The
wolf and the coyote might devour his flesh--let them--and their night
howl would be his funeral dirge.
Far up, he went into the deepest of the forest. The noise of falling
waters came to him as a distant hymn. He sat on the ground to rest,
before he made his last climb. Mechanically, he took from his pocket a
small book, his testament--his sole remaining bit of property. He opened
it, and his eyes fell on some lines which he had penciled on the margin,
seemingly, years and years ago. They ran as follows:
"'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up,
Whose golden rounds are our calamities."
And the passages to which they pointed read:
"My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint
when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye
receive chastenings, God dealeth with you as with sons, for what
son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"
The book dropped from the reader's trembling grasp.
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