“There is love and love, even in the world outside; for if it is Adam's world it is God's, too, Abby! The love I gave my husband was good, I think, but it failed somewhere, and I am going back to try again. I am not any too happy in leaving you and taking up, perhaps, heavier burdens than those from which I escaped.”
“Night after night I've prayed to be the means of leading you to the celestial life,” said the Eldress, “but my plaint was not worthy to be heard. Oh, that God would increase our numbers and so revive our drooping faith! We work, we struggle, we sacrifice, we pray, we defy the world and deny the flesh, yet we fail to gather in Believers.”
“Don't say you 've failed, dear, dear Abby!” cried Susanna, pressing the Eldress's work-stained hands to her lips. “God speaks to you in one voice, to me in another. Does it matter so much as long as we both hear Him? Surely it's the hearing and the obeying that counts most! Wish me well, dear friend, and help me to say goodbye to the Elder.”
The two women found Elder Gray in the office, and Abby, still unresigned, laid Susanna's case before him.
“The Great Architect has need of many kinds of workmen in His building,” said the Elder. “There are those who are willing to put aside the ties of flesh for the kingdom of heaven's sake; 'he that is able to receive it, let him receive it!'”
“There may also he those who are willing to take up the ties of the flesh for the kingdom of heaven's sake,” answered Susanna, gently, but with a certain courage.
Her face glowed with emotion, her eyes shone, her lips were parted. It was a new thought. Abby and Daniel gazed at her for a moment without speaking, then Daniel said: “It's a terrible cross to some of the Brethren and Sisters to live here outside of the world, but maybe it's more of a cross for such as you to live in it, under such conditions as have surrounded you of late years. To pursue good and resist evil, to bear your cross cheerfully and to grow in grace and knowledge of truth while you're bearing it that's the lesson of life, I suppose. If you find you can't learn it outside, come back to us, Susanna.”
“I will,” she promised, “and no words can speak my gratitude for what you have all done for me. Many a time it will come back to me and keep me from faltering.”
She looked back at him from the open doorway, timidly.
“Don't forget us, Sue and me, altogether,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Come to Farnham, if you will, and see if I am a credit to Shaker teaching! I shall never be here again, perhaps, and somehow it seems to me as if you, Elder Gray, with your education and your gifts, ought to be leading a larger life than this.”