Priscilla could have cried that night when she went to
bed, if she had not held tears in scorn, at the sickliness of her
spirit, her spirit that she had thought more than able to keep her
body in subjection, that she had hoped was unalterably firm and brave.
But see the uses of foolishness,--the reaction from it is so great
that it sends us with a bound twice as far again along the right road
as we were while we were wise and picking our way with clean shoes
slowly among the puddles. Who does not know that fresh impulse, so
strong and gracious, towards good that surges up in us after a period
of sitting still in mud? What an experience it is, that vigorous shake
and eager turning of our soiled face once more towards the blessed
light. "I will arise and go to my Father"--of all the experiences of
the spirit surely this is the most glorious; and behold the prudent,
the virtuous, the steadfast--dogged workers in the vineyard in the
heat of the day--are shut out from it for ever.
Priscilla had not backslided much; but short as her tarrying had been
among the puddles she too sprang forward after it with renewed
strength along the path she had chosen as the best, and having
completed the second of her good works--the first had been performed
just previously, and had been a warm invitation made personally from
door to door to all the Symford mothers to send their children to tea
and games at Baker's Farm the next day, which was Sunday--she came
away very happy from the comforted Mrs.
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