mother had cheered and sustained her hard lot by hopes and visions of
the better life beyond--by anticipating joys to come. She had never
fully learned how God's love, like the sunlight, could shine upon and
brighten the thorny, rocky way, and cause the thorns to blossom, and
delicate fragrant flowers to grow in the crevices and bloom in shaded
nooks among the sharp stones. She must wait for her consolation. She
must look out of her darkness to the light that shone through the
portals of the tomb, forgetting that God caused His servants to sing
at midnight, in the inner prison, the deepest dungeon, though scourged
and bleeding.

Unconsciously her son had imbibed the same ideas.

Most devoutly he asked every day to be kept from sin, that he might
grow in the Christian life; but he did not ask or expect, save in a
vague, general way, that help which a wise, good, earthly father would
give to a young, inexperienced child, struggling with the hard,
practical difficulties of this world. As the days grew darker and more
full of disappointment, he had asked with increasing earnestness that
he might be kept from sin--from falling before the many and peculiar
temptations that assailed him; and we have seen how God answered his
prayer, and kept him where so many would have fallen. But God meant
to show him that His goodness extended further than he thought, and
that He cared for His children's well-being now as truly as in the
hereafter, when He gathered them home into His immediate presence. But
Dennis could not see this now. As far as he thought at all on the
subject, he had the vague feeling that God was either trying his faith
or meting out some righteous judgment, and he must do the best he
could, and only see to it that he did not sin and give way morally.