"Beulah, come close to me--close." She grasped her hands tightly,
and Beulah knelt at the side of her chair.
"Beulah, in a little while I shall be at rest. You will rejoice to
see me free from pain, won't you? I have suffered for so many months
and years. But death is about to release me forever. Beulah, is it
forever?--is it forever? Am I going down into an eternal sleep, on a
marble couch, where grass and flowers will wave over me, and the sun
shine down on me? Yes, it must be so. Who has ever waked from this
last dreamless slumber? Abel was the first to fall asleep, and since
then, who has wakened? No one. Earth is full of pale sleepers; and I
am soon to join the silent band."
There was a flickering light in her eyes, like the flame of a candle
low in its socket, and her panting breath was painful to listen to.
"Cornelia, they say Jesus of Nazareth slept, and woke again; if so,
you will--"
"Ha, but you don't believe that, Beulah. They say, they say! Yes.
but I never believed them before, and I don't want to believe them
now. I will not believe it. It is too late to tell me that now.
Beulah, I shall know very soon; the veil of mystery is being lifted.
Oh, Beulah, I am glad I am going; glad I shall soon have no more
sorrow and pain; but it is all dark, dark! You know what I mean.
Don't live as I have, believing nothing. No matter what your creed
may be, hold fast, have firm faith in it. It is because I believe in
nothing that I am so clouded now. Oh, it is such a dark, dark,
lonely way! If I had a friend to go with me I should not shrink
back; but oh, Beulah, I am so solitary! It seems to me I am going
out into a great starless midnight." She shivered, and her cold
fingers clutched Beulah's convulsively.
"Calm yourself, Cornelia. If Christianity is true, God will see that
you were honest in your skepticism, and judge you leniently. If not,
then death is annihilation, and you have nothing to dread; you will
sink into quiet oblivion of all your griefs."
"Annihilation! then I shall see you all no more! Oh, why was I ever
created, to love others, and then be torn away forever, and go back
to senseless dust? I never have been happy; I have always had
aspirations after purer, higher enjoyments than earth could afford
me, and must they be lost in dead clay? Oh, Beulah, can you give me
no comfort but this? Is this the sum of all your study, as well as
mine? Ah, it is vain, useless; man can find out nothing. We are all
blind; groping our way through mysterious paths, and now I am going
into the last--the great mystery!"