Page:Orange Grove.djvu/371

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

ward world that the inner vision may become clearer, when, purified and sanctified, clothed, and in our right mind, we may sit down at the right hand of Jesus, accepting his condition, "That unless we become like one of these little ones, we can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven."

But as novels, even of the highest order, should serve only as recreation, instead of food for the mind, there is a higher and more practical work to be engaged in than writing them, if it is only to carry out the ideas presented, and to this work Milly was destined. The rich poetry of that inner life was to burst forth in deeds more beautiful than any sketches flowing from her pen; not to be compressed within the mute pages of a book, which, however, served a high purpose as a precept for the rule of her life. She had no sooner written it than the high standard she had presented struck her as being too visionary for realization, and fearing the strong pictures she had drawn of the strength and omnipotence of affection had received too high a coloring from her own sensitive organization, it met with the fate so often assigned to real merit, in never being permitted to enrich the world with its treasures of thought, but they were nevertheless incorporated into her daily life and she experienced the blessed consolation of knowing that she had neither dreamed idly nor turned into a mere visionary enthusiast.