The names of
the saints her lips invoked were dull and cold, and evolved no image
of human or superhuman love and power. What need of intercessors whose
personality was vague and dim, whose earthly histories were made up of
truth so interwoven with fable that she scarce dared believe even that
which might be true? In the One Crucified was help for all sinners, gospel
and creed, the rule of life here, the promise of immortality hereafter.
The litanies to Virgin and Saints were said as a duty--a part of implicit
obedience which was the groundwork of her religion; and then all the
aspirations of her heart, her prayers for the sick man yonder, her fears
for her absent sister, for her father in his foreign wanderings, went up in
one stream of invocation to Christ the Redeemer. To Him, and Him alone, the
strong flame of faith and love rose, like the incense upon an altar--the
altar of a girl's trusting heart.
She was so lost in meditation that she was unconscious of an approaching
footstep in the stillness of the deserted house, till it drew near to the
threshold of the sick-room. The night was close and sultry, so she had left
the door open, and that slow tread had crossed the threshold by the time
she rose from her knees.
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