Page:Orange Grove.djvu/135

 munion with in books, the inspiration of whose noble thoughts had hallowed many an hour of her lonely lot, that she might derive consolation from their counsel, sympathy and support, instead of wandering on alone in doubt and despondency. And yet not alone. He whose midnight anguish has immortalized the garden of Gethsemane was walking beside her,—a still greater than he was holding her in his arms. Now that she was buried to all sense of worldly aspiration, a glorious resurrection awaited her.

Suddenly as if borne on the tongue of a heavenly messenger came a voice, "Follow me and I will give thee inspiration; what thou askest I will grant."

Then, as in the twinkling of an eye, this world which, but an instant before was so dark and dreary she would gladly have closed her eyes on it forever, was transformed into a paradise of light and joy, full of beauty, poetry, music and love; a new radiance shone from every eye, and she saw in every human being the type of God's own image, a fellow-traveler in the pilgrimage of life, and felt in each a companion and friend.

It is at such moments we truly live. Then comes the proof of immortality—the finite is lost in the infinite, and the soul touches the realities of the eternal world.

Because some are not susceptible to these influences but go sighing through life for a "witness," despair has erected her throne on the hopes of thousands whom the religion of universal love might have