Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/136

 of wrath." Soon, he made an ineffectual effort to kneel, and was observed, by the motion of his lips, and occasional elevation of the crucifix, to be in deep prayer. Afterwards, he lay more calmly, as if in meditation, but resolutely refused the cordials which they presented to him.

"No! No!" he vociferated, Maurice hath vowed, that nothing but water should pass his polluted lips, until that glorious day, when Jesus brake the strong bars of the tomb."

"What you call Easter has nearly arrived," said John Cooper. "Unless you take something to support your weakness, you will never again rejoice at the anniversary of the rising of your Lord."

The ascetic, fixing his withering eyes on the speaker said, "thou thinkest Maurice such a blasted tree that he cannot compute times, and seasons. Know I not that seventeen days of the period of humiliation yet remain? Maurice will keep his vow. If he enter into heaven ere it be accomplished, he will fast and mourn there until Lent be past. He will not taste the new wine of the kingdom, until the voices and thunderings around the throne proclaim, Christ is risen, is risen."

Observing the children of John Cooper, to speak in low voices of his recovery, he addressed them in a milder tone.

"To your young eyes Maurice seems as the dry tree, whose roots quit the earth, that its head may rest there