Part 2 (1/2)
Again that beautiful smile beamed over the dying man's face.
”He will hear you--He has heard you--I felt that you had need of me, and came; see how G.o.d has answered your want in this, my child!”
”But I can do nothing alone; when you are with me, I feel strong; but if you leave me, what can I do?”
”Pray without ceasing; and in everything give thanks,” said that faint gentle voice once more.
”But I have prayed till my heart seemed full of tears.”
”They were sweet tears, Mary.”
”No, no; my heart grew heavy with them; and--mother, how could I give thanks when she came home so--!”
”Hush, hush, Mary--it is your mother!”
”But I can't give thanks for that, when I remember how she let you suffer--how miserable everything was--how she left you to starve, day by day, spending all the money you had laid up in drink!”
”Oh, my child, my child!” cried the dying man, sweeping the tears from his eyes with one pale hand, and dropping it heavily on her shoulder.
She cowered beneath the pressure.
”It is wrong--I know it,” she said, clasping her hands and dropping them heavily before her, as if weighed down by a sense of her utter unworthiness. ”But oh, father, what shall I do! what _shall_ I do!”
”Honor your mother!”
”How can I honor her, when she degrades and abuses us all!”
”G.o.d does not make you the judge of your parents, but commands you unconditionally to honor them.”
Mary dropped her eyes and stooped more humble downward. She saw now why the darkness had hung so long over her prayers. Filled with unforgiving bitterness against her mother she had asked G.o.d to forgive her, scarcely deeming her fault one to be repented of. A brief struggle against the memory of bitter ill-usage and fierce wrong inflicted by her mother, and Mary drew a deep free breath. Her eyes filled, and meekly folding her hands she held them toward her father.
”What shall I do, father?”
He drew her toward him, and a look of holy faith lay upon his face.
”Listen to me, Mary; G.o.d may yet help you to save this woman, your mother and my wife; for next to G.o.d I always loved her.”
”But what can I do? She hates me because I am so small and ugly. She will never let me love her, and without that what can a poor little thing like me do?”
”My child, there is no human being so weak or so humble that it is incapable of doing good, of being happy, and of making others happy also. The power of doing good does not rest so much in what we possess, as in what we are. Gentle words, kind acts are more precious than gold. These are the wealth of the poor; more precious than worldly wealth, because it is never exhausted. The more you give, the more you possess.”
A strange beautiful light came into Mary's eyes, as she listened.
”Go on, father, say more.”
She drew a deep breath.
”Then the good are never poor!”