Then, suddenly and swiftly as a flash of light, a word came to David. His heart burned, and his tongue was loosened, and then and there he preached to the old man and the three women the unsearchable riches of the cross of Christ. He glorified God because Nanna had learned Christ at the radiant feet of Christ, in the joy and love of the redeemed. He took his Bible from his pocket, and repeated all the blessed words he had marked and learned. Until the midnight moon climbed cold and bright to the zenith he spoke. And old Magnus Thorson stood up, leaning on his staff, full of holy wonder, and the women softly sobbed and prayed at his feet. And when they parted there was in every heart a confident acceptance of David’s closing words:
“Whoever rests, however feebly, on the eternal mercy shall live forever.”
After this “call” sleep was impossible to David. That insight which changes faith into knowledge had comforted him concerning his dead. He lay down on Vala’s couch, and he felt sure that Nanna’s smile filled the silence like a spell; for there are still moments when we have the transcendental faculties of the illuminated who, as the apostle says, “have tasted of the powers of the world to come”–still moments when we feel that Jacob’s ladder yet stands between heaven and earth, and that we can see the angels ascending and descending upon it. He was so still that he could hear the beating of his own heart, but clear and vivid as light his duty spread out before him. He had found his vocation, and, oh, how rapidly men grow under the rays of that invisible sun!
The next morning he went to see the minister. He was seated, writing his sermon, precisely as David had found him on the occasion of his last visit. So much had happened to David since that morning that he found it difficult to believe nothing had happened to the minister. He looked up at the interruption with the same slight annoyance, but the moment he saw David his manner changed. He rose up quickly and went to meet him, and as he clasped his hand looked with curious intentness into his face.
“You are much changed, David,” he said. “What has happened to you?”
“Everything, nearly, minister. The David Borson who left here two years ago is dead and buried. I have been born again.”
“That is a great experience. Sit down and tell me about it.”
“Yes, minister, but first I must speak of Nanna Sinclair.”
“She is dead, David; that is true.”
“She has gone home. She has gone to the God who loved her.”