Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/217

217

THE NEW BIRTH.

tured by despair, now of a heart languishing for conso-
lation from above.
  "Let him alone," said Hold, to whom Mander had
turned. "It is enough if we watch him in silence : we
must not disturb him. The Lord has laid his hand upon
him, and a struggle is going on within him, in which all
human help would be useless, even dangerous. Oswald
must experience, must live through hours more fearful
than those in the sea, and it is not well that the boat
of safety should come to him too soon. In that case he
might leave it again."
  And the anxious father saw and heard Oswald start
from his bed, and, with hasty steps, in spite of his pre-
vious weakness, walk up and down the chamber, some-
times throwing a timid glance upward, sometimes cov-
ering his eyes with his hands, then, throwing himself on
the side of his bed, he would bury his face in the pil-
lows. At another moment he would try to pray — then
renounce all hope of God — then, again, more like one
dreaming than sleeping, he would lie speechless on his
couch. Toward evening, they heard him gently sob-
bing and weeping, and he then took feebly, and with in-
difference, the refreshment which his father offered him.
But when the latter inquired how he found himself, he
seized his hand, and wetting it with his tears, said en-
treatingly —
  "Father, father, forgive me!"
  "Let us both pray God to forgive us, my child," re-
plied Mander, tenderly ; and his tears mingled with
those of his son.
  But the thought of the necessity of divine forgive-
ness exerted again, in Oswald's heart, all the terrors of