Why exhaust ourselves in useless efforts? And why does not man, like the chrysalis which sleeps forty days, not await more patiently the moment when he shall be born in eternity—the moment that will open to him the sources of a new existence, where he shall love without fearing to lose the object of his devotion; where, happy in the happiness of the Creator himself, he will praise and bless him every moment with new transports of joy? William, do you know what that power is which transforms our entire being into the one whom we love, in order to make us endure his sufferings a thousand times over? Do you understand well that love which has neither flesh nor bone; which loves only the heart and mind; which mounts without fear into the presence of God himself; which draws from him, from his grandeur, his perfections, from his infinite majesty, all its strength and all its endurance; which, fearing not death, extends beyond the grave, and lives and increases through all eternity? That celestial love—have you ever felt it? that soul within a soul, which considers virtue alone, lives only for her, and which is every moment exalted by its sacrifices and its devotion? that life within another life, which feels that nothing can extinguish it, and considers the world and creatures as nothing? Speak, Roper, do you entirely comprehend it? O my friend! listen attentively to me; when the fruit of experience shall have ripened for you, when your fellow-creatures shall no more speak of you but as ‘the old man,’ when you shall have long looked upon your children’s children, then you will assemble them round you, and tell them that in other times a tyrant named
Henry VIII. devastated their country, and immolated, in his bloody rage, the father of Margaret; you will tell them that you loved Margaret, and that she perished in the flower of her youth; and you will teach them to execrate the memory of that cruel king, to weep over the oppressed, and to defend them.”
“Margaret!” cried Roper, “whither have your excited feelings carried you? Who will be able to take you from me? And the children of whom you speak—will they not also be yours?”
“No, they will not be mine! Upon the earth there remains for me neither father nor husband, now that all are reduced to slaves. And learn this, if you do not already know it: Slaves should have no hearts! But I—I have one,” she cried, “and I well understand how to keep it out of their hands!”
“Margaret,” replied Roper, “you are greatly to blame for expressing yourself in this manner. What! because the king sends for your father to come and take an oath which he believes he has a right to exact, you already accuse him of wishing to encompass his death? Your father is lost, you say. Have you forgotten, then, the numberless assurances of protection and particular regard which the king has not ceased to bestow on him in the most conspicuous manner? Has he not raised him to the highest position in his kingdom? And if your father had not voluntarily renounced it, the office would have been still in his possession.”
“Without doubt,” replied Margaret, “if my father had been willing to barter his conscience, they would have bought it. To-day they will weigh it in the balance against his life. He is already doomed.”
TO BE CONTINUED.