"It can do no good."
"Nothing can do good: nothing, nothing. Oh, what trouble!"
"Constance, in the greatest trouble there is always one Refuge."
"Yes," she mentally thought, bursting into tears. "What, but for that
shelter, would become of us in our bitter hours of trial?"
CHAPTER XI.
THE CLOISTER KEYS.
It was the twenty-second day of the month, and nearly a week after the
date of the last chapter. Arthur Channing sat in his place at the
cathedral organ, playing the psalm for the morning; for the hour was
that of divine service.
"O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious: and His mercy
endureth for ever!"
The boy's whole heart went up with the words. _He_ gave thanks: mercies
had come upon him--upon his; and that great dread--which was turning
his days to gall, his nights to sleeplessness--the arrest of Hamish,
had not as yet been attempted. He felt it all as he sat there; and, in
a softer voice, he echoed the sweet song of the choristers below, verse
after verse as each verse rose on the air, filling the aisles of the
old cathedral: how that God delivers those who cry unto Him--those who
sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; those whose hearts fail
through heaviness, who fall down and there is none to help them--He
brings them out of the darkness, and breaks their bonds in sunder. They
that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great
waters, who see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep;
whose hearts cower at the stormy rising of the waves, and in their
agony of distress cry unto Him to help them; and He hears the cry, and
delivers them.
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