He saw before him the long ages of eternity that would roll on, on,
on, and never bring her. She would exist no more. A dark mist filled the
little room.
"Oh, little hand! oh, little voice! oh, little form!" he cried; oh, little
soul that walked with mine! oh, little soul, that looked so fearlessly down
into the depths, do you exist no more for ever--for all time?" He cried
more bitterly: "It is for this hour--this--that men blind reason, and
crush out thought! For this hour--this, this--they barter truth and
knowledge, take any lie, any creed, so it does not whisper to them of the
dead that they are dead! Oh, God! for a Hereafter!"
Pain made his soul weak; it cried for the old faith. They are the tears
that fall into the new-made grave that cement the power of the priest. For
the cry of the soul that loves and loses is this, only this: "Bridge over
Death; blend the Here with the Hereafter; cause the mortal to robe himself
in immortality; let me not say of my Dead that it is dead! I will believe
all else, bear all else, endure all else!"
Muttering to himself, Waldo walked with bent head, the mist in his eyes.
To the soul's wild cry for its own there are many answers. He began to
think of them. Was not there one of them all from which he might suck one
drop of comfort?
"You shall see her again," says the Christian, the true Bible Christian.
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