Here was another startling shock, but Lady Grange felt it far less than
the first. It seemed to her that if her son were only spared to her, she
could bear cheerfully any other trial. When riches had increased, she
had not set her heart upon them; she had endeavoured to spend them as a
good steward of God and to lay up treasure in that blessed place where
there is no danger of its ever being lost. Sir Gilbert was far more
crushed than his wife was by this misfortune. He saw his idol broken
before his eyes, and where was he to turn for comfort? Everything upon
which his eye rested was a source of pain to him; for must he not part
with all, leave all in which his heart had delighted, all in which his
soul had taken pride? He forgot that poverty was only forestalling by a
few years the inevitable work of death!
The day passed wearily away. Philip suffered much pain, was weak and
low, and bitterly conscious how well he had earned the misery which he
was called on to endure. It was a mercy that he was experiencing, before
it was too late, that _thorns and snares are in the way of the froward_.
He liked his mother to read the Bible to him, just a few verses at a
time, as he had strength to bear it; and in this occupation she herself
found the comfort which she needed.
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