The Whispering Gallery, Part IV [pp. 421-426]

OVERLAND MONTHLY
filled with wiriting
these verses:
materials and manuscripts. Taking out a sheet, she read us
The world is beautiful. and life is sweet,
And home sufficient heaven, to those that love.
Yet something happier were they if the feet
Of the dark herald, like the spheres above,
M\loved ill a steadfast orbit and came round
In some determined cycle to their door,
Comnianding all together to give ground
For the new mortals waiting off the shore.
Then might they do their work, and live their life,
And love their loves, and go in calm content,
Taking the hands of mother, sister, wife,
For the long journey and its far event.
Then might they know with not a shade of doubt
\What now they argue from a fear of sin,That He who made the mighty world without
Loves and sustains the weakest soul therein.
But who can see the brightest and the best
Snatched from the sight of those that need them here,
See active life become eternal rest,
See parents weeping o'er their children's bier,
See age a burden and see youth grow pale,
See what the weak and innocent endure,Nor feel that laws of Nature somehow fail
Just where their working should be most secure?
"Perhaps," said I, "the answer to your argument is to be found in an analogy
-- if there can be any analogy between finite affairs and infinite. I suppose the
lower creatures, among themselves, have an individuality; but we look upon them
in the mass, only as an aggregation of units all alike-a flock of birds, a swarm
of bees, a herd of cattle. So it may be that we are too egotistical in assuming that
our individuality dwells in the mind of the Creator, or that we are to him anything more than the human race collectively; and that a certain number of us, no
matter which ones, must pass away from the earth each year to make room for the
new comers."
'I could not possibly accept such an explanation," said Miss Ravaline. "For
that Adould assume a Creator impossible for us to love, and one whose power was
necessarily restricted, since his sympathies would be imperfect."
At this point her widowed sister joined us in the Arbor, and we changed the
subject.
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