And Theophilus looked
at the flowers, and tasted the fruit--and a new heart grew up within
him; and he said, 'Dorothea's God shall be my God, and I will die for
him like her.'
"So you see, darling, there are sweeter fruits than these, and gayer
flowers, in the place to which you go; and all the lovely things in
this world here will seem quite poor and worthless beside the glory of
that better land which He will show you: and yet you will not care to
look at them; for the sight of Him will be enough, and you will care
to think of nothing else."
"And you are sure He will accept me, after all?" asked the sick girl,
opening her eyes, and looking up at Grace. She saw Thurnall standing
in the doorway, and gave a little scream.
Tom came forward, bowing. "I am very sorry to have disturbed you. I
suspect Miss Harvey was giving you better medicine than I can give."
Now why did Tom say that, to whom the legend of St. Dorothea, and,
indeed, that whole belief in a better land, was as a dream fit only
for girls?
Not altogether because he must need say something civil. True, he
felt, on the whole, about the future state as Goethe did--"To the able
man this world is not dumb: why should he ramble off into eternity?
Such incomprehensible subjects lie too far off, and only disturb our
thoughts, if made the subject of daily meditation." That there was a
future state he had no doubt. Our having been born once, he used to
say, is the strongest possible presumption in favour of our being born
again; and probably, as nature always works upward and develops higher
forms, in some higher state.
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