Barriers Burned Away by Edward Payson Roe — Read

Dennis was too good a Christian, and had received too deep a lesson in his father's case, to become bitter, angry, and defiant, even if he had believed that God was against him. He would have felt that it was simply his duty to submit -- to endure patiently. Somehow until today his heart had refused to believe that God could be against any of His creatures. In fact, it was his general impression that God had everything to do with his being a good Christian, but very little with his getting a good place. The defect in his religion, and that of his mother, too, was that both separated the spiritual life of the soul too widely from the present life with its material, yet essential, cares and needs. At this point they, like multitudes of others, fell short of their full privilege, and enjoyment of God's goodness. His mother had cheered and sustained her hard lot by hopes and visions of the better life beyond -- by anticipating joys to come. She had never fully learned how God's love, like the sunlight, could shine upon and brighten the thorny, rocky way, and cause the thorns to blossom, and delicate fragrant flowers to grow in the crevices and bloom in shaded nooks among the sharp stones. She must wait for her consolation. She must look out of her darkness to the light that shone through the portals of the tomb, forgetting that God caused His servants to sing at midnight, in the inner prison, the deepest dungeon, though scourged and bleeding.

Unconsciously her son had imbibed the same ideas.