He’ll lighten thy burden, go, weary one, pray.”
The wind moans piteously through the tall, gaunt trees, and he murmurs half inaudibly, “The prayers that were taught me in sweet boyhood years I then repeated with smiles, but now tears dim my eyes as I think of that patient mother who lies beneath this mound. I killed her! I broke her heart! But mother, oh, hear me to-night! With my poor, weary form I will guard you and sleep on your snow-covered grave. Could I know that when dead I could meet you in Heaven, I would rest calmly here on this rough pillow, but alas for my sins, so many, so vile! ’Tis only the pure and holy and good that ever dare hope they may enter therein.”
Each note of the organ peals out, full of tenderest pathos, each word from the singers comes clearly and plainly:
“Weary of earth and laden with my sin,
I look at Heaven and long to enter in;
But there no evil thing may find a home,
And yet I hear a voice that bids me come.”
Now he kneels in the snow and his head is bent low, he clasps his trembling hands, then with one yearning look towards Heaven, he sinks like a child, weary of play, sleepy and tired, on that snow-covered pillow, the pillow of death.
Now the flakes fall faster and faster still, they cover him gently, like a mother that covers her child, lest she waken it out of its slumber.
Now more holy than ever, grander than ever, the old organ peals out, and the choir sings: