No man, however little he may recognize the
hope in him, knows what it would be to be altogether hopeless. Now Moxy
was about to be taken from them, and no deeper misery seemed, to their
imagination, possible! Nothing seemed left them--not even the desire of
deliverance. How little hope there is in the commoner phases of
religion! The message grounded on the uprising of the crucified man, has
as yet yielded but little victory over the sorrows of the grave, but
small anticipation of the world to come; not a little hope of
deliverance from a hell, but scarce a foretaste of a blessed time at
hand when the heart shall exult and the flesh be glad. In general there
is at best but a sad looking forward to a region scarcely less shadowy
and far more dreary than the elysium of the pagan poets. When Christ
cometh, shall he find faith in the earth--even among those who think
they believe that he is risen indeed? Margaret Franks, in the cellar of
her poverty, the grave yawning below it for her Moxy, felt as if there
was no heaven at all, only a sky.
But a strange necessity was at hand to compel the mother to rouse afresh
all the latent hope and faith and prayer that were in her.
Pages:
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486