The actual, with all its pains and
pleasures, is for the time annihilated. The pressure of thought and
the fever of emotion are both removed, and the over-taxed spirit is
at rest. Into his most loving guardianship the great Creator of man,
who gave him reason and volition, and the freedom to guide himself,
takes his creature, and, while the image of death is upon him,
gathers about him the Everlasting Arms. He suspends, for a time, the
diseased voluntary life, that he may, through the involuntary,
restore a degree of health, and put the creature he has formed for
happiness in a new condition of mental and moral freedom.
Blessed sleep! Who has not felt and acknowledged thy sweet
influences? Who has not wondered at thy power in the tranquil
waking, after a night that closed around the spirit in what seemed
the darkness of coming despair?
Markland slept; and in his sleep, guided by angels, there came to
him the spirits of his wife and children, clothed in the beauty of
innocence. How lovingly they gathered around him! how sweet were
their words in his ears! how exquisite the thrill awakened by each
tender kiss! Now he was with them in their luxurious home; and now
they were wandering, in charmed intercourse, amid its beautiful
surroundings.
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