And bid the dead arise;
Awake, ye nations under ground!
Ye saints, ascend the skies!"

And as Mary sang, she felt sublimely upborne with the idea that life is
but a moment and love is immortal, and seemed, in a shadowy trance, to
feel herself and him past this mortal fane, far over on the shores of
that other life, ascending with Christ, all-glorified, all tears wiped
away, and with full permission to love and to be loved forever. And as
she sang, the Doctor looked upward, and marvelled at the light in her
eyes and the rich bloom on her cheek,--for where she stood, a sunbeam,
streaming aslant through the dusty panes of the window, touched her
head with a kind of glory,--and the thought he then received
outbreathed itself in the yet more fervent adoration of his prayer.


CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE ICE BROKEN.

Our fathers believed in special answers to prayer. They were not
stumbled by the objection about the inflexibility of the laws of
Nature; because they had the idea, that, when the Creator of the world
promised to answer human prayers, He probably understood the laws of
Nature as well as they did. At any rate, the laws of Nature were His
affair, and not theirs. They were men, very apt, as the Duke of
Wellington said, to "look to their marching-orders,"--which, being
found to read, "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto
God," they did it. "They looked unto Him and were lightened, and their