When I was in her room with the flowers, I passed the table on which her little Bible lay open. A mark of rich ribbon—a black ribbon—fell across the pages; it bore in silver text these words:—
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
20th.
“I thank thee, my God, the river of Lethe may indeed flow through the Elysian Fields,—it does not water the Christian’s Paradise.”
Aunt Winifred was saying that over to herself in a dreamy undertone this morning, and I happened to hear her.
“Just a quotation, dear,” she said, smiling, in answer to my look of inquiry, “I couldn’t originate so pretty a thing. Isn’t it pretty?”
“Very; but I am not sure that I understand it.”
“You thought that forgetfulness would be necessary to happiness?”
“Why,—yes; as far as I had ever thought about it; that is, after our last ties with this world are broken. It does not seem to me that I could be happy to remember all that I have suffered and all that I have sinned here.”
“But the last of all the sins will be as if it had never been. Christ takes care of that. No shadow of a sense of guilt can dog you, or affect your relations to Him or your other friends. The last pain borne, the last tear, the last sigh, the last lonely hour, the last unsatisfied dream, forever gone by; why should not the dead past bury its dead?”