"I must speak to you again from His Word, that Word which can never be broken." Viner turned to the thirty-third Psalm and read—"'Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy; to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.' Again, in the thirty-seventh Psalm it is written—'Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. A little that the righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.'"
"Oh! Remember the word of the Lord Jesus Christ—'Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things; but seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' Walter, God will more than make up to us for all that we may lose for His sake!"
"You'll never convince him! You'll never convince him!" cried Goldie, who, passing the shop, had overheard the last words, and now stood leaning his stout person upon Viner's little gate. "You can't persuade him but that I am growing rich, and that you are growing poor; that I am getting on, you going back in the world. All your preaching won't shut his eyes to that. Why, here am I able to send my son to a first-rate school, able (I grant that it's a hard pull on my purse, but yet somehow I can manage it) to place him with an engineer, where, with talents like his, he is pretty sure at last to make his fortune! I shall see him one of these days riding in his own carriage, for I have let no idle fancies, no silly superstition, prevent me from doing the best for my family, and that is the way to grow rich."
"'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow thereto,'" murmured Nelly.
Viner turned and smiled on his daughter.
"I wonder that you don't think of your child," said Goldie, "if you don't care about starving yourself."
"I do think of her," said the father earnestly, "and in obeying and trusting my God, I feel that I am doing the best thing for her both in this world and the next."
"We shall see," said Goldie as he walked away.
"Yes, we shall see," repeated Viner quietly.
"Do you really think," asked Walter, as soon as the fruiterer was beyond hearing, "that God would be angry with you just for selling upon Sunday when He knows that you are so poor?"