'Aunt Marion has changed her mind; she says we can go to church, Olive. Come along and tell nurse!'
Olive scampered into the house, and Miss Sibyl walked along, thinking deeply. For some weeks past she had been anxious and ill at ease. She realized how fruitless and empty her life had been, but could not see how to remedy it. Her own words to Olive came back to her,—
'He had finished His work. When He had died for our sins He went back to heaven.'
'Has He indeed died for mine?' she murmured. 'Can I trust Him like these innocent little ones to "wash me and make me whiter than snow"? Oh, I wish I could, I wish I could!'
She was very silent on the way to church; not even the glee of the children could distract her thoughts.
Roland and Olive thoroughly enjoyed themselves; the sweet spring flowers in the church, the joyous Easter hymns, and the familiar story read once again by the rector, satisfied their little souls. They sat with radiant faces in the family pew, and when they caught sight of Bob singing away with tearful eyes and a happy smile in the village choir, they nodded across at him with great satisfaction.
Miss Sibyl came into church with a burden upon her soul; but when the Easter anthem fell upon her ear, she listened with more interest than she had ever felt in it before. 'Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin: but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' What did it mean? And then with a burst of triumph the words came to her: 'For as in Adam all die: even so in Christ shall all be made alive.'
Like a flash of light Miss Sibyl saw it all, and then and there her poor dead soul reached hold of its Saviour, and life—that 'life more abundant,'—flooded the empty corners of her anxious heart.