`` Friend Tobias , '' inquired the old man , compassionately , `` hast thou found no comfort in these many blessed passages of Scripture ? '' `` Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar off and indistinct , '' replied Pearson , without lifting his eyes . `` Yea ; and when I have hearkened carefully , the words seemed cold and lifeless and intended for another and a lesser grief than mine . Remove the book , '' he added , in a tone of sullen bitterness ; `` I have no part in its consolations , and they do but fret my sorrow the more . '' `` Nay , feeble brother ; be not as one who hath never known the light , '' said the elder Quaker , earnestly , but with mildness . `` Art thou he that wouldst be content to give all and endure all for conscience ' sake , desiring even peculiar trials that thy faith might be purified and thy heart weaned from worldly desires ? And wilt thou sink beneath an affliction which happens alike to them that have their portion here below and to them that lay up treasure in heaven ? Faint not , for thy burden is yet light . '' `` It is heavy ! It is heavier than I can bear ! '' exclaimed Pearson , with the impatience of a variable spirit . `` From my youth upward I have been a man marked out for wrath , and year by year -- yea , day after day -- I have endured sorrows such as others know not in their lifetime . And now I speak not of the love that has been turned to hatred , the honor to ignominy , the ease and plentifulness of all things to danger , want and nakedness . All this I could have borne and counted myself blessed . But when my heart was desolate with many losses , I fixed it upon the child of a stranger , and he became dearer to me than all my buried ones ; and now he too must die as if my love were poison . Verily , I am an accursed man , and I will lay me down in the dust and lift up my head no more . '' `` Thou sinnest , brother , but it is not for me to rebuke thee , for I also have had my hours of darkness wherein I have murmured against the cross , '' said the old Quaker . He continued , perhaps in the hope of distracting his companion 's thoughts from his own sorrows : `` Even of late was the light obscured within me , when the men of blood had banished me on pain of death and the constables led me onward from village to village toward the wilderness . A strong and cruel hand was wielding the knotted cords ; they sunk deep into the flesh , and thou mightst have tracked every reel and totter of my footsteps by the blood that followed . As we went on -- '' `` Have I not borne all this , and have I murmured ? ''
interrupted XXXXX , impatiently .
Pearson Quaker Tobias consolations day hours mildness plentifulness wouldst year