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Corelli, Marie, 1855-1924

"The Master-Christian"


"You think I shall have some great trouble?" she asked, with a
little tremour in her accents.
"Yes, most surely you will!" replied Manuel, "No one in the world
ever tried to be good and great at the same time without suffering
miscomprehension and bitter pain. Did not Christ say, 'In the world
ye shall have tribulation'?"
"Yes,--and I have often wondered why," said Angela musingly.
"Only that you might learn to love God best," answered Manuel with a
delicate inflexion of compassion in his voice, "And that you might
know for certain and beyond all doubt that this life is not all.
There is something better--greater--higher!--a glory that is worth
winning because immortal. 'In the world ye shall have tribulation'--
yes, that is true!--but the rest of the saying is true also--'Be of
good cheer,--I have overcome the world'!"
Moved by an impulse she could not understand, Angela suddenly turned
and extended her hands with an instinctive grace that implied
reverence as well as humility. The boy clasped them lightly then let
them go,--and without more words went softly away and left her.


XIII.
The Church of Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris with its yellow stucco
columns, and its hideous excess of paint and gilding, might be a
ball-room designed after the newest ideas of a vulgar nouveau riche
rather than a place of sanctity.


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