Robert Hardys Seven Days | Page 9

The time of your redemption is short. It has
been appointed you by Him who rules the world that you should have
but seven more days to live upon the earth--seven days to help redeem
your soul from everlasting shame and death. Mortal, see to it that thou
use the precious time like those who toil for jewels in the mine beneath
the sea. I who speak unto thee am Eternity."

Then Robert Hardy thought he fell prostrate before that awful face and
begged in bitterest terror for a longer lease of life.
"Seven days! Why it will be but seven swift seconds to redeem my past!
Seven days! It will be a nothing in the marking of time! O mighty
Power, grant me longer! Seven weeks! Seven years! And I will live for
Thee as never mortal yet lived!"
And Robert Hardy sobbed and held his arms beseechingly up toward
that most resplendent Face. And as he thus stretched out his arms, the
Face bent down, toward his, and he thought a smile of pity gleamed
upon it and he hoped that more time would be granted him; and then, as
it came nearer, he suddenly awoke, and there was his own wife bending
over him, and a tear from her face fell upon his own, as she said:
"Robert! Robert!"
Mr. Hardy sat up confused and trembling. Then he clasped his wife to
him and kissed her as he used to do. And then, to her great amazement,
he related to her in a low tone the dream he had just had. Mrs. Hardy
listened in the most undisguised astonishment. But what followed filled
her heart with fear.
"Mary," said her husband, with the utmost solemnity, "I cannot regard
this as a dream alone. I have awakened with the firm conviction that I
have only seven days left to live. I feel that God has spoken to me; and
I have only seven days more to do my work in this world."
"O Robert! it was only a dream."
"No; it was more, Mary. You know I am not imaginative or
superstitious in the least. You know I never dream. And this was
something else. I shall die out of this world a week from to-night. Are
the children here? Call them in."
Mr. Hardy spoke in a tone of such calm conviction, that Mrs. Hardy
was filled with wonder and fear. She went to the curtain, and, as we
have already recorded, she called the children into the other room.

Mr. Hardy gazed upon his children with a look they had not seen upon
his face for years. Briefly but calmly he related his experience, omitting
the details of the vision and all mention of the scene where George had
appeared, and then declared with a solemnity and impressiveness that
could not be resisted:
"My dear children, I have not lived as I should. I have not been to you
the father I ought to have been. I have lived a very selfish, useless life. I
have only seven more days to live. God has spoken to me. I am--"
He broke off suddenly, and, sobbing as only a strong man can, he drew
his wife toward him and caressed her, while Bess crept up and put her
arms about her father's neck.
The terrible suspicion shot into Mrs. Hardy's mind that her husband
was insane. The children were terrified; only Alice seemed to catch the
reflection of her mother's thought. At the same time, Mr. Hardy seemed
to feel the suspicion held by them.
"No," he said, as if in answer to a spoken charge, "I am not insane. I
never was more calm. I am in possession of all my faculties. But I have
looked into the Face of Eternity this night and I know, I know that in
seven days God will require my soul. Mary," he turned to his wife with
the most beseeching cry, "Mary, do you believe me?"
She looked into her husband's face and saw there the old look. Reason,
the noblest of all gifts, shone out of that noble face now lighted up with
the old love, and standing on the brink of the other world. And Mrs.
Hardy, looking her husband in the face, replied:
"Yes, Robert, I believe you. You may be mistaken in this impression
about the time left you to live, but you are not insane."
"O God, I thank Thee for that!" cried Mr. Hardy.
Often during the most remarkable week he ever lived Mr. Hardy
reposed in that implicit belief of his wife in his sanity.

There was a pause. Then Mr. Hardy asked George to bring the Bible.
He read from John's Gospel that matchless prayer of Christ in the
seventeenth chapter; then kneeling down,