When we get tired, however, and are forced by the pressure of
material circumstances to wander down into the valley, while we stand
even then in the shelter of our mountain, still we find our feet
sometimes soiled by the gathered mud.
Here is where the weak-hearted of our earth fail, and, looking not to
the mountains, become at last settled in the valley, and suffer even to
the end, borne down by the fettering chains of a life which is, at best,
only breathing. Their wings held close, they cannot rise beyond the
clouds and fog into the clearer atmosphere of a higher condition.
My fortieth birthday is upon me. I am sitting in the room where, since
the day of our wedding, all of my best thoughts have been written. Sharp
winds blow around our dwelling, but our hearts heed not their harsh
voices. Louis and I have been retrospecting to-day, reading together the
journal of the past two years. We have kept it together, devoting two
pages to each day, each of us writing one. It is not uninteresting; many
changes have been dotted down; and still, to look in upon us, you could
not see them. Here is the date of one, the death of good Mr. Davis, and
an account of the sermon preached by Louis at his funeral, the
witnessing of his last experience among us, and the blessed comfort it
gave us, as with his death-cold lips he murmured, "My wife." Clara and
all, he saw their beckoning hands and angelic faces. He heard sweet
music blending with our voices as we sang to him at his request.
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