Come and taste My sweets, saith Jesus:
Be with Me where I am.”
The voice is that of Christina Rossetti, but it is the thought too of her who wrote “Cherry and Violet.”
Miss Manning, as we read her life in her books, walks through the world with an unbounded charity and a hope ever refreshed. “Preach peace to all,” said S. Francis of Assisi, “for often those whom you think to be the children of the devil are those whom you will know some day to be the sons of God.” Miss Manning loved to think of, and to look upon, whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, and so thinking and looking she found flowers everywhere to spring up beneath her feet.
“Tread softly! all the earth is holy ground.
It may be, could we look with seeing eyes,
This spot we stand on is a Paradise
Where dead have come to life and lost been found,
Where faith has triumphed, martyrdom been crowned,
Where fools have foiled the wisdom of the wise;