Hitherto life had seemed a good
thing, worth holding up as a heave-offering to him who made it; now she
had to learn to take life itself from the hand of God as his will, in
faith that he would prove it a good gift. She had to learn that in
_all_ drearinesses, of the flesh or spirit, even in those that seem
to come of having nothing to do, or from being unable to do what we
think we have to do, the refuge is the same--he who is the root and
crown of life. Who would receive comfort from anything but love? Who
would build on anything but the eternal? Who would lean on that which
has in itself no persistence? Even the closest human loves have their
only endurance, only hope of perfection, in the eternal perfect love of
which they are the rainbow-refractions. I cannot love son or daughter as
I would, save loving them as the children of the eternal God, in whom
his spirit dwells and works, making them altogether lovely, and me more
and more love-capable. That they are mine is not enough ground for
enough love--will not serve as operative reason to the height of the
love my own soul demands from itself for them. But they are mine because
they are his, and he is the demander and enabler of love.
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