The words beat unbearably upon her ears. The walls of the room moved as though they were of fabric, stirred by winds of hell. The floor undulated beneath her feet and black mists blinded her. Her hands were so cold that she scarcely felt the friendly, human touch on either side of her chair.
Roger held one of her cold little hands in both his own, yearning to share her grief, to divide it in some way; even to bear it for her. On the other side was Doctor Conrad, profoundly moved. His science had not yet obliterated his human instincts and he was neither ashamed of the mist in his eyes nor of the painful throbbing of his heart. His fingers were upon Barbara's pulse, where the lifetide moved so slowly that he could barely feel it.
On the other side of the room, alien and apart, as always, sat Miriam. She wore her best black gown, but her face was inscrutable. Perhaps the lines were more sharply cut, perhaps the rough, red hands moved more nervously than usual, and perhaps the deep-set black eyes burned more fiercely, but no one noticed—or cared.
The Minister
The deep voice in the room beyond was vibrant with tenderness. The man who stood near Ambrose North as he lay in his last sleep had been summoned from town by Eloise. He did not make the occasion an excuse for presenting his own particular doctrine, bolstered up by argument, nor did he bid his hearers rejoice and be glad. He admitted, at the beginning, that sorrow lay heavily upon the hearts of those who loved Ambrose North and did not say that God was chastening them for their own good.
He spoke of Life as the rainbow that brilliantly spans two mysterious silences, one of which is dawn and the other sunset. This flaming arc must end, as it begins, in pain, but, past the silence, and, perhaps, in even greater mystery, the circle must somewhere become complete and round back to a new birth.
Could not the God who ordained the beginning be safely trusted with the end? Forgetting the grey mists of dawn in which the rainbow began, should we deny the inevitable night when the arc bends down at the other end of the world? Having seen so much of the perfect curve, could we not believe in the circle? And should we not remember that the rainbow itself was a signal and a promise that there should be no more sea? Even so, was not this mortal life of ours, tempered as it is by sorrow and tears, a further promise that, when the circle was completed, there should be no more death?
God's Love
The deep voice went on, even more tenderly, to speak of God; not of His power, but of His purpose, not of His justice, but His forgiveness, not of His vengeance, but of His love. A love so vast and far-reaching that there is no place where it is not; it enfolds not only our little world, poised in infinite space like a mote in a sunbeam, but all the shining, rolling worlds beyond. Every star that rises within our sight and all the million stars beyond, in misty distances so great as to be incomprehensible, are guided and surrounded by this same love. It is impossible to conceive of a place where it is not—even in the midst of pain, poverty, suffering, and death, God's love is there also. The minister pleaded with those who listened to him to lean wholly upon this all-sustaining, all-forgiving love; to believe that it sheltered both the living and the dead, and to trust, simply, as a little child.
At the Close of the Service