Mary burst into peevish tears. Jane laughed triumphantly. Rachel looked at them both with mild reproach.
"Jane," she said, "it is wrong—very wrong—to provoke another. Mary, God did not give us tears—and they are a great gift of his mercy—to shed them so for a trifle. Do it no more."
The two girls remained abashed. Rachel quietly left the room. She went to her own. She had prayed long that morning, but still longer did she pray that night. For alas!—who knows it not—the wings of Hope would of themselves raise us to Heaven; but hard it is for poor resignation to look up from this sad earth.
CHAPTER VIII.
We were made to endure. A Heathen philosopher held the eight of the just man's suffering, worthy of the Gods, and Christianity knows nothing more beautiful, more holy, than the calm resignation of the pure and the lowly, to the will of their Divine Father.
It was the will of Heaven that Rachel should not be beloved of her earthly father. She bore her lot—not without sorrow; but, at least, without repining. Perhaps, she was more silent, more thoughtful, than before; but she was not less cheerful, and in one sense she was certainly not less happy. Affliction patiently borne for the love of the hand that inflicts it, loses half its sting. The cup is always bitter—and doubly bitter shall it seem to us, if we drink it reluctantly; but if we courageously dram it, we shall find that the last drop is not like the rest It is fraught with a Divine sweetness—it is a precious balsam, and can heal the deepest and most envenomed wound.
This pure drop Rachel found in her cup. It strengthened and upheld her through her trial. "It is the will of God," she repeated to herself—"It is the will of God;" and those simple words, which held a meaning so deep, were to Rachel fortitude and consolation.
And in the meanwhile, the little world around her, unconscious of her sufferings and her trials—for even her mother could not wholly divine them—went on its ways. Mrs. Gray grumbled, Jane was grim, Mary was peevish, and Mrs. Brown occasionally dropped in "to keep them going," as she said herself.
As to Richard Jones, we will not attempt to describe the uneasiness of mind he endured in endeavouring to follow out Rachel's advice. He did not understand its spirit, which, indeed, she could not have explained. They who make the will of God their daily law, are guided, even in apparently worldly matters,—not indeed, so as never to commit mistakes, which were being beyond humanity, but so, at least, as to err as little as possible concerning their true motives of action. Our passions are our curse, spiritual and temporal; and the mere habit of subduing them gives prudence and humility in all things:—wisdom thus becomes one of the rewards which God grants to the faithful servant.
But of this, what did Richard Jones—the most unspiritual of good men, know? After three days spent in a state of distracting doubt, he came to the conclusion that it was, and must be the will of Heaven that he should have a shop. Poor fellow! if he took his own will for that of the Almighty, did he fall into a very uncommon mistake?