"Sure enough—as if I didn't know that. Come short o' His commandments! Don't I come short o' them every hour o' my life? Don't I kneel down in church on Sunday, every week, an' pray the Lord to have mercy on a miserable sinner? An He's had mercy too, an' I've His promised pardon; but for all that I goes on sinning yet, for isn't my very nature full o' sin, an' will be till I go to heaven? Do my whole duty? Why, man, there's nobody ever lived on earth as did it yet, save one, an' that's the Master Himself."
"Don't see the good of expectin' of it then," said John.
"Just so," responded Job. "An' God don't expect it neither, 'cause He knows better than we ourselves, that 'tain't in our power. But He does expect one thing, an' that is that we'll give our hearts to Him. He 've given His Son to die for us, an' He wants our love back again, you see. That's it. He commands us to come to Him, an' pray, an' trust Him, an' serve Him; an' ye can't do your duty without you obeys these commands! There ain't no other way, for He commands us to be saved, an' there's no way to be saved but through the blood o' the Lamb; and so long's we neglect that, we're not a-doin' our duty. Ye'll find one day that all your duty-doin' apart from Him 'll serve ye little at the last."
"I didn't come here for a sermon," said John curtly, "but only to give ye some friendly advice."
"An' I've give ye some o' the same in return. Hope you'll follow it better than I'm like to follow yours to me."
"About that child—" said John.
"Aye, I'm thinkin' over matters. Seems to me as the Master has put her in my way, an' telled me to take her up an' do for her, poor little stray lamb as she be."
"Never saw such madness in all my life, I didn't," said John.
"Sure, no ye didn't," said Job, with a twinkle in his eye, "when ye took up a poor little orphan yourself!"
"I wasn't a man past seventy years, nor so poor as now by a long way," said John.