"'It is not too late,' I said to him.
"'No;' he answered. 'I am like the thief on the cross; I have looked and lived. I am like the prodigal son, who, when he had spent all, came to himself and went to his father.'
"Then, my boy, I bent down and kissed him; kissed that poor worn-out, prematurely old face, which I had loved in our youthful days; and we wept together such tears as men weep.
"He told me, when we could say anything, that while he had laid on this death-bed, words spoken to him long ago, entreaties long disregarded, Scripture despised and trampled on, had come up before him, and had stared him in the face.
"He told me how despair had held him in its awful grip, and then how one night he had, as it were, seen a battle, in which One had come out victorious—One mighty to save. This One had agonized for his lost soul. This One had even died for his lost soul; and now came to him with the signs of victory in His blood-stained hands, and said to him, 'I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.'
"Then, Arthur, he told me he had believed that conquering One.
"He knew how degraded, helpless, wicked, he himself was, but here was One who said, 'No one shall pluck thee out of My hand;' and he laid his sin-sick soul in the hand of Jesus, and rested his weary head on the heart of Jesus, and was forgiven.
"This morning, my boy, he has gone to be with that Saviour who bought him; no longer defiled, miserable, sinful; but washed, renewed, victorious, through Him who died for him."
Then Arthur's father ceased. But once more he looked up in the boy's face—
"My friend told me to warn all, all, against this awful curse of drink.