She stood for several minutes after that, with her eyes away out in the green fields, and then she said suddenly:
“Does God love you just as well as he does me, when you are black and I am white?”
Tom’s lip took a sorrowful curve for an instant, and then he replied,
“Just as well;” and the words were very decided.
She gave him another good look out of her great black eyes, and then seating herself on the step, she said:
“Read.”
So he opened his Bible and read to her the story of the crucifixion. It needed no comment or simpler rendering, for the story, as it ever does and ever will, made instant impress on the heart and mind of the listener. Did you ever try to imagine what the feelings of the apostles must have been when they wrote those four sublime gospels? What a work of intermingled joy and pain it must have been!
“Now, Miss Lillie,” said Tom, when he had finished, “if you can read, I want you to go home and read this over for yourself, and then think whom you ought to love.”
“What shall I do then?” asked the child, as if she already surmised the result of the reading.
“Remember this one verse, and if I ever see you again, I shall ask you whether you have done as it commands: ‘If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.’”