The Old Homestead Part 2

Again that beautiful smile beamed over the dying man's face.

"He will hear you--He has heard you--I felt that you had need of me, and came; see how G.o.d has answered your want in this, my child!"

"But I can do nothing alone; when you are with me, I feel strong; but if you leave me, what can I do?"

"Pray without ceasing; and in everything give thanks," said that faint gentle voice once more.

"But I have prayed till my heart seemed full of tears."

"They were sweet tears, Mary."

"No, no; my heart grew heavy with them; and--mother, how could I give thanks when she came home so--!"

"Hush, hush, Mary--it is your mother!"

"But I can't give thanks for that, when I remember how she let you suffer--how miserable everything was--how she left you to starve, day by day, spending all the money you had laid up in drink!"

"Oh, my child, my child!" cried the dying man, sweeping the tears from his eyes with one pale hand, and dropping it heavily on her shoulder.

She cowered beneath the pressure.

"It is wrong--I know it," she said, clasping her hands and dropping them heavily before her, as if weighed down by a sense of her utter unworthiness. "But oh, father, what shall I do! what _shall_ I do!"

"Honor your mother!"

"How can I honor her, when she degrades and abuses us all!"

"G.o.d does not make you the judge of your parents, but commands you unconditionally to honor them."

Mary dropped her eyes and stooped more humble downward. She saw now why the darkness had hung so long over her prayers. Filled with unforgiving bitterness against her mother she had asked G.o.d to forgive her, scarcely deeming her fault one to be repented of. A brief struggle against the memory of bitter ill-usage and fierce wrong inflicted by her mother, and Mary drew a deep free breath. Her eyes filled, and meekly folding her hands she held them toward her father.

"What shall I do, father?"

He drew her toward him, and a look of holy faith lay upon his face.

"Listen to me, Mary; G.o.d may yet help you to save this woman, your mother and my wife; for next to G.o.d I always loved her."

"But what can I do? She hates me because I am so small and ugly. She will never let me love her, and without that what can a poor little thing like me do?"

"My child, there is no human being so weak or so humble that it is incapable of doing good, of being happy, and of making others happy also. The power of doing good does not rest so much in what we possess, as in what we are. Gentle words, kind acts are more precious than gold. These are the wealth of the poor; more precious than worldly wealth, because it is never exhausted. The more you give, the more you possess."

A strange beautiful light came into Mary's eyes, as she listened.

"Go on, father, say more."

She drew a deep breath.

"Then the good are never poor!"

"Never, my child."

"And never unhappy?"

"Never utterly miserable, as the wicked are--never without hope."

"Oh, father, tell me more; ask G.o.d to help me--He will listen to you."

He laid his pale hands upon her head, and as a flower folds itself beneath the night shadow, Mary sunk to her knees. She clasped her little hands, and dropping them upon her father's knee, buried her face there; then the lips of that dying man parted, and the last pulses of his life glowed out in a prayer so fervent, so powerful in its faith, that the very angels of heaven must have veiled their faces as they listened to that blending of eternal faith and human sorrow.

Mary listened at first tremblingly, and with strange awe; then the burning words began to thrill her, heart and limb, and yielding to the might of a spirit which his prayer had drawn down from heaven.

She also broke forth with a cry of the same holy anguish; and the voice of father and child rose and swelled together up to the throne of G.o.d.

As he prayed, the face of the sick man grew sublime in its paleness, and the death sweat rolled over it like rain, while that of the child grew strangely luminous. Gradually mouth, eyes and forehead kindled with glorious joy, and instead of that heart-rending pet.i.tion that broke from her at first, her voice mellowed into soft throes and murmurs of praise.

The sick man hushed his soul and listened; his exhausted voice broke into sighs, and thus, after a little time, they both sunk into silence--the child filled with strange ecstasy--the father bowing with calm joy beneath the hand of death.

"Let me lie down. I am very, very weak," he said, attempting to rise.

Mary stood up and helped him. She had grown marvellously strong within the last hour, and her soul, better than that slight form, supported the dying man.

He lay down. She placed the pillow under his head and knelt again.

It seemed as if her heart could give forth its silent grat.i.tude to G.o.d best in that position.

He laid his hand upon her head. It was growing cold.

"And you are willing now that I should die?"

"Yes, my father, only---," and here a human throb broke in her voice, "if I could but go with you!"

"No, my child, it is but a little time, at most. For _her_ sake be content to wait."

"Father, I am content."

"And happy?"

"Very, very happy, father!"

The dying man closed his eyes, and a faint murmur rose to his lips.

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

His hand was still upon her head, and there it rested till the purple shadows died off into cold grey tints, and upon his still face there rose a smile pure as moonlight, luminous as waters that gush from the throne of heaven.

The same holy spirit must have touched the living and the dead, for when the little girl lifted her face, the pale, pinched features were radiant as those of an angel. She had gone close to the gate of heaven with her father, soul and body. She was bathed in the holy light that had gushed through the portals.