eached about--Moses an' Aaron an' Joseph
an' all of 'em, an' that kind o' double one lookin' like a woman
holding her child, he called Mary an' little Jesus."

"He's gone to a prettier heaven than this," said the Bishop looking
down on the little figure, with face as pale and white as any of the
columns around him, neatly dressed and wrapped, save his face, in an
old oil cloth and lying on the little bed that sat in a corner.

The old man sat down very tenderly by the little dead boy and,
pulling out a testament from his pocket, read to the outlaw, whose
whole soul was centered in all he said, the comforting chapter which
Miss Alice had that night read to the old negro: "_Let not your
hearts be troubled...._"

He explained as he read, and told the father how little Jack was now
in one of the many mansions and far better off than living in a cave,
the child of an outlaw, for the Bishop did not mince his words. He
dwelt on it, that God had taken the little boy for love of him, and
to give him a better home and perhaps as a means of changing the
father, and when he said the last prayer over the dead child asking
for forgiveness for the father's sins, that he might meet the little
one in heaven, the heart of the outlaw burst with grief and
repentance within him.

He fell at the old man's feet, on his knees--he laid his big shaggy
head in the Bishop's lap and wept as he had never wept before.

"There can't be--you don't mean," he said--"that there is forgiveness
for me--that I can so live that I'll see little Jack again!"

"That's just what I mean, Jack," said the old man--"here it all
is--here--in a book that never lies, an' all vouched for by Him who
could walk in here to-night and lay His sweet hands on little Jack
an' tell him to rise an' laugh agin, an' he'd do it. You turn about
now an' see if it ain't so--an' that you'll be better an' happier."

"But--my God, man--you don't know--you don't understan'. I've robbed,
I've killed. Men have gone down befo' my bullets like sheep. They was
shootin' at me, too--but I shot best. I'm a murderer."

The old Bishop looked at him calmly.

"So was Moses and David," he replied--"men after God's own heart. An'
so was many another that's now called a saint, from old Hickory
Jackson up."

"But I'm a robber--a thief"--began Jack Bracken.

"We all steal," said the old man sadly shaking his head--"it's human
nature. There's a thief in every trade, an' every idle hand is a
rob