“No, indeed, I should not,” I answered, with more than honesty; for I felt exuberantly happy.
“If only we can keep warm,” said my father. “If you should get very cold indeed, you must not lose heart, my man, but think how pleasant it will be when we get home to a good fire and a hot breakfast.”
“I think I can bear it all right. I have often been cold enough at school.”
“This may be worse. But we need not anticipate evil: that is to send out for the suffering. It is well to be prepared for it, but it is ill to brood over a fancied future of evil. In all my life, my boy—and I should like you to remember what I say—I have never found any trial go beyond what I could bear. In the worst cases of suffering, I think there is help given which those who look on cannot understand, but which enables the sufferer to endure. The last help of that kind is death, which I think is always a blessing, though few people can regard it as such.”
I listened with some wonder. Without being able to see that what he said was true, I could yet accept it after a vague fashion.
“This nest which we have made to shelter us,” he resumed, “brings to my mind what the Psalmist says about dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. Everyone who will, may there, like the swallow, make himself a nest.”
“This can’t be very like that, though, surely, father,” I ventured to object.
“Why not, my boy?”
“It’s not safe enough, for one thing.”
“You are right there. Still it is like. It is our place of refuge.”