“It is not easy, minister,” said William, breaking silence, “for hard-wrought and tried men to believe that.”
“Nor for any man,” replied the Doctor. “I find it very difficult to believe it myself as a real thing, yet I know it to be true; and,” he continued, with a low and affectionate voice, “perhaps we never could have known it and believed it at all, unless God had taught it to us by the life of His own Son, who came to reveal Him. But as I see Him taking up little children into His loving arms, when others would keep them away who did not understand what perfect love was, and as I see in such doings how love cannot but come down and meet the wants of its smallest and weakest object, oh! it is then I learn in what consists the real greatness of God, ‘whose name is Love.’” The Doctor paused for a moment, and then went on: “Because, my brother, I see in this love of Christ more than the love of a good man merely; I see revealed in it the loving tenderness towards us and ours of that God whom no eye hath seen or can see, but whom the eye of the spirit can perceive; for, as Jesus said, ‘He who seeth Me, seeth the Father.’”
“I believe a’ ye say, Doctor,” said Jeanie meekly. “I wadna like to keep my bairn frae Him; but, oh! sir, I hope—I hope He wull lift him up, and do to us now as He did to many distressed ones while on earth!”
“I hope,” said the Doctor, “God will spare your boy; but you must ask Him sincerely so to do, and you must trust Him, and commit your child into His hands without fear, and acquiesce in His doing towards you and your boy as He pleases.”
“That is hard!” remarked William.
“Hard?” mildly replied the Doctor. “What would you choose else, had you the power of doing so, rather than of acquiescing in the will of God? Would you trust your own heart, for instance, more than the heart of God? or would you rather have your child’s fate decided by any other on earth than by yourself?”
“No, for I know how I love the boy.”
“But God loves him much more than you do; for he belongs to God, and was made by Him and for Him.”
“Excuse me, Doctor, but yet I canna thole the thocht o’ parting wi’ him!” said Jeanie.
“May God spare him to you, my friends!” replied the minister, “if it be for your good and his. But,” he added, “there are worse things than death.”