On one occasion, when thus occupied, she sang a glorious hymn of Charles Wesley’s. Her unknown listener heard the words—
“I rest beneath the Almighty’s shade,
My griefs expire, my troubles cease;
Thou, Lord, on whom my soul is stayed,
Will keep me still in perfect peace.”
He listened till the trustful strain died out in silence, and retired to his library. Opening an accustomed volume by a favourite writer, whose no-faith had chimed in with his own phase of unbelief, he read—“I look upon human life as being bounded by an impenetrable curtain, which defies the gaze of man to pierce its texture, the hand of man to lift its awful folds. Thousands of inquiring minds have brought their torches and sought to unravel the mystery in vain. A thousand voices of those without have loudly called to those within, and asked their questions as to the eternal ‘Where?’ But they have received no answer, only the hollow echo of their own question, as if they had shouted into an empty vault.”
He laid down the book, and sat in thoughtful silence. He thought of the clear, bright hope of the youth upstairs who had been half within the curtain. “I saw the glories of heaven, the gleam of angels’ wings, and heard the sound of harpers harping with their harps.” How widely differed this from that! The first was a sad, low wail of despair; the second was the waving of Hope’s golden wing. Rising to his feet, he opened the door to rejoin his son. Hush! He hears Lucy’s voice, sweetly singing—
“While I draw this fleeting breath,
When my eyes shall close in death,
When I rise to worlds unknown,