(I have need, having loved
earthly happiness more than your immortal peace, and called it wisdom),
yet I think I am right in this. God grant that the means of grace which I
choose instead, which will crucify my own heart, may, by his blessing,
save your soul. And I have faith to believe it will. The promises of God
fail not.

"'Oh, Helen, if I loved you less! Sometimes, in these two weeks, while
this purpose has been growing up in my mind, I have shrunk back, and
cried that I could not drink of the cup, and in the depth of human
weakness I have felt, if I loved her less, I could not do what I have to
do, and so the pain would be spared. But love is too mighty for me. I
shall save you! When I think of the months since we were married, which
I have kept unruffled by a single entreaty that you would turn from
darkness into light, my eyes are blasted by the sight of my own sin;
despair and death lay hold upon me. But He has had mercy upon me. He has
shown me one way in which you shall be saved, and by his strength I am
not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Reason and argument have not
shown you the light. Joy and peace have not led you to it. There is one
other path, beloved, which I have faith to believe shall not fail. It is
sorrow. Sorrow can bring the truth home to you as no other thing will.
The relentless pressure of grief will force you to seek for light. It
will admit of no evasion; it will receive no subtilty; it will bring you
face to face with the eternal verities; it will save your soul. And what
sorrow, Helen, can come to you such as making me suffer? And is there a
pang which can tear my soul in this world like absence from my beloved? I
trample my own happiness under my feet. Too long I have been weak, too
long I have loved you with but half my nature; now I am strong. Therefore
I say, before God, for your soul's sake, you shall not see my face until
you have found the truth. This pain, which will be to me but the just
punishment for my sin, will be to you like some sharp and bitter medicine
which shall heal you of what would otherwise bring eternal death. Even as
I write I am filled with strength from God to save you. For God has shown
me the way. And it shall be soon,--I know it shall be soon. The Lord's
hand is not shortened that it cannot save. He has revealed to me the one
last way of showing you the truth, and He will lighten your eyes. Yet,
oh, my love, my wife, help me to be strong for you,--my Hele