now
what you mean by getting on the Rock; I don't quite see it, sir.'

'Well,' said Mr. Davis, 'what would you do if this house was built on
the sand down there by the shore, and you knew that the very first storm
that came would sweep it away?

'Do, sir!' said my grandfather, 'why, I should pull it down, every stone
of it, and build it up on the rock instead.'

'Exactly!' said Mr. Davis. 'You have been building your hopes of heaven
on the sand--on your good deeds, on your good intentions, on all sorts
of sand-heaps. You know you have.

'Yes,' said grandfather, 'I know I have.'

'Well, my friend,' said Mr. Davis, 'pull them all down. Say to
yourself, "I'm a lost man if I remain as I am; my hopes are all resting
on the sand." And then, build your hopes on something better, something
which _will_ stand the storm; build them on Christ. He is the only way
to heaven. He has died that you, a poor sinner, might go there. Build
your hopes on Him, my friend. Trust to what He has done for you as your
only hope of heaven--_that_ is building on the Rock!'

'I see, sir; I understand you now.'

'Do that,' said Mr. Davis, 'and then your hope will be a sure and
steadfast hope, a good hope which can never be moved. And when the last
great storm comes, it will not touch you; you will be as certainly and
as entirely safe in that day as you are in this lighthouse when the
storm is raging outside, because you will be built upon the immovable
Rock.'

I cannot recollect all the conversation which Mr. Davis and my
grandfather had that morning, but I do remember that before he went away
he knelt down with us, and prayed that we might every one of us be found
on the Rock in that last great storm.

And I remember also that that night, when my grandfather said good-night
to me, he said, 'Alick, my lad, I don't mean to go to sleep to-night
till I can say, like poor Jem Millar,

'On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.'

And I believe that my grandfather kept his word.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SUNBEAM CLAIMED.

It was a cold, cheerless morning; the wind was blowing, and the rain was
beating against the windows. It was far too wet and stormy for little
Timpey to be out, so she and I had a game of ball together in the
kitchen, whilst my father and grandfather went down to the pier.

She looked such a pretty little thing that morning. She had on a little
blue frock, which my grandfather had bought