“And how beautiful the earth!” added Isa.
“Ah, on the eve of your bridal day, dearest, the prospect may well look fair in your eyes, but still it owes its chief beauty to the radiance above it.”
A FAIR PROSPECT.
“I think that it must always be so to the Christian,” observed Isa. “The very crown of earthly happiness is to think that it is not all earthly; that our Lord, who has joined our hearts together, will also join our hands; and that the union which He makes will endure when that sun itself is dark!” Isa’s eyes glistened with tears as she spoke, but they welled up from a deep fount of joy.
“Just look towards Wildwaste!” cried Edith; “they have finished that triumphal arch of evergreens and roses at which Lottie and her brother, and all the children of the hamlet, have been working so hard since daybreak. I never thought that Wildwaste could put on an appearance so bright and so gay. Every cottage has its garland, and I should not wonder if the manufactory itself burst into an illumination to-morrow.”
“I suspect that the enthusiasm and the rejoicing,” said Isa gayly, “is less on account of the wedding than to express the joy of the hamlet at Arthur Madden’s being appointed to succeed Mr. Bull. Old Bolder was speaking so warmly on the subject this morning. ‘There will be good days for Wildwaste yet,’ he said, ‘now that we’ve a pastor who will work, and pray while he works; who loves his people, and will make them love him! We’ll not have all the drunkenness and riot which have made Wildwaste a blot on the land! I’ve felt better ever since I heard the good news,’ he added, rubbing his hands; ‘and I’ll make a shift, I will, to throw away my crutches, and get to church the day that Mr. Arthur gives his first sermon.’”
“Every one welcomes their young clergyman as the benefactor of the place,” observed Edith.
“Lottie would be almost sorry to leave Wildwaste,” said Isa, “were she not going with me to Axe, where she will be close to her widowed mother, and able often to be with her.”