“The children of this world marry and are given in marriage. But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage.
“Neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” [Footnote: St. Luke, chap. xx. 34-36.]
“To die no more! To be like unto the angels! To be the children of God! This is the end and aim of my desires, to be among ‘the children of God!’”
“Dear Annie, I cannot understand this.”
“Not yet. It is not your time. My soul, I think, is ages older than yours. It takes ages of schooling to get into that class that may leave Earth forever, and be as the angels. Even now I know, I am sure that you are fretting and miserable for the love of some woman. For whose love, George? Tell me.”
Then Hyde plunged with headlong precipitancy into the story of his love for Cornelia, and of the inexplicably cruel way in which it had been brought to a close. “And yesterday,” he continued with a sob in his voice—“yesterday I heard that her father had taken her to Philadelphia. I shall see her no more. He will marry her to Rem Van Arenas, or to one of her Quaker cousins, and the taste is taken out of my life, and I am only a walking misery.”
“I do not believe it is Cornelia’s fault.”
“Here is her letter. Read it.” Then Annie look the letter and after reading it said, “If she be all you say, I will vow she wrote this in her sleep. I should like to see her. Why do you think wrong of her? What is love without faith in the one you love? Do you know first and finally what true love is? It is THINKING kindly and nobly. For if we GIVE all we have, and DO all we can do, and yet THINK unkindly, it profits us nothing. Doctor Roslyn told me so. You remember him?”
“Your teacher?”
“My teacher, my friend, my father after the spirit. He told me that our thoughts moulded our fate, because thought and life are one. So then, if you really love Cornelia, you must think good of her, and then good will come.”