So he listened again; and again, he heard the words, "He wants every one of you to be happy and blessed."
"He's a kind 'un, then," said the boy to himself, as the rare tears filled his sunken eyes. And then the cup of steaming coffee had come, and he had swallowed it quickly enough, and the kind clergyman had said a few words to him about the love of Jesus, and then the boy had crouched down again in the same corner as before, too ill and miserable to move.
"My poor boy," said the minister, "I am afraid you must leave here, we are going to shut it up."
"What, sir?" asked the boy, rousing a little, while a deathly pallor overspread his face.
The sentence was repeated even more gently, but the child did not take it in. He started up and stretched out his arms, calling, in a voice in which love, and yearning, and joy were all expressed, "Oh, come in, come in; I've opened the door for yer!"
With that his arms fell, and then they saw that he needed no more earthly care, for he had gone in to supper with the King of kings.
* * * * * *
This was what the clergyman's son had seen, and as he stood in his room alone that night he thought that the knock had come to him too, and woe be to him, if he disregarded it!
He knelt down by his bedside.
"So sinful," he whispered, "so forgetful, so full of selfishness and self-seeking—if Thou comest in, Thou King of Glory, it is Thou who must make it fit, for I cannot. Nevertheless, if Thou dost knock—and Thou dost, I hear Thee—Thou shalt not knock in vain; for this very night I will echo those dying words, 'Come in, come in!'"