“If my mother should not live I would never forgive myself.”
That thought took him home. He reached the old village about dark, and started on foot for the home, which was about a mile and a half distant. On the way he passed the graveyard, and thought he would go to his father’s grave to see if there was a newly-made grave beside it. As he drew near the spot, his heart began to beat faster, and when he came near enough, the light of the moon shone on a newly-made grave. With a great deal of emotion he said:
“Young men, for the first time in my life this question came over me—who is going to pray for my lost soul now? Father is gone, and mother is gone, and they are the only two who ever cared for me. If I could have called my mother back that night and heard her breathe my name in prayer, I would have given the world if it had been mine to give. I spent all that night by her grave, and God for Christ’s sake heard my mother’s prayers, and I became a child ot God. But I never forgave myself for the way I treated my mother, and never will.”
Where is my wandering boy to-night-—
The boy of my tenderest care,
The boy that was once my joy and light.
The child of my love and prayer?
Once he was pure as morning dew,
As he knelt at his mother’s knee;
No face was so bright, no heart more true,