Once she
was surrounded by all that wealth could furnish of external good;
now she is in poverty, with five children, clinging to her for
support, her health feeble, and few friends to counsel or lend her
their aid. No woman could have loved a husband more tenderly than
she loved hers, and few wives were ever more beloved in return; but
she has gathered the widow's weeds around her, and is sitting in the
darkness of an inconsolable grief. What a sweet character was hers!
Always loving and unselfish--a very angel on the earth from
childhood upwards, and yet her doom to tread this darkened pathway!
If Heaven smiles on the good--if the righteous are never forsaken,
why this strange, hard, harsh Providence in the case of Mrs. Adair?
I cannot understand it! God is goodness itself, they say, and loves
His creatures with a love surpassing the love of a mother; but would
any mother condemn beloved child to such a cruel fate? No, no, no!
From the very depths of my spirit I answer--No! I am only a weak,
erring, selfish creature, but--"
Mrs. Endicott checked the utterance of what was in her thought, for
at the instant another thought, rebuking her for an impious
comparison of herself with her Maker, flitted across her mind.
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