goodness, no justice, no mercy in anything! Life seems to me the most
tremendous doom that can be inflicted on a helpless being! _What had we
done_, that it should be sent upon us? Why were we made to love so, to
hope so,--our hearts so full of feeling, and all the laws of Nature
marching over us,--never stopping for our agony? Why, we can suffer so
in this life that we had better never have been born!

"But, Mary, think what a moment life is! think of those awful ages of
eternity! and then think of all God's power and knowledge used on the
lost to make them suffer! think that all but the merest fragment of
mankind have gone into this,--are in it now! The number of the elect is
so small we can scarce count them for anything! Think what noble minds,
what warm, generous hearts, what splendid natures are wrecked and thrown
away by thousands and tens of thousands! How we love each other! how our
hearts weave into each other! how more than glad we should be to die for
each other! And all this ends--O God, how must it end?--Mary! it isn't
_my_ sorrow only! What right have I to mourn? Is _my_ son any better
than any other mother's son? Thousands of thousands, whose mothers loved
them as I love mine, are gone there!--Oh, my wedding-day! Why did they
rejoice? Brides should wear mourning,--the bells should toll for every
wedding; every new family is built over this awful pit of despair, and
only one in a thousand escapes!"

Pale, aghast, horror-stricken, Mary stood dumb, as one who in the dark
and storm sees by the sudden glare of lightning a chasm yawning under
foot. It was amazement and dimness of anguish;--the dreadful words
struck on the very centre where her soul rested. She felt as if the
point of a wedge were being driven between her life and her life's
life,--between her and her God. She clasped her hands instinctively on
her bosom, as if to hold there some cherished image, and said in a