“My wee pet!” murmured Jeanie, as the tears began to flow from a softened, because happier, heart.
William hid his face in his hands. After a while, he broke silence and said, “These thoughts of heaven are new to me. But common sense tells me they maun be true. Heaven does not seem to me noo to be the same strange place it used to be. My loss is not so complete as I once thought it was. Neither we nor our bairn have lived in vain.”
“Surely not,” said the Doctor—
“‘Better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all!’
You have contributed one citizen to the heavenly Jerusalem; one member to the family above; one happy spirit to add his voice to the anthem before the throne of God!”
“Lord, help our unbelief!” said Mr. Armstrong; “for the mair I think o’ the things which I believe, the mair they seem to me owre gude news to be true!”
“The disciples, when they first saw Christ after His resurrection,” said the Doctor, “did not believe from very joy.”
“We think owre muckle o’ our ain folk, Doctor, and owre little o’ Him. But it’s a comfort that He’s kent and loved as He ought to be by them. I thank Him, alang wi’ them that’s awa’, for all He is and gies to them noo.”
“And for all He is and does, and will ever be and do, to every man who trusts Him,” added the Doctor; “our friends would be grieved, if grief were possible to them now, did they think our memory of them made us forget Him, or that our love to them made us love Him less. Surely, if they know what we are doing, they would rejoice if they also knew that, along with themselves, we too rejoiced in their God and our God. What child in heaven but would be glad to know that its parents joined with it in the prayer of ‘Our Father’?”