Part 8 (1/2)

Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: ”Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!”

Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook.

”Twelve.”

Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and appeared abused.

”When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up,” he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning.

”Thirteen.”

”The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?”

inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.

Father's voice broke that silence. ”Let us kneel in prayer,” he said.

He took a step forward, knelt, laid his hands on the altar, closed his eyes and turned his face upward.

”Our Heavenly Father, we come before Thee in a trying situation,” he said. ”Thy word of truth has been spoken to us by a thoughtless boy, whether in a spirit of helpfulness or of jest, Thou knowest. Since we are reasoning creatures, it little matters in what form Thy truth comes to us; the essential thing is that we soften our hearts for its entrance, and grow in grace by its application. Tears of compa.s.sion such as our dear Saviour wept are in our eyes this morning as we plead with Thee to help us to apply these words to the betterment of this community.”

Then father began to pray. If the Lord had been standing six feet in front of him, and his life had depended on what he said, he could have prayed no harder. Goodness knows how fathers remember. He began at ”Jesus wept” and told about this sinful world and why He wept over it; then one at a time he took those other twelve verses and hammered them down where they belonged much harder than Leon ever could by merely looking at people. After that he prayed all around each one so fervently that those who had been hit the very worst cried aloud and said: ”Amen!” You wouldn't think any one could do a thing like that; but I heard and saw my father do it.

When he arose the tears were running down his cheeks, and before him stood Leon. He was white as could be, but he spoke out loudly and clearly.

”Please forgive me, sir; I didn't intend to hurt your feelings. Please every one forgive me. I didn't mean to offend any one. It happened through hunting short verses. All the short ones seemed to be like that, and they made me think----”

He got no farther. Father must have been afraid of what he might say next. He threw his arms around Leon's shoulders, drew him to the seat, and with the tears still rolling, he laughed as happily as you ever heard, and he cried: ”'Sweeping through the Gates!' All join in!”

You never heard such singing in your life. That was another wonderful thing. My father didn't know the notes. He couldn't sing; he said so himself. Neither could half the people there, yet all of them were singing at the tops of their voices, and I don't believe the angels in Heaven could make grander music. My father was leading:

”These, these are they, who in the conflict dire----”

You could tell Emanuel Ripley had been in the war from the way he roared:

”Boldly have stood amidst the hottest fire----”

The Widow Fall soared above all of them on the next line; her man was there, and maybe she was lonely and would have been glad to go to him:

”Jesus now says, 'Come up higher----'”

Then my little mother:

”Washed in the blood of the Lamb----”

Like thunder all of them rolled into the chorus: