“But, boys, what I want you to understand is that we can make this act of offering as a great act of faith. Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down! We can take our good gifts and our perfect gifts and hand them up! We can anticipate their being taken from us by giving them. We can give them as men who know whence they have been received, and where they will be held in trust for us—not grudgingly nor of necessity, as the Bible tells us, for God loveth a cheerful giver. Now is the time for us to test that love—every man for himself. The appeal is to the individual. Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom, according to the measure that ye mete. For this giving isn’t to men, it’s to God; it isn’t a portion, it’s all; it isn’t limited to material things, it includes our love and our life. It’s the great summons; it’s the great surrender. And—boys—my dear old boys who’ve been saved from other things—we’ve all been saved for this—for something we never expected, but which isn’t hard to do when you look at it in the right way—to hand ourselves back, in body, mind, and possessions, to Him from whom we came, that He may make a new use of us and begin all over again.”
And the first thing I saw when he stopped was Cantyre springing forward to grasp him by the hand.
CHAPTER XXXII
When I got out the streets were already buzzing with a rumor that no extra had as yet proclaimed. The House of Representatives had followed the Senate in voting for war, and the President was about to sign the declaration.
But I forgot this on arriving at the flat, for Lovey was propped up in bed, with his thin nose in the air, making little sniffs.
“I smell it, Slim,” he smiled, as I entered. “Kind of a coffee smell it is now, with a dash o’ bacon and heggs.”
“That smell is always round this flat, Lovey,” I said, trying to be casual. “It’s all the breakfasts you and I have eaten—”
“Oh no, Slim. You can’t be mistook in this; and besides—” He made a sign to the man nurse who for the past week or two Cantyre had sent in from one of his hospitals. “You clear out, d’ye ’ear? I want to talk to my buddy, private-like.”