The distressed father, however deeply and painfully he felt the queen's
passionate appeal, could not act in contradiction to the general voice
of his subjects; he was compelled to stifle all emotions of natural
compassion for his innocent son, and to doom him to perpetual
banishment.
Bladud awaited his father's decision, in tears and silence, without
offering a single word of supplication, lest he should increase the
anguish of his parent's hearts. But, when the cruel sentence of
banishment was confirmed by the voice of his hitherto doating sire, he
uttered a cry of bitter sorrow, and covering his disfigured visage with
both hands, turned about to leave the haunts of his childhood forever,
exclaiming, "Who will have compassion upon me, now that I am abandoned
by my parents?"
How sweet, how consoling, would have been the answer of a Christian
parent to this agonizing question; but on Bladud's mother the heavenly
light of Revelation had never shone. She knew not how to speak comfort
to the breaking heart of her son, in those cheering words of Holy Writ,
which would have been so applicable to his case in that hour of
desertion: _When thy father and thy mother forsake thee, I will take
thee up_.
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