hin their
breasts were not more acceptable to the Father than many a wordy
petition put up in the temples of civilization?

Seven days and nights he abode with them, and they fain would have
claimed him for their own, and begged him to give up all other places
and live there always. They would give him of their best. He would not
need to work, for they would give him his portion, and make him a home
as he should direct them. In short, they would enshrine him in their
hearts as a kind of under-god, representing to their childish minds the
true and Only One, the knowledge of whom he had brought to them.

But he told them of his work, of why he must go back to it, and sadly
they prepared to bid him good-bye with many an invitation for return. In
going down the cliff, where he had gone with them many a time before, he
turned to wave another farewell to a little child who had been his
special pet, and turning, slipped, and wrenched his ankle so badly that
he could not move on.

They carried him up to their home again, half sorrowful, but wholly
triumphant. He was theirs for a little longer; and there were more
stories he could tell. The Book of Heaven was a large one, and they
wanted to hear it all. They spread his couch of their best, and wearied
themselves to supply his necessity with all that their ignorance
imagined he needed, and then they sat at his feet and listened. The
sprain was a troublesome one and painful, and it yielded to treatment
but slowly; meanwhile the messenger arrived with the telegram from the
East.

They gathered about it, that sheet of yellow paper with its mysterious
scratches upon it, which told such volumes to their friend, but gave no
semblance to sign language of anything in heaven above or earth beneath.
They looked with awe upon their friend as they saw the anguish in his
countenance. His mother was dead! This man who had loved her, and had
left her to bring them news of salvation, was suffering. It was one more
bond between them, one more tie of common humanity. And yet he could
look up and smile, and still speak to the invisible Father! They saw his
face as it were the face of an angel with the light of the comfort of
Christ upon it; and when he read to them and tried to make them
understand the majestic words: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory?" they sat and looked afar off, and thought of the
ones that they had lost. This man said they would all live again. Hi