"Yes, madam, I have had some very severe and dreadful trials; but I am very happy and hopeful in spite of them all, for I know that now they will soon be ended, and that I shall recover all that I have lost when I reach the heavenly land."
"How do you know that? I don't know it. When I buried my only child down in the garden there, I thought I had lost him forever. That was why, in my stony grief, no tear ever fell upon his grave. I have been trying these fifteen years to believe what you say you believe; but it has no consolation for me. God took my child away from me in my bitterest need, and he took him forever. Was it a good God who did that?"
Her voice was cold and rigid, and a pallor as of death was upon her face as she paused for a reply.
"A good God, madam! and whom he loveth he chasteneth!"
"No, indeed, sir, I don't believe that. He didn't love me, and I didn't love him, and I don't love him now,—hate him, rather. He has tried me too sorely."
"My dear friend, you know not what you say. I beseech you, do not blaspheme your God."
"I have only said, sir, for once, what I have been thinking all these dreadful years. When I buried my child down there, I did not believe in any God for years. I thought some vile and fiendish Fate was pursuing me. Then you ministers were always saying to me, 'Pray;' and I prayed. They said to me 'Study the word of God;' and I studied it. It has been my only study for fifteen years, and it has brought me no consolation yet."
"But you have found God in it,—have you not? You do not deny a God?"
"I have found a God in it certainly, but only a God who has separated me eternally from all I love."