There is in this--if not in specific intention,
certainly in practical teaching--something deeper and more earnest than
any mere artistic trick of pathos--far more real than the weary
commonplace of suggesting to us any so-called immortality as the
completion and elucidation of earthly life; far profounder and simpler,
too, than the only less trite commonplace of hinting to us the mystery of
God's ways in what we call untimely death. The true import of it we take
to be the separation of all the world calls success or reward from the
life that is thus seeking its highest fulfilment. In conformity with the
average doctrine of "compensation," Amos Barton should have appeared
before us at last installed in a comfortable living, much respected by
his flock, and on good terms with his brethren and well-to-do neighbours
around. With a truer and deeper wisdom, the author places him before us
in that brief after-glimpse still a poor, care-worn, bowed-down man, and
the sweet daughter-face by his side shows the premature lines of anxiety
and sorrow. Love, anguish, and death, working their true fruits within,
bring no success or achievement that the eye can note.
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