May He guide and bless you,
and grant that in a better and happier world I and mine may meet
again.--Your most affectionate mother,
CHRISTINA PONTIFEX."
From enquiries I have made, I have satisfied myself that most mothers
write letters like this shortly before their confinements, and that fifty
per cent. keep them afterwards, as Christina did.
CHAPTER XXVI
The foregoing letter shows how much greater was Christina's anxiety for
the eternal than for the temporal welfare of her sons. One would have
thought she had sowed enough of such religious wild oats by this time,
but she had plenty still to sow. To me it seems that those who are happy
in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not,
and that thus in the event of a Resurrection and Day of Judgement, they
will be the most likely to be deemed worthy of a heavenly mansion.
Perhaps a dim unconscious perception of this was the reason why Christina
was so anxious for Theobald's earthly happiness, or was it merely due to
a conviction that his eternal welfare was so much a matter of course,
that it only remained to secure his earthly happiness? He was to "find
his sons obedient, affectionate, attentive to his wishes, self-denying
and diligent," a goodly string forsooth of all the virtues most
convenient to parents; he was never to have to blush for the follies of
those "who owed him such a debt of gratitude," and "whose first duty it
was to study his happiness.
Pages:
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191