"'Then Peter said: "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have I give to thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received their strength.
"'And he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.'"
When the boy saw his sister take up a familiar-looking black book and begin turning the pages, his heart fell within him. He listened while she read of the compassionate act of love, then he covered his face with his hands and burst into tears.
"Oh, Margy, I didn't think you would--that's the Bible, Margy, the book mother used to read out of--the one Mr. Thorpe used to preach from--only the Bible, and I thought you meant it really, about the great doctor!"
"Only the Bible!" Margaret looked at the child and saw the disappointment in his face; and through him she seemed to see a great world of suffering people. This frail child, crippled, distorted, disappointed and faithless, seemed to her a symbol of the great suffering overwhelming the world, and his piteous cry an echo of the voice of the world: "Only the Bible!"
The whole world calling for power and turning dully from the great fountain-head of Power; crying for strength and ignoring that which constitutes all strength; desiring health and clasping close in their embrace the image of disease; pleading for light and joy and peace and turning their eyes resolutely away from the waiting angels standing ready to minister to them. "Only the Bible!"
Margaret knelt by the child's couch and put her arms about him.
"Little brother," she said, "little brother, let me tell you a story, as I used to do, Jamie.
"Once there was a great mine of gold, beautiful, shining gold, layer upon layer of it; and many men mined for it, and some dug in the ground, and a great many people worked day after day, some in one way and some in another, to find it. And many of the people disagreed about the best way to get at it. Some dug about the outer edges of the mine, and when they found a very few grains of gold they went away and told all the people that they had found all the gold there was; that they had explored the whole mine and knew all about it. Others did not dig deep enough to find the great golden layers, but they found a few glittering nuggets of the precious gold, and they went away and told all the people that they had gone to the bottom of the mine and had found all the gold there was there.
"Thousands and thousands of people went to the mine. Some found gold enough to satisfy them, others found only a few shining grains, and many went away disappointed. But the strange part of it was that all those who found any gold at all, even if it was only a tiny spark, believed they had found all there was.