“'Oh, yes, my friend, it is well with her,' she answered, mournfully, 'well with her, but not with me. How shall I walk onward in life's difficult ways, without my mother's arm to lean upon? My steps already hesitate.'
“'You have another arm to lean upon,' I ventured to suggest.
“'Yes, a strong arm upon which I can lean in unfaltering trust. In this God has been good to me. But my wise, patient mother—how shall I live without her?'
“'She is only removed from you as to bodily presence,' said I. 'Love conjoins your souls as intimately as ever.'
“'Ah, yes, I know this must be. Too many times have I heard that comforting truth from her lips ever to forget it. But while we are in the body, the mind will not rest satisfied with any thing less than bodily presence.'
“I did not press the point, for I knew that in all sorrow the heart is its own best comforter, and gathers for itself themes of consolation that even the nearest friend would fail to suggest. We went in together to look at the frail tabernacle from which the pure spirit of her mother had departed forever! How sweetly the smile left upon the lips in the last kiss of parting, lingered there still, fixed in human marble with more than a sculptor's art! There was no passionate weeping, as we stood by the lifeless clay. Very calm and silent she was; but oh, what a look of intense love went out from her sad eyes! Not despairing but hopeful love. The curtain of death hid from her no land of shadows and mystery; but a world of spiritual realities. Her mother had not gone shrinking and trembling into regions of darkness and doubt; but in the blessed assurance of a peaceful reception in the house of her friends.
“How a true faith,” said I, strongly impressed by the images which were presented to my mind, “strips from death its old terrors! When the Apostle exclaimed, 'Oh, grave, where is thy victory? oh, death, where is thy sting?' his mind looked deeper into the mystery of dying, and saw farther into the world beyond, than do our modern Christians, who frighten us with images of terror. 'I will lay me down in peace and sleep,' when the time of my departure comes, should be the heart-language of every one who takes upon himself the name of Him who said, 'In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, ye may be also.'”
“Since I knew Mrs. Montgomery, and felt the sphere of her quality,” said Constance, “my perceptions of life and duty here, and their connection with life and happiness hereafter, have been elevated to a higher region. I see no longer as in a glass darkly, but in the light of reason, made clear by the more interior light of Revelation.”
“And the same is true with me,” I replied. “We may well say that it was good to have known her. She was so true, so just, so unconscious of self, that truth, justice, and unselfishness were always lovelier in your eyes for having seen them illustrated in her person. And there was no pious cant about her. No parade of her unworthiness; no solemn aspects, nor obtrusive writings of bitter things against herself. But always an effort to repress what was evil in her nature; and a state of quiet, religious trust, which said, 'I know in whom I have believed.'”
“Ah,” said Constance, “if there was only more of such religion in the world!”