“Daddy, if you do what Judas did, then after my death, we two, father and son, will never see each other any more. You must live for God and tell people His truth with all your might when I am gone.”
After this he spoke much with his father, asking him to be faithful to Christ. When noon came he stopped talking, saying, “Now all is finished.”
His poor father was very sorry and tried to speak to him, but all that Yo-ah would say after this was “Submit, gladly submit,” repeating the words over and over again, meaning that his father ought to be willing to let him go if God took him.
By seven o’clock that evening Yo-ah was restless, throwing himself from one side of the bed to the other. His father sat by, trying to soothe and quiet him, and as he watched through the dragging minutes he cried to God, for he was not willing that his only son should die.
The bell rang for evening prayer in the church, next door to the school. The poor man in his sore trouble wished to go to the service, but dared not leave the sick-room, fearing that Yo-ah might roll from the bed and fall upon the ground.
A change passed over him and a new calm came into his heart. He fell upon his knees in front of the bed and prayed:
“O, God! I submit to Thy will. I pray Thee to let my child go home in peace.”
He rose from the ground. The restless tossing had stopped. Yo-ah was lying still upon the bed. After one long look the poor father went into the church. The service was nearly over when he entered the building and the minister was just saying, “If anyone wishes to lead us in prayer, let him do so.” Poah began: “O God, I thank Thee for having given me this son to care for these fifteen years. Now Thou hast taken him home to Thyself. I gladly submit to Thy will. Only please help me to remember, and to do all that he spoke of when he talked to me.”
At the close of the service the people knew that Yo-ah had ‘crossed over’ to the better land. Some of them wished to try to comfort his father, but they were all so grieved for him that no one could find a word to say. Poah, whose face was very calm, began to comfort them instead. He told them what Yo-ah had said, and asked them to join with him in submitting to the will of God.
That year plague raged in the city and many people died. One of the minister’s sons, a boy of ten, sickened and died without a word. When Poah heard of it he said: “God has indeed been merciful to me. If my boy had died like this without comforting me, what should I have done?” Yo-ah’s father, who now seemed to live only for the good of others, went everywhere to help with the sick and dying. Next year he became an elder of the church, which he served most faithfully. A year later, the plague came again, and joyfully submitting to God’s will he, too, went home to be with Jesus.