Jasper's old shed, and how the light shone in

by A. M. Coker

"Dear me, Rob, I didn't know my old place was so dirty, and 'tisn't long ago I gave it a touch of whitewash. Seems to me the card and the place don't agree very well. Anyhow, 'tis pretty; and now we'll have our tea, such as 'tis. But you won't have any cake here, Rob, like you would have done at the Hall."

"I'd rather be with you, Mr. Jasper, and have no cake."

"Would you now?" and a glow of pleasure shot into the old man's heart at this childish test of love. "Do you care so much for me as all that, Rob?" As he said the words, his eyes fell once more upon the text, "He careth," the very word he used himself about Rob. What had he meant by it? Love, and a desire to be with him; and could it be that God had any such feelings towards him? "He, God, careth for you, Mr. Jasper," and it was in the Bible. That was the message Rob had brought. Well, the Bible was true, for certain; he had never doubted that. But this was a staggerer! That he, Jasper, as a man, was anything to God, seemed so utterly strange and new.

"'He,' 'you,' like as if there was only the two of us," he half muttered to himself; and then for some minutes there was silence, while the child ate his tea, and the old man, pretending to eat, was lost in thought.

"God don't care about me, or I about Him," he had said a few minutes before. But there, in front of him, was God's contradiction of half the words! True enough it was of him, that he had cared nothing for God all these long years; but perhaps God had cared for him! Loved him, liked to be with him! Ay, the lads had often told him that Jesus Christ was in that dark shed of his; but he had only laughed, although perhaps the words had not been utterly lost, and sometimes, when sitting alone, the thought of God's presence—there because everywhere—would come into his mind, and make him somewhat uneasy. But now a fresh idea had struck him. Was God in that shed of his because He loved him and liked to be with him? Nay, it could not be. And yet there, in the dim light and the silence (for Rob had fallen asleep in his warm corner), old Jonas sat and thought, and the words echoed and re-echoed, "careth for you."

Somehow that word seemed to mean so much just then. God takes an interest in you; God thinks of you; God loves you. And then a memory of long years ago flashed a new light upon the words, and he recalled how once, and only once, the strong love of his man's heart had been repulsed with the words, "But I don't care for you, Jonas." Even now the memory of that early love, refused, rejected, was deep in his heart. And could it be, though he had said to God, "I don't care for You," that God still loved him, and wanted him for His own?

"Well, I don't rightly understand it," he muttered; "but there's something comfortable about it anyhow, and maybe some time I'll know better what it means. Halloa, there's some one at the door. That must be Phil, for certain."

Phil it was, who, having stayed to the tea at the Mission Hall, came in to fetch his brother home.

"I wanted him to go back to you, and have a good feed, Phil," said Jasper; "but he was minded to stay here with me, and put up his card that he brought."