"Oh, it was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, dying for me. Seeking for me. I do thank Thee, Lord Jesus! I do thank Thee, Lord; it's all right now!" And rising from his knees, the old man sat once more in his chair, lost in happy thought.
Christmas. Yes, the best he had ever known; for to him, as to the shepherds of old, had come a message from heaven—sung, not by angels, perhaps, but by children, sent of God, as truly as was that angelic band in Bethlehem's fields. And the result had been the same; for Jasper, like the shepherds, went and found the Christ, and knew that God's Christmas gift to him had been "a Saviour."
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE SUDDEN CALL.
A VERY unexpected message had come to the Mellors on the day following Christmas Day. Unfavourable symptoms had shown themselves in Stephen Mellor, and indicated internal injuries hitherto unsuspected, and the doctor could not say how things might turn. Anyhow, he was very ill, and they had better go up.
He was indeed very ill, and Phil and his mother (Rob was too frightened to go) were simply amazed to see the change that had come over him since their previous visit, three days before.
"He talks so queerly," Phil whispered, as they stood at his bedside.
"Yes," said the nurse, "he's been light-headed all the day, and that's a bad sign, you know, to come on now, a week after the accident. It's certain he's more injured than we thought for. Of course he's been very drowsy ever since he was brought here, and that looks like mischief to the brain. But there, we're doing all we can, and maybe he'll take a turn for the better. Only the doctor thought you ought to know."
But the "turn for the better" did not come, and after two or three days of only semi-consciousness, alarming symptoms set in, and before wife or children could obey the hasty call to go to him, Stephen Mellor had passed into eternity.
Oh, the waking on the other side! oh, the afterward of death! God only knows the anguish of a soul that has died without hope, without Christ! Earthly justice he had eluded; earthly punishment he had escaped; but when God's summons came, and the message went forth, "Thy soul shall be required of thee," there was no possible delay, and without the consciousness or power to cry for mercy, the spirit of Stephen Mellor passed into the presence of the God who made it. Only a fortnight before he had heard a message of mercy—that God's thoughts toward him were thoughts of peace, that for such a life as his there was forgiveness, through the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ; and truly, as he left the Mission Hall that Sunday night, he knew that God Himself was pleading. But he refused the offered mercy, he turned away from the outstretched hand, and now the day of grace was past, time was over, eternity had begun.