ness and peace as
they can be."

"Yes," said August, smiling, "but the sky is clear, and your eyes are
raining, Julia. But can it be possible that God, who made this world so
beautiful, will burn it up to-night? It used to seem a hard world to me
when I was away from you, and I didn't care how quickly it burned up.
But now--"

Somehow August forgot to finish that sentence. Words are of so little
use under such circumstances. A little pressure on Julia's arm which was
in his, told all that he meant. When love makes earth a heaven, it
is enough.

"But how beautiful the new earth will be," said Julia, still looking at
the sleeping river, "the river of life will be clear as crystal!"

"Yes," said August, "the Spanish version says, 'Most resplendent, like
unto crystal.'"

"I think," said Julia, "that it must be something like this river. The
trees of life will stand on either side, like those great sycamores that
lean over the water so gracefully."

Any landscape would have seemed heavenly to Julia on this night. A
venerable friend of mine, a true Christian philanthropist, whose praise
is in all the churches, wants me to undertake to reform fictitious
literature by leaving out the love. And so I may when God reforms His
universe by leaving out the love. Love is the best thing in novels; not
until love is turned out of heaven will I help turn it out of
literature. It is only the misrepresentation of love in literature that
is bad, as the poisoning of love in life is bad. It was the love of
August that had opened Julia's heart to the influences of heaven, and
Julia was to August a mediator of God's grace.

By eleven o'clock August Wehle and his wife--it gives me nearly as much
pleasure as it did August to use that locution--were standing not far
away from the surging crowd of those who, in singing hymns and in
excited prayer, were waiting for the judgment. Jonas and Cynthy and
Andrew were with them. August, though not a recognized Millerite, almost
blamed himself that he should have been away these two hours from the
services. But why should he? The most sacramental of all the sacraments
is marriage. Is it not an arbitrary distinction of theologians, that
which makes two rites to be sacraments and others not? But if the
distinction is to be made at all, I should apply the solemn word to the
solemnest rite and the holiest ordinance of God's, even if I left out
the sacred washing in the name of the Trinity and the broke