“There is one thing I’d have you remember, Rhoda,” said the farmer, patiently, “and that is, the difference between falling into sin and living in sin. It’s just the difference between the man who loves and hugs his disease and he who writhes under it, and longs to be cured.”
“Even supposing that this is Robert’s first fault,” continued Miss Farren, “there must have been a long course of unsteady walking before such a fall could be brought about.”
“Maybe not,” her father responded. “Some men lose their characters, Rhoda, as others lose their lives, by being off their guard for one moment. And when you talk of God’s justice, recollect that it means something very different from man’s judgment. The Lord hates the sin worse than we do, but He knows what we can never know—the strength of the temptation.”
By that time the pair had descended the last slope, and were drawing near the cottage. The back-door stood open. Rhoda could see the red glow of the kitchen fire, and the outline of her mother’s figure as she moved to and fro. It was a pleasant glimpse of household warmth and light, and it charmed her ill temper away. But she did not remember that there might be wanderers in the world at that moment—driven out into life’s wilderness by sin—whose hearts would well-nigh break at this little glimpse of a home. She did not think of that awful sense of loss which crime must leave behind it. Perhaps that open house-door had suggested thoughts like these to the farmer, for he paused before they entered.
“Rhoda,” he said, solemnly, “never fall into the mistake of thinking that sinners aren’t punished enough. It’s a very common blunder. Many a man might have hanged himself, as Judas did, if Christ hadn’t stepped in and shown him what the atonement is. It is to the Davids and Peters and Sauls that He says, ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’”
November came to an end. December set in with biting winds and gloomy skies, and then followed a sharp, wintry Christmas.
It was a hard time for the birds. Rhoda would sit at the window and watch them congregating on the brier-bush in the corner of the garden. Now it was a plump thrush, puffing out its speckled breast, and feasting on the scarlet hips; now it was a blackbird, with dusky plumage and yellow bill. Then a score of finches and sparrows would alight on the frozen snow, and quarrel over the crumbs that she had scattered there. All day the sky was grey and clear; but sometimes at sunset, a flush would rest upon the white fields, tinting them with the delicate pink of half-opened apple-blossoms.
On Christmas Eve, Rhoda Farren sat watching the hungry birds no longer. A little human life was drawing very near to immortality. The baby—Helen’s wee, fragile baby—was hovering between two worlds.
And then, for the first time, all Rhoda’s sleeping instincts started up, awake and strong. Anger and selfishness were alike forgotten. Let the solemn feet of death be heard upon the threshold of the house, and all the petty wranglings of its inmates are stilled. He was coming—“the angel with the amaranthine wreath”—but Rhoda held the little one in her arms, and prayed the Father to shut the door against him.