"Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith the Lord. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and say unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins."
"The Old Testament is full of the New; men's wickedness,—it took wicked men to show the way of the Lord in the earth,—and God's forgiveness, and his leading it all round right, in spite of them all! Only He didn't turn the right side out all at once; it wasn't safe to let them see both sides then. But He trusts us now; He gave his whole heart in Jesus Christ; He tells us, without any keeping back, what He means our very sins shall do for us, and He leaves it to us, after that, to take hold and help Him!"
"If it weren't for them! If I hadn't let them suffer and die!"
"Do you think He takes all this care of you,—lets them die for you even,—and don't take as much for them? Do you think they ain't glad and happy now? Do you think you could have hurt them, if you had tried,—and you didn't try, you only let them alone a little, forgetting? It says, 'If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation.' If we have somebody to take part with us against our sins, how much more against our mistakes,—our forgettings! and they are the propitiation, too; their angels—the Christ of them—do always behold the face of the Father. Their interceding is a part of the Lord's interceding."
"If I could once more be let to do something for them—their very selves!"
"You can. You can pray, 'Lord give them some beautiful heavenly joy this day that thou knowest of, for my asking; because I cannot any more do for them on the earth.' And then you can turn round to their errands again."
Marion stood up on her feet.
"I will say that prayer for them every day! I shall believe in it, because you told me. If I had thought of it myself, I should not have dared. But He wouldn't send such a message by you if He didn't mean it; would He?"
She believed in the God of Luclarion Grapp, as the children of Israel believed in the God of Abraham.
"He never sends any message that He doesn't mean. He means the comfort, just as much as He does the blaming."