childless mother. If God be not, then
steam-engine and flower are in the same category. No; the steam-engine
is the better thing, for it has the soul of a man in it, and the flower
has no soul at all. It cannot mean if it is not meant. It is God that
means everything as we read it, however poor or mingled with mistake our
reading may be. And the soothing of his presence in what we call nature,
was beginning to work on Hester, helping her toward that quietness of
spirit without which the will of God can scarce be perceived.
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