t some hint of
certainty, that the sweet, fragrant life that was over, so knit up with
love and friendship and regard, had a further, a serener future
awaiting it? The question was, did such a scene as was then enacted
hold any real and vital message of hope for the soul; or was it a thing
to turn the back upon, to forget, to banish, as merely casting a shadow
upon the joyful energies of life?

It seemed to Hugh, when the sad rites were done, and he was left alone,
that there was but one solution possible; the thought shaped itself
dimly and wistfully out of the dark--that there was one element that
was out of place, one element over which the mind had a certain power,
that one must resolve to exorcise and cast out--the element of fear.
And yet fear, that unmanning, abominable thing, that struck the light
out of life, that made one incapable of energy and activity alike, was
that too not a dark gift from the Father's hand? Had it a purifying, a
restoring influence? It seemed to Hugh that it had none. Yet why was
it made so terribly easy, so insupportably natural, if it had not its
place in the great economy of God? Was not this the darkest of dark
dilemmas? Slowly reflecting on it, Hugh seemed to see that fear had
one effect of good about it; it was one of those things, and alas they
were many, that seemed strewn about us, only that we might learn to
triumph over them. For one who really believed in the absolutely
infinite and all-embracing Will of God, there was no room for fear at
all. If the things of life were sent wisely, tenderly, and graciously,
not care, not suffering, not even death admitted of any questioning;
and yet fear seemed a deeper, more instinctive thing than reasoning
itself. The very fear of non-existence, in the light of reason, seemed
a wholly unreal thing. No shadow of it attached to the long dark years
of the world, which had passed before one's own conscious life began.
One could look back in the pages of history to the ancient pageant of
the world in which one had no part, and not feel oneself wronged or
misused in having had no share in those vivid things. Why should we
regard a past in which we had had no conscious part with such a blithe
serenity, and yet look forward to that future, in which, for all we
knew, we could have no part either, with such an envious despair? The
thought was unreasonable enough, but it was there. But it was
possible, by thus boldly and tranquilly confr