“Who gave you these?” said he, reaching out his hand for the gifts, and suspecting the source.
“The man at the gate; we gave him a drink, and he gave us these (showing their cards) and a little book for mother, and this one for you and that one for Mr. Kerr.”
Looking for a moment at the engraving, he read, “For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in.”
Instantly the terrible reproof, associated with these words, awakened the man’s slumbering conscience. Writhing under its force he tried to construe the innocent gift into an insult; then flinging it to the ground he stamped his foot upon it.
At this exhibition of anger all the joy of the children vanished.
Mary began to cry, and George wondered what there was about the card to offend his father.
In the meantime, Mr. Kerr had read his card. The words were, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.”
“What have you got?” sneeringly asked Mr. Steele, of his companion. Mr. Kerr read the text with some emotion.
“Just what I expected! he thought to give us a cut,” said the angry man, at the same time adding many abusive words.
Mr. Kerr tried to assent to the remarks, but the words upon the card had touched his heart; and he felt like hating himself for having yielded, against his convictions, to the unreasonableness of his neighbor toward an unoffending stranger. Putting the card in his pocket, he was compelled to be an unwilling listener to the tirade of a would-be Christian (for Mr. Steele was a member of church) against prayer-meetings, temperance societies and Sunday-schools.