the Bible," he said one day to Jacob, "'cos
it's like a loving letter from a far-off land. I'm not afraid of
looking into't; for, though I light on some awful verses every now and
then, I know as they're not for me. I'm not boasting. It's all of
grace; but still it's true `there is therefore now no condemnation to
them that are in Christ Jesus,' and I know that through his mercy I am
gradely in him."

Then they would sing a hymn, for all had the Lancashire gift of good ear
and voice, after which the old man would sink on his knees and pour out
his heart in prayer. Yes, that cottage was indeed a happy home, often
the very threshold of heaven; and many a time the half-drunken collier,
as he sauntered by, would change the sneer that curled his lip at those
strains of heartfelt praise, into the tear that melted out of a smitten
and sorrowful heart, a heart that knew something of its own bitterness,
for it smote him as he thought of a God despised, a soul perishing, a
Bible neglected, a Saviour trampled on, and an earthly home out of which
the drink had flooded every real comfort, and from which he could have
no well-grounded hope of a passage to a better.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

FOUND.

Four years had passed away since Jacob Poole raised the old knife-
grinder from his fall in the street in Bolton. All that time he had
made his abode with the old man, traversing the streets of many a town
and village far and near, and ever returning with gladness to his new
home. His aged friend had never so far recovered from his accident as
to be able to resume his work. He would occasionally go out with Jacob,
and help him in some odd jobs, but never again took to wheeling out the
machine himself. He was brighter, however, than in even more prosperous
days, and had come to look upon Jacob as his adopted son. It was
understood, also, that Deborah would ere long become the wife of the
young knife-grinder. There was one employment in which the old man
delighted, and that was the advocating and forwarding, in every way in
his power, the cause of Christian total abstinence. For this purpose he
would carry suitable tracts with him wherever he went, and would often
pause in fine weather, when he accompanied Jacob Poole on his less
distant expeditions; and, sitting on a step or bank, as the case might
be, while the wheel was going round, would gather about him old and
young, and give them a true temperance harangue. Sometimes