“Oh, it is so hard to understand!” cried Bride, pressing her hands together—“it is so hard to understand!”
“I think it is not possible to understand,” said the old man quietly, “but surely it is easy to believe, for we see it every day and every year.”
“How do we see it?” asked Bride, almost listlessly.
Abner put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a little packet of seed, some of which he poured into his palm.
“Lady Bride,” he said in his grave meditative way, “it does not seem wonderful to yu that each of these tiny seeds will, after it has rotted in the ground, germinate and bear leaves and flowers and fruit. But if yu did not know it from constant seeing it year by year, if it was a strange thing that yu have been told, and yu would not believe it, and yu said to me, ‘No, Abner, that cannot be. It is not sense. It cannot be understood. I must prove it first before I believe it.’ And suppose yu took that seed and put it under that glass which clever men use for discoveries, and suppose beneath that powerful glass yu pulled it bit by bit to pieces to see if it contained the germ of the mystery, du yu think yu would find it there? Du yu think your seed would grow after being treated so?”
“No, of course not,” answered Bride.
“Well, isn’t it just so with the mysteries of God? He gives them to us, and says, ‘Here is your body. It is corruptible and mortal; but it has within it the germ of immortality, and though it will die and perish in the ground, yet it will rise again glorified when the day of resurrection comes.’ But men in these days take that mystery and say, ‘We will not take God’s word for it; we will put it beneath the glass of our great intellects, and examine and see if it be true, and if we may not prove it by examination, then we will not believe it!’ And so they set to work, and when they have done, they tell men not to believe God any longer, because they have proved Him a liar by the gauge of their own intellects. Du yu think these men would believe that this seed would sprout into a flower if they did not see it do so with their own eyes? No; they would laugh yu to scorn for telling them so. And so they laugh us to scorn who tell them that there will be a resurrection of the dead. But, Ladybird, never let your heart fail you. Never let doubt steal over your mind. What God has promised we know He will surely accomplish—and His words cannot fail.”
She rose with a faint smile and held out her hand, which the old gardener took reverently and tenderly between both of his own.
“I will try to think of that if ever I doubt again,” she said softly. “I do know—I do believe—but sometimes it is very hard to keep fast hold on the faith.”
