The Argosy — page 334: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Dream from Heaven. 313 pilgrims like ourselves, known and dear to many of us, living in hope here, waiting for a Hereafter: it was but a moment’s rashness, a mo- ment’s despair, yet one that we are taught forfeits Heaven. Oh let us strive to atone for them! we, who still have the privilege of praying, let us pray for them untiringly, unceasingly! The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. To be dead, and yet alive: to be in the next world, yet awake to what was passing in this: surrounded by woe unutterable, and hope gone for ever! Oh fool, fool! he had talked, in life, of “‘ despair,” of “hope deserting him; ” the film had fallen from his eyes now. Asa grain of sand to the desert, a drop of water to the ocean, was the dura- tion of his mortal existence in comparison with Eternity. And he had refused to encounter its short-lived trials: he had shrunk from the in- significant frowns of the race around him, suffering, weak, finite beings like himself, and rushed into the presence of his outraged Creator. Did he think to gain Heaven by his mad exit? What /ad he gained ? Oh, short-sighted man ! most miserable! Adam Grainger had passed. by his own act from time to Eternity, and the wide flood-gates of retribution were thrown back, and the waters of repentance came rushing on to his soul. He writhed and struggled with the torrent; but on, on it came, and surrounded him. Repentance such as we can feel—what was itto his? He strove to tear himself in his anguish, to curse himself for his rash presumption, to howl aloud in his sharp torment ; but he dared not kneel and pray to God; he might not call upon his Saviour; he had forfeited that privilege for ever. And alas! how short-sighted had been his wisdom ! for, behold, there, at a little distance, was a bright cloud, no bigger than a speck, and he saw that it had been coming towards him, charged with relief and recompense. Now it was arrested on its way, and was vanishing into air, for he himself had rendered its mission futile. : He stood in the spirit, and watched them as they crowded to view the lump of clay, which he had cast aside: their comments, though . whispered but in the heart, were loud enough to him. When the first shock of pity was past, dastard, wicked! were the best names they gave him. ‘To desert his wife and children! to abandon them in their helplessness to a world which he had found so stern! His sons, want- ing the guiding hand of a father, might grow up degraded men; his daughters to—what in life he would not have dared to glance at. Woe, woe, unutterable woe! Woe and torture upon his soul, by day and ° by night, until the hour of doom ! They brought it in ‘ Insanity,” and the scanty funeral left the house for the church, bearing the remains to the place where they would be left to moulder. He followed in its wake. He saw, now, the utter mockery of the pomp and pride sometimes made to attend the dead. The couriers en avant, as we say of other shows, bearing their distin- CoOnniclooolkks (C(O)