"Do you believe it is true?" the boy asked.
There was no surprise in the man's face at the abrupt question, he felt, without asking, what Joel meant. A reassuring smile lighted up his face as he laid his hand kindly on Joel's shoulder.
"I know it, my lad; I have been with Him." The quiet positiveness with which he spoke seemed to destroy Joel's last doubt.
"Many things that He said to us come back to me very clearly; and I see now He was trying to prepare us for this."
"Tell me about them," begged Joel, "and about those last hours He was with you. Oh, if I could only have been with Him, too!"
John saw the tears gathering in the boy's eyes, heard the tremble in his voice, and felt a thrill of sympathy as he recognized a kindred love in the little fellow's heart.
So he told Joel of the last supper they had taken together, of the hymn they had sung, and of the watch they had failed to keep, when He took them with Him into the garden of Gethsemane. All the little incidents connected with those last solemn hours, he repeated carefully to the listening boy.
From time to time Joel brushed his hand across his eyes; but a deep calm fell over him as John's voice went on, slowly repeating the words the Master had comforted them with.
"Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions.... I go to prepare a place for you. I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.... If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father.... These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
Joel made an exclamation as if about to speak, and then stopped. "What is it?" asked John.