Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/285

 shattered harp-strings. All my world seemed gone. Still, in my agony, I listened, for there was a voice in my soul, like the voice of the angel, who had warned me: "God loveth a cheerful giver." I laid my lip on the earth, and said "let my will, be thine." And as I arose, though the tear lay on my cheek, there was a smile there also. Since then, it has been with me. Amid the duties of every day, methinks it says continually, "the cheerful giver! the cheerful giver!"

"That smile, said her venerable pastor, like the faith of Abraham, shall be counted unto thee as righteousness."