The Deacon of Dobbinsville | Page 5

was big hearted, if he was a sinner. "Sure, I'll keep ye, think I'd
turn anybody out in these woods at night? Not me. I've kept preachers
all my life, but I confess I never kept sanctified ones before."
The three men went up the hill to Jake's cabin, and the two ministers
busied themselves writing letters while Jake prepared the evening meal
from his scant pantry. When they had gathered around the large
goods-box that served as a dining-table, one of the preachers thanked
God for the food and asked his blessings upon it. When the evening
meal was finished, the three men sat in front of Jake's cabin until a late
hour. The preachers expounded the Scriptures to poor, ignorant Jake
and told him of the wonders of God's grace. Finally, when the big
silvery moon stood in mid-heaven and the sound of cow-bells on the
hill had died away, Jake suggested that they retire for the night. By the
light of the moon one of the ministers read his Bible. It so happened
that he opened it at the 12th chapter of Hebrews. These words as they
fell from this man's pious lips affected Jake deeply. He surely had read
that same chapter himself many times, and doubtless during the
twenty-seven years he had been a member of Mount Olivet Church he
had heard his pastor read it. But there was one verse that sank right to
the center of Jake's heart. It was the 14th: "Follow peace with all men,
and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." Jake had
always had a hope in his breast that he should some day see the Lord.
He had had more than his allotted share of troubles in life, and deep in
his heart he had a longing to go where "the wicked cease from
troubling and the weary be at rest."
Soon all was silence in the cabin attic, where the three men lay. The
restless surgings of man's inner soul are invisible to all eyes, save God's,
and silence is not always a proof that everyone is asleep. Jake lay on a
bag of dried leaves, having given his own bunk to his guests. But his

eyes refused to sleep. The music of the katydids had lost its power to
soothe his troubled breast and bring him sweet repose. His mind took a
voyage over the past. Memory, according to her wonted ways carried
him again to his mother's knee. He recalled the sound of her voice as
she sang, "When I shall see Him face to face and tell the story saved by
grace." But that scripture, "Without holiness no man shall see the
Lord," took the sweetness out of that long-remembered song. Jake
knew he was not holy. His heart was defiled by sin. His lips were
unclean with blaspheming God's name. He remembered all the good
resolutions he had made and broken the past quarter of a century. And
during these midnight musings he seemed to see two lily-white hands
beckoning him to come somewhere; he knew not where. These hands
he readily recognized as the hands of his own baby Rose, who had gone
from him one day near the close of her fifth summer. Mentally he
found himself again at the bedside of his darling Rose. He saw again
her ruddy cheeks glow with fever and heard the tremble of her voice as
she said, "Daddy's Rose is going to heaven. Daddy come some day."
Again he saw the death-glare in the sky-blue eyes when the little soul
flitted away. He saw himself again as he sat and looked into the sweet
and lifeless face of his darling girl, and he remembered how he
resolved on that day to live in such a way as to be reunited with his
child. But his resolves had all been unfilled, and he saw the path of his
past strewn with broken vows. In reality, God was speaking to the
man's soul. Jake saw himself in his true condition, a lost sinner. His
sins seemed like horrid black mountains rearing themselves eternally
between him and his child. His profession of religion and his
church-membership seemed to mock him rather than to comfort him.
But Jake was silent. He said not a word with his lips; but how his
bleeding heart did talk to God. Hot tears flowed from his sleepless eyes
and dampened the dry leaves that formed his pillow. He supposed the
two ministers asleep. Their opinion of him was the same. Finally Jake
was astonished to see, in the glimmering light of the moon that stole
through the cracks in the clapboard roof, the two preachers slip from
their bed, and kneel on the floor. His ear caught their whispering
prayers