Jesus has taken away my sins; and I think he is
writing his laws on my heart."

"But Tilly!" David exclaimed with a sort of anxious impatience, "you
don't know what you are talking about. You mean that this--Jesus--was
our Messiah."

"Yes," said Matilda. "He said he was."

"_He_ said he was?" exclaimed David.

"Yes, to be sure he did."

"But you don't know. The Scriptures of the prophets declare that
Messiah will be a great king."

"Yes," Matilda answered slowly, looking at him. "Jesus is a great King."

"No!" said David quickly. "He was crucified."

"But he rose again, and went back to heaven."

"They stole his body away," said David, "and made believe he was risen."

"O no, that was what the priests told the soldiers to say; but we
_know_ he rose again, David, for they saw him--the apostles and Mary
Magdalene, and all of them; over and over again."

"But the Scriptures say he shall, I mean Messiah, he shall conquer the
enemies of Israel and deliver us."

"I think that means the _true_ Israel," said Matilda.

"The true Israel!" said David. "Who are the true Israel? I am one of
them. Abraham's children."

The boy spoke proudly, defiantly, as if he felt the noble blood of
kings and prophets in his veins, and the inheritance his own. Matilda
found it very difficult to go on. So far she had been able to answer
him, having given attention to her Sunday school teaching and that
teaching having lately run in a course fitted to instruct her on some
of the points that David started. But she did not know what to say now.
She was silent.

"Look here," said David in the same tone. He seized his Bible which lay
at hand, and turning over the leaves stopped at the prophecy of Daniel,
and read, not after the common English version--

"'I was seeing in the visions of the night, and lo, with the clouds of
the heavens as a son of man was one coming, and unto the Ancient of
Days he hath come, and before him they have brought him near. And to
him is given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, and all peoples,
nations and languages do serve him; his dominion is a dominion
age-during, that passeth not away, and his kingdom that which is not
destroyed.'" David read, and paused, and looked up at Matilda.

"Yes," said Matilda nodding; "that is just what the angel said about
Jesus."

"What angel?"

"The angel that came to tell that he was coming. See, David,
wait,--I'll find it; here it is! 'He shall be great; and shall be