Jack asked him if he thought he was recovering his health.
"Oh yes, I grow stronger every day. If you had seen me when I first came out of prison, you would wonder at the change." So he said; but Jack wondered, instead, what he could possibly have looked like then.
"No doubt," he said, "while you were in prison, you often wished to die."
"I did—sometimes," he answered, his eyes kindling—"not that I might be away from my pain, but that I might be with my Saviour. But for the most part, I felt Him so near me there, that I thought death itself could scarcely bring us any closer."
Jack's look softened. "In spite of all your suffering, I call you blessed," he said in a low voice. "Still, after all, that was knowing Him by faith. In heaven, it will be sight."
"Which will be different, and must be better, though it is hard to see how it can. I thought I knew something before of the mystery of communion with Him, but I felt as if I had never tasted it till then. I did not know there could be such peace, such joy."
"Has it stayed with you since you came out?"
"No, and yes. When a child is hurt, the mother takes it in her arms and fondles it; when it is well, she lets it run by her side. But she does not love it the less."
"Perhaps it seems strange to you now to come back to life? Perhaps you would rather not?"