"And what would a miracle avail us at such times of darkness and strong temptation?" said the Elder. "Have we not been told that they whom Moses and the prophets have failed to convince would not believe although one rose from the dead? That God has revealed no more to us is to my mind sufficient evidence that He has revealed enough."
"May it not be," queried the Doctor, "that Infinite Wisdom sees that a clearer and fuller revelation of the future life would render us less willing or able to perform our appropriate duties in the present condition? Enchanted by a clear view of the heavenly hills, and of our loved ones beckoning us from the pearl gates of the city of God, could we patiently work out our life-task here, or make the necessary exertions to provide for the wants of these bodies whose encumbrance alone can prevent us from rising to a higher plane of existence?"
"I reckon," said the Skipper, who had been an attentive, although at times evidently a puzzled, listener, "that it would be with us pretty much as it was with a crew of French sailors that I once shipped at the Isle of France for the port of Marseilles. I never had better hands until we hove in sight of their native country, which they had n't seen for years. The first look of the land set 'em all crazy; they danced, laughed, shouted, put on their best clothes; and I had to get new hands to help me bring the vessel to her moorings."
"Your story is quite to the point, Skipper," said the Doctor. "If things had been ordered differently, we should all, I fear, be disposed to quit work and fall into absurdities, like your French sailors, and so fail of bringing the world fairly into port."
"God's ways are best," said the Elder; "and I don't see as we can do better than to submit with reverence to the very small part of them which He has made known to us, and to trust Him like loving and dutiful children for the rest."
CHAPTER V.
THE HILLSIDE.
THE pause which naturally followed the observation of the Elder was broken abruptly by the Skipper.
"Hillo!" he cried, pointing with the glazed hat with which he had been fanning himself. "Here away in the northeast. Going down the coast for better fishing, I guess."
"An eagle, as I live!" exclaimed the Doctor, following with his cane the direction of the Skipper's hat. "Just see how royally he wheels upward and onward, his sail-broad wings stretched motionless, save an occasional flap to keep up his impetus! Look! the circle in which he moves grows narrower; he is a gray cloud in the sky, a point, a mere speck or dust-mote. And now he is clean swallowed up in the distance. The wise man of old did well to confess his ignorance of 'the way of an eagle in the air.'"