“So I did,” answered he, smiling. “Strike up, and we will all follow.”
He struck up the chant, in his fine deep voice, and all joined in. Then Mr Underhill took his leave, and went home; after which the rest sat a little while in silence. Mr Rose was the first to break it.
“Robin, hast thou still a purpose to receive orders?”
“More than ever!” cried Robin, eagerly. “I never could before have told the people one-half of what I can tell now. I knew that God was sufficient for some things, but now I see Him all-sufficient and for all. I knew He could lift man up to Him, like a mother learning a child day by day; but I scantly knew how He could come down to man, like the same mother bending her sense down to the stature of her child, entering into his difficulties, feeling his troubles, making her a child for him. ‘I, even I, am He that comforteth you;’ ‘I will comfort you, and ye shall be comforted;’ yea, ‘as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.’”
“I think thou art right,” said Mr Rose, softly.
Again they sat in silence till the clock struck eight—the hour at which they commonly parted for the night. Before any one moved, Mr Rose called Thekla to him. When she obeyed, he took her hand, and laid it in Robin’s.
“The Lord bless you, and keep you!” he said tenderly. “My son, thou hast been in sorrow, and God hath been with thee: see thou leave Him not out of thy joy. May Jesus, who was the chief guest at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, be with you also, and turn the water of earthly hope into the best wine of heavenly peace. We have asked Him to the match; Lord, make One at the marriage!”
There was no voice silent in the Amen.
And then, as if the very act of lifting up his heart to God had borne him above earth, and he had forgotten the thing that caused it, Mr Rose went on:—
“‘For Thou only art holy, Thou only art the Lord! Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father!’”