If better could be done for it, or for thee, would I
have sent it hither? Through thy love, my little one must learn my
love and be blessed. And thou shall not keep it without thy reward.
For thy necessities--in thy little house, is there not yet room? in
thy barrel, is there not yet meal? and thy purse is not empty quite.
Thou canst not eat more than a mouthful at once. I have made thee
so. Is it any trouble to me to take care of thee? Only I prefer to
feed thee from my own hand, and not from thy store.'And the
schoolmaster sprang up in joy, ran upstairs, kissed his wife, and
clasped the baby in his arms in the name of the child Jesus. And in
that embrace, he knew that he received God to his heart. Soon, with a
tender, beaming face, he was wading through the snow to the
school-house, where he spent a happy day amidst the rosy faces and
bright eyes of his boys and girls. These, likewise, he loved the more
dearly and joyfully for that dream, and those words in his heart; so
that, amidst their true child-faces, (all going well with them, as not
unfrequently happened in his schoolroom), he felt as if all the
elements of Paradise were gathered around him, and knew that he was
God's child, doing God's work.
"But while that dream was passing through the soul of the husband,
another visited the wife, as she lay in the faintness and trembling
joy of the new motherhood.
Pages:
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221