“Yes,” I said, in a puzzled voice, for of course I knew nothing of these sensations; then, still in my childish manner, “I expect to enjoy it beyond anything; for you know, David, I have never been in any cathedral except Llandaff, and I have never heard the ‘Messiah.’”
“Well, my dear, you will enjoy it to-day; but more the second time, I doubt not.”
“Why? David.”
“Because there are depths in it, which life must teach you to understand.”
“But, dear David, I often have had such sad thoughts.”
“Poor child!” a touch of his hand on my head, then no more words from either of us.
Just before we reached Hereford, as I was drawing on my long white gloves, which I had thrown aside as an unpleasant restraint during the journey, David said one thing more, “When the service is over, Gwladys, we will walk round the Close, if you don’t mind, for I have got something I want to tell you.”
It darted into my head, at these words, that perhaps I was going to London after all. The thought remained for only an instant, it was quickly crowded out, with the host of new sensations which all compressed themselves into the next few hours.
No, I shall never forget it, when I have grey hairs I shall remember it. I may marry some day, and have children, and then again grandchildren, and I shall ever reserve as one of the sweetest, rarest stories, the kind of story one tells to a little sick child, or whispers on Sunday evenings, what I felt when I first listened to Handel’s “Messiah.” David had said that I should care more for it the second time. This was possible, for my feelings now were hardly those of pleasure, even to-day depths were stirred within me, which must respond with a tension akin to pain. I had been in a light and holiday mood, my gay heart was all in the sunshine of a butterfly and unawakened existence; and the music, while it aroused me, brought with it a sense of shadow, of oppression which mingled with my joy. Heaven ceased to be a myth, an uncertain possibility, as I listened to the full burst of the choruses, or held my breath as one single voice floated through the air in quivering notes of sweetness. What had I thought, hitherto, of Jesus Christ? I had given to His history an intellectual belief. I had assented to the fact that He had borne my sins, and “The Lord had laid on Him the iniquity of us all;” but with the ponderous notes of the heavy music, came the crushing knowledge that my iniquities had added to His sorrows, and helped to make Him acquainted with grief. I was in no sense a religious girl; but when “Come unto Him, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and He will give you rest,” reached my ears, I felt vibrating through my heart strings, the certainty that some day I should need this rest. “Take His yoke upon you, and learn of Him.”
“His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.” I looked at David, the book had fallen from his hands, his fine face was full of a kind of radiance, and the burden which had taken from him Amy, and the yoke which bade him resign his own will and deny himself, seemed to be borne with a sense of rejoicing which testified to the truth of how lightly even heavy sorrow can sit on a man, when with it God gives him rest.