"He said, 'I go to prepare a place for you.' Is it not His positive statement sufficient? Has He ever proved untrue to His promises concerning this life? Has He ever turned a deaf ear to the penitent sinner's prayer? Has He ever refused to speak the word of comfort to the heart breaking beneath its load? Has He ever called one to some particular service in His vineyard without supplying the needed strength? Has He ever forgotten to pour forth His abundant and sustaining grace upon the trusting soul about the pass through the dark, mysterious valley of death? And would He say that He was going to prepare a place for us, that where He is there we may be also, meaning only that He was going to prepare a state of glorified—nothingness? Impossible! It is an insult to our Lord.
"He who left the glory-circled throne for thirty-three years of wandering in this world, for rejection by those whom He came to save, for Gethsemane and for Calvary, will hold up no false hope to lure onward those who love Him.
"He who created this beautiful world, inhabited by fallen sinful beings, will not forget to provide a home for His own who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
"Yes, heaven is a place, where the power of infinity itself is exhausted in the beautifying thereof! No sin, no sickness, no sorrow will ever pass through those gates of pearl. The saints of all ages are there, our loved ones whom we have lost a while are there, and above all our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!
"Ah, if Satan has deluded you into a state of unbelief now, the time is coming when you will believe! Some day with unwilling feet you must part from your Lord forever to spend eternity in hell; or with hosannas and shouts of victory upon your lips, you will pass into the presence of Him who sits upon the throne, to praise Him and serve Him forever and ever!"
At the conclusion of the service, Dr. and Mrs. Dale left without waiting to speak to the pastor.
Mrs. Dale, however, stopped ostensibly to greet Esther, but in reality to look more closely at the child who had attracted her quite as much as her husband.
The doctor's perturbed state did not admit of his speaking to any one. He longed for Margaret, and both loved and hated the little waif who unconsciously had so remarkably altered the affairs of the whole morning. He had endeavored not to listen to the sermon, "fit only for children, and not for men possessed of a logical turn of mind," he said to himself; but the more he tried, with the greater persistency did the ringing sentences surge through his aching brain.
"Well!" he exclaimed to his wife as soon as they were seated in their carriage, "Dr. Fairfax is a narrow-minded extremist, a fanatic. What right had he to bring those street wanderers into the church this morning? The place for them is down at the mission. Do I not give liberally toward its support? To be sure, such as they need the Gospel, but I want them to stay where they belong to get it."
"But, my dear," placidly remonstrated his wife, "there may be qualifying circumstances connected with all this which we do not understand."