een carried out until on the day of this
story there remained but two, the mother and her baby boy of perhaps five
years. The boy crept up into his mother's lap, put his arms about her
neck, and with his baby eyes so close, said, "Mother, father's dead, and
brothers and sister are dead;--if _you_ die, what'll I do?"

The poor mother had thought of it, of course, What could she say? Quieting
her voice as much as possible, she said, "If I die, Jesus will come for
you." That was quite satisfactory to the boy. He had been taught about
Jesus, and felt quite safe with Him, and so went about his play on the
floor. And the boy's question proved only too prophetic. And quick work
was done by the dread disease. And soon she was being laid away by strange
hands.

It is not difficult to understand that in the sore distress of the time
the boy was forgotten. When night came, he crept into bed, but could not
sleep. Late in the night he got up, found his way out along the street,
down the road, in to where he had seen the men put her. And throwing
himself down on the freshly shoveled earth, sobbed and sobbed until nature
kindly stole consciousness away for a time.

Very early the next morning a gentleman coming down the road from some
errand of mercy, looked over the fence, and saw the little fellow lying
there. Quickly suspecting some sad story, he called him, "My boy, what are
you doing there?--My boy, wake up, what are you doing there all alone?"
The boy waked up, rubbed his baby eyes, and said, "Father's dead, and
brothers and sister's dead, and now--_mother's_--dead--too. And she said,
if she did die, Jesus would come for me. And He hasn't come. And I'm so
tired waiting." And the man swallowed something in his throat, and in a
voice not very clear, said, "Well, my boy, I've come for you." And the
little fellow waking up, with his baby eyes so big, said "I think you've
been a long time coming."

Whenever I read these last words of Jesus or think of them, there comes up
a vision that floods out every other thing. It is of Jesus Himself
standing on that hilltop. His face is all scarred and marred, thorn-torn
and thong-cut. But it is beautiful, passing all beauty of earth, with its
wondrous beauty light. Those great eyes are looking out so yearningly,
_out_ as though they were seeing men, the ones nearest and those farthest.
His arm is outstretched with the hand pointing out. And you cannot miss
the rough jagged hole in the palm