"

Pale, aghast, horror-stricken, Mary stood dumb, as one who in the dark
and storm sees by the sudden glare of lightning a chasm yawning under
foot. It was amazement and dimness of anguish;--the dreadful words
struck on the very centre where her soul rested. She felt as if the
point of a wedge were being driven between her life and her life's
life,--between her and her God. She clasped her hands instinctively on
her bosom, as if to hold there some cherished image, and said in a
piercing voice of supplication, "_My_ God! _my_ God! oh, where art
Thou?"

Mrs. Marvyn walked up and down the room with a vivid spot of red in each
cheek and a baleful fire in her eyes, talking in rapid soliloquy,
scarcely regarding her listener, absorbed in her own enkindled thoughts.

"Dr. Hopkins says that this is all best,--better than it would have been
in any other possible way,--that God _chose_ it because it was for a
greater final good,--that He not only chose it, but took means to make
it certain,--that He ordains every sin, and does all that is necessary
to make it certain,--that He creates the vessels of wrath and fits them
for destruction, and that He has an infinite knowledge by which He can
do it without violating their free agency.--So much the worse! What a
use of infinite knowledge What if men should do so? What if a father
should take means to make it certain that his poor little child should
be an abandoned wretch, without violating his free agency? So much the
worse, I say!--They say He does this so that He may show to all
eternity, by their example, the evil nature of sin and its consequences!
This is all that the greater part of the human race have been used for
yet; and it is all right, because an overplus of infinite happiness is
yet to be wrought out by it!--It is _not_ right! No possible amount of
good to ever so many can make it right to deprave ever so
few;--happiness and misery cannot be measured so! I never can think it
right,--never!--Yet they say our salvation depends on our loving
God,--loving Him better than ourselves,--loving Him better than our
dearest friends.--It is impossible!--it is contrary to the laws of my
nature! I can never love God! I can never praise Him!--I am lost! lost!
lost! And what is worse, I cannot redeem my friends! Oh, I _could_
suffer forever,--how willingly!--if I could save _him_!--But oh,
eternity, eternity! Frightful, unspeakable woe! No end!--no bottom!--no
shore!--no hope!--O Go