Beulah - Page 170/348

He smiled again, and said in the low, musical tone which she had

always found so difficult to resist.

"Come back, my child. Come back to me!"

"Never, sir! never!" answered she resolutely.

A stony hue settled on his face; the lips seemed instantly frozen,

and, removing his hand from her shoulder, he said, as if talking to

a perfect stranger: "See that Clara Sanders needs nothing; she is

far from being well."

He left her; but her heart conquered for an instant, and she sprang

down two steps and caught his hand. Pressing her face against his

arm, she exclaimed brokenly: "Oh, sir! do not cast me off entirely! My friend, my guardian,

indeed I have not deserved this!"

He laid his hand on her bowed head, and said calmly: "Fierce, proud spirit! Ah! it will take long years of trial and

suffering to tame you. Go, Beulah! You have cast yourself off. It

was no wish, no work of mine."

He lifted her head from his arm, gently unclasped her fingers, and

walked away. Beulah dried the tears on her cheek, and, composing

herself by a great effort, returned to Clara. The latter still sat

in an easy-chair, and leaned back with closed eyes. Beulah made no

effort to attract her attention, and sat down noiselessly to reflect

upon her guardian's words and the separation which, she now clearly

saw, he intended should be final. There, in the gathering gloom of

twilight, sat Clara Sanders, nerving her heart for the dreary

future; solemnly and silently burying the cherished hopes that had

irised her path, and now, looking steadily forward to coming years,

she said to her drooping spirit: "Be strong and bear this sorrow. I

will conquer my own heart." How is it that, when the human soul is

called to pass through a fierce ordeal, and numbing despair seizes

the faculties and energies in her sepulchral grasp, how is it that

superhuman strength is often suddenly infused into the sinking

spirit? There is a mysterious yet resistless power given, which

winds up and sets again in motion that marvelous bit of mechanism,

the human will; that curiously intricate combination of wheels; that

mainspring of action, which has baffled the ingenuity of

philosophers, and remains yet undiscovered, behind the cloudy shrine

of the unknown. Now, there are times when this human clock well-nigh

runs down; when it seems that volition is dead; when the past is all

gilded, the future all shrouded, and the soul grows passive, hoping

nothing, fearing nothing. Yet when the slowly swinging pendulum

seems about to rest, even then an unseen hand touches the secret

spring; and, as the curiously folded coil quivers on again, the

resuscitated will is lifted triumphantly back to its throne. This

newborn power is from God. But, ye wise ones of earth, tell us how,

and by whom, is the key applied? Are ministering angels (our white-

robed idols, our loved dead) ordained to keep watch over the

machinery of the will and attend to the winding up? Or is this

infusion of strength, whereby to continue its operations, a sudden

tightening of those invisible cords which bind the All-Father to the

spirits he has created? Truly, there is no Oedipus for this vexing

riddle. Many luckless theories have been devoured by the Sphinx;

when will metaphysicians solve it? One tells us vaguely enough, "Who

knows the mysteries of will, with its vigor? Man doth not yield him

to the angels, nor unto death, utterly, save only through the

weakness of his feeble will." This pretty bubble of a "latent

strength" has vanished; the power is from God; but who shall unfold

the process? Clara felt that this precious help was given in her

hour of need; and, looking up undauntedly to the clouds that

darkened her sky, said to her hopeless heart: "I will live to do my

duty, and God's work on eirth; I will go bravely forward in my path

of labor, strewing flowers and sunshine. If God needs a lonely,

chastened spirit to do his behests, oh! shall I murmur and die

because I am chosen? What are the rushing, howling waves of life in

comparison with the calm, shoreless ocean of all eternity?"