“Then wait till it comes. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”
“Yet when one has learned by experience that evil is perpetually coming, how can one help looking forward to the morrow?”
“Look forward,” said Heliet. “But let it be to the day after to-morrow—the day when we shall awake up after Christ’s likeness, and be satisfied with it—when the Lord our God shall come, and all the saints with Him. Dear, a gem cannot be engraved without the cutting-tools. Wouldst thou rather be spared the pain of the cutting than have Christ’s likeness graven upon thee?”
“Oh, could it not be done with less cutting?”
“Yes—and more faintly graven then.”
Clarice sobbed, without speaking.
“If the likeness is to be in high relief, so that all men may see it, and recognise the resemblance, and applaud the graver, Clarice, the tool must cut deep.”
“If one could ever know that it was nearly done, it would be easier to bear it.”
“Ay, but how if the vision were granted us, and we saw that it was not nearly done by many a year? It is better not to know, dear. Yet it is natural to us all to think that it would be far easier if we could see. Therefore the more ‘blessed is he that hath not seen, and yet hath believed.’”
“I do think,” said poor Clarice, drearily, “that I must be the worst tried of all His people.”