“I–hope so.”
“I know it is so. Nanna loved God, and those who love God in life will find no difficulty in going to him after life is over.”
“She had a hard life, and it was all in the dark to her.”
“But at the death-hour it was light, though the light was not of this world.” And David told the minister about the farewell message she had written him, and its final happy words, “At last it is peace–peace!” He could not bear that any eyes should see the paper, or any hand touch it, but his own; but he wished all to know that at the death-hour God had comforted her.
“She suffered a great deal, David.”
“What ailed her, minister?”
“What ails the lamp, David, when it goes out? There is no oil, that is all. Nanna used up all her strength in weeping and feeling; the oil of life wastes quickly in that way.”
“O minister, I am so sorry that I left her! It was selfish and cruel. I wish now that I could cover her hands with kisses, and ask her pardon on my knees; but I find nothing but a grave.”
“Ah, David, it is death that forces us to see the selfishness that comes into our best affections. Self permitted you to give all you had to Nanna, but forbade you to give yourself. There was self even in your self-surrender to God. If you could have seen that long, long disappointed look in Nanna’s eyes, and the pale lips that asked so little from you–”
“O minister, spare me! She asked only, ‘Stay near me, David’; and I might have stayed and comforted her to the end. Oh, for one hour–one hour only! But neither to-day nor to-morrow, nor through all eternity, shall I have the opportunity to love and soothe which I threw away because it hurt me and made my heart ache.” And David bowed his head in his hands and wept bitterly.