Or, to change the metaphor, has faith been with us as the blighted tree, on which the sunshine falls in vain, which stands a bare form, a lifeless thing, when spring clothes all around it with verdure? Has the Lord of the vineyard said of it, Lo, these three, or ten, or twenty years I come seeking fruit, and finding none. Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? Oh, my brethren, that faith which is shown not by deeds, that faith which works not by love, is not the faith which is firmly rooted in the Rock of Ages. A cold assent of the reason is not faith, a lifeless profession is not faith; that is faith which beareth good fruits—that which, like the faith of Gideon, overcometh the enemy.
We have to pursue our Midianites to the Jordan, but not beyond Jordan. At the fords of the “narrow stream of death” the last enemy will perish for ever. Into the bright land beyond, Disappointment, Discontent cannot enter; for there is the fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. Dissension is unknown where every look and thought are love; nor can the shadow of Distrust fall in the realm of eternal light, for the servants of Christ shall see Him as He is, and dwell with Him in bliss everlasting.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONCLUSION.
Months had rolled away, months crowded with incidents of interest to the personages in my story, and now Edith and Isa stand again on the summit of the grassy mound by Castle Lestrange, which overlooks a landscape so wide and so fair. They behold Nature no longer clad in the light-green drapery of spring, spangled with blossoms, but in the rich full foliage of summer, which the setting sun is bathing in golden glory. Edith’s blue eyes are gazing on the magnificent sky, where the bright orb of day, while sinking down on a throne of fiery clouds, is throwing upwards widening streams of light where rosy clouds, like islands of the blessed, softly float in clear blue ether. Never, even in Italy, had Edith witnessed a finer sunset; it seemed like a glimpse granted to mortals below of the coming glories of heaven.
“How resplendent is the sky!” exclaimed Edith, after a pause of silent admiration.