Dame Garvin looked upon her: "It is Mary's self
I see!"
"Dear heart!" she cried, "now tell me, has my
child come back to me?"
"My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger sobbing
wild;
"Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child!"
"She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying
day
She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far
away.
"And when the priest besought her to do me no
such wrong,
She said, 'May God forgive me! I have closed
my heart too long.'
"'When I hid me from my father, and shut out
my mother's call,
I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father
of us all.
"'Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no
tie of kin apart;
Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart.
"'Tell me not the Church must censure: she who
wept the Cross beside
Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims
of blood denied;
"'And if she who wronged her parents, with her
child atones to them,
Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least
wilt not condemn!'
"So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother
spake;
As we come to do her bidding, So receive us for her
sake."
"God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh,
and He gives;
He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our
daughter lives!"
"Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a
tear away,
And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence,
"Let us pray."
All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew pararphrase,
Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer
of love and praise.
Pages:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47