In no other country were the soul and the spiritual life ever such
intense realities, and everything contemplated so much (to use a
current New England phrase) "in reference to eternity." Mrs. Scudder
was a strong, clear-headed, practical woman. No one had a clearer
estimate of the material and outward life, or could more minutely
manage its smallest item; but then a tremendous, eternal future had so
weighed down and compacted the fibres of her very soul, that all
earthly things were but as dust in comparison to it. That her child
should be one elected to walk in white, to reign with Christ when earth
was a forgotten dream, was her one absorbing wish; and she looked on
all the events of life only with reference to this. The way of life was
narrow, the chances in favor of any child of Adam infinitely small; the
best, the most seemingly pure and fair, was by nature a child of wrath,
and could be saved only by a sovereign decree, by which it should be
plucked as a brand from the burning. Therefore it was, that, weighing
all things in one balance, there was the sincerity of her whole being
in the dread which she felt at the thought of her daughter's marriage
with an unbeliever.
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